Friday 27 July 2012
Ukraine Wraps Up Putin Assassination Case
MOSCOW, Russia -- Ukrainian investigators have wrapped up an inquiry into two suspects accused of plotting to assassinate President Vladimir Putin after the March presidential election on orders of Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov.
It was not clear Tuesday when the case against Chechen native Adam Osmayev and Kazakh national Ilya Pyanzin would be sent to court.
But Osmayev is reportedly actively cooperating with investigators for fear of extradition to Russia.
The Prosecutor General's Office asked Ukraine to turn over the men in March, but it appeared Tuesday that the Russians were keeping an eye on the Ukrainian proceedings rather than actively pushing for extradition.
Pyanzin and Osmayev were arrested in the Black Sea port of Odessa on charges of the illegal possession of explosives after a Jan. 4 blast at their Odessa apartment building.
An associate, Ruslan Madayev, was killed in the blast, which resulted from the mishandling of explosives.
Russian state television broke the news about the Putin assassination plot in late February and showed video footage of Osmayev detailing a plot to bomb Putin's motorcade in Moscow after the March 4 presidential election.
The emergence of the news less than a week before the vote prompted skeptics to speculate that it was a publicity stunt meant to boost Putin's popularity ratings, while human rights activists voiced worries that the suspects had been tortured and raised doubts that there ever had been a plot against Putin.
At Russia's request, Osmayev has been on an international wanted list on a number of terrorist charges since 2008.
Osmayev and several associates were briefly detained in Moscow in 2007 in connection with a bomb plot against Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, Kommersant reported Tuesday, citing a source in the Ukrainian Security Service.
Osmayev was released for lack of evidence and fled to Ukraine, where he plotted a bomb attack against Kadyrov in Odessa in July 2011, it said.
In April, Moscow's Lefortovsky District Court issued an arrest warrant in absentia for the two suspects on five charges: membership in an armed group, the illegal production of instruments of crime, an attempt on the life of a political leader, the illegal production of weapons and the illegal purchase, sale, storage, transportation or carrying of weapons, RIA-Novosti said.
If convicted of the charges, the suspects would face up to life in prison.
In Ukraine, the two suspects face 15 years on charges of forming a terrorist group and preparing a terrorist act, Kommersant said.
Pyanzin and Osmayev admit their guilt, and Osmayev is cooperating with investigators to avoid extradition to Russia, the report said.
Russian investigators have not decided whether to push for extradition before or after the trial, RIA-Novosti reported, citing an unidentified security services official.
Belarus on Thursday extradited to Russia two Chechens, Ibragim Bakaniyev and Magomed Akayev, suspected offinancing rebel leader Umarov and carrying out robberies in Chechnya, Interfax reported.
Another suspect, Elsi Movsarov, will be extradited after serving time for attacking Belarussian security officials, it said.
Two other suspected members of their group, Khasanbek Izrailov and Rustam Musayev, were extradited to Russia fromUkraine earlier this year.
Ukraine Adds New Light BTR-4E To Its Arsenal
KIEV, Ukraine -- The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has added the new light BTR-4E armored personnel carrier to the arsenal of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the ministry's press service reported on Tuesday.
Defense Minister Dmytro Salamatin signed a respective order on July 24.
"The receipt by the army of such a modern type of military equipment confirms the capabilities of Ukraine as a manufacturer of high-technology products, and provides an opportunity to intensify the work of defense enterprises," he said.
Salamatin said that the production of the BTR-4Es and its various models help Ukraine not only expect to sell this military equipment abroad, but also become a powerful global exporter of armored vehicles.
The ministry said that the BTR-4E had been designed by the Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau (Kharkiv) in cooperation with Ukrainian defense enterprises, and 100% equipped with Ukrainian-made armaments - a ZTM-1 30mm automatic cannon produced at the Kamianets-Podilsky Fine Mechanics Plant, a Luch anti-tank missile system, a KBA-117 grenade launcher and a machine gun produced at Kyiv-based Mayak Plant, etc.
All of the samples have been combined into a single fire control system, also created by Ukrainian producers.
The ministry said that in terms of its technical characteristics the BTR-4E is equal to foreign models, while in terms of its fire capabilities it even surpasses them.
"Over the last years Ukraine has created a fundamentally new model of armament that is not characteristic of the previously traditional school of domestic tank construction. This is the basic platform for the further creation of the modification line of military hardware," the ministry's press service quoted Andriy Artiushenko, the director of the ministry's department on the development and procurement of arms and military equipment, as saying.
