Soccer: Ukraine President Accuses Officials Of Sabotage

KIEV, Ukraine -- President Viktor Yushchenko accused government officials today of sabotaging the reconstruction of the main stadium hosting Euro 2012 matches and told his prime minister to ensure the project went ahead.

Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko
Yushchenko, in a letter to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, said no action had been taken to proceed with the renovation of Kiev's 84,000-seat Olympic stadium since a Taiwanese firm won a tender in April to carry out the job.

The stadium is to host the final of Euro 2012, being staged jointly with Poland.

A statement on the president's Web site said the agency overseeing Euro 2012 had information that ''delays and what amounts to sabtage by oficials at the Sports Ministry could disrupt the renovation schedule at Ukraine's main stadium''.

''I am asking you to intervene personally to immediately correct the situation, avoid an international scandal and ensure that preparations for Euro 2012 proceed in timely and reliable fashion,'' the president told Tymoshenko.

He said it was ''urgent to dismiss officials who are seeking to review the results of the tender and block the start of work, thereby causing considerable harm to the country's image''.

The reconstruction project, estimated by the government to cost 300 million dollar, involves dismantling a shopping centre adjacent to the stadium.

Construction of the centre and the consequent violation of crowd control norms had for a time threatened to disqualify the stadium for the championship.

The owner of Ukrainian premier league team Arsenal Kiev told Ukrainian media this week that ministry officials had said his side could use the Olympic stadium until October, an indication that there were no imminent plans to start work there.

UEFA President Michel Platini in February deplored the pace of preparations for 2012 and said the months to come would prove ''decisive'' in determining whether conditions could be met.

Platini is due to visit Ukraine again in July.

Rumours have periodically swept through the Ukrainian capital that European soccer authorities were making contingency plans to stage the championship elsewhere in the event that preparations did not proceed as planned.

Yushchenko's personal intervention during the final stages of the bidding played a key role in UEFA awarding the 2012 championship to the two ex-communist countries.

Both countries face colossal tasks in preparing for the event, including upgrading and modernisation of airport, rail networks and roads and hotels.

Source: Deepika Global

Ukraine Troops Considered For Georgia

KIEV, Ukraine -- The government of Georgia has asked the United Nations to replace Russian troops in the peacekeeping operations in Abkhazia with troops from other countries.

Ukrainian troops in Iraq
U.N. officials said Wednesday that security forces from Ukraine are under consideration to act as a security presence in the disputed region of Abkhazia, which is within the Georgian borders and not recognized internationally.

U.N. Resident Coordinator in Ukraine Francis O'Donnell said he has not ruled out participation of Ukrainian troops, the Ukraine government reported.

"Ukraine now influences the political and economic situation in various world countries," O'Donnell said in a statement. "To a great extent, this is due to the level of confidence in the Ukrainian peacekeepers among local population of conflict areas, and it is extremely high."

Russia recently has been actively pursuing formal ties with Abkhazia. Critics say the moves by Russia have raised concerns about the region's stability.

Additionally, a report out Tuesday from the United Nations said that Russia was responsible for the crash of an unmanned Georgian aircraft in Abkhazia in April.

Source: UPI

Navy Chief Says Russia Could Have 100 Warships In Ukraine

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- The Russian Navy commander said on Friday the Black Sea Fleet could increase the number of warships at its base in Sevastopol, in Ukraine's Crimea, to 100.

Russian Navy commander, Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky.
"The base agreement enables us to have up to 100 warships in the Black Sea Fleet, compared to the current figure of only 35; we may also have up to 25,000 personnel, while currently we only have 11,000," Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky told reporters in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.

He said Russia needs the Black Sea Fleet to protect its national interests.

"Russia has strategic interests in the world's oceans, and it will defend them. We will be enlarging our presence."

"The Black Sea Fleet will remain in any event. And it will not simply remain, but will develop," he said, adding that Russia does not intend to withdraw its fleet from Sevastopol before the base agreement expires in 2017.

The Black Sea Fleet currently uses a range of naval facilities on the Crimean peninsula under an agreement signed in 1997. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko recently ruled not to extend the lease for Russia's Black Sea Fleet beyond May 28, 2017.

Frequent disputes have flared up between Russia and Ukraine over the lease of the naval facilities on the Crimean peninsula. In the latest row, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov was barred from entering the former Soviet republic over his vociferous calls for the disputed ownership of a Russian naval base in Sevastopol to be transferred back to Russia.

Ukraine has been seeking NATO membership and EU integration ever since pro-Western President Yushchenko came to power on the back of the "orange revolution" in 2004.

Russia has repeatedly dismissed Ukraine's NATO bid as a violation of bilateral friendship agreements and said it will do all in its power to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO.

Admiral Vysotsky arrived in Kyrgyzstan on Thursday to discuss the expansion of military-technical cooperation and strengthening of regional security with Kyrgyz top military officials.

Russia currently has 41 intergovernmental agreements with Kyrgyzstan on security cooperation. Both countries are members of the two major regional security blocs in Central Asia - the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Source: RIA Novosti

Ukraine Foils Radioactive Cafe Plot

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine -- A plan to smuggle a highly radioactive helicopter from the Chernobyl disaster area and turn it into an eye-catching cafe has been foiled in Ukraine.

Chernobyl vehicle graveyard
Police said several people were detained after they were found transporting the scrap from the 18-miles exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power station, which exploded in 1986.

The helicopter, an Mi-8 "Hip", was found to emit up to 30 times the legal level of radiation.

According to a statement issued by the elite SBU special services, the criminals "tried to take an Mi-8 helicopter out of exclusion zone to use it as an original coffee shop in one of Ukraine's cities".

A workhorse of the Soviet armed forces, the Mi-8 helicopter is capable of carrying up to 28 people, although it was not made clear how many customers the gang had been hoping to seat.

Almost 2,000 helicopter sorties were ordered to douse the Chernobyl station after a reactor suffered melt down.

As a result, many of the helicopter pilots received lethal doses of radiation.

The Chernobyl disaster released at least 100 times more radiation than the atom bombs that were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Source: Telegraph UK

Russian, Ukrainian Leaders To Meet In June

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed with his pro-Western Ukrainian opposite number Viktor Yushchenko on Thursday to hold their first meeting in early June and urged him to stand by earlier deals with Moscow.

Dmitry Medvedev (L) and Viktor Yushchenko
The Kremlin press office said in a statement that Medvedev, sworn in earlier this month, telephoned Yushchenko to 'give an assessment of a number of steps undertaken by the Ukrainian side affecting Russian interests.'

'(Yushchenko's) attention was drawn to the need to stick to the principles of partnership in Russian-Ukrainian relations, not to allow unilateral decisions and steps which violate earlier obligations and agreements,' it said.
The statement did not specify which of the many irritants in ties between the two Slav states Medvedev meant.

Russia has been alarmed by a powerful drive by Ukraine to depart from its traditional dependence on Moscow in favour of closer ties with the West.

Earlier this year Ukraine and Georgia, another pro-Western ex-Soviet state, won an promise from NATO they could eventually join, though without a firm timetable.

Russia considers Georgian and Ukrainian accession to NATO as a threat to its own security.

Moscow is also at odds with Kiev over the future of its military base in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sevastopol. Kiev wants the Russian navy to leave after a lease agreement expires in 2017, while Moscow is seeking to extend the deal.

Periodic clashes over gas prices and transit tariffs are also a major problem in relations as Ukraine receives most of its gas from Russia and hosts the biggest transit pipeline to Europe.

Gas rows have eased in the past few months after Kiev settled outstanding debts for gas shipments.

In 2004, Russia backed Yushchenko's pro-Moscow opponent in a presidential election eventually struck down as fraudulent after weeks of peaceful street protests which came to be known as the 'Orange Revolution'.

Many top Russian officials, however, have privately expressed sympathy for Yushchenko in his power struggle with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, viewed as a more radical pro-Western politician.

The Kremlin statement said Medvedev and Yushchenko agreed to discuss relations during a meeting in Russia's second city of St Petersburg, on the sidelines of an economic forum on June 6-8.

Source: Union-Tribune

Ukraine's New Ambassador To The European Union Sees Growing Support For Membership Bid

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Ukraine's new ambassador to the European Union says there is growing support for his country's aims to draw closer to the EU, despite Russian opposition that dealt a setback to its NATO membership bid last month.

Ukraine's new ambassador to the European Union, Andri Veselovsky.
France in particular, which has previously expressed caution about future expansion of the EU, now had a "new vision" of Ukraine's place in Europe, Andri Veselovsky said Thursday after presenting his credentials to the European Commission.

"This vision of Ukraine's place in Europe is new, it is a clear difference and a new step in the understanding of a common European home in French political circles," he told reporters.

France takes over the EU's rotating presidency in the second half of this year and will play a key role in shaping the bloc's policy. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is also scheduled to host an EU-Ukraine summit in September.

Signs of French support follow an appeal Monday from Poland and Sweden for the EU to develop a new "eastern dimension" policy that would build ties with Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and other former Soviet neighbors.

Moscow has opposed the efforts of Ukraine and other former Soviet nations to join Western organizations. NATO last month postponed a decision to grant Ukraine and Georgia a "membership action plan" after pressure from Moscow. However, the military alliance did say clearly for the first time that the two nations could one day join and offered to look again at the membership plan.

Ukraine hopes to join the EU by 2020. Veselovsky acknowledged the EU was unlikely to take any bold steps toward further enlargement until the new Lisbon Treaty underpinning the union's working rules is ratified. Fifteen of the 27 EU nations have so far ratified the treaty, most recently Luxembourg, which did so on Thursday.

Most are voting in parliaments, but Ireland has a June 12 referendum. Concerns over the entry of former communist bloc nations were seen as a factor in French and Dutch voters rejecting a previous treaty in 2005 in referendums that plunged the EU into crisis.

"There is a very difficult stage in the development of the European Union and the Lisbon Treaty is not yet in our pocket," Veselovsky said. "We wait and watch with interest."

He said Ukraine would cooperate with nations like Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan, but that Ukraine's bid for EU membership should be based on the country's own merits.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Ukrainian President Campaigns For NATO Berth During Visit

TORONTO, Canada -- Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian President, wound up a three-day state visit to Canada yesterday, telling Toronto businessmen it is only natural his country should become a member of the European Union and NATO.

Ukraine's President Victor Yushchenko speaks to the Economic Club in Toronto May 28, 2008.
"The strategic goal of Ukraine is Ukrainian accession to the European Union and North Atlantic Alliance," he said in a speech at the Economic Club of Toronto.

"I clearly understand it is not going to be easy, but for any state this is a big responsibility. There is a good deal of homework to do. But we will cover this ground successfully."

Three years ago, no one recognized Ukraine as a country with a market economy, he said. Now it has become the 152nd member of the World Trade Organization and is negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU.

He also expects Ukraine to reach a deal on associate membership of the EU within 12 to 14 months.

But economic integration must be accompanied by security guarantees only NATO can provide, Mr. Yushchenko argued.

"For me, as president of the country, integration of Ukraine to the North Atlantic bloc is essential," he said. "I'm convinced that this is a component that enhances our political presence, our economic weight in the world and most importantly it is the best response for ensuring the territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state."

The Ukrainian President said he does not want to create "a confrontation or misunderstanding towards some other countries" but is compelled by history to seek the protection of NATO.

"We need to have a security environment for the life and prosperity of the country. Look at our history. Has it not taught you anything? Over the last 90 years the Ukraine has declared independence six times and five out of six it lost it."

"What was it we were lacking?" he asked. "We lacked just one thing--international guarantees for the eternity of our sovereignty."

"The best response to assure our country's sovereignty and integrity is to join the process that is specific and characteristic of the whole of Europe and that is the collective model of security policy," he added.

"All the countries that were with us 20 years ago building communism, starting with the Baltic countries and going down to Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, when they became independent, they immediately decided upon their security issues. They all became members of the North Atlantic Treaty."

Ukraine should be no different.

"We don't have arguments about values. We want to live the way Europe does, within a system of democratic, social, financial and ethical values. Then one question arises. If we have a common system of values, then obviously we have to have a common way of defending them. We must have a common security policy. We can't just share values and not share the weight of defending them."

In December, NATO's member countries are expected to decide whether to allow Ukraine's application to its Membership Action Plan framework for aspiring members.

Russia is vehemently opposed to NATO expansion into what it regards as its traditional area of influence and some European countries, such as Germany, have been reluctant to upset Moscow.

Canada, which is home to 1.2 million Ukrainian-Canadians, is supporting Ukraine's bid for eventual NATO membership.

Source: National Post

Election Lessons

KIEV, Ukraine -- With the mayoral elections over, Kyivans will now be spared the campaign leaflets and newspapers thrust in their direction, and the billboards of handsome and not-so handsome candidates.

The early election of Kiev’s Mayor, which was called because the authorities believed Leonid Chernovetsky worked improperly, ended in his victory.
Mayor Leonid Chernovetskiy surpassed expectations, handily winning the mayoral seat and earning enough votes for his bloc to form a City Council coalition.

In all, the city government leadership won’t change much, which begs the question -- what did the elections accomplish?

Hopefully lawmakers will twice before calling snap elections again.

An overconfident Yulia Tymoshenko, expecting triumph, led the charge in parliament to unseat her nemesis. Instead, the elections humbled Tymoshenko, not only handing her bloc defeat but reducing its presence in the Kyiv City Council.

Ironically, Chernovetskiy won by taking a page out of Tymoshenko's political playbook by appealing to voters, particularly pensioners and civil servants, with promises of populist payouts. As a result, Chernovetskiy’s hold on the capital is reinforced. He won a solid victory that empowers him to pursue his political agenda for the next five years.

Most importantly, the elections brought Kyiv’s challenges to the forefront including its rapid growth and inadequate infrastructure.

Chernovetskiy demonstrated his awareness of the public’s transit concerns, introducing new city buses to run along marshrutka lines and even opening a new metro station (regardless of its reported leaks), timed just days before Election Day. The mayor should make improving public transit a foundation for his government and demonstrate his commitment beyond electioneering.

More than anything, Chernovetskiy’s enemies loathe him for his alleged corruption, particularly in illegally distributing land.

Unfortunately if the allegations are true, then the elections and his decisive victory merely served to embolden Chernovetskiy and his allegedly corrupt ways.

Those who led the Orange Revolution were unable to convince voters that they were the better alternative. Despite its heavy campaigning, the pro-presidential Our Ukraine People’s Union didn’t even qualify for the City Council.

What awaits Kyiv, with the mayoral team more confident than ever, is uncertain. But if suspicions of corruption re-surface, let’s go to the courts instead of the polls.

Source: Kyiv Post

Russia Accused Of Looking For A Fight Over Georgia And Ukraine

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia was accused yesterday of stoking separatist tensions as part of a campaign to prevent the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO.

Russian seamen in Sevastopol. Moscow is fiercely opposed to NATO replacing it in the Crimea after its lease to keep the Black Sea Fleet there expires.
Georgia said that Russia was arming rebels in the breakaway region of Abkhazia to provoke a war and scupper its bid to join the military alliance.

Vano Merabishvili, the country's Interior Minister, said that Russia was pushing Abkhazia into confrontation and providing the separatists with weapons worth millions of dollars.

“The Russians are forcing the Abkhaz to prepare for war,” he told the newspaper Kommersant, adding that the objective was “to guarantee Georgia does not get into NATO. If there is a war and there is a single shot from the Georgian side, Georgia will never become a member of NATO,” he added.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, accused Georgia of seeking confrontation with Moscow. Speaking at an Arctic summit in Greenland, Mr Lavrov said: “I cannot understand what they are after except performing some kind of function of constantly provoking Russia.”

Abkhazia broke away from Georgia after a war in the 1990s and most of its residents now have Russian passports. Moscow infuriated Georgia last month by strengthening economic ties with the region.

Tensions have soared in recent weeks with both sides admitting that they have been close to war. A UN report concluded this week that a Russian fighter shot down a Georgian spy drone over Abkhazia in April.

Moscow also angered Ukraine by declaring that it wanted to keep a naval base in the Crimea despite an agreement to withdraw by May 28, 2017. The Ukrainian President, Viktor Yushchenko, insists that the Russian Black Sea Fleet must leave the port of Sevastopol on time.

Russia's naval base in Sevastopol was established in the 18th century by Catherine the Great. After the collapse of the Soviet Union Russia was allowed to retain its fleet at the port under a 20-year lease agreement with Ukraine that was signed in 1997.

Vladimir Dorokhin, Russia's special envoy on the Black Sea Fleet, said yesterday that Moscow did not want to leave. He told journalists: “We have never concealed our willingness to keep our presence in Sevastopol after 2017. We don't understand this haste. Why do they think we need nine years for the fleet's withdrawal? Why not fifteen years or five, or four? In the end, this is our fleet, yes? So this must be our headache.”

The issue is sensitive because most residents in Sevastopol are pro-Russian. Ukraine accused Yuri Luzhkov, the Mayor of Moscow, of undermining its sovereignty and barred him from the country after he declared that Russia had “a lawful right” to reclaim the port this month.

The bid for NATO membership by Ukraine has heightened tensions about the future of the port. Russia is opposed to the Western military alliance replacing it in the Crimea and the former President, Vladimir Putin, has threatened to aim nuclear missiles at Ukraine if it joins NATO.

“Ukraine has the legitimate right to adopt any decisions it deems important, but they should not run counter to our national interests or make us give them up,” Mr Dorokhin said.

Dmitri Rogozin, Russia's envoy to NATO, said that membership for Georgia and Ukraine was a “red line” issue. He added: “If NATO crosses this red line, relations will not only be spoilt but they will change drastically.”

Source: The Times

Poor Garbage Disposal Makes Kyiv Among Dirtiest Of Cities

KIEV, Ukraine -- When you think of Kyiv, do you think of glistening golden domes and chestnut-lined streets, or do you think of a city sprinkled with garbage, a dirty Dnipro River running through it and choking air pollution?

Garbage dumspter at a Kiev apartment house.
Kyiv is the 26th dirtiest city in the world among 215 surveyed, according to a Quality of Life report released in April by Mercer Human Resources Consulting, which ranked Ukraine’s capital just after Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

Distinguishing Kyiv from other cities was its insufficient garbage disposal system, which did not please local government officials.

Kyiv’s sanitation system, and its efficiency, “is positive,” said Mykhaylo Shparyk, director of the city’s Communal Management Administration (CMA).

About 3,670 tons of garbage are produced daily in the Ukrainian capital, amounting to more than 1.5 million tons annually, according to the CMA.

About 30 percent of waste goes to Landfill Number Five near the village of Pidhirka on the city outskirts, and 20 percent is taken to a waste­incinerator plant called Enerhiya.

The rest is hauled to other garbage dumps in the Kyiv oblast, said Shparyk.

But critics of Kyiv’s waste management system believe not enough is being done to solve the garbage problem.

“Everything that isn’t sent to either Landfill Number Five or the other dumps is somewhere on the streets,” said William Nosach, head of Ecoterm, an environmental management firm.

As a result of insufficient garbage disposal and waste storage policies, city dumps cover hundreds of hectares — they fume, smoke, and contaminate the earth, air and water.

A bouquet of the strongest poisons and toxins are fermented in the dumps, Nosach said, including dioxin.

The best way to solve the waste problem in Kyiv is to attract foreign companies to come in and put them completely in charge of the garbage business, said Oleh Soskin, head of the Institute of Society Transformation in Kyiv.

“It is necessary that there isn’t any misappropriation of funds, and for there to be a division between those in the City Administration who form the laws, and those who execute them,” he said.

The total cost of this garbage initiative would cost $1 billion, and it would take about two to three years to develop, Soskin said.

“But the most effective measure would be to invite strong teams from abroad to come in and manage the garbage,” he said. “If we do this, in three years time we’ll have a well­formed waste recycling system.”

So far, the only recycling effort has involved separating food waste from hard waste in an attempt to reduce garbage.

To accommodate that, the Kyiv City Administration said it bought 2,000 new dumpsters for 5 million hryvnia.

“This is an economically justified technology which enables not only recycling of waste, but also partly solves the garbage problem,” said Anatoliy Holubchenko, the first assistant chair of the Kyiv City Administration.

However, the effectiveness of these measures is doubtful, said Soskin. This garbage fight has to be consistent and changes have to take place on all levels, he said.

“This won’t bring good results immediately,” he said. “At first, there must be factories that process the garbage, and then a separate waste collection system should be promoted, including information campaigns at schools and kindergartens. The media should start teaching people how to dispose of their garbage correctly.”

Overall, the government’s attitude towards the garbage problems hasn’t changed, Nosach said, as it is still disposing of it in the least expensive way.

The Quality of Life Report released by Mercer Human Resources Consulting in April compared 215 cities based on air pollution, water, waste management, hospital services, medical supplies and existence of infectious disease.

The dirtiest city in the world is Baku, Azerbaijan, and the cleanest was the Canadian city of Calgary, the report said.

The second dirtiest city was Dhaka, Bangladesh, followed by Antananarivo, Madagascar. The fourth and fifth dirtiest cities were Port au Prince, Haiti and Mexico City, Mexico.

Source: Kyiv Post

Sarkozy To Seek Eventual EU Membership For Ukraine

WARSAW, Poland -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday he would propose a European Union partnership with Ukraine that would lead to the ex-Soviet republic's eventual membership of the wealthy bloc.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy
It was the first time France, traditionally lukewarm on EU enlargement, has publicly mooted the possibility of Ukraine's membership. France takes over the EU's rotating six-month presidency on July 1.

"As head of the European Council I will want to propose a partnership for Ukraine so that it could finally join (the EU)," Sarkozy told a joint news conference with Polish President Lech Kaczynski during a one-day visit to Warsaw.

Sarkozy did not elaborate and it was not clear how soon he envisaged Ukraine, a poor, sprawling country wedged between Russia and Poland, qualifying for EU accession.

Poland is a strong supporter of Ukraine's inclusion in both the EU and NATO. Poland joined NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004.

Earlier this week, at a meeting in Brussels, Poland and Sweden proposed that the EU build an Eastern Partnership to help former Soviet republics prepare for eventual membership.

Source: Hürriyet

U.S. Driller Falls Victim To Ukraine Political Rivalry

KIEV, Ukraine -- Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine's braid-wearing, populist prime minister, has been in a political tug-of-war with President Victor Yushchenko for the last four years.

Yulia Tymoshenko
Her latest shot across the bow: the cancellation of a Yushchenko-backed, 18-month-old production-sharing agreement with a small Houston oil company.

Vanco Energy, a closely held firm owned by wildcatter Gene Van Dyke, drills offshore in deepwater areas, mainly in African countries such as Gabon and Ivory Coast.

In October, after two years of negotiations with the Ukrainian government, Vanco signed the agreement with a deputy prime minister as Yushchenko looked on. Tymoshenko has since declared the agreement corrupt and invalid.

In 2005, the Houston company, which would not disclose its profits or revenues, had beaten out ExxonMobil (nyse: XOM - news - people ) and Hunt Oil in a government tender to negotiate rights to drill the potentially hydrocarbon-rich Prykerchenska shelf in the Black Sea.

The 30-year production agreement signed in October gives Vanco the right to survey and then drill Prykerchenska. The Ukrainians would receive a 65.0% share of the production, with the remainder going to Vanco. In return, Vanco agreed to pay royalties, corporate profit taxes and all of the expenses.

But Tymoshenko accuses Yushchenko of colluding with Vanco to deprive Ukraine of a more advantageous deal. “Everything that took place did so by the president's order and against Ukraine's national interests,” said Tymoshenko on her personal Web site.

Vanco, which says U.S. Ambassador William Taylor has provided assistance on the issue, disavows any illegal activity and says it's willing to go to arbitration to prove its right to survey and develop Prykerchenska.

Last week, it sued the Environment Ministry. "The ministries didn’t know anything about the oil industry," said Van Dyke. "The block we got is what the government said is available for bidding."

Some observers think Tymoshenko's opposition to the project has more to do with her animosity to Vanco's investors than the deal itself.

According to reports, the Houston company recently disclosed that it is backed by companies controlled by the pro-Yushchenko billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, Russian telecom magnate Yevgeny Novitsky and an Austrian firm whose controlling shareholders are undisclosed.

Tymoshenko has raised the possibility that the Austrian company may be controlled by Yushchenko or his allies.

Source: Forbes

Throng Welcomes Ukraine President In Winnipeg

WINNIPEG, Canada -- Throngs of spectators filled the grounds of the Manitoba legislature Tuesday to catch a glimpse of Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko on his first stop of a daylong visit to Winnipeg.

University student Ira Vyshneskya (R) has her photo taken with Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko as he arrives at the University of Winnipeg to receive his Honorary Doctor of Laws degree May 28.
Hundreds of giddy fans and schoolchildren gathered around the statue of revered Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, many waving Ukrainian flags.

One woman carried a huge sign reading, "Welcome to Canada, Dear President."

Other supporters filled the legislature steps, craning their necks to see the arriving motorcade.

"I just felt the need to see him and hear him," said Melody Calvo, whose grandfather came to Canada from Ukraine in the early 1920s.

Yushchenko chatted casually with Manitoba Premier Gary Doer as the pair walked through the grounds, and Doer praised Yushchenko as an "international hero for democracy."

Three hundred young schoolchildren introduced the president with the Ukrainian and Canadian national anthems, after which Yushchenko and Doer laid baskets of flowers at the monument to Shevchenko, and Yushchenko offered a lengthy address in Ukrainian.

"It's pretty exciting," said Bernice Tkachyk, who said coming out to see the president was a no-brainer.

"If he came all the way from there, I should be able to come from here to see him," said the 65-year-old.

Ukrainian priest Father Michael Skrumeda also showed up.

"I've read a lot about him, I've seen him on TV," said the Orthodox priest, whose relatives came to Canada from Ukraine in the late 1800s.

"I feel a bit excited, because he represents the land from where my great-grandparents come from."

Yushchenko was elected in the fall of 2004 after the results of an initial election were voided amid widespread cries of fraud and electoral abuse. Nearly two weeks of popular protests around the country became known as the Orange Revolution.

Yushchenko met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa on Monday. He thanked Canada for its support over the years - starting with quick recognition of the country's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

"Every Ukrainian will always remember that," Yushchenko said. He also thanked Canada for its impending recognition of the 1932-33 genocide, and for its historical role in welcoming Ukrainian immigrants.

"I'm filled with very tender feelings to your country and to this land. For me, as for millions of Ukrainians, this country and this land is sacred," Yushchenko said.

"It became a motherland for millions of Ukrainians for many generations of my native people who in different times came to seek for their destiny here in Canada.

"We are very grateful for the support that our country has always felt from Canada."

Harper expressed support for a private member's bill that would recognize the Ukrainian famine - orchestrated by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the 1930s - as an act of genocide. The prime minister made the pledge beside Yushchenko, who was granted the distinction of addressing a joint session of Canada's Senate and House of Commons.

During his Winnipeg stop, Yushchenko will sign a memorandum of understanding to foster development of rural communities in both the Ukraine and Canada. He will also be presented with an honourary doctorate of laws from the University of Winnipeg.

Source: Winnipeg Free Press

Harper Sides With Ukraine Over NATO Bid

OTTAWA, Canada -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a thinly veiled warning Monday to Russia to stop opposing Ukraine's NATO membership during a visit by Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko.

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Yushchenko, the father of Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004, affirmed his country's aspirations to NATO pose no threat "to any country of world." Russia views the 26-member military alliance as provocatively encroaching on its traditional sphere of influence by courting new members such as Ukraine. Yushchenko also made clear the pursuit of NATO membership is rooted in the almost a century of repression his country endured under the former Soviet Union.

That included the 1932-33 famine, at the hands of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, known as the Holodomor that claimed the lives of seven to 10 million Ukrainians, he added.

Harper said he was optimistic Canada's Parliament would endorse a private member's bill that recognizes Holodomor as a genocide perpetrated by Stalin "in the pursuit of his evil ideology."

Harper said he hoped the move would spark further acknowledgments of the Ukrainian genocide, "and it's very consistent with positions that Canada's taken for some time on several occasions on this question."

The Harper government has also endorsed the Armenian genocide, which has angered its NATO ally, Turkey.

As Yushchenko basked in the adulation of standing ovations in a historic joint session of Parliament that included Canadian senators, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, foreign diplomats and a packed visitors' gallery, Harper reiterated Canada's glowing endorsement of Ukraine's NATO bid.

NATO, along with the former Soviet republic of Georgia, is expected to embark on the first phase of membership later this winter when a formal Membership Action Plan is issued.

NATO was unable to reach a consensus on starting the action plan at its leaders summit last month in Romania. Although the summit ended with general platitudes endorsing Ukraine's eventual membership, opposition by France and Germany - who do not want to further antagonize Russia - blocked the consensus needed to start the action plan.

Harper said he planned to discuss Ukraine's NATO bid with the leaders of France and Germany when he travelled to those countries this week.

Though Harper and Yushchenko carefully avoided mentioning Russia by name, the Kremlin's hostility towards NATO expansion sat like the proverbial elephant in the room.

"I pointed out to the other leaders of NATO it is a founding principle of NATO that outsiders do not make these decisions," Harper told reporters Monday as he recalled his discussions about the Ukraine bid at last month's summit.

Earlier, Harper sparked loud applause in the Commons when he raised the topic.

"Ukraine is the only non-NATO country supporting every NATO mission in some way or other," the prime minister said. "The decision to seek alliance with others is a decision for, and only for, the sovereign nation of Ukraine."

Yushchenko said his country's domination by the Soviet Union in the 20th century has forced it to look westward to seek the "collective security" of NATO.

"Ukrainians have to learn how to bring out lessons from history . . . Through the 20th century we've declared our independence six times, and five times we lost it," Yushchenko said. "Those are probably the facts that we are using to form our national policy."

But he also acknowledged that his government must do more to sell NATO membership to a skeptical Ukrainian public, pointing out that a little more than one-third of his population currently supports joining the Western military alliance that was founded half a century ago to oppose the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Yushchenko said Ukraine's NATO membership would pose no threat to any other country because it will not permit military bases or nuclear weapons on its soil. "What is the threat that we make to any country of the world with our accession to NATO?"

Canada has 1.2 million people of Ukrainian descent, the second-largest diaspora after Russia itself, and was the first country to recognize Ukraine's independence in 1991.

Canada also led the world in sending election monitors to the hotly contested and historic 2004 election - a political battle that nearly cost Yushchenko his life when he was poisoned with dioxin that left his face scarred.

But it was the deep bonds between Canada and Ukraine that were celebrated during Yushchenko's speech. "The men in sheepskin coats, they were called, built the farms, families and fraternities" that helped shape Western Canada, Harper said.

For his part, Yushchenko did not shy away from the growing pains that plague his country's march to democracy, particularly corruption.

"The recent years have shown that the most complicated problems and challenges, including the social problems, we resolve them in a very democratic and civilized way. We are speaking frankly about our problems."

Yushchenko also was to attend a solemn ceremony on Parliament Hill late Monday to mark the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor before a state dinner hosted by Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean.

On Tuesday, Yushchenko travels to Winnipeg.

Source: Ottawa Citizen

Ukraine: Confounding 'Orange' Hopes, Eccentric Incumbent Set To Win In Early Mayoral Vote

KIEV, Ukraine -- After an unusually long and heated campaign, Kiev residents have chosen a mayor from among about 70 candidates on a list so long that the ballot paper measured about a meter in length.

Incumbent Kiev Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky.
Preliminary results put incumbent Kiev Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky clearly in the lead with almost 37 percent of ballots. The Chernovetsky Bloc is also leading in the city council vote.

His re-election would be a blow to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who secured a parliamentary vote in March to oust Chernovetsky in connection with what she alleged were illegal land deals.

The early results are also bad news for the fiery prime minister because her preferred candidate, Oleksandr Turchynov, trails Chernovetsky with under 19 percent in a vote largely seen as a dress rehearsal for the next presidential election in early 2010.

"The Kiev elections are a serious electoral, psychological, symbolic defeat for Yulia Tymoshenko and her bloc," says Vadym Karasiov, who heads the Kiev-based Global Strategic Institute, a think tank viewed as close to President Viktor Yushchenko.

"She initiated the elections; she thought that in these elections she would get the capital's resources, Chernovetsky would be removed, she would reformat the city council. As it turns out, having initiated the elections, she lost them and this means a lot of voters and many of the political elite will have doubts about the political possibilities of Yulia Tymoshenko."

Karasiov adds that "her charisma is now going to be doubted because, so far, that charisma has never been doubted and it has never let her down."

Other candidates linked to the democrats who swept to power during the 2005 Orange Revolution didn't fare much better, according to preliminary showings.

Former world boxing champion Vitaliy Klychko of the pro-Western PORA-PRP group garnered almost 18 percent of the vote, while Mykola Katerynchuk, an ally of Yushchenko, is credited so far with just over 4 percent.

The fact that Tymoshenko and Yushchenko backed different candidates highlights enduring divisions within the so-called Orange camp. The two former allies fell out shortly after coming to power, the dispute culminating with Yushchenko sacking Tymoshenko as prime minister in 2005.

The president reinstated her in December after their respective parties won a slim majority in parliamentary elections, but the governing coalition remains fragile. Tymoshenko recently accused Yushchenko of seeking to weaken her standing ahead of next year's presidential election.

Ihor Zhdanov, an independent political analyst, tells RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that pro-Orange forces could have won the vote had they put differences aside and fielded a single candidate.

"The results of these elections simply confirmed Mr. Chernovetsky's mayoralty. At the same time, two candidates from the democratic camp, Oleksandr Turchynov and Vitaliy Klychko, together received more votes than Chernovetsky.

What does this mean?

It means that had the democratic camp had a single candidate, if people had been able to overcome their ambitions, then they would have had a victory and the mayor of Kiev would be a representative of the democratic forces.

This is the No. 1 conclusion of these elections: that politicians need to curb their ambitions, learn to agree and understand their responsibility to the voters."

But for now, pro-Western forces will have to put up with Chernovetsky for another mayoral term.

A billionaire and former lawmaker, Chernovetsky is known for his quirky behavior and often incoherent remarks.

"Who is the mayor today?" he once posed aloud. "Me, it's definitely me. And was there someone before me? I don't remember. I don't think there was anyone."

His political career is marked with controversy. Both he and his wife, for instance, avoided manslaughter convictions after killing two people in separate road accidents.

Chernovetsky has also raised eyebrows with proposals such as forcing subordinates to undergo lie-detector tests, or with his support for an evangelical church headed by a controversial African minister.

In January, Chernovetsky made the headlines with his scuffle with Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, whom he accused of punching him in the face and groin after an argument. Lutsenko admitted slapping Chernovetsky's face but claimed the mayor initiated the fight by kicking him in the knee.

Source: Radio Free Europe

Ukraine's Capital Kiev Electing Mayor, With Boxing Champion In Race

KIEV, Ukraine -- An exit poll indicated the mayor of Ukraine's capital won re-election Sunday, overcoming corruption allegations and leading a field of 70 candidates, including a former world boxing champion.

An exit poll put Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky (L) as winner with 32.8 percent of the vote, and former World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitaly Klitschko (R) in third place with 19.8 percent.
Lurking between the lines on Kiev's meter-long (yard-long) ballot was the simmering confrontation between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who led the Orange Revolution together but are at odds two years before a presidential vote.

The exit poll put Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky ahead with 32.8 percent of the vote, followed by Tymoshenko ally Oleksandr Turchynov with 20.3 percent and former World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitaly Klitschko with 19.8.

Chernovetsky's re-election would be a blow for Tymoshenko.

Parliament called the early election after Tymoshenko accused the mayor of illegally selling highly profitable land and withholding revenue from the national budget. Chernovetsky denied it.

Tymoshenko has vied for power and popularity with Yushchenko since they led the 2004 protests that ushered him to power. Both are pro-Western and their parties formed a governing coalition last year, but confrontations have shown it to be fragile.

Tymoshenko recently accused Yushchenko of trying to undermine her before the 2010 presidential election.

She suffered a setback when Yushchenko blocked her initiative to hold a run-off between the two top mayoral candidates if no one received more than 50 percent of the vote.

Analysts said his intention was to ensure Tymoshenko would not have an ally as Kiev mayor. Opinion polls had indicated Chernovetsky, who is popular among pensioners, could win a plurality Sunday, but a run-off could have allowed opponents to unite behind his challenger.

The vote was a rematch for Klitschko, who lost to Chernovetsky in the 2006 mayoral election. A national hero who is scheduled to try to regain his boxing title this fall, he campaigned on promises to fight corruption and end chaotic development.

In a what was seen as a bid by Chernovetsky to hurt Klitschko's chances, a nonprofit organization arranged a three-day music festival outside the city to celebrate Kiev Day, which coincided with the vote. It promised free tickets for young people, who form the boxer's power base.

Turnout was reported to be 46 percent, compared to 70 percent in 2006.

A quirky billionaire banker and ex-lawmaker, Chernovetsky has raised eyebrows with initiatives to test subordinates' honesty using lie detectors and force migrant workers out of the capital to give more opportunity to local residents.

He was involved in a scrap in January with Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, a candidate from Yushchenko's bloc whom the exit poll gave 2.1 percent.

Chernovetsky accused Lutsenko of punching him in the face and groin after an argument. Lutsenko said he slapped Chernovetsky's face but contends the mayor initiated the fight by publicly defaming him and kicking him in the knee.

The exit poll was commissioned by private ICTV and conducted by the Democratic Initiatives Fund and the Kiev International Institute for Sociology, which interviewed more than 10,000 voters. It said the margin of error was 2 to 3 percent.

Source: AP

'Dr Iron Fist' Seeks Election Knockout In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Former world heavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko sought an upset victory in an election on Sunday for mayor of Kiev.

Heavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko
‘I have complete confidence in the residents of Kiev residents and am confident that the principles we are upholding correspond to their interests,’ Klitschko said after casting his ballot.

Klitschko, known as ‘Dr. Iron Fist’ because of his doctorate in sports and one of the few champions never to have been knocked down in his career, voted with his brother Vladimir, the current IBF and WBO boxing champion.

The 36-year-old has earned popularity with his image as a corruption fighter and has used his international celebrity status to boost his profile but current mayor Leonid Chernovetsky remains ahead of him in the polls.

Polling stations opened at 7:00 am (0400 GMT) and were to close at 10:00 pm (1900 GMT). The results of exit polls were expected soon after with the first official results early on Monday.

Seventy candidates were running for the mayoral election.

‘I have always achieved my goals. Now I'm fighting for my city. I want to turn it into an international metropolis,’ Klitschko said during a visit to New York where he recruited the support of former mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

In March, the Ukrainian parliament ordered early elections following corruption accusations against Chernovetsky, a former banker.

Chernovetsky, who defeated Klitschko in the 2006 mayoral vote, remains popular however, largely thanks to City Hall subsidies for the poor.

This time, Klitschko's main campaign promises have been to end the chaotic construction practices that have erased many of the city's green spaces, reduce traffic, fight corruption and improve social welfare.

‘Kiev used to be a museum city, a park city. Now it is being transformed into a cement jungle,’ Klitschko, a member of the city assembly, said in an interview last year with AFP.

Klitschko was born on July 19, 1971 in Kyrgyzstan, a Central Asian state that was then part of the Soviet Union, into a Soviet officer's family. They then moved to Ukraine.

He took his first steps on the Ukrainian political scene during the pro-democracy Orange Revolution of 2004, backing pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, who went on to become president.

Source: AFP

New Protective Tomb To Be Built At Chernobyl

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine -- Work is expected to start this year at Chernobyl on a new structure to entomb its shattered reactor and stop radiation leaks at the site of the world's largest nuclear disaster.

Outgoing EBRD President Jean Lemierre (R) stands beside Ukraine's Minister of Emergency Situations Volodymyr Shandra.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) pledged 135 million euros (107.5 million pounds) to make safe the nuclear power plant more than two decades after the explosion and fire that dumped radiation over much of Europe. But it will be 100 years before people can resettle the area.

The cash, about 10 percent of the bank's net profit in 2007, will go into a fund to build a new containment vessel at the plant, in thick woodland near Ukraine's border with Belarus.

Reactor four, which blew up on April 26, 1986, is to be crowned by a steel arch which will measure 257 metres across and 105 metres high and will lock in radioactive dust. A separate facility will house spent nuclear fuel now under grassy mounds.

Radiation levels near the plant still hit 300 microroentgens -- 30 times levels acceptable for humans.

The existing "sarcophagus" covering the reactor was hastily built in the weeks after the blast. Helicopters dumped sand and chemicals on the blaze and workers built a rail line to bring in concrete and steel for the construction.

EBRD governors, Ukrainian officials and journalists were kept several hundred metres from the reactor during a visit -- any closer is considered too dangerous without protection -- and later subjected to radiation checks.

But Chernobyl general director Nikolai Dmitruk plays down any suggestion of harmful radiation levels.

"It's not dangerous," he told visiting reporters. "Spending a day at the plant gives you the same amount of radiation as taking a transatlantic flight."

Around 1,500 workers, most Ukrainian, will be brought in to work on the projects and will be bussed in to the plant from outside a 30-km (19 mile) exclusion zone.

Around 300 people have illegally settled in the zone in defiance of a government ban.

Laundry hanging to dry and the occasional slow-moving Soviet-era car are stark reminders of the towns that once bustled while providing the plant with workers.

The main town of Pripyat, whose population of 49,000 was evacuated one day after the explosion, stands deserted. A looted hotel, restaurants and apartment buildings with trees poking out of their windows frame the main square, overgrown with shrubs.

FUNDING FIGHT

Funding for the arch was a long time in coming.

Ukraine first asked the West to help make Chernobyl safe in 1992 after Soviet rule collapsed.

Debate proceeded through the 1990s, with Ukraine accusing the West periodically of indifference and some Western countries balking at Kiev's repeated calls for more money.

The arch, to be built by the French-led Novarka consortium, should be complete in 2012. The work will cost around 1.05 billion euros in total, the EBRD says, and 975 million euros have been raised including this week's donation.

While the shortfall is easily achievable through donations from EBRD members, the bank still has worries.

"The main contributor to complications is currency exchange fluctuation," said Balthasar Lindauer, Deputy Director of Nuclear Safety at the bank. Ukrainian labour, he said, was becoming much more expensive.

The last working reactor at Chernobyl, which is 160 km north of the capital Kiev, was closed in 2000 under pressure from the international community, which helped complete two reactors elsewhere to make up for lost generating capacity.

The blast spilled radiation over most of Europe, with Belarus, downwind from the plant, affected most acutely.

Estimates of the number of deaths directly related to the accident vary. The World Health Organisation estimates the figure at 9,000 while the environmental group Greenpeace predicts an eventual death toll of 93,000.

Though highly radioactive, the lush surroundings around the plant are teeming with wildlife, which thrive after being unmolested by human encroachment for more than two decades.

Birch trees and bright meadows in the exclusion zone around the plant are home to boars, wolves and deer. Ecologists wonder at their ability to survive on a spot hit by several times more radiation than the bombed Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

"After the accident the zone became a huge zoo. Without humans, they have multiplied," said Alexander Novikov, deputy director for technical safety at the plant.

The long-term health impact on people and animals is unknown.

Source: Yahoo UK News

Champion Boxer Tipped For Victory In The Fight For Kiev

KIEV, Ukraine -- In the rough-and-tumble world of Ukrainian politics, contenders don't come much tougher than Vitali Klitschko, the former world heavyweight boxing champion who hopes to become mayor of Kiev today.

Vitali Klitschko has pledged to return to boxing if he wins the mayoral election in Kiev today.
Surveys suggest the 6ft 7in son of a Soviet air force colonel could win control of the city at his second time of asking. Having failed in a bid two years ago, he has enlisted the help of the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Dubbed Dr Iron Fist, Mr Klitschko, 36, turned to politics after injuries forced him from the ring in 2005, having lost only two of his 37 fights – one of them to the British world champion Lennox Lewis.

If he wins today, he has pledged to combine the two careers – making a boxing comeback while cleaning up Kiev. "We can't change the life in Kiev without breaking crime and corruption's rule," he said during the campaign.

When pro-Klitschko posters appeared around the city of 2.7 million people saying "Kiev needs a strong mayor", Oleksandr Turchynov, the candidate for the Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's party, responded with his own billboards saying "Kiev needs a smart mayor".

Perhaps rattled by polls that put Mr Klitschko well ahead of Mr Turchynov and neck-and-neck with the incumbent mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, Ms Tymoshenko's party has changed tack and is now promising the boxer a top job if he falls in behind their man. "This way we may unite intellect and strength. They both have the strength and the intellect and it is necessary to unite the teams," said Ms Tymoshenko recently.

The English-language Kiev Post endorsed Mr Klitschko, citing his apparent determination to fight graft, his potential as a high-profile ambassador for the city, and his experience of life in the West during several years spent in Hamburg and Los Angeles. He also represents a striking alternative to the scandal-tainted Mr Chernovetsky, and Mr Turchynov, seen as Ms Tymoshenko's puppet.

Mr Klitschko burnished his crime-fighting credentials by touring Kiev with Mr Giuliani who, before his recent failed bid to become the Republican nominee for the US presidency, gained credit for making New York a safer city. "I will be advising Vitali Klitschko and his team on how to turn Kiev around by reforming government," he said. "He understands that reform and transparency are critical to attracting international business and sustainable economic development for his city. There will be no tolerance or room for corruption or secret dealings in a Klitschko administration."

Reflecting the striking contrasts of Mr Klitschko's world, the candidate also received a message of support from the president of the World Boxing Council (WBC), Jose Sulaiman.

"Vitali Klitschko would be the first fighting mayor in the 300-year history of boxing, and would have a great opportunity to once again become the heavyweight champion of the world," he said.

Mr Klitschko first ventured into politics by supporting the 2004 orange revolution, when protests ousted an old guard of former Communists and pro-Moscow politicians and swept into power the Western-backed liberals Ms Tymoshenko and President Viktor Yushchenko.

The leaders clashed soon afterwards, however, and a truce that helped their parties re-enter government last autumn has again given way to bitter rivalry, splitting their support in the mayoral race among several candidates.

Mr Klitschko qualified for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, but failed a drug test before the event and was withdrawn from the Ukrainian team. His younger brother, Wladimir, replaced him on the team and won a gold medal.

Vitali says he has been training for two hours each morning during the election campaign to prepare for a possible fight this autumn with the WBC champion Samuel Peter. But first he must contend with the political arena and Mr Chernovetsky – who allegedly exchanged blows with Ukraine's Interior Minister during a meeting earlier this year. "Sometimes I wish I could meet people inside the ring, where there are clear rules," lamented Mr Klitschko. "But physical power decides nothing in politics."

Source: The Independent

Ukraine FM Demands Full Withdrawal Of Russian Black Sea Fleet From Crimea

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine is not considering the possibility of extending the period for the presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the Crimea after May 28, 2017, the Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

Sailors of the Russian Black Sea Fleet
It said the Russian Black Sea Fleet would have to be withdrawn from Ukraine completely by that time.

“The Russian side is well aware of Ukraine’s position on this issue that is based on the provisions of the Ukrainian Constitution. Under the Constitution, no military bases of other states may be deployed in the territory of Ukraine,” the ministry said.

“On April 14, a memorandum was delivered to the Russian Foreign Ministry, which provides for coordinating systemic comprehensive measures in order to properly ensure the timely withdrawal of the Russian fleet from Ukraine. In order to comply with the required legal procedures, the Ukrainian side has to pass a law that will terminate the operation of the relevant agreements on the status and terms of the presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine from May 28, 2017,” the ministry said.

It expressed hope that “full compliance by the Russian side with the base agreements on the Russian Black Sea Fleet and its withdrawal from the Crimea will become an important step in the strengthening of regional stability and security”.

Meanwhile, the government of Ukraine has started implementing the president’s instructions to draft a law that will terminate all international agreements on the temporary deployment of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine from 2017.

“The government will act in accordance with international agreements. We are not taking any steps that will either call these agreements into question or will provide for non-compliance with them,” Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko said this week.

“If we are to adhere to international agreements, there are absolutely no reasons for any aggravation [of relations with Russia],” she said.

The prime minister stressed that all procedures that need to be undertaken with regard to the Russian Black Sea Fleet would be “within the system of agreements”.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has instructed the government to prepare a draft law by June 20 that will terminate international agreements on the temporary deployment of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine from 2017.

He also gave the government two months to assess the consequences of the fleet’s deployment in Ukraine.

However the Russian Foreign Ministry said it would be premature to discuss any deadlines for the presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine.

“The adoption of the decree with hastiness that we find hard to understand cannot facilitate trust between Russia and Ukraine and can adversely affect the talks on the Black Sea Fleet,” the ministry said.

It pointed to the legal framework for the deployment of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine. “The Black Sea Fleet, the 225th anniversary of which was recently celebrated by Russia and Ukraine, is based in the Crimea in accordance with the so-called base agreements on the fleet signed on May 28, 1997 and ratified by the parliaments of the two states,” the ministry said.

These include the Agreement on the Status and Terms of the Deployment of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, the Agreement on the Parameters of the Division of the Black Sea Fleet, and the Agreement on Mutual Settlements Associated with the Division of the Black Sea Fleet and the Deployment of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation in Ukraine.

The first two agreements were signed for 20 years. They will be automatically extended for five years unless either party notifies the other party in writing of their end at least one year prior.

Under the latter agreement, Russia reduces Ukraine’s state debt by 97.75 million U.S. dollars every year.

“The Russian side proceeds from the assumption that the Black Sea Fleet of Russia will continue to be based in Ukraine in accordance with the agreements between Russia and Ukraine,” the ministry said. “However the Russian side believes that it is premature to discuss the timeframe for the deployment of the felt now. This issue should be the subject of a Russian-Ukrainian agreement later and considered in the context of the whole range of bilateral relations.”

Moscow believes it necessary to “concentrate on the resolution of practical issues relating to the creation of conditions for the full functioning of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation and its deployment in Ukraine”.

“Such work is underway within the framework of the relevant sub-commission of the Russian-Ukrainian Interstate Commission and its working groups. Preparations for a meeting of the sub-commission are in progress,” the ministry said.

“The presidential decree is all the more unexpected because under the Russia-Ukraine Action Plan up to 2009 approved by the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, the sides have agreed otherwise, specifically to continue the talks on the operation of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation and its deployment in Ukraine within the framework of the abovementioned base agreements in order to achieve concrete agreements regarding primarily the whole range of navigation and hydrographic support for navigation in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, a set of military-political aspects of the fleet’s operation, inventory of the land and real property occupied by the fleet in Ukraine, environmental protection, legal aspects of the operation of the fleet’s military units, the legal status of the servicemen and their dependents, including questions of citizenship,” the ministry said.

Source: ITAR-TASS

Russia Wins 2008 Eurovision Song Contest Beating Ukraine, Greece

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Dima Bilan has brought Russia its first Eurovision song title with a glitzy performance that included a famous ice skater.

Ukraine's Ani Lorak came in second place in Eurovision 2008.
Bilan beat Ukraine's Ani Lorak and Greece's Kalomira with an R&B ballad "Believe" before thousands of flag-waving fans of Europe's most glamorous pop song festival.

The Russian singer was joined on the stage by Hungarian violinist Edvin Marton and famous Russian Olympic skater Yevgeny Plyushchenko, who pirouetted on artificial ice to the tune.

Bilan has won the first-ever title for Russia in the competition, which has recently been dominated by Eastern European countries because of so-called bloc-voting among ex-Soviet republics and former Yugoslav states.

This year's competition was held in Belgrade, Serbia. Serbian songstress Marija Serifovic won last year's title with her ballad "Molitva" or "Prayer."

Bilan's appearance at the finals, which opened late Saturday at the Belgrade Arena hall, was his second in just two years. In 2006, he won second place.

Bilan had been tipped as the favourite going in, along with Ukraine and Sweden.

The Russian won 272 points from viewers from 43 countries who picked the winner by phone calls and text messages.

Ukraine's Lorak was second with 230 points, followed by Greece's Kalomira with 218.

The glitzy event was launched by Serifovic. Other guest stars include Bosnian ethno musician Goran Bregovic and Serbia's and L.A. Lakers' former NBA star, Vlade Divac.

Though criticized by many as a show of kitsch and an extravaganza, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Eurosong, is revered by its many followers. They often travel across the continent to support their favourite singers.

About 15,000 guests are believed to have arrived in Belgrade for the event, crowding the Serbian capital for the first time in years.

Serbia is taking advantage of the opportunity to present itself as part of Europe after years of pariah status in the 1990s under the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

Authorities have gone out of their way to throw a perfectly organized party. During the finals, a huge screen was put up in front of the Belgrade City Hall as thousands flocked to watch the show.

After the winner was announced, fireworks lit the Belgrade skies.

The finale included 20 contestants who made it through the two semifinals earlier this week.

In addition, performers from Britain, France, Germany and Spain, who are the biggest sponsors of the event, and Serbia, the host country, went straight into the final without having competed in preliminary rounds.

Serbia was represented by Jelena Tomasevic, who finished sixth.

Source: The Canadian Press

Ukraine Wants Russian Navy Out Of Crimea

KIEV, Ukraine -- The Ukrainian President has signed a decree ordering the Cabinet to prepare by July 20 a draft law on terminating all international agreements on the presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko wants Russian navy out of Crimea.
Russia's navy currently uses a range of naval facilities in the Crimea under an agreement signed in 1997, under which Ukraine agreed to lease naval facilities to Russia until 2017.

The May 16 resolution on measures to ensure Ukraine's status as a naval power, enacted by Viktor Yushchenko on May 20, was posted on his official website Wednesday.

Disputes between Russia and Ukraine over the lease of the base are frequent. Russia currently pays $93 million per year to lease the base from its ex-Soviet neighbor, which is paid for with Russian energy supplies.

Ukraine's intelligence services barred Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov on May 12 from entering the former Soviet republic over his "provocative" statements regarding the ownership of the Black Sea city of Sevastopol.

Moscow's mayor made strong calls for the disputed ownership of a Russian naval base in Sevastopol to be transferred back to Russia.

The head of the State Duma committee on CIS affairs, Alexei Ostrovsky, said in April that Russia could reclaim the Crimea if Ukraine was admitted to NATO.

Media reported that President Vladimir Putin issued a similar threat at a closed-door speech to NATO leaders at the Bucharest summit earlier this month.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry confirmed last month that Russia had been invited to start talks in June on the withdrawal of its fleet from the Crimea, but said Moscow had yet to reply to the proposal.

Source: Moscow News

EBRD Pledges More Investment

KIEV, Ukraine -- More than 4,100 top European bankers and investors gathered in Ukraine’s capital on May 18 and 19 for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD) annual Board of Governors meeting, a decade after its first Kyiv meeting.

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development President Jean Lemierre (R), and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, speak during the bank annual meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, May 18, 2008. Rising inflation is severely hurting Ukraine and other Eastern European nations, while the global credit crunch will slow growth in those countries dramatically in coming months, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said Sunday.
Among the EBRD’s decisions included a 135 million euro grant to fund the shelter and waste storage at the site, as well as a pledge to invest at least 1 billion euro into the Ukrainian economy annually.

While investors and bankers celebrated the decade since they last met in Kyiv, during which Ukraine made enormous strides in economic progress, they also expressed concern for Ukraine’s future, given its inflation rate, government corruption and lack of political consensus.

“There was probably $100 million of investment 10 years ago, and it was coming from Cyprus and going back,” Olivier Descamps, an EBRD business group director, said at the May 19 Ukraine country presentation and discussion. “I think in the last three years, we had 50 percent of the total foreign direct investment of the last 10 years coming to Ukraine.”

Bankers and investors spent the two days networking, attending country presentations and discussions on topics such as corporate social responsibility and EURO 2012, as well as attending receptions, including an extravagant closing ceremony hosted by President Viktor Yushchenko.

Some of Ukraine’s biggest businessmen and investors attended the weekend meeting and business forum, including mega­millionaire banker Serhiy Tyhypko, billionaire industrial magnate Kostiantyn Zhevago, and equity investment fund manager Michael Bleyzer.

The Ukraine country presentation was among the two­day meeting’s highlights, at which Ukraine’s most successful investors discussed Ukraine’s challenges and potential.