Ukraine has already established the mass production of BTR-4Es, which are also exported to customers in the Middle East region, the ministry said.
As reported, Ukraine will supply 420 BTR-4Es to Iraq as part of a contract signed with the Iraqi Defense Ministry in 2009.
The contract designed for 3-3.5 years is estimated to be worth $457.5 million.
Olympics 2012: Ukraine Country Profile
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine made its Olympic debut in the Winter Games of 1994, just two years after becoming an independent country after the Soviet Union dissolved.
The first Summer Games appearance came at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
Ukraine won seven gold, five silver, and 15 bronze medals at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, placing it at No. 11 on the list.
In London, Ukraine should make the top 10.
Of the total in China, five were in wrestling, five in athletics, and three in shooting.
Geography, land mass: Ukraine is the biggest country in Europe, and is roughly the same size as Texas.
The west is more mountainous, while the south is semi arid and borders the Black Sea.
Population, capital city: Almost 48 million people live in Ukraine. The capital city is Kyiv, with an alternate spelling of Kiev.
Best Olympic apparel: The Olympic kit unveiled for Ukraine has a nice throwback look that should make the team one of the most fashionable in the Opening Ceremony.
Prediction from Goldman Sachs: The banking giant completed a study forecasting the medal count for the 2012 Games.
That's banker's talk saying they are trying to gauge the odds.
They predict Ukraine will be the only emerging market country to finish in the top 10.
Athletes to watch in London: Olga Kharlan, successfully defended her European fencing title in June and will be looking to on the Olympic podium again.
Nataliya Dobrynska will be defending her medal from Beijing in the heptathlon.
Kateryna Bondarenko will be playing in the tennis tournament and could surprise a higher ranked player or two.
Victor Ruban will be looking to repeat his gold-medal Beijing performance in archery.
Roman Gontyuk has a silver from Athens and a bronze from Beijing, and is looking for a gold in his sport of judo to round out his collection.
He we also be the flag bearer for Ukraine at the Opening Ceremony.
Sport history made: Ukraine co-hosted the Euro 2012 tournament along with Poland. Spain repeated as champion in the final played in Kyiv against Italy on July 1.
Future Olympic hosts? Ukraine has indicated the country may bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The Carpathian Mountains out of the city of Lviv would be the locale.
The competition for host cities is always fierce, but the success of the Euro 2012 tournament should boost Ukraine's chances.
Ukraine And The EU Further Simplify Visa Regime
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union and Ukraine signed an additional section of the current visa facilitation agreement with Ukraine.
The document extends the list of categories of people falling under the simplified procedure for obtaining visas while travelling to the EU member states.
The European Union is committed to strengthening personal contacts between the citizens of the EU and Ukraine, commented Štefan Füle after signing of the document.
The Ukrainian side was represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Kostyantyn Hryshchenko.
The newly signed amendment expanded the list of categories of Ukrainian citizens who may follow simplified procedures while obtaining visas before travelling to the EU.
For example, in addition to the journalists the list also included members of their teams - videographers, sound engineers, etc., reports Interfax.
From now on, the journalists may present the proof of employment letters from their respective employers instead of the invitations from the host party.
The simplified visa obtaining procedure now is also available to the four new categories: members of civil society organizations, participants in international forums (seminars, exhibitions, etc.), representatives of religious communities, as well as participants of the cross-border cooperation programs within the EU programs.
In addition, the amendment covered citizens who visit their relatives - citizens of Ukraine currently residing in the EU, as well as relatives who are the EU citizens.
The list also includes the accompanying persons of those who are in need of medical treatment.
In 2011 alone Ukrainian citizens received 1.1 million of Schengen visas.
The volume of multiple entry visas compared to single entry visas for Ukrainian citizens increased to 35.5 percent (in 2010 - 27.3 percent) and every third visa has been issued free of charge.
The visa liberalisation dialogue was initialed in 2006.
The two-stage Visa Liberalisation Action Plan (VLAP) for Ukraine toward the establishment of a visa-free regime for short-stay travel was adopted in late 2010.
VLAP outlines four blocks of issues: document security, including biometrics; irregular immigration, including readmission; public order and security; and external relations and fundamental rights.
Currently, Ukraine is at stage one of the Action Plan and the next step is for Ukrainian Parliament to approve the introduction of biometric passports for travelling abroad.
Fashion Show Shines Spotlight On Ukraine Disabled
KIEV, Ukraine -- At a glitzy Kiev night club brimming with neon lights and energetic pop music, the models showed off sleek evening gowns and glamorous hats as Ukraine's celebrities cheered on.
But this was no ordinary fashion show — some models rolled on wheelchairs, others were blind.
At the Wednesday night event dubbed Fashion Chance a dozen designers, mostly from Ukraine, presented outfits for physically handicapped women, in a bid to bring attention and dignity to some of Ukraine's most marginalized citizens.
In a country where most buildings lack wheelchair ramps and only a few public schools accept disabled children, the show was a small but vivid step toward removing the stigma that cloaks Ukraine's disabled.
"People on wheelchairs, the blind, the handicapped should all feel accepted," said 26-year-old Ilona Slugovina, an avid wheelchair ballroom dancer, who modeled a lilac-colored glittery evening dress.
Some models moved confidently down the runway — on wheel chairs, or accompanied by handsome young men in elegant suits — flashing smiles and some attempting to mimic the traditional model gait.
One blind model coquettishly held her hand on her hip and played with a lock of hair.
Others appeared nervous.
Moved by the show, some in the audience cried.
"I felt beautiful, I felt confident," said Antonina Krivobok, who masterfully rolled and turned around in a wheelchair and posed in front of TV cameras as she presented a purple evening dress.
Beginning and already established designers presented elegant dresses and suits for women on wheelchairs or with other handicaps.
Some of the outfits differed little from what ambulatory women would wear, others were cut in a more voluminous fashion to accommodate the needs of those in wheelchairs.
"God made the woman beautiful and the designer's goal is to stress that beauty," said Natalia Anri, a top Ukrainian designer.
But it wasn't just about clothes.
Yulia Kozluk, 28, who runs a fund that trains and then finds computer jobs for those on wheelchairs like herself, said she hoped such projects would help Ukrainian society grow up and accept those who are different.
"When I roll in my wheelchair, people stare at me like I am an alien and it wounds," said Kozluk, who became paralyzed at age 23 after a car accident.
"But I am not an alien, I am a regular person."
Ukraine's physically handicapped people are barely visible to the country at large, confined to their homes in the absence of ramps, elevators and specially equipped buses and mostly shunned by society in a grim legacy of the Soviet era.
The Soviet authorities aimed to maintain the image of a happy and healthy society devoid of any problems, locking many disabled, including maimed World War II soldiers, into specialized institutions and even remote islands, where they could not be seen to the general public, while discussing the plight of the handicapped was virtually a taboo in Soviet media.
Today, children with disabilities are usually hidden away in specialized schools or orphanages, where they are deprived of a chance to interact with other children and society as a whole does not learn to co-exist, accept and help those with disabilities.
Only a handful of public schools accept disabled children, because building entrances, canteens and toilets are not equipped with ramps, teachers lack the necessary training and other students and often their parents object to having such classmates.
In Kiev, home to tens of thousands of disabled children of school age, only about 10 schools provide inclusive education, according to Larisa Baida, an education activist with Ukraine's National Assembly for Disabled.
"It's sad," said Baida. "It's a constant struggle, every day they fight for their life."
The Education Ministry declined a comment for this story.
Universities also offer very few chances for the handicapped, lacking audio books for hearing-impaired and computers for the blind.
Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union over 20 years ago, not a single book in the tactile writing system called Braille has been published for the visually impaired, according to the Assembly.
Only a handful of news programs on television are translated into sign language, while none of entertainment shows for adolescents or children are accessible for hearing impaired.
Most Ukrainian websites, including those of the president and the government, lack the special software that allows the blind to convert them into audio.
Finding a job is also a major problem, with about only 25 percent of the country's disabled employed, mostly at low-skilled and low-paid jobs, according to the United Nations Development program.
"When we look at a disabled person, we are not ready to see a person in them" who wants to study, work and eat at restaurants, said Natalia Skripka, Assembly's director.
"While we should first be seeing a person and only then notice their peculiarities — are they tall or short, do they have blond or dark hair, do they have disabilities or not."
Ukraine And NATO - An On-Off Relationship
ZURICH, Switzerland -- In the aftermath of the Cold War, NATO membership rapidly expanded as the organization looked eastward, with more than a few members of the former Warsaw Pact looking in the opposite direction.
In both instances joining an expanded NATO was for reasons beyond security.
Ukraine was one of the earliest and initially enthusiastic aspirant members from the former Soviet bloc.
Yet in sharp contrast to the Baltic States and the Central European members of the Warsaw Pact, Kiev’s aspirations for NATO membership have waxed and waned since Ukraine gained its independence from the former Soviet Union.