Bureaucratic interference, a holdover of the Soviet system, is still preventing Ukraine from reaching its full economic potential, said Narenda Chaudhary, chief executive officer for Arcelor Mittal S.A. in Ukraine, which acquired the Kryvorizhstal steel plant in 2005.

“I have never seen so much bureaucratic intervention in any country,” Chaudhary said, pointing out that he worked in five different countries on three continents.

He recalled enduring 457 inspections in the first half of 2006.

“You can imagine the waste of human resources,” he said.

Nevertheless, Arcelor Mittal made a “wise investment” in Ukraine, he said.

Tycoon Kostiantyn Zhevago, who made his fortune in Ukraine, offered an optimistic perspective on the country.

Unstable politics make investing difficult, but not impossible, Zhevago said, adding that he didn’t see many hurdles in doing business in Ukraine.

Zhevago controls Ferrexpo, which controls iron ore reserves in the Poltava region and was the first Ukrainian company listed on the London Stock Exchange.

“The quality of democracy is the most immediate problem that can be improved if there is political will,” Zhevago said. “We need more stability, but there is no doubt that it will happen. It is just a matter of when.”

Another Ukraine success story is Michael Bleyzer, founder and president of SigmaBleyzer, the largest private equity investment firm in Ukraine.

“If you understand the difficulties of investing in Ukraine, it is a wonderful country to invest in,” said Bleyzer, who was born in Kharkiv, raised in the US and launched his first Ukraine growth fund in 1996.

To succeed, Ukraine needs to broaden beyond strategic investors and those who carry out infrastructure investment, he said.

“Ukraine desperately needs broad­based foreign direct investment in all sectors,” Bleyzer said.

With regard to infrastructure investment, the EBRD will remain Ukraine’s most active player.

The 135 million euro investment announced May 19 will go towards constructing the New Safe Confinement, the structure to be built over Chornobyl’s fourth reactor, which exploded.

The funds will also be invested in completing the second interim storage facility to handle spent fuel from the other three reactors.

Contractors are currently working on the design and technical details of both the New Safe Confinement and the storage facility, and final designs are expected in spring 2009.

The New Safe Confinement will be built on­site and eventually slid over the reactor on rails. It will be 257 meters wide, 105 meters high and 150 meters in length.

At the meeting’s opening ceremony, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said much of Ukraine’s economic growth was the result of the EBRD’s commitment to Ukraine. “The EBRD is the most powerful investor in the country and we are one of its most desirable clients,” she said.

Striking a similar tone and pointing to Ukraine’s recent WTO accession and rise in foreign direct investment, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said “progress is irreversible” and thanked the EBRD for organizing their annual meeting in the city.

“Its decision to hold a meeting in Kyiv for a second time is a validation of the reforms and democratic changes, and the progress of the judiciary in Ukraine,” he said.

Source: Kyiv Post

Ukraine Central Bank Ups Hryvnia To 4.85/$, Policy Unclear

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's central bank has strengthened the official rate of the hryvnia to 4.85 to the dollar from 5.05, according to the bank's Web site on Wednesday, but no details about future policy were given.

Ukraine's 1 hryvnia banknote
The bank has been under pressure to revalue or liberalise the hryvnia after inflation began rising last year, hitting 30 percent annually. Ratings agency Standard & Poor's immediately called the bank's move a step towards curbing price rises.

"Liberalising the exchange rate regime should help to curb inflation of tradeables, and in particular commodities such as gas and food, which are priced in dollars," the agency said in a statement. It has a rating of BB- for Ukraine.

"It is more or less what the market has been trading the past few days. It's a first step," BNP Paribas currency strategist Elisabeth Gruie said.

"It's clearly not going to be enough. I would say they would need another five to 10 percent to tackle inflation," she said.

The bank had kept the hryvnia in a tight range of 5.00-5.06 since 2005, within a wider target of 4.95-5.25 but traders said it stopped intervening in February-March.

The hryvnia had been hovering around 4.7-4.8 since then, but soared further in recent days to 4.6 to the dollar after comments from various central bank officials indicating a revaluation soon. On Wednesday, the hryvnia traded at 4.54/$.

The bank had said that a news conference was due on Thursday at 1400 GMT after a meeting of the policy council.

UNCLEAR POLICY

Dealers in Kiev have been critical of the lack of clarity from the bank since it appeared at odds in April when Chairman Volodymyr Stelmakh said "a move" would be made on the hryvnia, only for the bank's council to reject widening the band.

One dealer said despite expectations that the bank would make a decision soon, it was still unclear whether the currency band would be kept or whether the bank would allow the hryvnia to float freely.

"If this is going to be a floating rate, I don't see any reasons why (the dollar) won't continue to drop, if the bank refrains from entering the market," the dealer said.

"They must begin market interventions, otherwise neither clients nor banks will have any targets (of where the rate should be)," he said, mentioning the example or Russia who's central bank said last week it would begin daily interventions.

Markets had been betting on neighbouring Russia revaluing the rouble against its dollar/euro basket to rein in its inflation running at over 14 percent annually.

But its move last week has made the market more volatile and making it more difficult for dealers to guess the regulator's policies.

BLEAK PICTURE

In its comments after the bank's move, Standard & Poor's painted a bleak picture for Ukraine, saying inflation was boosted by non-monetary factors and that a stronger hryvnia would harm exporters, raising the current account deficit.

"In the first quarter of 2008, nominal government expenditures increased just under 50 percent, pushing up public sector wages and sending a highly inflationary signal to the private sector," it said.

"Loose income policy continues to affect goods prices via second-round effects."

The agency lambasted the government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in January, calling its fiscal policies "populist" after it began paying compensation to people who's Soviet-era savings were wiped out by hyperinflation during the 1990s.

Tymoshenko has repeatedly said that the government would be able to bring inflation under control in a few months, and some officials had even predicted deflation during the summer months due to bumper food harvests.

The government has not yet changed its 2008 inflation forecast of 9.6 percent after accumulated price rises in the first four months of the year, at 13.1 percent, exceeded the target. In 2007, inflation reached 16.6 percent.

Analysts have forecast inflation at around 20 percent for this year, while the central bank said it could hit 18-19 percent.

Source: Guardian UK

Democratic Coalition In Ukraine Exists Only On Paper - Tymoshenko

KIEV, Ukraine -- The so-called "democratic coalition" in Ukraine in fact exists only on paper, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said.

Premier Yulia Tymoshenko
"It is a big question whether a democratic coalition exists in Ukraine today. In legal terms, it does exist and is functioning in the parliament. But in fact there is another coalition comprising all oligarchic groups, the Party of Regions, and part of our democratic sector," Tymoshenko said speaking to residents of the Minsk district of Kyiv on Tuesday.

"The president has ordered opening criminal cases against the managers of the State Treasury and the acting head of the State Property Fund appointed by the government," she said.

"The Prosecutor General's Office is not only turning a blind eye to corruption but, along with other government bodies, they also provide protection to this," she said.

The Prosecutor General's Office has also barred the government from depriving the Vanco company of a license to develop Black Sea offshore resources, Tymoshenko said. "This company is owned by members of the Party of Regions and a Russian company," she said.

"Now the democratic president together with the Prosecutor General's Office, which they own fifty-fifty with the Party of Regions, have opened a criminal case against me," she said.

Tymoshenko also accused the presidential secretariat of corruption. "How can I keep silent when I take documents and see that the Yanukovych government handed 350 hectares of land and 300 hectares of forests to presidential secretariat chief [Viktor] Baloha?" she said.

"I have only one way to go, forward, and ignore any obstacles" in the current situation, she said.

"We will not surrender and will go until the president, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Verkhovna Rada and courts serve you [the Ukrainian public] rather than each other," Tymoshenko said.

Source: Interfax

President Meets With Central Bank Governor

KIEV, Ukraine -- President Viktor Yushchenko, who has been opposing the rapid appreciation of the hryvnia as a means of fighting inflation, met the governor of the National Bank of Ukraine for a “conversation.”

Volodymyr Stelmakh
The meeting with Volodymyr Stelmakh comes a day after a senior official at the NBU had disclosed plans to allow the hryvnia within days to gain value against the dollar.

The plans caused nervousness on the forex market on Monday, with the hryvnia rising sharply against the dollar in trading between commercial banks.

“The president had the conversation with the governor of the National Bank,” Oleksandr Shlapak, the first deputy chief-of-staff at the Yushchenko office, said at a press conference. “There must be clarity of how we should behave.”

Yushchenko, himself a former long time governor of the NBU, is known as an advocate of conservative monetary policy calling for the stability of the hryvnia.

Yushchenko is the architect of the current policy, first introduced in September 1997, allowing the hryvnia to trade only within a specified band. The policy a reaction to the Russian financial meltdown that year and helped to prevent similar turbulence in Ukraine.

Shlapak, Yushchenko’s key economic advisor and a former deputy governor at the NBU, said the appreciation of the hryvnia is not the proper response to Ukraine’s inflation challenge.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been pushing for the hryvnia to appreciate against the dollar as a measure to fight the country’s skyrocketing inflation.

The inflation, helped by rising costs of energy and food, rose to more than 30% if measured between April and April 2007, caused by Tymoshenko’s controversial social spending policy.

Yushchenko has persistently called for launching market-oriented measures in response to the inflation challenge, such as liberalization of trade in grain and natural gas.

Oleksandr Savchenko, a deputy governor of the NBU, said Monday that the hryvnia will “very soon,” perhaps within “one, two, or three days” be allowed to have great volatility in trading against the dollar.

The comment led the hryvnia rising 2.3% against the dollar to close at 4.66 hryvnias to the dollar on Monday.

Source: Ukrainian Journal

US To Deport Accused Nazi Guard

CINCINNATI, OH -- Accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk has lost a United States Supreme Court appeal that sought to block his deportation to his native Ukraine.

Accused John Demjanjuk
Without comment, the high court refused to hear an appeal by the 88-year-old retired Ohio auto worker that argued the nation's chief immigration judge lacked the authority to order his deportation.

The rejection of the appeal on Monday marked the latest development in a battle between Demjanjuk and the US Justice Department that began in 1977.

The deportation order, issued in 2005, says that Demjanjuk can be sent to Germany or Poland, as an alternative, if Ukraine refuses to accept him.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said Demjanjuk has exhausted all legal avenues for reversing his deportation order and that the department remains committed to deporting him.

But it appears that no country is willing to take Demjanjuk, either by granting him a visa or to prosecute him for war crimes, according to a former prosecutor in the case.

"I haven't heard any indication that any country ... is willing to accept a war criminal of John Demjanjuk's notoriety," Jonathan Drimmer, who is now in private practice, said in a telephone interview.

"He will remain free, pending whatever removal occurs," Drimmer said. "At this point, any country can accept him."

Demjanjuk was once convicted of being the sadistic guard "Ivan the Terrible" and sentenced to death in Israel. But the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the conviction when new evidence showed another man was probably "Ivan" at the Treblinka camp in Poland where 870,000 people died.

Demjanjuk was twice stripped of his US citizenship, the second time in 2002, when a federal judge ruled he had been a guard at three other Nazi death camps in Poland and Germany.

Demjanjuk has argued that Chief US Immigration Judge Michael Creppy did not have the authority to order his deportation. Judge Creppy can only do administrative duties, Demjanjuk's lawyers said.

But a Board of Immigration Appeals and a US appeals court based in Cincinnati rejected his arguments, prompting his appeal to the Supreme Court.

Demjanjuk's lawyers have said he could be prosecuted and face harsh prison conditions or even torture if he is sent back to Ukraine. But Judge Creppy and then the Board of Immigration Appeals said there was no evidence to support those claims.

Demjanjuk was first stripped of his US citizenship in 1981 and extradited to Israel, where he was sentenced to death in 1988 on eyewitness testimony from Holocaust survivors that he was Ivan of the Treblinka camp.

The Israeli Supreme Court overturned his death sentence in 1993 and freed him after newly released records from the former Soviet Union showed Ivan Marchenko was probably the Treblinka guard.

The US restored Demjanjuk's citizenship in 1998, but the following year the US Justice Department refiled its case against him on the grounds that he had been a Nazi guard at three other death camps.

Demjanjuk, said by his former son-in-law to be in ill health, lives in the Cleveland suburb of Seven Hills. He immigrated to the US in 1952 and became a naturalised citizen in 1958.

Demjanjuk has said he was drafted into the Soviet army and was captured by the Germans. He has denied that he ever helped the Nazis.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Fiddling While Ukraine Burns

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian politicians have been squabbling over the economy for months, but so far all they've achieved is a refined talent for making each other look the fool.

The foolish rivalry between the former 'Orange' allies has led to policymaking paralysis while inflation soars.
The political buffoonery peaked on 13 May, when legislators loyal to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko thwarted President Viktor Yushchenko's state-of-the-nation address before parliament by physically blocking the speaker's chair. Yushchenko had to cancel the speech.

Tymoshenko loyalists called the confrontation retaliation for the president's efforts to block votes on legislation designed to treat a Ukrainian economy infected with rocketing inflation. For his part, Yushchenko blames the premier's office for inaction on inflation.

Central figures in the 2004 Orange Revolution, Tymoshenko and Yushchenko have since seen their relationship deteriorate. The parliament episode demonstrates the fragility of their coalition at a moment when they should be cooperating to fix, not bickering over, the economy.

Instead, they're racing to blame the other for Ukraine's woes before elections in 2010, when Tymoshenko is expected to vie for the presidency.

But the leaders had better start putting as much energy into reconciling as they have into humiliating each other. "Galloping inflation," as Tymoshenko calls it, threatens to become a millstone around the economy's neck.

It has reached unsustainable levels and will remain high if neglected—and 46 million Ukrainians, some of them voters, will be the ones to suffer.

GET SERIOUS

"[Inflation] breached the 30 percent mark in April, again above consensus and clearly something that policymakers have to tackle immediately," analyst Simon Quijano-Evans of UniCredit told Reuters recently.

That annual figure, the highest in the Commonwealth of Independent States, is largely due to rising global food prices. Today, bread is reportedly 20 percent more expensive than a year ago in Ukraine, and the price of eggs is up 70 percent.

Increasing energy costs, growing consumption driven by rising incomes and the dollar's decline against the euro are also fueling price growth. The cratering dollar is significant because the Ukrainian hryvnia is de facto pegged to the U.S. currency.

This means Ukraine imports the inflation of rising food and energy costs through its dollar peg.

The National Bank of Ukraine has intervened to strengthen the hryvnia by allowing its peg to fluctuate over a wider range against the dollar.

This appears to have helped: monthly inflation fell to 3.1 percent in April from 3.8 percent in March.

Tymoshenko, who's publicly committed to reducing price growth, has made much of this. She said the April figure proves the economy is righting itself, a flimsy assertion that makes the Ukrainian premier Hillary Clinton's top rival for the honor of the world's most skilled politician at recasting modest gains as resounding triumphs.

In reality, the best-case scenario is 20 percent inflation by year-end, so much more needs to be done.

The International Monetary Fund has recommended fiscal tightening, since Ukraine can do little about food or energy prices. The government should run a balanced budget in 2008 and reorient spending from social benefits to things like infrastructure, according to the IMF.

Fiscal discipline, however, has not seemed like either Tymoshenko or Yushchenko's priority recently. Since retaking office in December, the prime minister has backed populist policy initiatives such as wage and social benefit hikes that not only increase state spending but also drive inflation by encouraging consumption.

This comes just as the president is squeezing state coffers by stalling several privatization projects worth billions of dollars. One, the Odessa Portside Plant, Ukraine's largest nitrogen fertilizer and ammonia producer, reportedly has a sticker price of $600 million.

Ukraine is expected to have a budget deficit of around 1 percent of GDP this year. The president blames both it and inflation on Tymoshenko, who maintains she inherited the former prime minister's dysfunctional economy and that Yushchenko is trying to undermine her government.

Nevertheless, it's clear both leaders' policies are contributing to a budget imbalance that will keep inflation high.

On the positive side, economic growth remains robust—the IMF's 2008 forecast is 5.6 percent—and Ukraine's entry into the World Trade Organization this month will invigorate the trade economy.

But, as Fitch Ratings noted when downgrading its outlook for Ukraine from positive to stable 14 May, sustained high inflation will erode the economy. The agency urged leaders to develop a clearer inflation strategy.

Allowing the hryvnia to further appreciate is at the center of any meaningful plan, many economists say. That is largely the domain of central bankers, but the prime minister and president could contribute to a broader inflation-reduction strategy by cooperating to meet the IMF's balanced budget target.

The former allies in the struggle to make Ukraine a more open, progressive country would have to put politics aside to do this, of course. Unfortunately, a lust for power seems to have consumed their commitment to progress.

Source: Business Week

Ukraine Halts Deadly Vaccination

KIEV, Ukraine -- The Ukrainian Ministry of Health has called a moratorium on mandatory vaccination against measles and rubella. The President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, has insisted that vaccination is carried out on a voluntary basis only.


This comes after more than 100 pupils were taken to hospital, one of whom died after having been injected with a vaccine from India.

Last week Ukraine was shaken by the news of a teenager’s death. Senior pupil Anton Tishchenko died in intensive care in a hospital in the city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk Region after he’d been given the vaccine against measles and rubella (Tresivac ZA 26-X).

Later, dozens more teenagers who’d received the same medication were rushed to hospital in Kramatorsk alone.

Similar situations were reported in the cities of Donetsk, Kharkov and Kremenchug amongst others.

By Friday night a total of 87 people had been admitted to hospital with the same symptoms: high blood pressure, splitting headache, high temperature and sore throat.

Medical officials urged journalists not to spread “unverified frightening stories”.

They said that the vaccine from the Indian enterprise Serum Institute of India, which had been delivered to Ukraine as humanitarian aid by UNICEF, is not just safe but considered to be “the best in the world”.

They said this vaccine was certificated and registered in Ukraine, but never showed the above mentioned documents to the citizens.

Schoolmates of the deceased Anton Tishchenko say they were told that the vaccination was obligatory and urgent. Therefore many of them did not even have the time to inform their parents about the vaccination.

”We’ll do everything not to lose any more lives,” said Vasily Knyazevich, the head of the Ministry of Health. In turn, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has ordered a thorough investigation into the purchasing process of the medication.

Source: Russia Today

EBRD: Inflation Hitting Eastern Europe Hard

KIEV, Ukraine -- Rising inflation is severely hurting Ukraine and other Eastern European nations, while the global credit crunch will slow growth in those countries dramatically in coming months, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said Sunday.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko (R) and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko attend the annual meeting of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development in Kiev, May 18, 2008.
"Inflation, now in double digits in many countries, is the region's most pressing current problem. If left unaddressed, inflation could risk price-wage spirals, exchange rate realignments, or could force a belated and sharp response by monetary policy," the bank said in a statement.

Gathering in Kiev for their two-day annual meeting, bank officials were scheduled to discuss the impact of global economic turmoil and soaring food prices, among other topics.

The worldwide credit crunch could sharply pinch markets in ex-Soviet bloc nations, and as a result, the bank said it had downgraded gross domestic product growth projections for Ukraine and other countries.

Overall growth of 6 percent is expected in Eastern Europe this year, compared with 7.3 percent in 2007, the bank said.

Real GDP growth in Ukraine is expected to slow to 5.5 percent in 2008, the bank said. The government had earlier projected a 6.8 percent pace.

The bank also attributed the slowdown to rapid increases in consumer prices, which will affect household incomes and consumption.

Neighboring Russia, meanwhile, will continue its rapid oil- and gas-fueled economic expansion, with growth expected to reach 7 percent this year, the bank said.

The EBRD is the largest financial investor in Ukraine, investing up to $1.6 billion annually into projects ranging from banking to infrastructure.

Governors of the EBRD — which is meeting in Kiev for only the second time — were also expected to appoint German Deputy Finance Minister Thomas Mirow as a successor to President Jean Lemierre.

Source: AP

Ukraine Gives More Powers To President

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko voiced support yesterday for legislation strengthening the powers of the president with whom she has been at loggerheads, saying her government backed the law for the sake of democratic unity.

Viktor Yushchenko has regained some of the powers lost after the 'Orange Revolution'.
“At the president’s request, our political team voted for a new law on the cabinet, reducing the government’s powers ... and increasing those of the president,” she told a press conference.

“We supported (the legislation) for the sake of the unity of the democratic coalition.”

President Viktor Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were allies who led the 2004 Orange Revolution that peacefully overturned a rigged election originally awarded to a Moscow-backed candidate.

But relations between the two have since cooled.

Nevertheless Tymoshenko defended the unity of the democratic coalition with Yushchenko’s party, saying she hoped the new arrangements would “harmonise our activity and provide the government with the possibility to work”.

On Saturday Yushchenko approved the new legislation strengthening his authority over the government by allowing him to install pro-Western figures in key posts.

It gives him the power to block prime ministerial candidates and leaves the nomination of foreign and defence ministers in his hands alone.

The law, overturning a 2007 decree which clipped the president’s wings and asserted governmental control through parliament, won the votes of 245 pro-Western members loyal to Yushchenko – 19 more than the legal minimum.

Meanwhile, Yuschenko, on a visit to London, said in an interview broadcast yesterday that the arrival of the new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev should help improve the Kremlin’s strained relations with Kiev.

He responded positively when asked by Britain’s Sky News television whether Vladimir Putin’s departure would boost ties between the two countries. “I think so. I think that both parties are interested in improving their relations,” he said in translated comments from Ukrainian.

“I think we have to get rid of some kind of orthodox policies that sometimes (get) in the way of improving relations.

“I can see many politicians right now in Russia who are ready to well understand the new layout, independent states, there are very optimistic politicians.”

Yuschenko described Medvedev, who came to power on May 7, that the new Russian leader was “a person of my generation”, adding:

“This generation doesn’t think a lot about stereotypes all the time.

“We really and truly want progress with the new president of Russia. And we will be doing everything for that.”

Relations between Kiev and Moscow have worsened ever since the so-called “Orange Revolution” of 2005 when Yuschenko was elected president on a pro-Western ticket.

Source: AFP

Ukraine Leader Sees Thaw With Medvedev`s Russia

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine expects to have better ties with Russia under its new president Dmitry Medvedev, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said on Sunday.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
"We really and truly want progress with the new president of Russia and we will be doing everything possible for that," Yushchenko told Britain's Sky News in an interview during a visit to London.

"I think that (Medvedev) is a person of my generation. And this generation does not think a lot about stereotypes of the past," he added.

"I think that both parties are interested in improving their relations. I think we have to get rid of some orthodoxy of policy that sometimes gets in the way of improving relations."

Yushchenko, who aims to bring his country of 40 million into NATO and the European Union, had frequent disputes with Russia under former president Vladimir Putin, who now serves as prime minister under his newly elected successor, Medvedev.

Putin strongly opposed Ukraine's goal of joining NATO. Moscow still has considerable leverage over Ukraine because it supplies it with energy, and much of the population in eastern Ukraine is Russian-speaking with cultural links to Russia.

But Yushchenko said it was Kiev's sovereign right to determine its own foreign policy, and that he believed a new generation of Russian politicians was willing to accept that.

"I can see many politicians right now in Russia who are ready to well understand the new layout of independent states. Therefore I am a very optimistic politician," Yushchenko said

Source: Javno

A Voice Of Mother Russia, In English

NEW YORK, NY -- Judging from the news lately, Russia is well on its way to restoring that old Evil Empire image. Military parades have returned to Red Square. Key businesses are choked by corruption or are under state control.

Sasha Young on a Russia Today set.
Journalists who probe too deeply turn up dead. And critics of the Kremlin are jailed, pushed out of elections or, in one instance, mysteriously poisoned.

But on Russia Today, an English-language news channel begun in 2005 and financed by the Russian government, a more generous picture emerges. In this Russia, corruption is not quite a scourge but a symptom of a developing economy. And concerns about street thugs, poverty and Ukraine’s aspirations for European Union membership trump fears over Vladimir V. Putin’s grip on power.

This Moscow-based channel’s view of Russia is available to 120 million television viewers worldwide. That includes 20 million in the United States since last summer, when Russia Today was added to Time Warner Cable’s digital package in the New York City region.

The Russian government has already poured more than $100 million into Russia Today, prompting charges that Kremlin sponsorship affects its coverage. Andrei N. Illarionov, a former adviser to Mr. Putin and now one of his critics, last year called the channel Russia’s “best propaganda machine for the outside world.” The station is part of the state-owned news conglomerate RIA Novosti, and news organizations routinely refer to it as “state-run,” including The New York Times, which has said it was created to promote “pro-Kremlin views.”

Although it was conceived to counter what it sees as a Western news bias against Russia, the channel bills itself as “an autonomous nonprofit organization,” and its executives say they do not take orders from the Kremlin.

“I’m a bit tired to try to explain that we are independent, that I don’t get calls from the government — I do not,” said Margarita Simonyan, Russia Today’s editor in chief. “We want to develop into a really trusted name that people turn to because they want to know what’s going on in the country.”

Ms. Simonyan herself has been a focus of the channel’s critics. Andrei Richter, the director of the Moscow Media Law and Policy Institute and a journalism professor at Moscow State University, said the editor, a 28-year-old former pool reporter for the Kremlin, was appointed because she is well-connected.

Ms. Simonyan acknowledged she once received flowers on her birthday from Mr. Putin, who stepped down this month but will retain power as the country’s prime minister. Still, she said, her age often leads people to make assumptions about how she got her job.

“I realize that it’s quite remarkable for someone who doesn’t live in Russia,” Ms. Simonyan said, adding that after the fall of the Soviet Union a new crop of young journalists was hired. “I started my career when I was 18.”

With a slick studio and polished graphics, Russia Today looks like most cable news channels. But there are a few differences. Technical problems plague live telecasts. While all the Russian reporters speak English, some have thick accents. And many staff members are as young as their editor. That youthfulness is reflected in many of the segments, like the campy “Technology Update”; in one episode a reporter rolled around in a simulated skirmish with Russian special forces, testing out anti-sniper gadgetry to the tune of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.”

The channel has also reported on serious news events. In November, as water cannons struck anti-government demonstrators in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, the Russia Today correspondent Katerina Azarova was reporting so close to the protests that she was poisoned by tear gas. Watching the channel’s round-the-clock coverage of the unrest in Tbilisi felt like peeking into a foreign newscast — without needing to know a foreign language.

Despite such ambitions, several former Russia Today journalists said that working for a channel financed by the Kremlin made it difficult to cover news about Russia impartially. “You are understandably walking a very fine line of being full and frank and biting the hand that feeds,” said Carson Scott, a former business news presenter who is now with Sky News Business Channel in Australia. “I had countless heated editorial debates with my editor, frankly speaking. I was very vocal. ‘We have to give the other side of the argument. We have to be balanced.’ And oftentimes eyes just glazed over.”

But several of Russia Today’s journalists said they were earnestly trying to tell Russia’s story. “No one is telling me what to say,” said Peter Lavelle, the effusive host of “In Context.” Nevertheless, he said, the channel does take certain views. “Part of our mission is public relations,” he added.

Some of the channel’s specials seek to expose and correct Western biases about Russia. An episode of “Cracking the Myths” about Russia’s economy opens with Jay Leno-style street interviews with Americans, who guess that most Russians subsist on penny-a-day incomes or wait in line for hours to get bread. The show then offers scenes of Russian prosperity, like a shopping mall brimming with members of the expanding middle class.

Mr. Richter said that this tendency to shape opinions reveals one of the channel’s flaws. “The idea of Russia Today is that our country is in a very hostile media environment,” he said. “The idea is very rotten because if you believe you’re in a hostile environment, you want to persuade others that what they think is not true.”

The concept of state-sponsored news aimed to viewers abroad is not new. During the cold war Western-financed radio stations like Voice of America, which began broadcasting in Russian in 1947, existed in part to counter Soviet spin. Russia Today has inverted the recipe, broadcasting in English from Russia in the hopes of improving Russia’s increasingly ominous image in the West. And it is but the first in what has become a veritable parade of state-financed anglophone news channels.

Since Russia Today’s debut Iran (Press TV), China (CCTV-9), France (France 24) and Qatar (Al Jazeera English) have created their own English news networks. Al Jazeera’s English spinoff is clearly the leader of this pack, drawing on the credibility of its Arabic-language counterpart and the deep pockets of the emir of Qatar.