Indeed, Ukraine’s ‘on-off’ relationship with NATO remains subject to diplomatic and economic ties between Moscow and Kiev.
At first sight, it might be considered that NATO sought expansion eastwards to improve its own security both by bringing former adversaries into the alliance and increasing the size of the buffer between its western borders and Russia – still a military power that demanded respect.
Likewise, to nations such as Poland and the Baltic states, NATO membership would bring benefits well beyond security.
These included gaining access to funding for upgraded military hardware, and cementing democratic credentials.
NATO expansion was, therefore, initially played out against the backdrop of a number of optimistic declarations regarding the future of the international system.
Francis Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’, for example, argued that the end of the Cold War represented the end of ideological evolution and the triumph of Western liberal democracy as the final form of government.
Accordingly, it is understandable that the “triumph of the West” inspired those countries previously under Soviet control not only to reinforce their security but also their democratic credentials through membership in organizations like NATO and the European Union (EU).
Although not formally linked, the democratic ideals and common membership of NATO and the EU (the latter even more attractive as a funding source) inevitably led to a scramble for membership – a scramble that was, moreover, equally welcomed by the West.
Indeed, all of the perceived benefits of joining NATO (and eventually the EU) that appealed to the Baltic and Central European states were at least as appealing to Ukraine.
NATO-Ukraine relations were formally launched in 1991 when the country joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council.
Three years later, Ukraine was the first former Soviet country to join the Partnership for Peace.
In 1996, Ukraine contributed to the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, followed by similar deployments to Kosovo.
NATO-Ukraine cooperation was further cemented with the signing of the 1997 Charter on a Distinctive Partnership (the Charter) and the establishment of the NATO-Ukraine Commission (NUC).
From the outset, the Charter outlined the arrangements for enhancing NATO-Ukraine relations as well as identifying opportunities for cooperation.
These include dialogue on defense and security issues of common concern and practical cooperation on defense and security reform.
The opening decade of the 21st century saw an initial acceleration of NATO-Ukraine relations.
In 2002, for example, the NATO-Ukraine Action Plan (the Plan) was adopted.
The Plan sought to support Ukraine’s reform efforts ‘on the road to Euro-Atlantic cooperation’.
Earlier in the year, then-President Leonid Kuchma announced that Ukraine would eventually seek full membership of NATO.
Ukraine’s membership aspirations received a boost in the aftermath of the Orange Revolution.
NATO leaders not only expressed support for the new Ukrainian leader Viktor Yushchenko’s reform plans and commitment to enhancing Kiev’s relations with the Alliance, they also launched an Intensified Dialogue on Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO.
NATO-Ukraine dialogue has often been supported with military cooperation.
Since 1997, for example, Ukraine has hosted the annual Sea Breeze exercises in the Black Sea.
Each year, Ukraine’s armed forces undertake exercises with NATO counterparts (and other navies) aimed at enhancing a host of maritime security capabilities.
This year, Exercise Sea Breeze focused on combating maritime piracy and featured joint patrol flights by American and Ukrainian naval aircraft.
Military exchanges have also extended beyond exercises to include staff training, cooperation with defense equipment procurement and civil contingencies.
Underpinning many of these initiatives is the NATO Liaison Office (NLO) Ukraine, which opened in 1999.
Grinding to a Halt
Yet despite the initial and well-documented enthusiasm for full membership of NATO, Ukraine has more recently curbed its aspirations.
The return of the more pro-Moscow Viktor Yanukovych to the presidency in 2010 led to Ukraine formally withdrawing its bid for full NATO membership, albeit with the continuation of the vague intention of further European integration.
As a result, NATO leaders used the 2010 Lisbon Summit to outline their respect for Ukraine’s commitment to ‘non-bloc’ relations with the Alliance.
Instead, NATO-Ukraine relations continue to be guided by the provisions of the NUC and the distinct understanding that the ‘door remains open’ to full membership at a later date.
Three issues appear to have influenced Ukraine’s decision to withdraw its bid for membership of NATO.
First, Kiev has always had to accommodate a Russia that is uneasy with NATO’s expansion efforts within its former sphere of influence.
Further complicating Kiev’s relationship with Moscow is Ukraine’s continued reliance on Russia for natural gas supplies.
In this respect, Russia’s decision to cut gas supplies to Ukraine in 2008 demonstrates that political pressure from Moscow on Kiev is often far from subtle.
Second, public opinion polls have on occasion suggested that the majority of Ukrainians do not necessarily favor NATO membership.
A 2010 poll undertaken by the Pew Research Center, for example, suggests that only 30% of the Ukrainian population support membership of NATO.
Moreover, other polls have also suggested consistently suggest that 30% of Ukrainians actually view NATO as a threat.
Indeed, a lack of public support for NATO membership segues into the third, and perhaps most important, factor of Ukraine’s current policies.
While the Orange Revolution resulted in the installation of a pro-Western government, the return of Yanukovych further suggests that Ukraine has recently moved away from more Western notions of democracy.
Accordingly, with the return of Vladimir Putin to the Russian Presidency and a Ukrainian government that increasingly looks to Moscow it is perhaps unsurprising that enthusiasm for NATO membership has waned.
Instead, Kiev currently appears to be balancing its rhetoric of ‘present cooperation’ with NATO with a renewal of its military ties with Russia.
In 2010, Ukraine agreed to extend Russia’s lease on its naval base at the Black Sea port of Sevastopol until 2042.
In exchange for the continued stationing of the Black Sea Fleet in Ukrainian waters, Moscow offered Kiev a 30% reduction in the price of Russian natural gas.
Future Scenarios
So what might recent political developments mean for NATO-Ukraine relations?
As the recent NATO summit in Chicago was held against the backdrop of declining defense budgets and the lack of credible state-level threats it may well be that the Alliance will rest on its laurels for the time being and not seek further expansion.
Despite Ukraine’s decision not to seek full membership, NATO’s relations with Kiev nevertheless remain cordial.
Bilateral cooperation still occurs and exercises like Sea Breeze remain an important part of NATO-Ukraine relations.
By leaving the issue of formal Ukrainian membership on the back burner, both NATO and Ukraine also avoid any unnecessary antagonizing of Russia.
Maintaining the current status quo potentially allows NATO to refine its strategic outlook for the Caucasus.
This, in turn, may eventually result in renewed enthusiasm for Ukraine becoming a full member of NATO.
It is likely that enthusiasm for membership will be underscored by concerns that the entire region to the south of Russia may well become increasingly unstable as a result of rapidly growing Islamic populations.
The importance of the Caucasus as a source and key transport node of Western energy supplies may also prompt the Alliance to canvass Ukraine for full membership status.
Accordingly, there are sound geopolitical and security reasons for NATO not abandoning its support for Ukraine joining the Alliance.
However, recent political developments in Ukraine suggest that it is far too early to predict whether Kiev will once again seek closer and more formal ties with NATO, including full membership.
Ultimately, any future decision taken by Kiev will, in turn, reflect Ukraine’s current political ties with Russia.
Indeed, Kiev’s difficult relations with a country that is integral to its energy security ensure that Russia will continue to influence the on-off relationship between NATO and Ukraine.
Linguistic Future: Ukrainians Who Do Not Speak Russian?
VIV, Ukraine -- It’s a sunny summer evening here in Lviv, the café and cobblestones capital of Western Ukraine.
But a steady stream of young couples are ducking down a secret archway.
They rap once at a solid wooden door, then stand back.
The door opens half way to reveal a man in forest green uniform, an automatic weapon slung over his shoulder.
He shouts: “Slava Ukraini!”
Visitors call out the password in Ukrainian: “Heroyam Slava!” – Hail to Our Heroes!
And with that, they descend into the red brick vaulted cellars of Kryjivka – an underground restaurant in the theme of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
This partisan group fought the Soviet Red Army for almost a decade, starting in 1944.
In that war, long hidden behind the Iron Curtain’s veil of secrecy, 35,000 Soviet officials and soldiers were killed — more than twice the number of Soviet troops killed in Afghanistan during the 1980s.
In reprisal, about 600,000 Western Ukrainians were “repressed” – one third executed, one third imprisoned and one third deported to distant parts of the Soviet Union.
At Kryjivka, the cellar walls are festooned with ghosts from that guerrilla campaign long lost to history – handsome, sandy haired young men posing in the forest with vaguely familiar uniforms; copies of Ukrainian language posters and pamphlets from underground presses; and Russian language diagrams of forest encampments, probably from Soviet counter-insurgency manuals.
At the entrance, my American-accented “Heroyam Slava” prompted the armed doorman to give me a shot – of local vodka.
Maybe thanks for the assistance — too little, too late — that Washington sent to the Ukrainian guerrillas in the early 1950s?
But at a table down below, I soon commit a linguistic faux pas.
I ask for a beer in Russian.
A Ukrainian dining companion at my table almost whacks my hand.