Ben O’Loughlin, an international relations professor at the University of London’s Royal Holloway campus, studies the emergence of state-financed news channels jockeying to have a voice in what he calls “the anglosphere.”

“The journalists at Russia Today probably don’t see themselves as political pawns,” Mr. O’Loughlin said. “They might say their goal isn’t objectivity, it’s balance — having both sides. If we’re interested in a pluralistic global media, then in many respects this could be a good thing, but that’s very provisional.”

For at least one viewer the question of the channel’s independence is irrelevant. Alexandr Polin, a Manhattan event planner who left St. Petersburg in 1991, said he considered it propaganda, but not in the Soviet style. “I watched a documentary yesterday about AIDS,” he said. “In Soviet times they would never say that people were sick somewhere.”

Mr. Polin said that Western news coverage often eclipsed the good things happening back home: “It’s not only Mafia, Red Square, vodka and prostitutes.”

Source: The New York Times

Ukraine Leader Bars Chemical Selloff For Third Time

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, at odds for months with his prime minister, has barred for a third time the government's bid to privatise a leading chemical plant, the Odessa Port plant.

Viktor Yushchenko
A presidential decree issued late on Friday, after a meeting of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, ordered a stop to the government's scheduled May 20 selloff of the plant.

But Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko ignored Yushchenko and said the privatisation would go ahead.

The plant near the Black Sea port of Odessa has been one of the flashpoints of confrontations pitting Yushchenko against Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko -- his on again-off again ally from the 2004 "Orange Revolution" that swept him to power.

The president had twice before halted the sale on grounds that the plant is of strategic importance.

He also said the sale must not include an adjoining pipeline and export terminal, saying any buyer would secure control over it and could exclude other producers.

Tymoshenko told an investment conference held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development: "We will conduct the fairest privatisation in 17 years on Tuesday."

Ukraine's privatisation agency, the State Property Fund, this week said three companies - Yevrokhim from Russia, Nortima from Ukraine and Nitrofert from Estonia had completed applications to take part in the auction.

The government has set a starting price of almost $600 million for the fertiliser producer.

The State Property Fund has been another focal point of rows between the president and his premier.

The government dismissed the Fund's head, who opposed the Odessa sale, and installed its own chairman, but the president over-ruled the move.

Under a new law on the cabinet passed by parliament on Friday -- restoring some of the president's powers lost since he took office -- decisions adopted by the National Security and Defence Council are binding on the government.

Source: Guardian UK

An Ominous Sign For Ukraine

HARTFORD, CT -- Last week, Russian tanks, missile launchers and columns of goose-stepping soldiers again paraded through Red Square. The Victory Day parade sent a collective shudder through the republics of the former Soviet Union.

Russian T-90 battle tanks roll through Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow May 9, 2008. President Dmitry Medvedev warned against "irresponsible ambitions" that lead to war as tanks and missile launchers rumbled over Red Square in a show of Russian fire-power not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Although the modern governments of Japan and Germany have renounced their militaristic past and have worked to atone for the acts of genocide committed by the Nazis and the Hirohito regime, the new rulers of Russia remain in a state of denial about the horrific crimes their predecessors inflicted on millions of people throughout Eastern Europe and Asia.

Not only are Vladimir Putin and his hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev completely unrepentant about their Soviet past, they are actively promoting a resurgence of Russian chauvinism and militant imperialism that is clearly aimed at intimidating its neighbors and reasserting Russia's dominance as a world power.

Today, human rights activists and members of the Ukrainian American community from across Connecticut will meet at the state Capitol to commemorate the 75th anniversary of one of the most brutal campaigns of ethnic cleansing ever perpetrated on a defenseless population.

In the late 1920s, Josef Stalin ordered the collectivization of farms throughout the Soviet Union. When Ukrainian farmers resisted his policies, Stalin ordered the confiscation of grain and foodstuffs from villages throughout eastern Ukraine and the predominantly Ukrainian ethnic areas of Kuban and the Northern Caucasus.

Millions of Ukrainians starved to death in what became known as the Holodomor ("death by hunger") or The Great Famine. Years later, Stalin admitted to Winston Churchill that the death toll from his forced collectivization campaign was more than 10 million people.

This was accompanied by the execution of Ukrainian political leaders and the mass deportation of Ukrainians into Siberian death camps in an attempt to crush their cultural identity.

Khrushchev told the delegates to the 1956 Communist Party Congress that Stalin harbored such a deep antipathy for the Ukrainians that he would have deported them all to Siberia, except there were too many of them.

While the Soviets exported the bumper crops they had seized, the secret police and military sealed off Ukraine's borders to prevent foreign observers or relief shipments from reaching the victims.

Gareth Jones, a British embassy official, was one of the few Westerners who defied Stalin's orders and slipped into Ukraine on foot to witness the horror. He wrote about the swollen stomachs of the children in the cottages where he slept.

Historian Robert Conquest compared the Ukrainian countryside in 1933 to "one vast Belsen where a quarter of the rural population ... lay dead or dying, the rest in various stages of debilitation with no strength to bury their families or neighbors."

Years later these ghost towns and prairies were resettled by ethnic Russians who remained loyal to the Kremlin and largely ignorant of the plight of the people they replaced.

Unlike the Nuremberg Trials, there was never an accounting for the crimes committed against the Ukrainian people. Today, as a new Russian regime tries to rekindle a perverse nostalgia for its Soviet past, it is vital for the world community to remember the Holodomor and to insist that such crimes never be repeated.

Source: Hartford Courant

Ukraine Joins WTO, Forcing Economic Reforms And Opening New Trade Channels

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine became the 152nd country to join the World Trade Organization on Friday after 14 years of negotiations, getting in ahead of bigger neighbor Russia and committing the former Soviet republic to economic reforms and opening new trade channels.

Banner at WTO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland welcoming Ukraine as the 152nd member.
Experts expect new economic ties to boost chiefly agricultural, chemical and metals exports.

A membership protocol ratified by parliament last month officially came into effect Friday, according to a statement from President Viktor Yushchenko's office.

Over the 14 years of accession negotiations, Ukraine implemented a range of economic reforms and amended more than 50 laws to bring the country into line with WTO norms. Membership obliges Kiev to further reforms.

Russia, its main trade partner, is the only major economy yet to join. Ukraine will have veto power over Russian accession but may be eager to see Moscow bound by the same trade rules amid political tension.

Many believe Russia's inclusion in the trade club would be beneficial to Ukraine because it would prevent Moscow from applying tariffs that are against WTO rules.

Key Ukrainian exports to Russia include spirits, oil, sugar and various raw materials.

Yushchenko has promised that Ukraine would not unfairly use its new position inside the WTO to damage Russia's 15-year accession bid.

"I would warn of an aggravation of relations" if Ukraine were to block Russia's entry, said Kostantyn Kuznetsov, an economic analyst at the Kiev-based Razumkov think tank. "That would be "wrong ... and a way that leads nowhere."

Ukraine was formally invited to join the global trading community on Feb. 5.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Ukraine Has First Cannes Pavillion

CANNES, France -- For the first time, Ukraine has its own pavilion at the festival. Situated in the Village International, the pavilion provides the latest information on Ukrainian cinema, promos for new films and screenings.


Organized by the Ukrainian Cinema Foundation, the screenings kicked off Thursday with the aptly named "Casting" from director Oleksandr Shapiro. The film combines 36 actors' casting sessions to create a vignette-style feature about Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.

Aleksandr Kiriyenko's "Illusion of Fear" follows May 19 with the tale of a local businessman who gets caught up in what appears to be a corrupt legal system and turns out to be a fantastical illusion.

Set on the Greek island of Lesbos, "Sappho," from Robert Crombie, screens Wednesday21 and tells the tale of a modern-day love triangle between American newlyweds and a young woman.

Causing controversy on home soil, "Sappho" trebled the all-time cinema boxoffice record for a locally produced movie in Ukraine in March, despite a 20,000-strong petition from religious groups calling for the movie to be banned.

Other screenings include a film about the Ukrainian war leader Bohdan-Zinoviy Khmelnitskiy, who stood up against the rule of feudal Poland (1649-57); and "Vladyka Andrey" from director Oles Yanchuk, about the life and work of Andrei Sheptycky (1865-1944), a historic figure and church leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

Ukraine also exhibited for the first time at the European Film Market in Berlin in February.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

WTO In Ukraine ~ Government Optimistic, Experts Less So

KIEV, Ukraine -- World Trade Organization regulations on reduced tariffs and increased competition went into effect in Ukraine on Friday, extending a ray of hope to hapless Ukrainian consumers up against rocketing inflation, and their leaders facing retribution at the polls.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko (L) with WTO Director General Pascal Lamy in February, 2008.
President Viktor Yushchenko was unequivocal shortly before flying to Geneva in February to sign the final agreement on Ukraine entrance into the WTO, predicting as a 1.7 per cent bump to GDP, and a dramatic downturn in consumer prices, from Kiev's accession to the WTO.

'These are (economic) results that no one can oppose,' Yushchenko said.

Ominously, prices paid by Ukrainian voters for most consumer goods rose some 10 - 15 per cent in the three months between the time Yushchenko signed the WTO treaty, and its coming into effect on Friday.

Annually, Ukrainian price inflation is close to 50 per cent, by some standards the world's third worst.

Economics Minister Bohdan Danilishin was adamant on Thursday that WTO membership would provide relief.

'Consumers will receive a double benefit,' argued Minister Bohdan Danilishin according to Interfax. 'Lower income consumers will be able to buy cheaper food, while non-poor consumers will benefit from greater access to telecoms and financial services.'

But independent Ukrainian media and economists have questioned the government's rosy hopes, predicting substantial benefits for a lucky few tycoons, but only marginal gains for average Ukrainians.

Ukrainian steel magnates are by most accounts positioned to ring up record profits, as WTO rules going into effect midnight Friday halved overnight steel import duties levied by he US and the EU.

Even better for Ukraine's frequently litigous steel barons, now that Ukraine is a WTO member Ukrainian steel cannot be excluded from a market on claims of dumping - the accusation must now be proved in a court.

'We can be sure our metals oligarchs and their lawyers will not sit quietly in the future, when it comes to protecting their profits,' editorialised Sehodnia newspaper.

Other commodities likely to pour out of Ukraine in increasing export quantities, and so increase the wealth of the lucky few businessmen controlling the stream, include fertilisers, wheat, chemicals, and sunflower seeds, Fakty newspaper reported.

Ukrainian agricultural barons, in contrast, are likely to take a hit once WTO rules cancel government-imposed quotas on foreign product, and force Ukrainian farms to pay VAT, Silski Novyny newspaper reported.

But Ukrainian farmers, facing WTO changes making their product 20 to 40 per cent more expensive overnight, already have retaliated by spiking retail food prices as much as 50 per cent since the beginning of the year, Korrespondent newspaper reported.

'Imported foods of course might be able to take advantage of the price hikes, but that assumes we have a free and open foods market here,' pointed out Bogoslav Pilishinsky, a Kiev-based food industry trader.

'Our foods market is overregulated, expensive to enter, and has a few major players,' he said. 'Foreign food will probably replace Ukrainian food on supermarket shelves, but I don't see any incentives for supermarket chains to cut their prices.'

Retail goods, particularly those not produced in quantity in Ukraine anyway, will post-WTO fall in price at least somewhat, observers said. Items accounted likely to become cheaper included household appliances, apparel, medical supplies, and automobiles.

'But it's hard to say how much good that is going to do across the board,' said Vadym Kozachenko, a Kiev-based economist. 'The poor ones just buy food, and the rich ones are going to buy in any case.'

'The risk factor here is that WTO membership typically benefits middle class consumers,' Kozachenko said. 'There aren't that many mid-range consumers like that in our economy - we have a few very rich, and a great many poor

Source: M&C

Spot The Difference: Gordon Brown Meets His Match In Ukrainian President Yushchenko

LONDON, UK -- One is a veteran political bruiser who has stayed a step ahead of the assassins. The other is Gordon Brown. When the Prime Minister and Ukrainian leader Viktor Yuschenko emerged from a Downing Street meeting yesterday, they could easily have been mistaken for twins.

The resemblance is astonishing.
Such was the similarity in their suits, build and demeanour it brought suggestions of an astonishing advance in the science of cloning.

Here the Daily Mail takes a sideways look at the two leaders.

The pair had committed the ultimate sartorial gaffe and had managed to get dressed in what appeared to be identical clothes.

One can only guess whether the two political powerhouses had a meeting of minds, but there was certainly a union in the style-stakes.

Recently the Prime Minister has been attempting to revamp his image.

Mr Brown made an extraordinary appearance on U.S. talent show American Idol last month.

The move came just days after hiring an advisor solely to look after his image.

He recorded a special message for the hit programme, but fortunately, Mr Brown was not showcasing his vocal talents.

He was instead making a charity appeal about the fight against malaria.

This morning, Mr Brown's reputation was left dented again when he admitted during an interview that he was "probably" the best person to lead the country.

The Prime Minister stumbled his way through a tough interview with Radio 4's John Humphrys.

Asked if he was the best man to lead the country, Mr Brown paused before saying: "Yes... probably."

But he admitted there were "others" who would be able to do his job, before insisting that his experience as chancellor would help him lead Britain away from a looming recession.

The Prime Minister was also interviewed on Sky News as he attempted to re-launch his premiership in the wake of disappointing local election results last week and his U-turn over the 10p tax revolt.

Source: Daily Mail

Yushchenko Will Be Marginalized By Constitutional And Political Instability In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- The three holiday breaks (Easter, May Day and World War II Victory Day) gave only a short respite before the two main figures in Ukrainian politics, President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, resumed their fight to the bitter end.

Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Baloha
Yushchenko and Tymoshenko are ostensibly members of the same democratic (i.e. “Orange”) coalition established after the September 2007 pre-term elections. The conflict within the “Orange” camp was evident on May 13, when the Tymoshenko bloc blockaded parliament to protest what it described as “sabotage” of government policies. It prevented the president from giving his annual address, which was unprecedented in Ukraine's 17 years of independence.

The center of the conflict is the head of the presidential secretariat Viktor Baloha, little known until the 2002 elections except in his home border region of Trans-Carpathia.

The majority of Western embassies, a large share of Ukrainian politicians (even from Our Ukraine-Peoples Self Defense [NU-NS] and the opposition Party of Regions), think tanks, journalists and the public are united in their view that Baloha’s strident antagonism to Tymoshenko does more harm than good to the president and to the NU-NS, of which Baloha is honorary chairman.

Most observers of Ukrainian politics cannot understand how the president can let his chief of staff make daily denunciations and demands to its government, without a moral or constitutional basis on which to do so. Yushchenko appears oblivious to the negative effect this has on his own and the NU-NS’s ratings.

A May poll found that for the first time the hero of the Orange Revolution had higher negative approval ratings than positive. Only 13 percent trust Yushchenko, while 26.5 percent distrust him (the respective figures are 30 and 26 percent for Tymoshenko and 24 and 26 percent for Viktor Yanukovych). The same poll found that the Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT) continues to have greater support (25 percent) than the Party of Regions (23 percent) with NU-NS support collapsing from 14 percent in the 2007 elections to 5.4 percent.

In a May 6 statement Baloha continued to lambaste the government’s policies. The major bone of contention remains privatization, but the roles have been reversed since the 2005 Tymoshenko government.

As Yushchenko and Baloha repeatedly stress, they do not agree that a portion of the proceeds from privatization should continue going toward the repayment of lost or stolen Soviet bank savings, the first tranche of which was paid in January.

Baloha complained that the costs from the privatization of the Odessa Port Terminal, which the president is repeatedly attempting to halt, should go toward economic growth and societal needs and not for a “one-off PR ploy” for Tymoshenko.

The repayment of Soviet era savings lost in Russia’s nationalization of Soviet banking assets in 1991 and Ukraine’s 1993 hyperinflation has become hostage to the January 2010 presidential elections.

President Yushchenko is threatened by Tymoshenko’s high ratings, one reason for which is the popularity she has gained from fulfilling her 2007 electoral pledge to repay the lost savings.

The repeated non-fulfillment of election promises has had a negative impact on both Yushchenko’s and the NU-NS’s ratings. Yushchenko’s 2004 election program supported the government’s repayment of savings.

If elected, Yushchenko promised to “make the oligarchs really pay all their taxes. I am against a re-division of property, but oligarchs will be made to pay a real price for the enterprises that they have grabbed during privatization (prykhvatizatsiya grab-ization) practically for nothing and the billions of hryvni from this will go toward repaying the stolen savings of citizens.”

The continuing attacks by Yushchenko and Baloha on Tymoshenko have also had four important ramifications.

First, they have continued to demonstrate that Yushchenko does not comply with the rule of law. This was exemplified by his legally questionable April 2, 2007, decree disbanding parliament.

A wide variety of commentaries have pointed to the lack of constitutionality for the majority of the president’s interferences in the work of Tymoshenko’s government. The president, let alone a state bureaucrat who heads his secretariat, has no legal right, for example, to intervene in economic affairs and privatization.

BYuT Deputy Mykola Tomenko wondered on what grounds the secretariat “teaches the Ukrainian people and government how to work.”

Second, the attacks and rivalry have eroded the president’s support to such an extent that nearly all commentators agree that Yushchenko cannot be elected to a second term.

His ferociously anti-Tymoshenko stance immediately following her confirmation as prime minister on December 18 of last year lost Yushchenko the opportunity to align himself with her electoral prowess and popularity to win a second term as an Orange president while she would remain prime minister.

Third, the attacks have pushed Tymoshenko and BYuT beyond tolerating interference and unrelenting criticism on a greater scale than from even the opposition’s shadow cabinet.

The situation came to a head in mid April in a week that witnessed an anti-Tymoshenko pamphlet distributed at a meeting between the president and governors, Tymoshenko’s speech to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Yushchenko’s two-hour diatribe against alleged corruption in the Tymoshenko government, threats by the presidential secretariat to launch criminal proceedings against the government and a harsh BYuT parliamentary response.

The outcome was again not to the president’s advantage.

Ukraine’s most pro-presidential political force, the BYuT, which was the only faction to vote against constitutional reforms on December 8, 2004, is today in the vanguard in drawing up a parliamentary constitution that severely reduces presidential powers.

The Party of Regions, which feared a Tymoshenko victory under the 2006 constitution, cannot believe what luck it now has in finding in the BYuT an unlikely ally in parliament.

Yushchenko’s Constitutional Council, which he hoped would bring in constitutional reforms that would give him back powers, is for all purposes dead in the water.

Finally, Yushchenko’s unwillingness to abide by the 2006 constitution that he himself negotiated in December 2004 has led to two near-violent incidents.

In May 2007 and April 2008 the president illegally ordered the presidential guard to take control of the offices of the prosecutor-general and the State Property Fund. Government buildings are supposed to be protected by Interior Ministry’s Special Forces, not the presidential guard.

The two months leading to the summer recess are likely to determine Yushchenko’s fate. If a new constitutional process is set in motion in parliament, next year will see pre-term parliamentary and presidential elections, in which Yushchenko is likely to be eclipsed from Ukrainian politics.

Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor

Boxing Champ Klitschko, 0-1 In Political Arena, Seeks Second Shot At Becoming Kiev Mayor

KIEV, Ukraine -- Former heavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko has found politics in Ukraine's capital to be a bruising business. So tough, in fact, that he has hired Rudy Giuliani to advise him in his campaign to be Kiev's mayor.

Boxing champ Vitaly Klitschko
The retired pugilist is one of the frontrunners in May 25 election, a political free-for-all that has drawn 79 candidates. But he lost a similar bid two years ago, after what he recalls as some rough handling by the media and opponents.

"Sometimes I wish I could meet people inside the ring, where there are clear rules," said Klitschko, who has 34 career knockouts and literally towers over the political field at 2 meters. "But physical power decides nothing in politics."

Former New York mayor Giuliani was in Kyiv on Tuesday to take part in an investment forum and hold a joint press conference with Klitschko.

Among the 36-year-old Klitschko's most formidable rivals is the incumbent, Leonid Chernovetsky, a popular and eccentric figure who has been accused by rivals of corruption and literally brawled with Ukraine's top police official in January.

Another main candidate to run this city of 2.7 million is First Vice-Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov, an ally of Ukraine's powerful prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, the heroine of the Orange Revolution.

Turchynov is running a bare-knuckled campaign: After Klitschko put up posters declaring "Kiev needs a strong mayor," Turchynov responded with posters announcing "Kiev needs a smart mayor."

The implied dig at Klitschko's intellect comes despite the boxer's doctorate in physical education, his reputation as a dedicated chess player and his fondness for classical literature. His combination of brawn and brains led one publication to nickname him "Dr. Iron Fist."

Both Klitschko and Turchinov are trying to appeal to supporters of the 2004 Orange Revolution. Those peaceful protests overturned rigged election results and ushered in new leaders who promised reform and sought closer ties to the West.

Candidates here are routinely suspected of representing powerful business interests, and Klitschko - himself a millionaire - admits his supporters include businessmen. But he casts himself as an independent whose main focus is fighting corruption.

In summarizing his goals, he told the story of being stopped by a policewoman in Hamburg, Germany several years ago. She asked for his autograph then noticed he wasn't wearing his seat belt - and wrote him a ticket for $46.

That, he said, is the kind of law-abiding spirit Ukraine needs.

"We can't change the life in Kyiv without breaking crime and corruption's rule," he said.

Klitschko said he also wants to preserve the historic character of this 1,500-year-old city, with its tree-shaded streets that climb rolling hills.

Ukraine's economy is booming and Kyiv is suffering from growing pains, with snarled roads and new buildings sprouting up everywhere - often on parkland and historic properties.

"It's painful to see how people have changed the face of Kyiv," he said.

When Klitschko ran for mayor two years ago, he said, he was surprised by the hostile coverage. "Everything I did was just bad," he said in an interview.

Even his unpolished Ukrainian - he grew up speaking Russian like many Ukrainians born in the Soviet era - became a campaign issue in 2006.

Now, he says, his language skills have improved - although he feels it should never have become a political issue. "People try to make from a mouse an elephant," he said.

A recent Klitschko rally at Kyiv Politechnical University drew several hundred students, some of them star-struck autograph seekers. He was impossible to miss, wading through the crowd in a slick gray suit.

Klitschko said he wakes up at 6 am every morning and works out, not in preparation for campaigning, but for a return to the boxing ring. He retired in November 2005, after sustaining a knee injury, pulling out of a defense of his World Boxing Council heavyweight title.

Now, he hopes to regain the title this summer.

If he can, he said he and his younger brother, Wladimir, who holds heavyweight titles for the International Boxing Federation, World Boxing Organization and International Boxing Organization, would be the first brothers to share four major belts at the same time.

"I want to write history," Klitschko said.

Source: Kyiv Post

Who Is Really To Blame For Record-High Inflation In Ukraine?

WASHINGTON, DC -- Inflation in Ukraine was 3.1 percent in April and 13.1 percent from January through April. This was the highest inflation rate of any former Soviet state, twice as high as in Russia.

President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in file photo.
The Yulia Tymoshenko government drafted the state budget for 2008 based on the expectation that annual inflation would reach 9.6 percent. In early April, however, the International Monetary Fund forecast that Ukrainian inflation would reach 20 to 22 percent by December.

Ukraine used to have four-digit inflation after the break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, but fiscal discipline and economic reform lowered inflation to an annual average of 5 percent from 2001 to 2003.

Inflation was again high in 2007, at 17 percent, and Tymoshenko blamed that on an erroneous economic course of her predecessor, former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. She promised to lower inflation in 2008, but it is clear by now that she will not deliver on her promise.

President Viktor Yushchenko’s team says that Tymoshenko is stoking inflation by pursuing populist social expenditures. Yushchenko, who views Tymoshenko as his main rival in the 2010 presidential election, suspects her of buying popular support.

Tymoshenko’s critics forecast that she will resign closer to the election, blaming the bad shape of the economy on her opponents who, she will say, torpedoed her reform efforts.

The Tymoshenko cabinet argues that fiscal discipline is tight and that social spending is not so high as to affect inflation seriously.

Tymoshenko says that Yushchenko spoils everything by preventing her from directly steering the country’s economy, thwarting her privatization plans and telling the regional governors to ignore her instructions.

With regard to inflation, Tymoshenko says that the situation is not bad at all. When the inflation statistics for April were released, she spoke about a slowdown in inflation, as the April figure of 3.1 percent was lower than March’s 3.8 percent.

“When we came to power,” Tymoshenko said on May 7, “we promised society to curb the inflation that Ukraine inherited from the previous cabinet within five to six months. April statistics show that that slowdown has begun.”

Tymoshenko said that the prices of more than 20 basic foodstuffs had dropped in April. In particular, she said that from April 2007 to April 2008 the prices of sugar, vegetable oil, and dairy products had “stabilized.”

The State Statistics Committee, however, reported that prices had increased for sunflower oil by 114 percent, for sugar by 26.8 percent, and for dairy products by some 40 percent. On the average, food prices in Ukraine had grown by 47.4 percent during this period.

Yushchenko’s economic adviser Oleksandr Shlapak said that 3.1 percent was an “extremely high” inflation level, higher than at the beginning of 2008. Yushchenko called the price trends “appalling.” “No one can be reconciled with the fact that they have become 13 percent less well off in the first four months of 2008,” he said. Yushchenko called on the government to come up with a national plan to fight inflation.

The chief of Yushchenko’s secretariat, Viktor Baloha, issued a statement saying that Tymoshenko was unable to deal with the negative trends. He recalled that April was usually quiet in terms of inflation, as the rate was zero in April 2007 and -0.4 percent in April 2006.

Baloha accused Tymoshenko of depleting state coffers by allowing meat and sugar to be imported without customs duties in order to contain inflation, and by ordering that salaries and social benefits be raised in September rather than in November, as planned.

Baloha suggested that Tymoshenko was “preparing to resign with the prospect of an election” ahead. The government, he said, “will certainly count the increased wages to its credit as the greatest blessing for the people.”

First Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov is less optimistic about inflation than Tymoshenko. Speaking at a press conference on May 7, he accused five unnamed regional governors of “sabotaging” the government’s anti-inflation measures by refusing to sell cheap foodstuffs from the state reserves.

He said that the five had been summoned to Kyiv for “a serious conversation.” Yushchenko, however, instructed them to ignore the government’s invitation. Earlier this year, he decreed that all regional governors should coordinate their trips with the presidential office.

Tymoshenko complained that her cabinet was effectively cut off from the governors’ offices, as Yushchenko did not allow the governors to attend a single sitting of the government in the last four months.

Speaking in Kyiv on May 12, Tymoshenko rejected the rumors about her imminent resignation. On May 13 the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc prevented Yushchenko from delivering his annual address to the nation by blocking the parliament rostrum in protest against parliament’s failure to pass anti-inflation laws.

Anders Aslund of the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics claimed in an article for Project Syndicate that Yushchenko, rather than Tymoshenko, was to blame for high inflation.

He said that the central bank, subordinated to Yushchenko, had insisted on pegging the national currency, the hryvni, to the weakening U.S. dollar, effectively stoking inflation.

Aslund said that Yushchenko “seems more interested in harming Tymoshenko politically than in capping inflation.”

Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor

McCain Consultant Is Tied To Work For Ukraine Party

WASHINGTON, DC -- A consultant to Sen. John McCain hired a public-relations firm last year to burnish the U.S. image of a Ukrainian political party backed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to documents filed with the Justice Department.

US Senator John McCain
The lobbying firm of Davis Manafort Inc. arranged for the public-relations firm's work through an affiliate last spring, at the same time Davis Manafort was being paid by the Republican presidential candidate's campaign. The firm is co-owned by lobbyist Rick Davis, manager of Sen. McCain's presidential campaign, and longtime Republican strategist Paul Manafort.

The Arizona senator has endorsed a political movement in Ukraine that is at odds with the Putin-backed Party of Regions.

The work for the Ukrainian party represents the latest issue to arise for the McCain campaign involving aides' ties to foreign interests. Last weekend, the campaign parted ways with two former lobbyists for the military government of Myanmar after their ties were reported in Newsweek.

This year, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton demoted her chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn, after it emerged that he was advising the Colombian government on how to win passage of a free-trade agreement that she opposed. Mr. Penn is also world-wide chief executive of Burson-Marsteller, a public-relations and lobbying firm.

McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said Mr. Davis receives no income from Davis Manafort, although he still owns a share of the firm. "He earns no money from their activities while he is on leave," Mr. Rogers said.

The spokesman said the Ukraine lobbying activities weren't relevant to the campaign. "There has been no greater enemy of the status quo and corrupt lobbying practices in Washington than John McCain," he said.

Working for foreign interests is legal, but it can be politically hazardous for lobbyists and the politicians they advise. The issue is becoming harder for politicians to avoid because globalization has made such work lucrative, drawing some of Washington's best political talent.

Some of the best-paying but most-controversial contracts in Washington involve companies and individuals allied with the Kremlin. In addition to its work for the Party of Regions, the Davis Manafort lobbying firm has pursued business deals with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, the Washington Post reported in January. In 2006, Mr. Davis introduced Mr. McCain to Mr. Deripaska, a supporter and confidant of Mr. Putin, according to the Post.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Mr. Deripaska has been barred from the U.S. for allegedly lying to the FBI about his involvement with organized crime.

Details of Davis Manafort's Ukraine work were contained in a late January filing with the Justice Department. According to those documents, Daniel J. Edelman Inc., parent of the prominent Edelman public-relations firm, was paid $35,000 a month last year to promote the Party of Regions by Davis Manafort International LLC, a Delaware corporation set up in March 2007.

"Davis Manafort International LLC is directed by a foreign political party, the Ukraine Parties [sic] of Regions, to consult on the political campaign in Ukraine," the filing states.

Chris Deri, an Edelman employee who worked on the contract, said its work took place in the summer and fall of 2007 and was "almost entirely focused on U.S. media."

Mr. Manafort didn't respond to emailed questions. An aide said he was unavailable.

The Party of Regions is based in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine. In Ukraine's presidential election in 2004, Mr. Putin campaigned for the party's leader, Viktor Yanukovich. Reports of intimidation and other voting irregularities led to massive street protests. Ukraine's top court ordered a new election, which was won by pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko.

In recent years, the Party of Regions has moderated some of its pro-Russian positions and moved closer to the West, supporting Ukrainian membership in the European Union.

There is other evidence the firm has had ties to the Ukrainian party. When Mr. Yanukovich, the prime minister at the time, came to Washington in 2006, Mr. Manafort accompanied him at a breakfast for journalists at the Willard Hotel, Serhiy Kudelia, a Ukrainian journalist, said in an interview last year.

When Mr. Yanukovich spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, Mr. Manafort was in his entourage, according to Steven Pifer, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

The previously-undisclosed Jan. 28 filing shows that the Edelman firm was hired by Davis Manafort to work on influencing public opinion in the United States. The effort was aimed at "select top-tier media in the U.S.," as well as "experts and analysts focused on the former Soviet Union," the Edelman filing states.

U.S. law generally requires Washington consultants to register with Congress or the Justice Department when they take on foreign clients who have dealings with the government or are seeking to influence public opinion. But many lobbyists and consultants in Washington seek to avoid controversy over their foreign clients by not registering, citing a variety of loopholes such as exemptions for legal work.

Davis Manafort hasn't registered as a foreign agent.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Rescuing A Revolution

BRUXELLES, Belgium -- There is no more depressing sight in politics than a leader who, desperate to cling to power, ruins his country in the process. By his recent actions, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko now looks like he has joined the long list of rulers who have sacrificed their country's future simply to prolong their misrule.

Viktor Yushchenko
Yushchenko's recent moves in both politics and economics suggest that his instinct for self-preservation knows no limits. Once a proud supporter of the free market and the man who banished hyperinflation in Ukraine in the 1990s, Yushchenko has in recent weeks vetoed -- sometimes on flimsy grounds and sometimes for no stated reason at all -- a series of vital privatizations.

He blocked the sale of regional energy companies, for example, because he claims that their privatization will threaten the country's "national security," though it is corrupt and incompetent state management of these companies that is threatening Ukraine's security by making it vulnerable to energy cutoffs.

Yushchenko seems motivated only by a desire to damage his prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, whom he perceives as the biggest threat to his re-election in 2010. To undermine the Tymoshenko Cabinet even more, Ukraine's Central Bank, under the leadership of a presidential crony, is pursuing a policy that is importing high inflation. When confronted about this, Volodymyr Stelmakh, the bank's governor, is said to have told Tymoshenko that his policies would destroy her government before they broke the back of the economy.

In politics, too, Yushchenko is playing with fire, having lost the support of most of Our Ukraine, the party he created. Since his victory in 2004, Yushchenko's popularity ratings have plummeted to about 8 percent. As a result, the party has been reduced to junior-partner status in Tymoshenko's coalition government.

Instead of trying to recover support by pursuing the reforms and privatizations that he promised during the Orange Revolution, Yushchenko is planning to take the few members of Our Ukraine that he still controls and forge a strategic alliance with the Party of the Regions, the very party that opposed the country's turn to democracy and an open society.

To clinch this deal, the Party of the Regions would dump their unelectable leader, Viktor Yanukovych, as their presidential candidate and adopt Yushchenko as their standard-bearer.

Yushchenko has only himself to blame for his political predicament. His decision in 2006 to bring Yanukovych out of the wilderness and back into the premiership was an act from which he has never recovered.

Only when Yanukovych sought to use the parliament to strip the president of his powers did Yushchenko summon the will to fight back, dismissing Yanukovych's government and calling for a special election last year. That election, however, was won by Tymoshenko, who has parlayed her return to power into a commanding lead in the polls for the coming presidential election.

Throttling Ukraine's economy and political system need not have been Yushchenko's legacy. After he came to power in 2005 on a huge wave of popular support, he started off well. The economy was growing, and he and Tymoshenko began to tackle the country's black hole of corruption.

Moreover, he seemed genuinely committed to reconciliation between the country's Russian-speaking east and Ukrainian-speaking west. Throughout his presidency, he has overseen fair elections and a free and vibrant press.

But Yushchenko's chronic dithering and poor political judgment consistently undermine his fundamental democratic credentials. Sadly, he now appears poised to make another serious political miscalculation, because he is backing a radical constitutional reform aimed at creating a purely presidential system.

That proposal has no chance of success in the parliament. Yushchenko sought to circumvent the parliament by way of a national referendum, but the Constitutional Court has ruled that only the parliament may determine how constitutional reform is to occur.

Although Yushchenko seems unable to save himself politically, Europe can help both him and Ukraine's democracy. Tymoshenko is prepared to offer Yushchenko a compromise that Europe's leaders should urge him to accept.

Her proposals for constitutional reform would make Ukraine a pure parliamentary republic, while retaining a president as head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces.

Yushchenko can yet secure an honorable place in history if, instead of undermining and obstructing Tymoshenko at every turn, he supports her anti-corruption initiatives and constitutional reform, the latter aimed at bringing the country's political system closer to Europe's parliamentary democracies as well as to facilitate the country's European integration.

Given that Yushchenko has almost no chance of winning the next presidential election, Tymoshenko has made him a generous offer. If accepted, it promises Ukraine, which aspires to European Union membership and is currently negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU, the stable, effective and democratic government that it needs.

Europe's leaders, who helped broker a peaceful and democratic end to the Orange Revolution, should once again help Kiev avoid political deadlock.

Source: The Moscow Times

Lawmakers Prevent Ukrainian President From Delivering Speech

KIEV, Ukraine -- President Viktor Yushchenko canceled his state-of-the-nation speech to Parliament today after lawmakers loyal to the prime minister — his nominal ally — blocked the speaker's chair.

Parliamentarians from Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc, block President Viktor Yushchenko from giving his state of the nation address to the assembly in Kiev May 13, 2008.
The incident, the second time this year that Yushchenko has been blocked from making a speech, highlighted the tensions between him and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. It also threatened new turmoil in a country that has lurched from one political crisis to another over the past half-decade.

Yushchenko also was blocked from making the annual address in February by opposition lawmakers protesting his drive to bring Ukraine into NATO. Today's dispute showed how perilously fragile the governing coalition formed last year has become.

"For the first time in our history, we have an unprecedented case when the parliamentary majority, which bears responsibility for the work of the Ukrainian Parliament, is blocking it," a somber Yushchenko told reporters outside the hall.

Pro-Tymoshenko lawmakers were protesting what they see as Yushchenko's lack of action to counter soaring inflation and his resistance to other concessions. Tymoshenko alleged today that Yushchenko is trying to undermine her before the 2010 presidential elections.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were the main figures of the 2004 Orange Revolution, the massive, peaceful protest movement that formed after a fraud-plagued presidential election.

Yushchenko won the court-ordered rerun of the election, but Tymoshenko has consistently been a more popular figure with her fiery statements and high-fashion style in contrast to Yushchenko's stolid demeanor.

That relationship is showing deep cracks after public sparring over issues including the economy and government appointments, leading some to speculate the two may run against each other in 2010.

Tymoshenko was Yushchenko's first prime minister, but he fired her in 2005 after only seven months in office. She returned to her post late last year after Yushchenko's party and hers put together a coalition government and the two leaders promised to set aside their differences.

Tymoshenko claims Yushchenko is deliberately undermining her government's work in order to weaken her, while the president charges Tymoshenko is not doing enough to stop inflation, which has soared to over 20%.

The leaders have traded increasingly angry accusations in recent months, resulting in today's climactic action. Tymoshenko's deputies swarmed the presidium and created chaos in the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada.

Tymoshenko's efforts to clean up the natural gas trade with Russia has brought her widespread popularity and Yushchenko is seen as seeking to curb her influence.

The two are also at odds over changes to the country's constitution. Yushchenko wants to strengthen the presidency, while Tymoshenko wants most of the powers to lie with the premier.

Source: AP

Moving Times In Ukraine

LONDON, UK -- The Orange Revolution illuminated Ukraine, in the eyes of the outside world, with a fleeting flash of colour before the country faded away again into the grey of relative obscurity.

Rapid changes in Kiev have brought massive traffic jams and polution.
People from the western reaches of Europe, myself included, tend to see this former Eastern Bloc country, despite its size and proximity, as a single block with its neighbours and fail to notice the nuances of its own individual identity. My recent visit to the country provided me with the opportunity to see it in its own light.

The impression I came away with is that this is a society that has been undergoing profound change since it gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and remains in a major state of flux. Mass emigration and falling birth rates are already causing depopulation, with its attendant social side-effects, and the growing economic inequality sparked by economic liberalisation has led to widespread dissatisfaction.

"The redistribution of national wealth in post-soviet Ukraine has been accompanied by a considerable polarisation of living standards," observes Iryna Prybytkova, a professor at the Ukrainian Academy of Science's Institute of Sociology. "Almost every second Ukrainian is not satisfied with his/her life in general."

This situation is reflected to a certain extent in the topography of golden-domed Kiev. The Ukrainian capital, one of Europe's greenest cities and one of eastern Europe's oldest urban centres, has experienced a mushrooming of shopping malls, filled with top international brand names, and the town centre boasts a fairly wide selection of smart bars and restaurants, many of which are relatively empty, perhaps because they are beyond the reach of most people.

Not everyone is happy with the rapid changes. A Ukrainian photographer told me that he missed the old Kiev he moved to in 1982. Back then, it was much greener and less polluted, with no traffic jams, even on the busiest streets, where a car, probably a sturdy, box-on-wheels Soviet Lada, would pass every couple of minutes.

A colleague who visited Kiev in the 1980s noted how quiet and provincial it looked, despite its size, and how early the city went to sleep. He stayed at a hotel, one of the few in the city, which was part of a Soviet-era chain, and always ate at the same restaurant because he could find no other.

Interestingly, he mentioned the abundance of Soviet statues across the city. These have almost completely disappeared, except for the odd Lenin or the colossal Mother Motherland monument. Instead, the city has undergone a blossoming of Christian iconography - even the banknotes carry Christian symbols.

This is a reaction to the repression of religion during communism. One Ukrainian told me how the Soviet authorities banned public church services, arrested members of the clergy, and razed many religious buildings. In fact, the city's main cathedral, Saint Sophia, narrowly escaped this fate thanks to the guile of some sympathetic Soviet engineers who proposed to turn it into a museum. Official atheism seems to have made the population no less religious, and churches everywhere are full of pious worshippers.

The Soviet experience is living proof that fundamentalism is not limited to religion and that dogmatic atheism (which resembles religion in most aspects, save for belief in the existence of God) in its own way can be just as repressive and stifling as religion, if left unchecked. In contemporary society, we should not be focusing on whether religion or atheism is best but, instead, we should concentrate our energies on ensuring freedom of conscience for all.

The trauma caused by former Russian dominance during the Soviet Era has put major strain on the relationship between the two countries, resulting in conflicting impulses. On the one hand, Ukrainians regard Russia as a natural partner and ally - according to a Ukrainian survey, nearly 32% of Ukrainians believe that strengthening the eastern Slavic bloc should be the country's top priority - and over a million Ukrainians work in Russia.

On the other hand, Ukraine is striving to distance itself from Russia, mostly culturally but also in the economic sphere. Despite having a large Russian-speaking population (30% of its inhabitants), Ukraine has only one official language, and younger generations are growing up less proficient in the language than their parents. Ironically, despite the aversion to Russian, most Kievites speak Russian in their daily affairs.

This wariness and the fabled wealth of the west has caused Ukraine to view its future increasingly as being tied up with its EU neighbours. Some 43% of Ukrainians are in favour of their country joining the 27-member bloc and the political and business elite are also very keen on the prospect.

However, the EU - suffering from enlargement fatigue, concerned about the Ukrainian economy and weighed down by faltering new members such as Latvia - is less than enthusiastic and has only offered the consolation prize of closer co-operation as part of the of the European Neighbourhood Policy. The nearest Ukraine has so far come to EU membership is when it had the kitsch distinction of holding the rotating Eurovision presidency after wowing the rest of Europe with its Eurovisual Wild Dances.

Post-independence economic liberalisation, and its attendant wealth polarisation, has sparked a mass exodus out of the country. No one knows exactly how many Ukrainians live and work abroad, but some educated estimates put it as high as five million, a significant percentage of whom are there illegally.

Poor salaries are a major motivator: according to Prybytkova, nearly 40% of Ukrainians earn enough only to cover their basic food needs and essential living expenses. That said, there is a growing middle class, with another 40% counting themselves as being in its ranks.

With EU support, the International Organisation for Migration has set up centres for migrant advice which help Ukrainians to make informed choices when considering moving away and raises their awareness of opportunities closer to home.

Despite the remittances sent home by émigré workers, the brain drain has set alarm bells ringing. The deputy minister of the environment told me that there are probably more Ukrainian scientists and researchers working abroad than at home, with Ukrainian experts based permanently in some 93 countries.

"The government of Ukraine has acknowledged the problem of labour migration and the necessity to create conducive conditions for decent work opportunities," Prybytkova explains.

Meanwhile, there are other Ukrainians who see a wealth of opportunities in the country, and are profiting from its rapid economic growth (7% in 2007). "I'm doing well here, so I don't feel the urge to emigrate," said Pavel, known to his friends as Pasha, despite the fact he had studied international relations. "But I'm not an average Ukrainian. I've made quite a lot of money investing in real estate."

Nevertheless, many Ukrainians I met feel that progress is not being made fast enough, and that the hopes raised by the Orange Revolution have been disappointed, although it has led to a greater sense of freedom than in neighbouring Russia. "Since we took matters into our own hands, a few things have changed," Pasha said. "But we are an optimistic people and we believe the future will be better

Source: Guardian UK

3 Indicted In US For Hacking Into Restaurant Computer System

WASHINGTON, DC -- A Ukrainian and an Estonian were among three people charged in a scheme to hack into a computer system of a US restaurant chain to steal credit card data, the Justice Department said Monday.

US Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Division Alice Fisher (R) speaks during a press conference.
An unsealed indictment alleged the three hacked into cash register terminals at 11 Dave & Buster's restaurants at locations around the United States to get credit and debit card information, which was sold to make fraudulent purchases. The losses were estimated at 600,000 dollars.

A 27-count indictment returned in Central Islip, New York, charges Maksym Yastremskiy of Ukraine and Aleksandr Suvorov of Estonia with wire fraud conspiracy and related charges.

A separate complaint charges Albert Gonzalez of Miami with wire fraud conspiracy related to the scheme.

Authorities said that starting last May, Yastremskiy and Suvorov gained access to cash register terminals and installed at each restaurant a 'packet sniffer,' or computer code designed to capture communications between two or more computer systems on a single network.

Using this, the scheme captured information from at least 5,000 credit and debit cards.

Turkish officials arrested Yastremskiy in July 2007, and he remains in a Turkish jail on potential violations of Turkish law. US officials have made an extradition request.

At the request of Washington, Suvorov was arrested in March by German officials and remained held pending extradition. US Secret Service officials arrested Gonzalez in Miami.

Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher, said: "The Department of Justice will be vigilant against these online hacker schemes that harm the integrity of the marketplace and victimize the public."

Source: AFP

Ukraine Bans Moscow Mayor Over Sevastopol Row

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine on Monday banned future visits by Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov after he called for the return of the port of Sevastopol to Kremlin control.

Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov is banned from travelling to Ukraine.
Ukraine's secret police the SBU issued the ban, citing a controversial speech by Luzhkov during a visit to the Black Sea peninsula Crimea, during which Luzhkov argued the port Sevastopol was not legitimate Ukrainian territory, and that Russia should reassert sovereignty over the city.

Luzkov's remarks were 'inflammatory ... and in direct violation of a warning issued by the SBU...to citizen Luzhkov to abide by the laws and Constitution of Ukraine,' SBU spokeswoman Maria Ostapenko said.

The SBU will also investigate possible money laundering by Luzhkov in Crimea, and if evidence of criminal activity is found will seek to prosecute him, she added.

Luzkhov, although not a designated representative of the Kremlin, has acted as an unofficial spokesman for Russian Foreign Ministry policy aimed at greater influence by Moscow over its southern neighbour Ukraine, for more than a decade.

Tens of millions of dollars in unofficial Russian payments to selected Crimean businesses and citizens over the years have been dispensed by Luzkkov in the form of 'voluntary contributions' by the Moscow city government.

Ukrainian government agencies had criticised Luzhkov in the past, and even called for his designation as a persona non grata.

The Monday SBU announcement marked the first time Luzkhkov had actually been banned from the territory of Ukraine, or his government's payments into the Crimean economy publicly questioned as possibly illegal.

The Moscow mayor had been in Sevastopol, home port for Russia's Black Sea Fleet, to help observe simultaneous Russian military ceremonies marking the 63rd anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, and the 225th anniversary of the founding of Russia's Black Sea fleet.

'I have been told stay quiet (by the SBU), but I will tell the truth,' Luzhkov said in a Sunday speech. 'And the truth is Sevastopol was never made part of Ukraine (by the Soviet Union)... and so we (Russia) should re-open the question of Sevastopol's status.'

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry in a statement linked Luzkhkov's remarks directly to the Kremlin, calling his comments 'a planned operation aimed at breaking the positive dynamics of Ukraine-Russian relations ... and open interference in Ukraine's internal affairs,' said Vasyl Kyrilych, a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Russian signature of a 1997 treaty ceding all claims to Ukrainian territory, in exchange for fleet basing rights in Sevastopol, make the city indisputably Ukrainian and Luzhkov's claims groundless, Ukrainian diplomats have argued.

Relations between Ukraine and its giant northern neighbour Russia have deteriorated in recent months over a host of disputes, among them an effort by the Ukrainian government to begin accession to join NATO, and Russian punitive oil and gas pricing aimed at undermining Ukrainian government's hostility to the Kremlin.

Sevastopol last week became the latest focus in the long-running Russo-Ukrainian row, when Russian plans to hold a military parade down the main street of Sevastopol with armored combat vehicles delivered by naval warship were cancelled, after the Sevastopol city government refused to issue the vehicles parade permits.

Adding insult to Russian injury, Ukrainian authorities permitted a US Marine detatchment to march in an infantry-only parade through the city led by Russian and Ukrainian Marines.

State-controlled Russian media harshly criticised the move, calling the US Marines' presence in Sevastopol, a military city closed during the Soviet era to foreign visitors, an open insult to Russia.

Dozens of pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine activists in Sevastopol came to blows during Luzhkov's visit, with the Ukrainian nationalists shouting 'Muscovites out!' and the Great Russia supporters retaliating with fists and throwing eggs.

Ukraine's Crimea peninsula is ethnically mixed, with a dominant ethnic Russian majority sometimes in conflict with Ukrainian and Tartar minorities.

Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Mayor Wants Return Of Naval Base

MOSCOW, Russia -- Moscow's mayor called for the home base of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, which is leased from Ukraine, to be transferred to Russian ownership.

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov
Attending celebrations to mark the fleet's 225th anniversary, Yuri Luzhkov ignored a warning from the Ukrainian authorities not to repeat previous calls for the base to be placed directly in Moscow's possession.

"Do you think it's right for me to keep silent?" he asked several thousand ethnic Russians in Sevastopol's main square, after watching a naval parade of Russian rocket cruisers, submarine hunters, destroyers and a submarine.

"This issue remains unresolved. We will resolve it for the sake of truth, for the sake of state interests, for the sake of the lawful right that Russia has to the naval base of Sevastopol," he said.

The colourful parade and diplomatic niceties of the celebrations could not hide the frosty relations between Russia and NATO aspirant Ukraine.

Several hours after the parade, scuffles broke out between Ukrainian nationalists and a much larger group of ethnic Russian nationalists, who pelted the Ukrainians with eggs in front of the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters.

Under a 1997 agreement, Russia will lease the base from Ukraine until 2017 at a rent of $93 million a year.

Sevastopol was established as Russia's naval base in Crimea under 18th-century Empress Catherine the Great.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had given Crimea, previously part of Russia, to Ukraine in 1954 as "a token of brotherly love".

Ukraine inherited it after the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. Ethnic Russians are in the majority in Crimea.

Luzhkov had previously called for the naval base to be owned outright by Moscow.

When he arrived in Crimea late on Saturday, he was given a warning by Ukraine's Security Service telling him to refrain from repeating his previous statements on Sevastopol which could be interpreted as a violation of Ukrainian law.

During the parade, songs glorifying Russian sailors played from loudspeakers and thousands of resident waved Russian flags and chanted "Glory to Russia!"

In speeches beforehand, acting Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Deputy Ukrainian Defence Minister Valery Ivashchenko pledged co-operation between the two ex-Soviet states.

Source: TVNZ

Huawei Wins In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.("Huawei"), a leader in providing next generation telecommunications network solutions for operators around the world, has announced that it will replace the present Ring Back Tone (RBT) platform used by mobile services operator, "life:)", in Ukraine with its new proprietary Caller Ring Back Tone (CRBT) platform.


Huawei's RBT system, which was selected to meet the growing GSM subscribers and traffic growth on the operator's network, will be the second CRBT solution deployed in Ukraine.

In 2007, Huawei carried out a similar project for MTS Company.

"RBT is a major value-added service for us," said Mehmet Gokhan Koc, Head of the VAS Division of "life:)". "Having the right partner that can provide us with modern solutions is very important because it results in an increase of the service's profitability and enhances our competitive advantages in music content sales. Huawei has a wealth of experience in the sphere of RBT and we expect that after the deployment of this new platform our RBT service will experience further growth in the quantity of subscribers."

"Huawei is a world-leader in providing RBT solutions," added Wei Feng, General Director of Ukraine Representative Office, Huawei. "We are committed to providing reliable and modernized RTB solutions to help our customers all over the world."

Source: Unstrung

Russo-Ukrainian Row Over Naval Parade Averted, US Marines Take Part

KIEV, Ukraine -- A Russo-Ukrainian row was averted Friday with US marines taking part in a World War II memorial march, Channel 5 television reported. Russian naval officials in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol, the home base for Russia's Black Sea fleet, had intended to hold a parade of warships in the bay on Friday.

A Russian marine stands in front of the Soviet Navy flag during celebrations marking the 225th anniversary of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol May 11.
But the Sevastpol city government banned the event.

The naval parade had been intended by the Kremlin to mark the 63rd anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe (VE Day), and simultaneously, the 225th anniversary of the founding of the Russian Black Sea fleet.

VE Day is a major holiday in both Russia and Ukraine. Many Ukrainians consider the founding of Russia's Black Sea Fleet a key and infamous date in Russia's 350-year domination of Ukraine.

Talks between the Black Sea Fleet leadership and representatives of the Sevastopol city government went down to the wire, with state- controlled Russian television reporting on Thursday evening the parade would go ahead, and Sevastopol police warning they would arrest any Russian military leaving their base without a permit.

An apparent compromise was reached during the early hours of Friday to cancel the warship parade, and to substitute a march by soldiers by both down Sevastopol's main street.

The parade took place without combat vehicles like tanks or armoured personnel carriers, as a Russian concession to the Ukrainians.

Russian and Ukrainian naval infantry and cadets marched in parallel columns from Sevastopol's Admiral Nakhimov Square down the port city's main street.

A detachment of US Marines from the John L. Hall, a US Navy frigate on port call in Sevastopol, also participated in the march.

It was according to the Channel 5 report the first time US Marines had ever participated in a VE Day parade in Sevastopol, which was closed to all foreigners during the Soviet era.

A naval parade marking "naval cooperation and comeradeship" would go forward on May 11th with the participation of Russian and Ukrainian warships, Interfax news agency reported.

"It was complicated, but we reached a compromise," said Serhy Kunytsin, a Sevastopol city government spokesman.

Russian observation of Soviet-era military ceremonies such as the annual VE day naval parade in Sevastopol bay are considered insulting by some Ukrainians, who see Russian military presence in Crimea a threat to Ukrainian sovereignty.

Other Ukrainians, including many ethnic Russians living in Crimea, see the ceremonies as an important continuation of Soviet tradition, and the Black Sea Fleet as a guarantor of their safety against ethnic Ukrainians and Tartars also living in the region.

Source: DPA

Ukraine Approves Aperto WiMAX

MILPITAS, USA -- Aperto® Networks, builder of the world’s most versatile carrier-grade and cost-effective WiMAX base stations and subscriber units, announced this week that its 5 GHz WiMAX solution has been certified for use in Ukraine.

Aperto PacketMAX PM5000 macro base station
This certification applies to the entire line of award-winning WiMAX Forum Certified PacketMAX® base stations, including the PM 5000 macro base station and the PM 3000 micro base station, as well as the PM 3xx series and PM 1xx series of subscriber units.

“5 GHz WiMAX products are very important for the broadband market in Ukraine,” said Manish Gupta, Vice President of Marketing & Alliances for Aperto Networks and WiMAX Forum Board Member.

“This WiMAX band is just being recognized internationally as a powerful complement to the 2.x GHz and 3.x GHz bands. Aperto continues to showcase its support for the needs of the emerging markets with this latest certification.”

Source: Unstrung

Inflation Caused By Ukraine's Peg To Dollar

KIEV, Ukraine -- Inflation in Ukraine is skyrocketing. By March, it reached 26 percent per year and continues to rise. Although prices are increasing around the world, Ukraine's is extreme, twice as much as in neighboring Russia. Amazingly, instead of dampening inflation, Ukraine's central bank is stoking it.

National Bank of Ukraine
Ukraine's prices started spiraling out of control around the time when Yuliya Tymoshenko returned as prime minister last December. Malicious observers suggest that she is to blame for pursuing populist social expenditures. But this is false. Her government actually tightened the budget just before New Year.

Indeed, Finance Minister Viktor Pynzenyk reports that the state recorded a budget surplus of 0.6 percent of GDP during the first quarter of 2008

This is not surprising, because state revenues expand with rising prices, while expenditures are largely fixed. But Tymoshenko's government has, in reality, done a solid fiscal job.

State finances are generally in good shape, with public debt at just 11 percent of GDP. According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), international reserves have grown steadily and now stand at $33 billion.

The real cause of Ukraine's inflation is that its currency, the hryvnia, remains pegged to the U.S. dollar.

The International Monetary Fund has persistently warned Ukraine that its dollar peg could cause a financial crisis because of over- or undervaluation, and for years has called on Ukraine to free its exchange rate. But the NBU refused to do so — making Ukraine the last country in Central and Eastern Europe to tie its currency to the dollar.

Ukraine's powerful industrialists praised the NBU's low exchange-rate policy, believing it makes the country more competitive. They ignore the fact that the NBU can control only the nominal appreciation of the hryvnia. But costs are determined by the real revaluation, which is the sum of exchange-rate changes and inflation.

The dollar peg has also forced the NBU to pursue a loose monetary policy. Ukraine's current refinance rate is 16 percent a year, 10 percent less than inflation, which means that Ukraine has a negative real interest rate of 10 percent a year.

As a result, Ukraine's money supply, M3, exploded by no less than 52 percent in the last year, which points to inflation hitting 30 percent soon.

The NBU's leadership understands that it must act to contain inflation, but its insistence on the dollar peg ties their hands, because it prevents them from raising interest rates sufficiently.

Instead, they have reverted to strict reserve requirements, effectively rationing credit and thereby causing a domestic credit squeeze in the midst of the current international financial crisis, which is likely to force some medium-size banks into bankruptcy because of liquidity problems. Rationing is always worse than a market.

Why does the NBU persist with this harmful policy?

Incompetence is one reason, but politics is probably the decisive cause. The NBU is subordinate to President Viktor Yushchenko, who, despite naming Tymoshenko as prime minister, seems more interested in harming her politically than in capping inflation.

The flaws in the NBU's policy are so obvious it will be forced to free the exchange rate, but it might act too late. Even now, in the midst of an inflationary crisis, the NBU wants to move in small steps, evidently failing to grasp the severity of the crisis.

The NBU needs to announce that it no longer has an exchange-rate target and that it will stop intervening by ending its purchases of dollars on the currency market.

If the NBU lets the exchange rate float, Ukrainians are likely to exchange billions of dollars into hryvnia, driving up the hryvnia exchange rate. That would contain Ukraine's inflation, as the NBU could restrict the money supply through high interest rates rather than rationing.

Time is short. The great economist Rudi Dornbusch used to say that a financial crisis usually starts much later than anyone expects, but then develops faster than anyone can imagine. Ukraine is on the financial precipice.

Yushchenko and the NBU can still act, but if they do not do so immediately, a costly and unnecessary financial crisis might ensue. As prime minister, Yushchenko saved his country from financial default in early 2000.

Ukraine's well-being must not be sacrificed to his political ambitions.

Source: The Japan Times

World Bank Calls On Ukraine To Help Ease Food Crisis

KIEV, Ukraine -- The World Bank on Thursday called on leading grain producer Ukraine to immediately fulfil a promise to lift export quotas to help ease a global food crisis.


'We urge the authorities in Ukraine to implement the announced decision fully and with immediate effect,' the Ukraine office of the international financial institution said in a statement.

Lifting quotas will allow Ukraine to benefit from high global prices and 'will increase the global supply of grains thus helping to alleviate the global food crisis.'

In April, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko called for the lifting of all restrictions on grain exports, but the government has since put off the move until July 1 amid fears of higher domestic prices.

Tymoshenko said Ukraine was to harvest up to 50 million tons of grain this year. In 2007, Ukraine harvested 29.3 million tons of grain, 14.5 percent less than in 2006.

Source: Forbes

2 Dead, 8 Injured In Amusement Park Accident In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Emergency officials say two people died and eight were injured when a carousel broke down in an amusement park in Ukraine.


Channel 5 television reports that the centrifugue-style carousel slammed into its supporting pole in a park in the eastern city of Luhansk on Friday. As it continued spinning, passengers were flung away and many fell on the ground.

Two victims, a man in his early twenties and a young woman in her late teens, died on the spot from the injuries they sustained. Eight others were hospitalized.

Local authorities say the carousel was put up without official permission.

Accidents in amusement parks are frequent in Ukraine, where safety rules are often neglected and many rides are not properly checked.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Ukraine To Make Crimean War Pic

MOSCOW, Russia -- Ukraine’s defense chiefs are planning to put the historical record straight with a $20 million budget movie set during the Crimean war of the 1850s.

Old photograph of a cavalry soldier preparing for the Battle of Balaclava (Charge of the Light Brigade) in the Crimean War.
The film — about the siege of Sevastopol during the war between Russia and a British, French and Turkish allied force — will put the role of Ukrainian soldiers and sailors center stage.

A key purpose of the new film will be to challenge Sevastopol’s reputation as a Russian “city of glory,” according to Vladlen Litvinenko, head of the Ukrainian defense ministry television and radio service.

Ukraine, which gained its independence from centuries of Russian control in 1991 and only recently emerged from Russian influence during its peaceful Orange Revolution of 2004, is keen to assert its unique national heritage.

News of the new project emerged on the eve of Russia’s biggest annual public holiday, Victory Day, which celebrates the major Soviet role in defeating Nazi Germany in 1945.

Sevastopol — a key port city in the Crimean peninsula — was also subject to a lengthy siege by German forces in the Second World War and has since been numbered among the Russian wartime “hero cities” with a stone marking its status situated close to the Kremlin’s eternal flame war memorial.

Ukraine’s military history was widely considered part of Russia’s by many Russians and featured in many Russian films and television series, Litvinenko told newspaper Novie Region.

“Under such circumstances Ukrainians will soon hold ordinary Russian soldiers in higher regard than Ukrainian generals,” he said.

The new film — which the Defense Ministry hopes to start shooting in the autumn — will downplay Russia’s role and emphasize that most of the fighting took place between armed warships manned by Ukrainian sailors fighting the allied forces.

The move is part of a wider campaign in Ukraine to wrest control of cultural and cinematic markets from Russian dominance.

In January, new measures stipulating that films released cinematically in Ukraine had to be local language versions prompted an outcry by Russian and local distributors, particularly in the country’s eastern half where most people are ethnic Russians and speak Russian rather than Ukrainian.

But in a sign that the Defense Ministry is seeking to avoid confrontation with Russia, Litvinenko said the Crimean war film should be an international effort and that co-production funds would be sought from the Russian Defense Ministry and other countries involved in the historic conflict.

Source: Variety International

Utahns Remember Ukraine Famine, Genocide

SALT LAKE CITY, USA -- Dasha Pokhilko's grandfather tells her stories of gathering leaves and roots to eat as a young boy. There was nothing else.

Mykola Tochitsky (L), consul general of Ukraine, is handed the torch by Jonathan Freedman during ceremony Thursday commemorating 75th anniversay of Ukraine genocide.
"His mom worked the whole day, and they gave her one gallon of flour and water and salt," said Pokhilko, 24, of Orem. "She worked 10 to 12 hours, and that was the only thing they gave her whole family to eat."

That was the reality of Holodomor, a famine and genocide forced on Ukraine by the Stalin regime from 1932 to 1933. It was an effort to stop any movement toward independence from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

On Thursday, Pokhilko was among a handful of people who gathered in Salt Lake City to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor as part of a global symbolic torch relay.

Consul General Mykola Tochytskyi, of the San Francisco Ukrainian consulate, said 7 million to 10 million people were killed in one year.

In 2003, the United States and Canada were the first two nations to recognize the famine-genocide in the Ukraine, he said. Forty governments now recognize the genocide.

"Here to today we bring the flame of health and truth into the heart of all people from all places," Tochytskyi said. "This tragic piece of history will never be forgotten."

A remembrance torch was lit and passed around a table by those who participated. Tochytskyi joined Palmer DePaulis, executive director of the Utah Department of Community and Culture, in signing a declaration naming May 8, 2008, as "Ukrainian Genocide Remembrance Day."

"Our hearts go out to the people of Ukraine as they remember, and never forget," DePaulis said.

In all, the torch will travel to 25 American cities, as well as locations in 33 countries, before returning to Ukraine for a November remembrance of the beginning of the starvation campaign, said Tochytskyi.

Pokhilko and other Ukrainians at the event said the anniversary is an opportunity for the world to learn about the genocide.

"It touched every single family," said Liliya Velbovets of Provo. "Being here so far from home and being able to touch the torch. ... We belong."

Grain was taken from Ukraine and sold abroad, while people were starving, says Velbovets, whose grandparents survived by making pancakes from grass.

Pokhilko said conditions were so stark that some people resorted to cannibalism to survive. Her grandfather remembers two "cute blonde girls" who disappeared. "The people in the village knew it was their mother and grandmother who ate them."

The famine lasted just one year, but even after it was over, Ukrainians faced decades of repression under Soviet rule, Velbovets said.

"During the USSR time, it was a prohibited subject," said Velbovets. "People were punished if they talked about it. ... The recovery was hard, especially for the older generation. ... They are still hurting from this fear."

Source: Deseret News

Ukraine's First Biofuel Station Reportedly Opens In Chernivtsi

KIEV, Ukraine -- A new biofuel station branded Energy Strategies and Biotechnologies has opened in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, revealed LIGABusinessInform.


This is reportedly the first biofuel station both in Ukraine and the whole of eastern Europe.

The new station sells two kinds of motor fuel made of biomaterial: the Bio-100 analog of high-octane gasoline, and biodiesel fuel.

Moldova will act as the fuel supplier in the initial stage of the project implementation. Later on, production will take place in Ukraine itself.

By the end of 2008, about 10 biofuel stations are expected to be set up in the country.

Source: Datamonitor

As Freedoms Roll Back In The Ex-Soviet World, Ukraine Becomes An Island Of Freedom

KIEV, Ukraine -- A gloomy Vladimir Putin wears a Czarist crown, clutching a bag full of dollars and a miniature television tower.

Savik Shuster host of "Svoboda Slova" talk show on Kiev's ICTV.
Filipp Pishchik says this and similar cartoons, depicting the former president as a corrupt leader who stifles free speech, got him in trouble with authorities and forced him to leave Moscow last year for neighboring Ukraine. "Ukraine is just great," said the 37-year-old designer and architect. "Here there is hope".

Since the 2004 Orange Revolution ushered in a vigorous, sometimes chaotic democracy, Ukraine has become an island of freedom and tolerance in an ex-Soviet bloc still dominated by authoritarian regimes, and journalists, political activists, artists, and business professionals have flocked here.

In Soviet times, a dissident wanting to live free had only the West to look to. Getting there was hard, the culture alien, the language foreign. Ukraine, however, is an easy visa-free destination for most, Russian is spoken and speech is free.

Rights groups complain that Ukraine is stingy with granting asylum, which guarantees the applicant's right to stay and work indefinitely.

But still, the influx vividly illustrates how far the country's path has diverged from that of Russia, which by the time of the Orange Revolution had already begun rolling back democratic reform.

The number of foreigners registered as living in this country of 46 million doubled to nearly 200,000 from 2003 to 2006, according to United Nations statistics; that does not include the unregistered.

The number applying for political asylum rose from 1,800 in 2005 to 2,300 last year.

Pishchik said he moved here after architecture magazines stopped publishing his work, longtime clients left him - hinting they were forced to do so by authorities - and he got threats from security officials. The reason, he says, was the cartoons he displayed in galleries and on Web sites.

Today, he lives in a spacious Kiev house loaded with exciting new projects and is married to a Ukrainian artist.

"I tell all my friends that they all will end up here one day," Pishchik says.

Similar stories abound in today's Ukraine.

Yuriy Svirko, a 33-year-old journalist from Belarus, decided he'd had enough of President Alexander Lukashenko's iron-fisted rule after he was accused of attacking a presidential body guard and threatened with arrest. (He says it was the guard who attacked him).

Svirko arrived in Kiev right after the Orange mass movement overturned a fraudulent election and brought reformist Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency.

Ukraine today is awash in competitive elections, noisy street protests and heated debates on TV shows and occasional fist fights in Parliament. Opposition rallies are held under the windows of the president's office, and many have forgotten a time when TV channels were state-controlled.

Savik Shuster had a TV political talk show in Russia until it was closed in 2004 as the Kremlin tightened the screws on media. Now he's in Kiev, hosting a similar program on a Ukrainian channel.

"In Ukraine, freedom of speech still exists," said Shuster, 55. But for Russia today, "openness is like light for a vampire".

During the past two years, Belarusian expatriates have held an annual "Belarusian Spring" festival, featuring fare banned back home - movies, poetry readings, underground rock bands.

This year's festival kicked off with a dozen activists racing down Kiev's main avenue on cross-country skis when snow was nowhere to be seen. It was a poke at Lukashenko, a winter-sports fan who every year makes government officials and professional athletes compete with him in a ski competition which he always wins.

But rights groups say that while Ukraine is good at welcoming professionals, it is still inhospitable to relatively unskilled political refugees, granting only 3 percent of applications for political asylum, compared with over 30 percent in neighboring Poland.

Ulugbek Zainabudinov, an Uzbek opposition activist, fled to Russia after a bloody crackdown on an uprising in his country. But Russian authorities began arresting the refugees at the Uzbek government's request, so in 2006 he moved to Ukraine.

That year, Ukraine deported 11 other refugees back to Uzbekistan, drawing harsh criticism from human rights groups. All the deportees have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms, the groups say.

"The very idea of freedom exists here and it is developing," said Zainabudinov said. "But I don't feel safe".

His asylum application has been turned down, and fearing deportation, he is seeking refugee status in Western Europe.

Experts say Ukraine has neither the resources nor the political will to take care of asylum-seekers. Natalia Prokopchuk of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said Ukraine also does a poor job of helping asylum-seekers while their cases are being considered.

Natalia Naumenko, spokeswoman for the State Department on Migration, counters that most applicants are illegal migrants caught en route to Western Europe.

Dmytro Groisman of the Vinnytsia Rights Groups said the influx of asylum-seekers does not prove that Ukraine has developed into a tolerant and democratic society. Instead, he said, refugees simply had nowhere else to go.

"When your apartment is on fire, you would jump anywhere - in the snow, in the water, from the 6th floor", Groisman said. "People are running where they can".

Olga Kudrina, 22, is one of the lucky few who received political asylum. Sentenced to prison for unfurling a Putin-must-go banner near the Kremlin, she fled to Ukraine and lives with her baby daughter in a tiny apartment in Vinnytsia, 160 miles (257 kilometers) southwest of Kiev.

Two colleagues from her banned National Bolshevik Party share her apartment in Vinnytsia and are seeking asylum.

One of them, Mikhail Gangan, 22, came here to escape arrest for breaking into a government building in Moscow and demanding that Putin step down.

"You live calmer, better here", said Gangan. "You won't see as many cops on the streets - you can walk down a street and not see a single one. In Russia that cannot happen".

Source: PR-Inside

Ukrainian Leaders Congratulate Putin On Post As Russian PM

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko sent congratulatory messages Thursday to former Russian President Vladimir Putin on his election as Russia's prime minister.

Vladimir Putin, who became prime minister Thursday, has signaled that he intends to remain Russia's principal leader, at least in the short term — and possibly much longer. He is keeping the trappings of his presidency and many of its powers as well.
"I hope that our constructive dialogue will continue in the future, and the agreements reached during our talks in Moscow will be implemented in order to boost further fruitful development of friendly Ukrainian-Russian relations", said Yushchenko in his congratulatory letter to Putin.

Tymoshenko said she is ready to work with Putin to expand and deepen pragmatic cooperation between the two countries in various fields, consolidate the foundation of bilateral ties and promote the strategic partnership of cooperation between Ukraine and Russia.

She believed that the Russian new prime minister will give a new impetus to the dialogue between Ukraine and Russia.

Russia's lower house of the parliament, the State Duma, approved Putin as Russia's new prime minister earlier in the day.

Source: Xinhua

Ukraine’s Hotels Not Meeting Demand

KIEV, Ukraine -- While the number of visitors to Ukraine has doubled over the last four years, the supply of affordable, quality hotels remains low and the cost for a bed is well above the European average.

Radisson SAS Hotel Kiev
With exceptions, the Ukrainian hospitality industry has yet to develop the level of service most business travelers come to expect.

Recently, a number of famous international hotel chains opened their doors in Kyiv, but the attractiveness of investment opportunities in Ukraine’s hotel market continues to be constrained by bureaucracy and prolonged delays in the adoption of sensible land­ use law, industry experts said.

“With the growth of the economy, visitors to Ukraine increased in number by more than 50 percent between 2003 and 2007, nearing 20 million annually," said Galina Martynyuk, sales and marketing manager for Senator Apartments. "At the same time the number of hotel beds is less than a quarter of Prague’s.”

Senator Apartments is Ukraine’s first chain of high­quality, full­service furnished accomodations. The company currently runs two complexes, Senator Apartments City Center and Senator Apartments Executive Court, both in the capital.

More than 1,250 hotels operate in Ukraine, Martynyuk said, though these figures should not be misunderstood — only half of these meet European three­ to five­star standards.

Hotel room rates of the same category are much higher in Kyiv than in other European capitals, according to Iryna Yablochkova, general manager of the boutique hotel Riviera on Podol. Thus, Radisson SAS hotel charges 367 euro per night in Kyiv and only 175 euro in Warsaw.

Riviera on Podol opened in Kyiv in May 2007 as the first classic boutique hotel, attracting elite travelers with nightly rates ranging from $375 to $1000.

Industry insiders emphasize the huge gap between high prices and low quality service in Ukraine’s hospitality sector.

Ukrainian hotels usually charge double the price for deluxe rooms, Yablochkova said, because the demand is especially high for the best suites and as a rule the price rarely corresponds to an appropriate service level.

“The demand for high­quality hotel service greatly exceeds the supply, and the shortfall is filled by Soviet­era hotels and private sector apartment rentals,” said Martynyuk, adding that the occupancy level of Kyiv’s four­ to five­star hotels came to 60 percent last year, at the average room price of about 300 euro per night.

“This is among the highest average price in Europe and will not fall until at least a dozen new quality hotels are opened,” she added.

Industry insiders said the Kyiv five­star hotel market is nearing saturation and will reach it when the 10 planned luxury hotels are completed before the EURO 2012 football championship.

“One should not forget that the three­ and four­star hotel segments are also not filled in Ukraine," said Oleksandr Lytvyn, the general director of the elite Premier Palace hotel in Kyiv.

"And if we are talking about attracting a massive amount of tourists to the country, it is this segment that will be satisfying the demand,”

A number of mid­level international hotel chains have announced plans to fill the void in the three­star segment, industry players said.

With a 100­year history and renovated in 2001, the Premier Palace was the first five­star hotel to appear in Ukraine. The hotel was originally designed and built by city architect Lev Ginsburg and was known as a luxurious hotel before World War I.

The two­ to four­star hotel sectors in Ukraine remain thin and are low in quality with a poor range of services, hence international players might successfully fill up these undeveloped niches, industry insiders expect.

“This share will fall into the hands of hotels under the management of international operators, who also charge higher rates but offer a corresponding quality of service familiar to many travelers," Yablochkova said, naming Intercontinental, Ritz Carlton, Hyatt, Radisson as candidates.

Meanwhile industry insiders express concern that further development of the hotel sector in Ukraine will be hampered by problems, particularly the land use codes, red tape and endemic corruption.

“Issues like the hotel registration process; land allotment for construction; numerous compulsory procedures at the fire prevention, sanitary and epidemiologic institutions; and the process of obtaining all the necessary approvals and certificates is tricky, to say the least,” Martynyuk said.

On top of this, the rate of return on investment in the hotel business is a few years longer than in other real estate sectors. This slows down hotel investment, according to experts.

“It constitutes an obstacle for international investors that they do not see many examples of international hotel chain projects that have been successfully completed in Ukraine," Martnyuk said.

"At the same time, they see unclear and complicated conditions for getting all the necessary approvals and difficulties with the purchase of land plots or real estate properties."

Although a low level of competition and growing demand for hotel services is attracting foreign interest, industry players said the chronic problems must receive prompt government attention.

“If we had a favorable investment climate, we wouldn’t have found ourselves in a situation where we lack funds, stadiums and hospitality infrastructure on the brink of EURO 2012,” said Yablochkova.

Source: Kyiv Post

Beijing Olympics Photo Exhibition Inaugurated In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- A photo exhibition named "Beijing Welcomes You" was launched here Wednesday, drawing 200 representatives from the Ukrainian government, media groups and other friendly people from all walks of life.

Ukraine's National Olympic Committee Chairman Sergei Bubka
Chinese Ambassador to Ukraine Zhou Li, Ukraine's National Olympic Committee Chairman Sergei Bubka, together with two other high-ranking Ukrainian officials, co-presided over the opening ceremony.

The exhibition features nearly 90 pictures depicting the Chinese traditional architecture and culture, the Beijing Olympic facilities, Beijing's infrastructure construction, as well as the whole nation's enthusiastic preparation for the Olympic Games.

The Beijing Olympics torch relay which represents peace, friendship and hope, has already passed through more than 20 cities across the world and all the preparatory work for the Olympics has been completed, Zhou said.

The Beijing Olympics will greatly promote the exchanges and coexistence of different civilizations in the world, said Zhou, who also welcomed the Ukrainian people to visit Beijing.

Bubka said in his opening address that the theme of the Beijing Olympics -- "One World, One Dream" -- has precisely expressed the spirit of Olympics as well as the world people's common dream for a better future.

Source: Xinhua

Ukraine Losing HIV/AIDS Fight

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine’s HIV/AIDS epidemic is a threat to Europe, according to UNAIDS, while international experts said the Ukrainian government is failing to curb the disease’s growth rate, which is the highest in Europe.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko demonstrates a chart revealing the increasing rate of citizens contracting HIV/AIDS at a December meeting to address the epidemic.
About 1.63 percent of Ukrainians, or about 756,300 citizens, were estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS in 2007, up from 1.46 percent of the population in 2005, or 685,600 citizens, according to UNAIDS. The statistics only reflect official cases, while those infected is likely higher, officials said.

“The current efforts of national and local authorities, the public and donors to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS have failed to have a due impact on the epidemic,” said UN Resident Coordinator in Ukraine Francis O’Donnell.

In particular, the government’s 2004-2008 program to combat HIV/AIDS had grave shortcomings and failing results, according to an audit sponsored by the National Coordination Council for HIV/AIDS (NCC), in cooperation with the UN, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the US government. Its report was released April 18.

“Although all the necessary elements were present in the 2004-2008 program, its scale was not large enough,” said Anna Shakarishvili, the coordinator of UNAIDS Ukraine.

“Statistics clearly show that even though really large sums of money were given by international sources for HIV/AIDS prevention, they were being used spottily.”

For example, the government program focused its efforts and resources on the Ukrainian regions known to have the highest HIV rates, including Odessa, Kherson, Mykolayiv, Donetsk, Kyiv and Crimea, while leaving other regions with few resources, said Olena Banash, the vice manager of the Chemical Dependence and AIDS Proficiency Fund.

In fact, as many as 36 projects were concentrated in these regions alone, using 30 percent of the total HIV/AIDS funding, Shakarishvili said.

“In the western regions, it often happens that there is just one dedicated expert for several oblasts,” Banash said.

Donations, from both government and non-government sources, totaled more than $255 million to fund HIV/AIDS programs between 2004 and 2008, Shakarishvili said.

In order for the government’s 2008-2013 program to combat HIV/AIDS to work effectively, it has to have a bigger scale, better quality HIV/AIDS treatment services and a system of quality monitoring, the audit said.

If the new program does not work out, those infected with HIV/AIDS will continue to increase and potentially cause anywhere between 43,400 to 95,000 deaths in 2010, Ukraine’s Ministry of Health Defense said.

In its turn, the World Bank offered a bleak prognosis in its year-end report released in December 2007, anticipating that 140 Ukrainians will die daily from HIV/AIDS in 2014, 75 percent of those infected will be between 20 and 34 years old, and half of them will be women.

Poor management of HIV/AIDS funds, and possible corruption, is a factor in Ukraine’s inability to control its HIV/AIDS epidemic.

In the past four years, several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) suspended major grants because of their dissatisfaction with government management of programs.

In April 2006, the World Bank suspended a four-year, $60 million project to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) due to the government’s inability to properly distribute funds and implement programs.

The suspension was lifted in November 2006 under the condition that Ukraine improve project management and accelerate implementation of its programs.

The World Bank project will be re-evaluated at the year’s end.

Meanwhile in 2004, the Global Fund withdrew its two-year grant of $25 million from the government and transferred it to the management of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine (IHAU).

Despite the problems, international organizations remained patient with Ukrainian authorities and maintained financing.

In the same year after its grant withdrawal, the Global Fund gave the Ukrainian government’s 2004-2008 program about $150 million, the largest grant given to an Eastern European country.

Meanwhile, the government increased its own domestic funding for HIV/AIDS prevention to $20 million in 2007, Shakarishvili said.

With these funds, the government led HIV prevention campaigns among high risk groups (injecting drug users and sex workers) by offering them information, clean syringes, condoms, specialized therapy and prevention programs for children.

Among its other initiatives, the Ukrainian government is establishing Social Service Centers for Family, Children and Youth in HIV/AIDS Prevention, introducing prevention practices, distributing condoms and other supplies, and conducting lessons on HIV prevention in secondary school courses to increase awareness, Shakarishvili said.

The centers are situated in every oblast, with their own offices.

A network of call centers offer HIV/AIDS patients advice and counseling through a “trust phone” hotline established in June 2002.

The majority of callers are younger than 25 years old, said a call center operator who only identified himself as Rinat, stressing that each hotline operator uses a pseudonym.

“They may start asking very simple questions such as, ‘How long have I already been working,’ or ‘Until what time they can call,’ only later revealing that it has already been several years they have been living with HIV and are now experiencing serious psychological problems,” Rinat said, adding that a typical oblast call center gets 250 calls per month.

The call center can also provide a full database of AIDS centers throughout Ukraine and information on HIV drugs and treatments, such as anti-retroviral drugs, as well as a free consultation with a doctor on mornings.

While the Ukrainian government’s response to HIV/AIDS has made progress in addressing the epidemic, much more needs to be done to avoid devastating economic, health and demographic effects that are likely if no serious reforms are taken, said Olha Myrtsalo, public information advisor at USAID Regional Mission to Ukraine.

To this day, Ukrainians usually don’t take their own initiative to get tested for HIV, and women often only find out they are HIV-positive when they become pregnant.

Source: Kyiv Post

Racism Is On The Upswing In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- On May 5 a court in Kyiv sentenced four individuals of about 20 years of age to 13 years in prison each for beating a Korean national to death in 2007. According to 1+1 TV, this was one of the very few sentences that have been delivered in the country to punish xenophobia.


The four refused to plead guilty, even going so far as to make racist remarks in the courtroom. They plan to appeal.

Until very recently Ukraine was reluctant to admit the seriousness of its problem with racism and xenophobia. The police manipulated crime statistics, insisting that most of the reported cases of beatings and murders of foreigners were either acts of hooliganism or robberies; and they claimed that foreigners attacked locals in Ukraine more frequently than Ukrainians attacked foreigners.

President Viktor Yushchenko, who is often accused by his political opponents of imposing a policy of “monoculturalism” and “monolinguism,” has also denied on several occasions that racism existed in Ukraine.

Deputy Interior Minister Volodymyr Yevdokymov said on February 28 that “racist or xenophobic motives are virtually absent among all the thousands of crimes committed against foreign guests.”

Also in February Justice Minister Mykola Onishchuk called “the allegations” that racism exists in Ukraine “irrelevant and untimely.”

This persistence in denying the existence of the problem has done little to discourage racist attacks. The office of Ukrainian ombudsman Nina Karpachova registered some 100 cases of hostility based on xenophobia in 2006 and 2007, and 20 of those resulted in the deaths of people of various ethnic origins, the Ukrainian Center for Political Research reported in Ukrainska Pravda.

From January through March alone, 35 incidents of violence committed against foreigners were registered, according to Karpachova. NTN TV reported more chilling figures, saying that in this period some 100 attacks on foreigners were registered, in which 13 people were killed.

It is very hard to identify how many of those killings were racially motivated. Human rights activists say that there must have been more such cases than were officially registered.

The Council of Europe’s Commission against Racism and Intolerance noted in its report on Ukraine released in February that Article 161 in Ukraine’s Criminal Code, which provides for punishment for deliberate actions aimed at inciting ethnic, racial, or religious animosity, refers only to Ukrainian citizens and completely ignores stateless persons and foreigners.

What is more, “the article has seldom been implemented by the courts, as conviction based on this provision requires proof of deliberate action on the part of the perpetrator, which is difficult.”

The problem of racism is especially acute in Kyiv where there are many foreign students and refugees as well as many skinhead groups.

On February 19 foreign students staged a sit-in protest against racial abuse on the campus of the National Technical University, complaining of frequent attacks and robberies on and off campus. On March 23 a group of students tried to stop a torchlight march that was held on the campus by far-right groups using such slogans as “Migrants go home,” but riot police protected the xenophobes, pushing the students aside, according to Karpachova’s office.

In March, a citizen of Sierra Leone was stabbed to death in broad daylight in a Kyiv suburb, and a group of teenagers stabbed a Nigerian on the bus, reportedly saying, “What are you doing here?”

Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko blamed the attacks on underage skinheads. His ministry has identified over 500 members of a skinhead movement in Kyiv.

As the international community has begun to tell Ukrainian officials about the problem, they have reluctantly started to recognize its seriousness.

US Ambassador William Taylor, when signing documents granting technical aid to the Ukrainian police on March 14, said clearly that he regarded the efficiency of the Interior Ministry’s work in investigating crimes against foreigners to be low.

The European Union representatives shared their concern about racism and xenophobia in Ukraine at a meeting with Onishchuk and Lutsenko in Kyiv on March 21.

Deputy Interior Minister Mykhaylo Verbensky admitted at a meeting with human rights activists on April 2 that the police were unable to solve the problem on their own.

He asked other ministries and NGOs for help in fighting racial hatred and xenophobia. The Foreign Ministry on April 4 suggested shutting down racist websites. It said that the number of attacks on Ukrainians abroad increased in response to violence against foreigners in Ukraine.

On April 11 Yushchenko instructed Lutsenko and Prosecutor-General Oleksandr Medvedko to take urgent steps to fight xenophobia. In his official letters to the two officials, he pointed to the increasing number of racist attacks and to the international concern that they raised.

Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor

Giuliani Weighs In On Race For Mayor (In Ukraine)

NEW YORK, NY -- Who would have guessed that the next chapter in Rudolph W. Giuliani’s life would involve political consulting for a local election in Eastern Europe?

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R), gestures, as he talks to the press along with Vitali Klitschko, former WBO world champion heavy weight boxer at the NASDAQ market site, Wednesday, May 7, 2008 in New York.
Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor and former presidential candidate, called a news conference this morning in Times Square to appear beside Vitalil Klitschko, a former boxing and kick-boxing champion who is running for mayor of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.

Calling Mr. Giuliani “a huge name,” Mr. Klitschko, 36, said he hoped to make Kiev a modern city “like Paris, like London, like New York.”

Mr. Giuliani said Mr. Klitschko’s campaign had approached his company “several weeks ago,” seeking advice on policies to combat corruption.

Neither Mr. Giuliani nor Mr. Klitschko would disclose how much the Ukrainian candidate’s campaign is paying the former mayor or his company, Giuliani Partners, but Mr. Giuliani said that his staff members would be traveling to Kiev for three days next week and would release a report about what lessons in anticorruption Kiev can draw from the experience of other cities, including New York.

“They need a leader like you who can deal with corruption, who can deal with reform of government, which is so necessary,” Mr. Giuliani told Mr. Klitschko.

Then the former mayor digressed a bit, saying he could not have imagined “a more appropriate place” to hold the news conference than the ground-floor television studio of Nasdaq, near the corner of Broadway and 43rd Street. “Nasdaq is part of what I was talking about with you earlier: the rejuvenation of Times Square,” Mr. Giuliani reminded Mr. Klitschko.

“Reform is possible if you have the right candidate and the right set of ideas,” Mr. Giuliani said. “Kiev can accomplish this. It needs a leader who is determined to do it and a leader who has shown success in so many other areas.”

He said Mr. Klitschko reminded him of his successor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, and of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California — both of whom were new to politics when they ran for office.

In March 2006, after announcing his retirement from boxing, Mr. Klitschko campaigned for mayor of Kiev on an anticorruption platform.

That May, he finished second to Leonid Chernovetsky in a crowded race, winning about 25 percent of the vote.

As he campaigns again in a new election, scheduled for May 25, polls suggest that he is gaining support.

Source: The New York Times

Consumer Prices Increase Sharply In April

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine’s consumer prices rose sharply in April, breaching the 30% threshold when measured over the past 12 months and pushing inflation to the highest level over the past 10 years, released data show.

The Tymoshenko government has recently come under fire from the Yushchenko office for failing to keep consumer prices in check.
The prices rose 30.2% in April from April 2007, bordering on the definition of hyperinflation, in a clear indication the government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been losing control over the situation.

The prices rose 3.1% in April from March, pushing cumulative inflation to 13.1% during the four months of January through April, according to the State Statistics Committee report posted Tuesday.

The figures, which were apparently spurred by massive social payments initiated by Tymoshenko since January, far exceeded the government’s original forecast of 9.6% inflation for the entire year of 2008.

The figures put mounting pressure on the National Bank of Ukraine to take strong action, from hiking key interest rates to letting the hryvnia appreciate rapidly against the U.S. dollar.

“We are standing at the threshold behind which the NBU would let the hryvnia half free float within the [currency trading] band,” Iryna Kryuchkova, a deputy economy minister, said in an interview with Kontrakty newspaper. “There is no other way out. Everyone understands that.”

The NBU met on April 24 to consider the idea of letting the hryvnia appreciate against the dollar, but had decided to postpone the matter indefinitely.

In comments earlier this week, the NBU blamed the government for the high inflation, specifically mentioning the massive social spending initiative that had aggravated rising costs of fuel and food.

The worsening inflation outlook may also resume calls within the office of President Viktor Yushchenko to remove those ministers that have been responsible for drafting and handling the government’s economic policy.

Yushchenko’s office already called for the dismissal of such ministers in March, but Tymoshenko had flatly rejected the idea.

Tymoshenko admitted last month the government had been failing to curb price increases, but said it needed three more months to get the situation under control. April data show little sign of improvement in tackling the problem, analysts said.

The Tymoshenko government has recently come under fire from the Yushchenko office for failing to keep consumer prices in check, but some government officials say the criticism has been making the situation worse.

“It’s important for politicians not to speculate over the issue of inflation because this has been artificially strengthening inflationary expectations,” Kryuchkova said.

Source: Ukrainian Journal

Russia, Ukraine In Row Over Misplaced Torpedo

KIEV, Ukraine -- The Kremlin and the Ukrainian government exchanged diplomatic salvos on Tuesday in growing war of words over a lost Russian Navy torpedo.

Russian sailors walk along a street in Sevastopol, Crimea in Ukraine. Sevastopol is the main base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs fired off a formal note to Moscow complaining that the weapon had been launched by Russian naval forces during secret war games in the Black Sea.

The half-ton projectile was found slightly above the high water line by a Ukrainian border troops foot patrol walking the shore between the seaside cities Sudak and Alushta, in the heart of Crimea's summer resort region.

The torpedo's firing violated a 1997 agreement between the two nations requiring counterparts be informed ahead of time if either side intends to conduct military training in the region's waters, the Foreign Ministry note contended.

'The firing was not agreed upon in any way with the Ukrainian side...and so it is completely unacceptable,' the statement read in part.

A Russian Navy response reported by the Interfax news agency criticised the Ukrainian claims, arguing the object found by the Ukrainians on the beach was not a really a weapon, but rather a dummy torpedo.

'There was no threat to the environment, and of course none at all to people,' the Black Sea Fleet statement said in part. There were no details the means by which the Russian torpedo landed on the Ukrainian beach.

The Russian fleet statement claimed Ukrainian objections were politically-motivated, as a Russian fleet element 'lost accountability' on the torpedo in late April, but the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry only chose to complain about it nearly a week later.

April 30 through May 9 inclusive are generally-recognised holidays in both Russia and Ukraine. Government work including non-essential offices of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry are closed for most of the period.

Russia maintains naval installations in the Ukrainian port city Sevastopl, home port for Russia's Black Sea fleet. Ukrainian authorities returned the wayward torpedo to Russian naval officials.

Russian military bases in the enthnically-divided Crimea region is a sensitive issue, because many ethnic Russians living there support a Russian military presence in the region, although the bulk of Ukrainians oppose it.

Source: DPA

Russian Premier Visits Kyiv: Did He Call At A Bad Time?

KIEV, Ukraine -- Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov led a government delegation to Kyiv on April 25. It was only a one-day visit, and Zubkov is expected to be replaced sometime this month anyway, following the inauguration of the new Russian president.

Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
But the timing was perfect to highlight the contrast between the concentrated and coordinated power that emanates from Moscow and the three-ring circus of executive authority that continues in Ukraine.

Bolstered by revenues from oil and gas exports, the Kremlin has eliminated any possible challenges to its rule from stroppy oligarchs, nosy media or whoever.

Vladimir Putin has reigned supreme for the better part of a decade and assured the smooth, if not democratic, transfer of power to his protégé Dmitry Medvedev.

Ukraine, on the other hand, has lurched from one power struggle to the next, dashing the hopes engendered by the country’s Orange Revolution.

Ever since Western reformer Viktor Yushchenko emerged from the 2004 revolution as president, he has been challenged – indeed defied – by political competitors who more often than not headed the government.

First it was the Donetsk strongman Viktor Yanukovych, who returned from an ignominious defeat in the 2004 presidential race to bully Mr. Yushchenko as premier.

Now, the president is grappling to restrain his one-time Orange ally Yulia Tymoshenko, who is serving her second term as head of government under Yushchenko.

Highly popular among Ukrainians due to her combination of populism and toughness, Tymoshenko is expected to challenge Yushchenko for the presidency in 2009/2010.

But since Ukrainian leaders are apparently just as much opposed to sharing power as Russian ones, the fighting has started well in advance of the next elections.

As in the 1980s American movie Highlander: ‘There can be only one!’

Tymoshenko had hoped to use her control over the government to ingratiate future voters with largess and pay for it with revenues from privatization.

But Mr. Yushchenko, whose own popularity ratings have dropped to dismal levels since the days when he was known as the nation’s “messiah,” has prevented her from doing so in a game of cat and mouse that is great for political pundits, but pathetic for the country’s international image. Not only have badly needed legislative reforms and privatization been held hostage as a result of the domestic cold war, but the recent string of re-elections can only be described as a waste of public money.

As for the private money that is spent, for example, on waging nasty PR campaigns (highly profitable for sleazy media), it’s going to have to be paid back in the form of state favors otherwise known as corruption.

Please note at this point the heated battle between the president and his premier over proposed measures to stop corruption in the allocation of the country’s lucrative land plots.

Late last month, Yushchenko again suspended a government order to invest a single (government) authority with the right to allocate land plots. Currently, local authorities are allowed this coveted privilege and no doubt show great loyalty to any politician who allows them to continue doing so.

Tymoshenko and Co. were of course not pleased, prompting the fiery premier to, among other things, revive the specter of creating a parliamentary republic by parliamentary approved changes to the Constitution.

Once again, Mr. Yushchenko was threatened with having the rug pulled out from underneath him.

“A parliamentary form of rule in the country will finally establish some kind of order,” Ms. Tymoshenko said on national television late last month.

But the real battle is being fought (almost literally) over control of privatization.

A ringside recount of events goes something like this…

Earlier this year, Tymoshenko put forward a bold plan to privatize several lucrative state assets, including the much-coveted Odessa Portside Chemical Plant.

Although she obviously wants to raise cash from the sale to finance her government programs, Tymoshenko’s privatization record to date is exemplary.

During her first stint as premier, she pulled off the nation’s most transparent and publicly beneficial privatization sale - that of Krivyrizhstal steel mill, which netted the state $4.8 billion dollars.

But Mr. Yushchenko has halted the government’s privatization plan through a series of decrees.

Also by decree, the president has moved to stop Tymoshenko from cleaning house at the State Property Fund (SPF), which handles privatization.

The president has argued that Tymoshenko doesn’t have the right to fire SPF chief Valentyna Semenyuk, a leftover from the Yanukovych government.

Tymoshenko disagrees, citing an April 17 decision by the country’s integrity-challenged Constitutional Court in which it rejected a presidential appeal to uphold his decrees.

Sure of her rectitude, or just sick and tired of fooling around, the premier went ahead and appointed her own (acting) SPF chief, ordering him to stop corruption and move forward with privatization in contempt of the president’s decrees.

In a scene reminiscent of last year’s power struggle between Yushchenko and then Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, Tymoshenko personally showed up to support her appointment at the SPF accompanied by guards.

For the time being, Tymoshenko’s man, one Mr. Andriy Portnov, has set up a parallel SPF office at the Cabinet of Ministers.

Last year, state guards sent by Yushchenko to eject a prosecutor-general whom he’d fired ran into resistance from a special police unit ordered into action by a member of Yanukovych’s coalition. As the conflict was being resolved in typical Ukrainian secrecy, rumors spread of a possible putsch.

This time around, the phrase being used to describe Ms. Tymoshenko’s action is “raider attack,” which has gained currency in Ukraine of late to describe illegal and often armed seizures of companies by tiny minority shareholders emboldened by dubious court decisions.

Such was (and still is) the state of executive power in Ukraine upon the visit of Russian premier Viktor Zubkov.

Although Russia clearly has much to gain from a divided and anarchic Ukraine, the politicians in Kyiv have a unique talent for petty and pointless bickering that requires little assistance from abroad.

The Kremlin has traditionally supported the third member of Ukraine’s three-ring circus, former Prime Minister Yanukovych, who continues to champion Russian as a second state language while opposing NATO membership for his country.

But the word on the street is that Moscow now sees Mr. Yanukovych as a political has-been.

However, both Yushchenko and Tymoshenko oppose official status for Russian and advocate NATO membership among other pro-Western policies.

So, a smart move by the Kremlin would be to feign support for both Tymoshenko and Yushchenko as they continue to go at each other’s throats.

Yushchenko has been said to be wooing Russia lately to compensate for his falling ratings at home.

Interestingly, though, Zubkov limited his meetings in Kyiv to Ms. Tymoshenko.

In addition to NATO and the language issue, the Russians have a wide array of interests in Ukraine: further penetration by Gazprom on the domestic Ukrainian market, the continued presence of the Black Sea fleet in Crimea and the construction of a bridge between southern Russia and Crimea, which many Russian politicians openly claim for Russia.

Although the bridge issue wasn’t on the agenda of their meeting, Zubkov raised the issue with Tymoshenko in Kyiv.

There are of course other Russian interests such as control over Ukraine’s Kremenchug Oil refinery, which was recently wrested from a Russian company, and Russia’s monopoly over fuel supplies to Ukrainian nuclear power plants, which is being threatened by an American contract.

Last month’s visit to Kyiv by Mr. Zubkov was certainly during ‘a bad time,’ but then again there haven’t been many good times for executive authority in Ukraine over the last couple of years.

And if Yushchenko and Tymoshenko don’t realize this, if they keep putting their personal ambitions above those of the country, allowing Moscow to grow more influential as a power broker, we will be seeing some of the above stated Russian interests resolved favorably for Moscow, even as important processes such as privatization and legislative reform continue to be bogged down in partisan politics.

Source: Eurasian Home

RETRACTION: "Leading Arab Business Holding Mulls $2 Billion Investment In Crimea" Article Is Incorrect

KIEV, Ukraine – On May 21, 2007, we published the above named article based on source information from the “Kyiv Post.”

Saeed and Mohammed Al Naboodah Group hereby confirms that the said press release was absolutely incorrect and contains misleading and unsubstantiated information.

In addition, Saeed and Mohammed Al Naboodah Group hereby confirms that it is not currently raising any investments in Ukraine or in any of East-Europe countries.

We at Kiev Ukraine News Blog, hereby retract this article, having removed it from our servers, and offer our apologies, to both our readers and to the Saeed and Mohammed Al Naboodah Group, for publishing the misleading information.

Source: Kiev Ukraine News Blog

Alexander Dimitrenko - A Heavyweight Champion Of The Future?

NEW YORK, NY -- Unbeaten Ukraine heavyweight contender Alexander Dimitrenko scored a reasonably notable win on Saturday, in Stuttgart, Germany.

Alexander Dimitrenko
Boxing on the same card as the Firat Arslan-Darnel Wilson cruiserweight world title clash, the 25 year old big guy stopped the equally big Derric Rossy in five rounds of a good fight.

And no, this win doesn't exactly automatically vault the 6'7" fighter to the top of the heavyweight pile, contender-wise.

But it was a decent win nonetheless, one that proved the 250 pounds-plus big man is at least a heavyweight to keep an eye on for the future.

So far, in a pro career that began back in December of 2001, Dimitrenko has done nothing wrong.

Winning all 28 of his fights, 18 of them inside the distance, the 25 year old has kept a clean sheet.

Yes, he has been fed his share of stiffs, as any up and coming heavyweight is.

But thrown in also, there have been a few respectable and capable names.

Wins over Ross Purity - WU8, Chris Koval - WU10, Vaughn Bean - WU10, aren't bad, and wins over Timo Hoffmann - TKO 12 and now Rossy - TKO 5, are even better.

A good amateur - Dimitrenko won the world junior championship in 2000 at unlimited weight - the 25 year old looks as though he may develop into a good pro.

With time very much on his side at age 25, the 6'7" colossus is being moved just about right.

He has yet to fight outside of Germany, and so far he has not faced a top-ten rated heavyweight.

But in time, what with his momentum and credibility slowly growing, Dimitrenko will surely do both.

Hopefully this year the man known as "Sascha" will meet a top-fifteen type guy.

The decision to take on Rossy was certainly a step in the right direction - after all, Rossy had only lost once previously, to the still hopeful "Fast" Eddie Chambers.

Give Dimitrenko the time he needs to improve, and he just might - I say, might - surprise us all by winning a version of the heavyweight title.

Let's face it, there are worse heavyweights out there attempting to do likewise.

With his sheer size, decent punching power and good connections (Dimitrenko is a member of the Universum stable), Dimitrenko may have a better shot than most in today's largely Klitschko-dominated heavyweight division.

Source: East Side Boxing

Yushchenko Demands Sides Of Conflict Around State Property Fund To Observe Constitution

KIEV, Ukraine -- President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko demands that all sides of conflict around the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPFU) observe provisions of the Ukrainian Constitution.

President Viktor Yushchenko
According to an UNIAN correspondent, Victor Yushchenko stressed in an interview with journalists on Monday that, in line with the existing Constitution, only the parliament has a right to appoint and dismiss the SPFU chairman.

“Nobody will change this provision of law, and I commission all the sides, taking part in the conflict, to observe only the provisions of the Ukrainian Constitution”, the President stressed.

He pointed out that should the SPFU head be illegally sacked or appointed, this will give up the Ukrainian privatization for lost.

Besides, in the opinion of the President, this also tarnishes the image of Ukraine , its authorities, and seriously reduces the cost of objects for sale.

“My recommendation, to the government as well, is to be busy with affairs, lying within the legal sphere for settling this issue”, Victor Yushchenko stressed.

He noted that any strong-arm tactic will never work.

“I will be on the watch over observing the Constitution in this sphere. It seems to me, the government understands it quite well, but, for some reason, they do not come to any corresponding conclusions. We’re going a wrong way”, Victor Yushchenko said.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on February 6 of the current year, the government decided to remove Valentyna Semeniuk-Samsonenko from post of State Property Fund chief.

However, as early as on 7 February, President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko suspended the government’s decree on removal V.Semeniuk-Samsonenko from the SPFU chief post.

On April 24, the Okruzhny administrative court of Kyiv ruled to suspend the President’s decree concerning V.Semeniuk-Samsonenko, and suspended all decrees of V.Semeniuk-Samsonenko concerning the cancellation of the Odessa Pre-Port Plant privatization.

On April 25, Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko installed Andriy Portnov as new chief of the State Property Fund of Ukraine .

This time the Prosecutor-General’s Office intervened, canceling Semeniuk’s suspension by Tymoshenko. In response, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc threatened to launch a no-confidence motion against Prosecutor-General Oleksandr Medvedko in parliament.

Speaking at a talk-show on Inter TV, Semeniuk said that she would not go until parliament replaced her. Semeniuk knows that parliament will not do that any time soon, as the biggest caucus in it, the opposition Party of Regions, will hardly back Tymoshenko in her dispute with Yushchenko.

Source: FinChannel

Union Of BYUT And SDPU Is Fraught With Risks For Ukraine, United Center Leader Ihor Krul Warns

LUTSK, Ukraine -- United Center leader Kril has called BYUT a hallmark of anti-Ukrainian forces rallying around Viktor Medvedchuk. Kril was speaking in a May 2 press conference in Lutsk, ZIK reports.

SDPU leader Viktor Medvedchuk
“In 1999, when the then Pres Leonid Kuchma appointed Viktor Yushchenko premier, Ukrainian patriots rallied around Yushchenko.

Simultaneously, anti-Ukrainian forces began to consolidate around Viktor Medvedchuk, Ihor Kril argued.

Recall the dismissal of Premier Yushchenko and who was behind it.

Recall 2004: is it correct to say that Yanukovych was behind the scheme to depose Yushchenko?

Yanukovych was the front man, with Medvedchuk pulling all the strings.

I believe, the situation is much the same now. Again we witness the tug-of-war between patriotic and anti-Ukrainian forces, with Medvedchuk again pulling the strings – this time propped by BYUT,” Kril opined.

He added: ”The union between BYUT and SDPU poses a threat for Ukraine as it is more sophisticated and brutal from the point of view of its tactics. I spoke with Volyn politicians, and they say Ukraine is in danger.”

Ihor Kril listed the doings by BYUT which he believes are against the interests of Ukraine.

“In a populist frenzy, they are eager to sell off lucrative state property only to buy more votes,” he added.

Source: ZIK

Paul McCartney To Play Free Ukraine Concert

LONDON, United Kingdom -- Paul McCartney is going back to the USSR - to play a huge free outdoor concert in the Ukraine.

Sir Paul McCartney
The former Beatle will perform to over 300,000 in the main Independence Square in Kiev on June 14.

Macca, 65, will use the event to announce a huge world tour later this year and throughout 2009.

A source said: "With his divorce behind him he's ready to hit the road again."

Macca said: "It's going to be great evening."

Source: Sunday Mirror UK

Ukrainian And American Face Charges Of Smuggling Elephant Ivory, Whale Teeth

BOSTON, MA -- A Nantucket scrimshaw dealer and a Ukrainian man are facing charges of smuggling sperm whale teeth and elephant ivory in violation of international treaties and a federal endangered species protection laws.

Sperm whale teeth
Federal prosecutors say 53-year-old Charles Manghis was released on $25,000 bond Thursday. He faces multiple charges of smuggling whale teeth and elephant ivory, making false statements to federal agents and conspiracy.

Andriy Mikhalyov of Odessa, Ukraine, was charged with conspiring with Manghis and others to import sperm whale ivory from Ukraine through California to Massachusetts.

A spokeswoman for federal prosecutors says he remains in Ukraine.

If convicted, Manghis faces up to 20 years in prison and fines up to $250,000.

His lawyer did not immediately return a call for comment Friday.

Source: Kyiv Post

Ukraine And Libya In Nuclear Cooperation

TRIPOLI, Libya -- Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's president, says his country is ready to cooperate with Libya in the military field, as regards space research and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Colonel Muammar Kadhafi
In a message from President Yushchenko to Colonel Muammar Kadhafi, the Libyan le ader, he reiterated Ukraine's willingness to launch joint projects with Libya in Africa and to initiate cooperation in the military and technical fields.

"The people of Ukraine are in a position to satisfy the needs of the Libyan side. Ukraine is also ready to implement fully the proposals and to show great interest to cooperation, especially with the Libya-Africa Portfolio for investment, and benefit from its experience in the creation of common interest projects on the African continent," he said.

An official Libyan source affirmed that President Yushchenko said priority should also be given to bilateral economic projects as well as to the establishment of a common industrial base.

The participation of Ukrainian firms in oil and gas production, the construction of railway lines and roads as well as the opportunity offered to the Ukrainian o il and gas company to enter the Libyan market were among the priorities underlined by president Yushchenko, who visited Libya from 7-8 April.

He also invited Libyan investors to visit Ukraine soon to launch the implementat ion of investment projects for the building of an oil refinery, hotels, roads an d other projects in the field of cereals production in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian leader recalled the rapid establishment of a base for the maintena nce of Antonov planes, while Libya participated in the activities of the Ukraine Helicopters company in view of the establishment of a firm by Libya and Ukraine.

Source: Afriquenligne

The Battle For Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- A battle fought near the Ukrainian town of Poltava on 28 June 1709 sealed the fates of three nations. And despite the key roles played by the three very different political-military leaders who took part, things wouldn't have turned out any different regardless of who was giving the orders.

Ukrainian national hero, Hetman Ivan Mazepa.
Representing Russia was Peter the Great, one of those rare historical figures who are credited with single-handedly changing the course of events.

The seven-foot-tall czar forced his country to embrace the technically advanced West, which he personally visited 'incognito' (a first for a Russian leader). Prior to Peter, who took control of the Kremlin at the age of 24, Russia was a backward mixture of high Byzantine culture and no-nonsense Mongol administration.

After him, it had become a centralized if not fully functional bureaucracy with a military capable of supporting the czars' imperial ambitions against Europe and the Turkish sultan.

Peter wasn't particularly concerned about the lot of the Russian peasants, who eventually became virtual slaves of the aristocracy. In addition to his boundless energy and desire for learning, he was also a crude and irreverent bully.

At the time of the battle of Poltava, he was 37 years old.

The Swedish king, Charles the Twelfth, was also a remarkable, although a thoroughly European, leader. Unlike Peter, whose rise to power was uncertain and full of bloody intrigues, the initially frail Charles was groomed for his position by his father.

Nevertheless, at the age of only 15, he asserted himself as monarch, gaining the reputation of a fearless, beloved and ingenious military leader before he was twenty.

While Peter was trying to open his window to the West, which required access to the Baltic and Black seas, Charles was attempting to hold together the much smaller Swedish empire.

The two men and their countries were bound to clash, but it wasn't the big clumsy bear that took the initiative. Instead, Charles was betrayed by a member of his own aristocracy, who brokered an alliance between the Danes, the King of Poland Frederick Augustus II and Peter - all of whom had territorial grievances against the Swedish throne.

But in the decade leading up to Poltava, the bold if impetuous Swede had neutralized all his enemies in brilliant military victories, except Russia, which continued to learn from its defeats in battle.

In short, although Peter is revered for making Russia great, while Sweden lost its status as a regional power under Charles, the victory was one of careful Russian defense over bold Swedish offense, eastern numerical superiority over western technical skill, and home advantage on the steppe over European arrogance.

In the middle of these two young demigods was an old but able Cossack playing a desperately weak hand of historical cards.

In some ways, Ivan Mazepa, almost seventy years old at the time of the battle of Poltava, represented a middle ground between Peter and Charles.

Born in an area controlled by the Polish Lithuanian Commonweath, he served in the Polish court and attended a Jesuit college in Warsaw. But he rose to power in Ukraine by faithfully serving the Russian Czar.

For centuries the Cossacks had been able to play off the Polish, the Turks and the Russians against each other, but following the Treaty of Pereyaslav in 1654, Moscow gradually began exercise increasing influence n Ukraine.

Mazepa's decision to side with the Swedes against Moscow was probably the last serious attempt by the Cossacks to maintain their independence.

And it didn't work.

Like Napoleon and Hitler who followed in his footsteps, Charles was ultimately defeated by the vast and harsh Eurasian steppe.

He moved too deeply and too quickly into enemy territory, which was scorched behind the evasive and much more numerous Russian army.

Charles set off with 70,000 troops and ended up with around 1,000 - the victims of bad planning and personal hubris. The outstanding bravery and skill of the Swedes wasn't enough to secure victory.

Neither was the contribution to the campaign by Mazepa, who showed up on the battle scene with only a couple of thousand Cossacks.

Moreover, his decision to oppose the Czar, in which only a fraction of his fellow Ukrainians joined him, provoked the obliteration of Cossack military power by Peter's generals.

By convincing Charles that Ukraine could provide him with 30,000 additional troops and badly needed food and supplies, Mazepa also unintentionally betrayed the Swedes.

But his actions were definitely in the interest of an independent Ukraine, whose coming followed only 280 years later.

Moreover, under the reckless leadership of Charles, who overextended his supply lines, the Swedes were doomed to defeat anyway.

Just as Russia was bound to sooner or later, under one leader or another, take advantage of the waning Turkish and Polish-Lithuanian empires.

Mazepa, however, was no more bound by loyalty to the Czar than the Russians were bound to pay tribute to the Mongols.

Nevertheless, Mazepa remains in anathema from the Russian Orthodox Church, even as his face adorns Ukraine's five-hryvnia banknote.

And as President Yushchenko laid flowers on the old Cossack's grave last month, Russian and Ukrainian diplomats were arguing about how the 300-year anniversary should be commemorated next year.

For their part, the Swedes want to erect their own monument in Poltava, to Charles. Clearly, all three leaders - Mazepa, Charles and Peter, were exceptional men worthy of their respective countries' praise.

And looked at in the hind site of a history that includes the 13th century battle of Alexander Nevsky against the Livonian knights, and the Polish intrusion during the early 17th century time of troubles, the Battle of Poltava was just the latest episode of failed military campaigns by the West against Russia.

The only question now is whether Ukraine will be able to maintain the independence it has received in more recent times.

Source: The Ukrainian Observer

EU, NATO Must Integrate All Balkan States And Ukraine, Area Countries Say

OHRID, Macedonia -- The leaders of 19 Central and southeastern European countries agreed Saturday that European Union integration will not be complete unless all Western Balkan states are included.


"There is no viable political alternative to the integration into the European Union for the candidates and aspiring states," Macedonian president Branko Crvenkovski said after the two-day summit at the lake resort of Ohrid. "However, the region is still not irreversibly on the road to Europe."

The Central European Initiative was formed in 1989 to strengthen ties between the region and the EU. Its 18 members are Albania, Austria, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.

Ten are EU members, three are official EU candidates and five have not joined the union. Turkey attended as a guest.

Slovak president Ivan Gasparovic said Kosovo remains the "hottest topic" regarding peace in the Western Balkans.

Kosovo was on the agenda but the former Serbian province was not invited. Crvenkovski said an invitation would have required agreement of all the group's members, but Serbia does not recognize Kosovo's independence.

Bosnian president Haris Silajdzic, in a speech, criticized the European Union for postponing a pre-membership trade-and-aid agreement for Bosnia while signing one with Serbia.

"We were told the deal would be signed first in April, then in May, and now June is mentioned as a possible date. Our people are hurt and a bitter feeling lingers.

Bosnia has fulfilled all the conditions. Serbia got the deal. The countries who have committed genocide got it, but not Bosnia, who was the victim," Silajdzic said.

The EU signed a pre-membership agreement with Serbia this week to boost pro-Western parties before May 11 elections there.

"Nobody can blackmail Serbia to recognize Kosovo just to get into the European union," Serbian president Boris Tadic told reporters in Ohrid.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Analysts Raise Ukraine 2008 Inflation Forecast To 21.6 Pct

KIEV, Ukraine -- Analysts sharply raised their forecasts for Ukraine's full-year inflation to a median of 21.6 percent from the previous 15.7 percent, after the highest monthly price jump since 1999 in March, according to a Reuters survey.


Inflation jumped 3.8 percent last month compared with February, bringing the cumulative increase in prices since the start of the year to 9.7 percent, exceeding a full-year government forecast of 9.6 percent.

The year-on-year inflation rate in March was 26.2 percent and, according to the eight analysts in the survey, probably rose to 29.6 percent last month. Inflation data for April are due to be published next week.

Prices started soaring in the second half of last year, largely due to a poor harvest which pushed up food prices -- some 60 percent of the consumer price index basket. Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's government has also raised social spending, which analysts say has fuelled inflation.

"Consumer inflation is at a historical peak," said Serhiy Yagnych of UkrSibbank. "We expect a slower pace of price growth due to an anticipated good harvest, a stronger currency and the statistical effect of a growing comparison base."

"But due to the unprecedented price growth as seen in the first quarter full-year inflation is unlikely to be below 20 percent."

The central bank has let the hryvnia appreciate beyond its official band of 4.95-5.25 to the dollar in recent weeks, though its council has rejected a revaluation of the currency.

But central bank chairman Volodymyr Stelmakh has spoken of a revaluation in terms of fighting inflation. Earlier this month, he criticised generous government spending and warned of stagflation -- a combination of high inflation and slow economic growth.

"More price moves and a limited monetary policy will not have a positive impact on the economy. On the other hand, slowing down inflation will not be easy and for that reason we will see a period of continuing high level inflation in conditions of slower economic growth," said Vitaly Kravchuk, of the Institute for Economic Research and Political Consulting.

"Will it reach the extent of stagflation? That will depend on internal politics and external sentiment."

Analysts also lowered their full year economic growth forecast, partly due to the global credit crisis which may impact the local market and potential interest rate rises to fight inflation.

They now see economic growth at 6.0 percent compared with a previous forecast of 6.3 percent and against 7.6 percent last year. But they said the hryvnia's recent appreciation will not hit the export-driven economy.

"The current strengthening of the hryvnia on the interbank market does not have an essential impact on exporters because at the beginning of the year, prices for metals -- the main Ukrainian export -- rose more than the hryvnia's rate against the dollar," said Oleksander Zholyd, of the International Centre for Policy Studies.

Source: Guardian UK

The Dangers To The EU Of Condemning Ukraine And Belarus To Political Limbo

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- One of the merits of the Berlin Wall was that it marked a finite border for the European project. It meant that few bothered to ask where does Europe end? The answer was obvious. But with its unlamented fall almost 20 years ago, that question of where Europe's borders might end up has become a staple of the European debate.


The collapse of the Wall in 1989 saw European Commission officials dusting off their atlases to search for places about which they knew little and cared less. Leon Brittan, then a commissioner and supporter of enlargement, recalls that some officials and countries even hoped that the pre-1989 line could be held.

They felt that enlargement even to the Scandinavian and Alpine countries was going too far. It was only in 1993 that the Council officially recognised that membership for all the former Soviet bloc countries could be a long-term goal. "There were many sceptics in the College of Commissioners with whom I often locked horns," he has since written. And it took a further four years for the new round of membership talks to get started.

Now, with the accession of the 10 former command economies, the sceptics are much fewer. But the pressure to enlarge once more to the east is still there. Now that they've been dusted off, those atlases are kept close to hand in EU offices. And in contrast to the 1990s, the debate on Europe's frontiers is not confined to officials or think-tankers.

In mid-2005 the voters came on the scene when in France and the Netherlands they rejected the constitutional treaty. Both decisions were partly motivated by a fear that enlargement was going too fast and too far. "We don't want the Romanians deciding on how we should order our lives" a Dutch professor recently complained. Evidently a pause was needed.

Many of the former Soviet Republics, with aspirations to EU membership as well as Turkey, have become the victims of that loss of nerve. The Balkans are also having to wait. The Baltic countries − Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, part of the Soviet Union since 1940 − slipped in under the wire in 2004.

But they were all small and contiguous to the EU. Ukraine is big, and Georgia is far away in the Caucasus. Then there is Belarus, whose ruler Alexander Lukashenko steadfastly refuses to recognise the political logic of the past two decades and clings to a model of authoritarian rule which makes acceptance of his country by the European Union impossible.

The European Union itself, is caught in a trap. As the soul searching continues among the "old" member states on the relevance of the organisation − what is it actually for? − the membership queue lengthens of eager converts to the European ideal. Those with candidate status, like Turkey or Croatia, are locked into adapting their legislation and institutions to the EU's body of law, the acquis communautaire. This is akin to a ride on railway tracks, even if at times the Turks may feel it's more a fairground roller-coaster.

Yet the accession process firmly sets out the reform tasks to be performed. It also gives governments the impetus to challenge interest groups as well as the criminal mafias who fear the transparency the acquis' implementation would involve. The process may be difficult, but it is ultimately benign – countries are moved to reform by introducing market rules and by adhering to the rule of law and democratic procedures.

Many of those countries that have now entered the EU admit that their politicians would never have had the courage to bring in necessary changes if not for the pressure from the Commission (the stick) and the prospect of membership (the carrot).

If the accession process brings candidates a measure of certainty, then each new state in the membership queue brings a total lack of certainty to the present member states – especially the older ones. "We are proceeding with enlargement, but it could mean the end of the EU as we know it and the establishment of no more than a large free trade zone" says Jacques Rupnik from CERI in Paris. Rupnik has just published "Les Banlieues de l'Europe", a collection of essays on the subject and argues that "at least we should discuss the issue".

Where does all this leave Ukraine? It is a country of 47m people that has seen itself as a prospective candidate for EU membership since 2004 when the Orange Revolution, that massive gathering of pro democracy demonstrators in the capital, Kiev, forced the country's rulers to respect election rules. Since then, another two free and fair national elections have been held in Ukraine.

In contrast to Russia, its northern neighbour, Ukrainian politicians have shown that they are keen to make a break with the communist past. Last November as President Wiktor Juszczenko was inaugurating a year of commemorations of the great famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine, riot police in Moscow and St Petersburg were breaking up small street demonstrations of President Vladimir Putin's opponents.

The contrast couldn't be greater. While Ukraine was remembering the fate of millions of Stalin's victims. Russia was cracking down on a symbolic show of opposition to the Kremlin. Russia's Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper editorialised that the authorities in Russia were afraid of taking the "moral and maybe material responsibility" for the famine and attempting to "wipe out the memory of the event".

But there is more to Ukraine's drive for independence and a strengthening of links with the west than a rejection of the region's Stalinist legacy. Ukraine's powerful business leaders are fully aware of the fate of the oligarchs in Russia and they see the prospect of EU membership as a way of legitimising their wealth and fending off their Russian rivals.

Not only do Ukraine's business barons want to develop their business empires within the safety of a, legitimate, free market framework but they also want to be able to invest abroad in the EU.

There is a long way to go, however. Ukraine's political elites have mastered the art of getting democratically elected but a consensus on effective government sorely eludes them. Russian influence is still strong especially in the east of the country and the state apparatus is weak. Ukraine needs the discipline of the accession process if reforms are to be implemented effectively. And that means a promise from the EU of membership.

Belarus is different. It appears that the mass of its 10m people are still so scared of the rigours of the free market that they are ready to ignore the calls of the democratic opposition against President Lukashenko's authoritarian rule.

That will hold true as long as cheap energy is available from Russia as a de facto subsidy to the Belarus economy and consumer. But that time is coming to an end, with energy prices rising and the Belarus economy facing economic shocks that could provoke unrest and pose a threat to the country's ruler.

Lukashenko appears to see the danger. He has been making overtures to the EU to counter what he sees as a growing rift with Moscow. And the Belarus government has been exploring the possibility of securing oil supplies through Ukraine should the Russians cut off supplies through the Friendship pipeline to the country's two oil refineries at Mosyr and Nowopolock.

A tightly controlled privatisation programme is also beginning, with revenues from asset sales to be used to fill budget shortfalls caused by rising energy prices. It can reasonably be assumed that the regime's senior officials are being given a stake as a nest egg, just in case things should change.

At the same time Lukashenko has given no sign that he is willing to democratise his regime, let alone release political prisoners. And that's a real problem. "It is only by staying firmly on the democratic path that the doors to cooperation and integration with the rest of Europe can be opened up. This is the message for Minsk," said Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, late last year in Warsaw.

Both Ukraine and Belarus are thus in a state of flux. But if Brussels should decide to leave in abeyance the possibility that they might join the EU at some point in the future, both also face being left in a political limbo that in the longer term, could threaten the security of the EU on its eastern flank.

In Ukraine, the EU's failure to encourage the government in its European aspirations risks creating a growing disillusionment with the West. This has already happened in Turkey, where support for EU membership has fallen markedly. That would strengthen Russia's position in Ukraine, where Moscow is constantly ready to point out that the country should return to its Slav roots and not flirt with a West that doesn't want it.

In Belarus, should Lukashenko's regime falter, then the democratic opposition would be strengthened by the promise of having the EU behind it. Otherwise, it is just as likely that Russia would step in and use its proxies to implement a more modern version of the authoritarianism that Lukashenko espouses.

Soon it will be the 20th anniversary of the Soviet Union's collapse and the widespread abandonment of the communist system by its former satellites. Since then a new generation has come of age throughout the region, brought up in conditions entirely different to those which their parents and grandparents suffered.

The young people in the EU's new member states are self-confident and well-travelled. They feel themselves to be citizens of a prosperous and secure continent. In Poland last autumn, it was these younger voters who helped to dismiss a government whose incipient authoritarianism and xenophobic attitudes threatened to isolate their country once again. They are already integrated into the West.

Further east, their contemporaries have also grown up in a post-Soviet world. In Ukraine, it was in the main young people who during the Orange Revolution rejected a return to the past. But as reforms falter and hopes of integration with the West wane, so will the feeling of exclusion by the West grow. The danger is that this will build support among the young, in both Belarus and Ukraine, for the authoritarian attitudes which in Putin's Russia appear to be in the ascendant.

This is what is at stake in the debate about the EU's further enlargement into the post-Soviet east. The issue is whether western values are to take root in those countries that on the whole want to be integrated with "Europe", or whether they will instead drift away into a grey area from which they will sooner or later challenge the values and democratic ways of the West.

Now is unfortunately not the best time to make this argument. The EU's "old" member states don't want to hear of further enlargement, and the new ones have so far been unable to make a convincing case for future expansion to the east.

But the Dutch professor who fears that Romanians will start to order life in Holland might reflect that Romania is itself changing as a result of its EU membership. Refusing to countenance a fresh enlargement to the east means that at some point those countries, that are outside the EU, will start to threaten the values he holds so dear.

Source: Europe's World

Apology: Adolf Hitler Arrives In Ukraine Shops

PHILADELPHIA, PA -- The Trumpet.com has withdrawn an article titled “Adolf Hitler Arrives in Ukraine Shops.” The source material that the article was based on was both inaccurate and misleading.


In the article, we stated that 16-inch figurines of Hitler were to be sold in Ukraine. It implied that dolls were going on sale in large numbers. This is not the case.

A few may be available in specialist shops; but dolls of Adolf Hitler have also gone on sale in specialist shops both in the U.S. and the UK.

The same doll is, in fact, available in Britain. There is nothing unique or remarkable about the fact that these dolls are available to a niche market in Ukraine.

We also stated that “Germany’s occupation of Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union, left 2 to 3 million people dead, including 1.5 million Jews,” as reported in the Telegraph.

This statement is misleading. It is hard to calculate exactly how many Ukrainians died in World War ii as Ukraine was then part of the Soviet Union. Reliable estimates put Ukraine’s wartime deaths as high as 10 million.

The article has been removed from our website and we apologize for any offense we may have caused any of our readers.

Thanks to those who wrote in to inform us of our error. The Trumpet remains committed to providing accurate reporting and analysis.

Source: The Trumpet

Russian Propaganda, Good And Bad

LONDON, England -- Was the Orange Revolution of 2004-2005 a sinister western plot? Many Russians, particularly those close to the Kremlin, say so, and a new book called “Orange Webs” tries to confirm that view.

The "Orange Revolution"
It is the first piece of work by the new “Institute of Democracy and Co-operation”, which aims to provide Russian answers to the West’s democracy-promotion efforts.

The new institute’s founders say it will open offices in New York and Paris, but to date it does not even have a website. “Orange Webs” has not yet been formally published, though extracts have been quoted on the website of Russia Today, a pro-Kremlin television channel.

But the question of how to deal with the new outfit is already a tricky one. Some Kremlin critics look forward to having new opponents to engage with. Others think that the new venture is so ludicrous that it is better ignored.

That would be a mistake. Weaknesses in Western political systems—whether gerrymandering in America or the scandalous extent of phoney postal voting in Britain—are numerous and deplorable. If outside criticisms are wrong, they can be refuted. If they are true, then they are a spur to action.

Communist propaganda during the cold war encouraged Western leaders to think harder about their decisions. The lack of an overt ideological challenge since then has led to complacency and smugness. It is hard to argue that Western politics has become healthier over the past two decades.

But the real point is a bigger one. The main argument made by the Kremlin so far is not based on the theoretical advantages of “sovereign democracy” (or whatever the current label is). Instead, it is on the practical results.

Put crudely, it goes like this: Russia was not ready for democracy in the 1990s. The result was chaos and looting, perhaps encouraged by the West, which wanted to weaken Russia.

Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin has restored the balance, bringing back stability and self-respect. Growth and living standards have rocketed; most Russians are delighted.

Disproving that involves arguing, among other things, that the prosperity of the past eight years is superficial, and that Mr Putin’s popularity is the result of rigged elections and a controlled media. Reasonable people can disagree about these issues.

But when the Kremlin shifts its attack to issues of “democracy” (ie, political freedom and the rule of law) things may become trickier than its propagandists realise.

If the Orange Revolution in Ukraine was really just a stunt pulled by clever outsiders, why have the results proved so durable? Nobody is trying to put the deposed Leonid Kuchma back in power.

Politics may still be chaotic and corrupt, but they are also open and unpredictable and largely settled by the electorate. Contrast that with the mystifying question of the future relationship between Mr Putin and his hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, which is being settled by backstairs intrigue rather than the voters’ verdict.

Any attempt to elevate the Russian system is likely to seem highly unconvincing to an outside audience. Alexander Shokhin, a reformer in the 1990s and now an ardent supporter of the Kremlin, told the Financial Times last week that Russia was “an island of stability”, with a “single programme for economic development until 2020”.

By contrast, he said scornfully: “We don't know the name of the next US president, let alone the policies which are going to be developed,” he said. If the new institute criticises open elections and a free press, people will laugh at it. And if it praises them, people will ask: “Why not in Russia too?”

Source: The Economist

NATO Accuses Russia Of Stirring Tensions In Rebel Georgia Areas

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- NATO escalated its protests on Wednesday over Russian policy toward Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia region, accusing Moscow of stirring tensions by announcing plans to increase the number of Russian soldiers there.

Dmitri O. Rogozin, the Russian envoy to NATO.
Ambassadors of the 26-nation alliance confronted Russia’s envoy, Dmitri O. Rogozin, during a meeting in Brussels. “There was a clear and sometimes sharp exchange of views and no meeting of minds,” said James Appathurai, a NATO spokesman.

“The decision to send more troops to Abkhazia does not contribute to stability, but undermines it,” he said, adding that the alliance was unanimous in its support for Georgia’s territorial integrity.

Relations with Russia have been strained by calls for NATO to expand by accepting Ukraine and Georgia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, into the alliance. At a NATO summit meeting in April, the United States pressed for the two nations to be put on the path toward membership. While that has not been agreed to, the alliance promised Ukraine and Georgia “a period of intensive engagement.”

Diplomatic ties have also been complicated by the decision of many large Western nations to recognize Kosovo’s declaration of independence, which was opposed by Moscow.

Some Western diplomats suspect that, by stirring up the “cold conflicts” in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Moscow may wish to destabilize Georgia to such an extent that NATO membership could become impossible.

Russia announced plans last month to expand its cooperation with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a move described by Georgia as de facto annexation. Moscow says it intends to increase the number of its troops to protect the rights of Russians, who are in the majority in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Mr. Appathurai, the NATO spokesman, said that an increase in Russian forces without the agreement of Georgia would break an agreement reached in 1994. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said Tuesday that, even if the increase in troops was within permitted limits, it gave the impression that tension was increasing.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, accused Georgia on Tuesday of planning to resolve the conflict by force. “The Georgian leadership has been directly and in secret gathering a huge number of offensive armaments,” said Mr. Lavrov, after a meeting with European Union ministers in Luxembourg.

That claim was rejected Wednesday by David Bakradze, Georgia’s departing foreign minister and special envoy of President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Source: The New York Times

Kiev: Cathedrals, Cobblestones And Soviet Monuments Equal Unconventional Charm

KIEV, Ukraine -- Shining with Orthodox golden domes that rise from forested hilltops, crisscrossed by narrow cobblestone streets, and speckled by quiet, leafy parks, Kiev draws visitors with an Eastern European charm.

Kiev's St. Michael's Cathedral
And for those who seek the exotic artifacts of the Soviet era - Lenin statues, imposing bronze monuments and colonnaded subway stations - Kiev has those too.

Founded over 1,500 years ago, Kiev is one of the oldest and historically richest cities in Eastern Europe. The site of the ancient Kievan Rus state, forerunner of the Russian empire, it is considered the birthplace of Slavic civilization. The city endured the Mongol-Tatar invasion, was an important provincial capital in the Tsarist and Soviet eras and in 1991 finally became the capital of an independent Ukraine.

Today, Kiev strives to be a proper European city, at the same time preserving its unique Slavic appeal. Cut in two by the broad Dnieper river, the city is a mix of medieval onion-domed Orthodox cathedrals, elegant turn of the 20th century buildings and some stubbornly durable artifacts of the Soviet times, including giant statues and gloomy apartment blocks on the city's outskirts.

Begin your tour with Khreshchatyk street, Kiev's calling card, a broad avenue lined with grand Stalin-era brown brick buildings and chestnut trees. On weekends, when Khreshchatyk is closed to traffic, it is especially pleasant to walk and gives you a chance to mix with the local crowd - glamorous young women walking hand in hand with their lucky suitors, teenagers dancing to hip hop music and retirees taking their giggly grandchildren for a stroll.

Khreshchatyk is at its best in May, when the chestnuts - the city's symbol - are in full bloom and they fill the air with a delicate sweet aroma.

The street culminates with Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, where Ukrainians made history in 2004 by staging the peaceful Orange Revolution that overturned a fraudulent election and brought a pro-Western opposition leader to power.

Since then, the concept of opposition protests has become so popular in Ukraine, that hardly a day goes by in Kiev without a rally of some sort. Don't get intimidated by flag-waving activists demonstrating in front of a government building or setting up a tent camp in the center of the city. In fact you can join the democratic celebration.

Aside from the revolution, Maidan is noted for the soaring 40-meter statue of a young woman in the national costume representing the newly independent Ukraine. Many Ukrainians appreciate the statue's political significance though question its taste.

Kiev is dotted with hundreds of medieval Orthodox cathedrals and monasteries - a reminder that it was here that the state of Kievan Rus (parts of modern-day Ukraine, Russia and Belarus) became Christian. In 988 AD the Slavic prince Volodymyr marched his servants into the Dnieper to be baptized and eventually converted the whole region to Christianity.

If you don't have time for all of the churches, make sure you see at least three: St. Sofia and St. Michael cathedrals, both just up the hill from the Independence Square, and the landmark Kiev Pechersk Lavra, also known as the Cave Monastery, overlooking the Dnieper.

Founded in the 11th century by Volodymyr's son Yaroslav, St. Sofia's Cathedral was rebuilt in the 17-18th centuries in the so-called Ukrainian Baroque style, which is more modest in decoration that the classic Baroque. The cathedral managed to escape destruction by atheist Soviet authorities when a group of historians cleverly proposed to close it to worshippers and turn it into a museum, thus preserving its ancient mosaics and frescos.

The white-and-blue golden-domed St. Michael, dating back to the 12th century, was not so lucky. The cathedral, also built in the Ukrainian Baroque style, was demolished in 1935 and was rebuilt only in the late 1990s.

St. Michael's is a popular place to get married. As you approach the cathedral you may run into beaming brides in elaborate white dresses posing for photos, and their more serious grooms clad in dark suits. They may be cracking a bottle of Champagne.

To feel the atmosphere of Kiev of the beginning of 20th century, head to Andriivsky Descent, a cobblestone, serpentine street that is one of the oldest in Kiev. The Descent is often compared with Montmartre in Paris. There are numerous art galleries, artists eager to paint your portrait or caricature, and cozy cafes offering both Ukrainian and foreign cuisine. Those looking for souvenirs - national costumes, folk music and even Red Army uniforms - can find them here too.

Be sure to stop at the Mikhail Bulgakov museum, the house of the renowned Russian author of "The Master and Margarita," a world-acclaimed novel satirizing the soulless Stalin-era bureaucracy. Bulgakov, who lived here in the early 20th century, once said that no city in the world is as beautiful as Kiev.

Next on the must-see list is the Kiev Pechersk Lavra - one of the oldest and the holiest Orthodox monasteries in Ukraine and a sacred pilgrimage site for Orthodox believers from all over the world. Located on the banks of the Dnieper, its sprawling territory is home to a dozen churches and museums, a forested park and massive underground caves. The saints buried inside are believed to have healing powers.

The monastery's 96-meter bell tower offers a great view of the city, but only for those prepared to climb narrow stairs all the way to the top.

After you've enriched your soul, allow yourself some earthly pleasures. A traditional Ukrainian meal will keep you up and running for rest of the day. Begin with the two best known local specialties - a piece of bread with a slice of salo (hog fat) and borsch (beet soup). Then try varenyky dumplings with cabbage, potatoes or meat and wash it all down with vodka, or horilka as it is known here. You can resume your diet after you've left Kiev.

After the meal, head to the Lypky district - a quiet area of 19-century houses built for wealthy aristocrats and civil servants. Here, you will run into a miniature replica of the French Versailles - the Mariinsky Palace, built in 1755 by the renowned architect Bartholomeo Rastrelli, who was the court architect for the Russian Empress Elisabeth.

Another peculiar site in the neighborhood is the House with Chimeras - an unlikely name and design for the presidential reception house. Nestled on a steep hill, the house has three or six stories, depending on which side you look from and is decorated with sculptures of such bizarre creatures as mermaids, lizards and frogs. It was built by one of Kiev's most famous architects, Wladyslaw Horodecki, whose Art-Nouveau buildings dot the center of the city.

If it's warm outside, take a boat tour on the Dnieper and get a splendid view the city's green hills and church domes. But don't get intimidated by the giant steel woman staring at you, a sword and a shield in her hands. If the Soviet-era 62-meter-tall (200-foot-tall) Motherland statue looks more menacing than hospitable to you, just ignore it.

The rest of the city welcomes you.

Source: AP

NATO Ambassadors To Visit Ukraine In June

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- NATO's 26 ambassadors will visit Ukraine in June in a show of support as the country strives to join the military alliance despite public and Russian opposition, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
"The entire North Atlantic Council will be traveling to Ukraine in June," the spokesman said, adding that an exact date had not yet been finalized.

"It will be a visible demonstration of NATO's intensive engagement with Ukraine," he said, and allow Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and the ambassadors to meet government officials.

It would also provide them with the opportunity to "do some public diplomacy" in the former Soviet state, with the support of citizens for NATO membership declining even as Ukraine's leaders remain keen to join.

NATO decided at a summit early this month not to grant Ukraine candidate status but it did underline that Kiev would enter the world's biggest military alliance at some point in the future.

Russia sees the expansion of NATO to Ukraine, and also Georgia, and the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile shield in central Europe as major threats to its security.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Ukrainian Govt. Campaigns For NATO

MOSCOW, Russia -- Ukraine has begun an informational campaign to popularize the idea of NATO membership. There is $3 million budgeted for the campaign.

Boris Tarasyuk, former Foreign Minister, is a well-respected politician who will be explaining the benefits of NATO to Ukrainians.
The government hopes to reduce the number of its citizens opposed to the idea significantly by December, when Ukraine hope to receive a NATO Membership Action Plan.

The idea for the campaign arise at the beginning of the year, at the same time as Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko stated that a referendum was necessary on Ukraine's NATO membership.

The campaign itself began only in the last few days. Well-known politicians, such as Boris Tarasyuk, chairman of the Supreme Rada Committee on European Integration, have taken to the road to explain the idea to the people.

Ukrainian state television will soon begin showing “positive programming” devoted to NATO.

“NATO's refusal to give Ukraine a Membership Action Plan at the Bucharest summit was a hard blow to Yushchenko's image,” commented Dmitro Ponomarchuk, president of the Free Journalists Foundation. “Now it is a matter of honor for the president.”

According to the International Institute of Sociology in Kiev, only 18 percent of Ukrainians support the idea of the country's membership in NATO, while 62 percent oppose it.

NATO has 39-percent support in Western Ukraine, and 6-percent support in Eastern Ukraine.

“Everything depends on how delicately Russia will behave toward Ukraine,” International Institute of Sociology president Valery Khmelko said.

“It is clear from our statistics how painfully people react when they do not want to consider them citizens of a sovereign state and threaten them with missiles. So the Russian politicians themselves are working toward the likelihood that Ukrainians will vote for NATO.”

Source: Kommersant