She chides me: “No Russian spoken here!”
The gap between Russia and Western Ukraine is more than linguistic.
Russia television regularly airs old Soviet movies showing Ukrainian guerrillas as fascist puppets of the Nazis, fanatics who fought on long after the war, ambushing heroic Red Army units.
At Kryjivka, where it was hard to find an empty table on Monday night, there were two traits common to the 100 or so patrons packed underground.
Whether it was the young man proudly posing for souvenir photos with a (decommissioned) automatic weapon, or the two young women waiting for their turn to shoot an air rifle at a paper target of Stalin’s secret police chief, they were all in their 20s and 30s, and they were all speaking in Ukrainian.
Above ground, the linguistic landscape is the same.
Over the last two centuries, the name of this city has shifted according to tides of history: from Lemberg (German) to Lwow (Polish) to Lvov (Russian) and now Lviv (Ukrainian).
Before World War II, this was a Polish-speaking city.
Later, as a western colony of the Soviet Union, it was heavily Russian-speaking.
But the influence of Moscow faded with independence two decades ago.
Lviv is now an overwhelmingly Ukrainian speaking city.
On a national level, many linguists believe that Ukrainian language use is steadily spreading east.
Here, as in Central Asia, Georgia, the Baltics and in Eastern Europe, the collapse of the Soviet empire has meant a steadily shrinking footprint for spoken Russian.
In Ukraine, where Ukrainian and Russian are linguistically so close, this subtle atrophying of Russian language skills has been overshadowed by fights over language policy in Kiev, the nation’s capital.
Once a Russian speaking city, Kiev is now increasingly bilingual.
Outside Lviv’s World War II memorial, I stopped Andrei, a 23-year-old cook who was bicycling to work.
Aiming to please, he strained hard to understand my questions in Russian. He then replied in Ukrainian.
It was not a political statement.
Here was a young Ukrainian who could not speak Russian.
Inside the memorial, Austin Malloy, VOA’s Moscow-based video journalist, asked a gardener – in Russian – if he could shut off his lawnmower in order to film.
Standing 10 paces from a Red Army statue, the gardener barked back: “What’s your nationality?”
When he learned the request was not coming from a Russian, he shut off his lawnmower, and wanted to chat, at length.
Across town, at another World War II memorial, I stopped Sergiy, a 70-year-old retired engineer.
A veteran of the Soviet Army, he spoke Russian well.
He said he had used it every day at the factory where he worked.
As we stood under a massive Soviet-era statue of a Red Army soldier holding a sword, I asked him when was the last time he spoke Russian.
He mulled. He answered: “It must have been one year ago.”
On a park bench, near a 17th century chapel, I talked with Marina, an architecture student from Odessa, Ukraine’s Russian-speaking seaport on the Black Sea.
Embarrassed about making grammatical mistakes, she was using Russian in Lviv.
She said that put her on the defensive here.
Part of that is geography. Eastern Ukraine has a 1,576 kilometer (979 miles) border with Russia.
Central Ukraine has a 891 kilometer (554 miles) border with Russian-speaking Belarus.
And Western Ukraine has a total of 2,200 kilometers (1,367 miles) of borders with Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.
With the Polish border a one-hour drive from here, Lviv, Western Ukraine’s largest city, is closer to Warsaw or Budapest than to Kiev.
At Lviv’s International Airport’s new $200 million terminal, the daily flight to Moscow is lost among a long list of alternate destinations – Vienna, Munich, Prague, Warsaw, Krakow and Milan.
In town, the roll call of 16 foreign consulates includes the standard list of neighboring nations.
But, there also are two unexpected ones, both legacies of Western Ukraine’s diaspora of the last century: Brazil and Canada.
Poland’s new steel and glass consulate – and the lines of visa applicants outside – testify to the fact that on May 1, 2004, Ukrainians woke up to discover that they needed visas to visit old friends and neighbors in Poland, Hungary and Slovakia — all members of the expanded Schengen visa zone.
But, for almost 150 years, Western Ukraine was administered by Vienna.
Today, Lviv’s younger generation sees visas to the West as obstacles that will pass with time.
When selecting a foreign language for study, Lviv high school students choose Polish, German or English, over Russian.
On Lviv’s Boulevard Dzhokhar Dudayev (named after the first president of secessionist Chechnya), I stopped by Oculus, an optometrist.
I asked the receptionist in Russian, if she sold eyewash.
The 20-something woman struggled for a moment. Then, she asked hopefully: “Do you speak English?”
Short-barreled arms legalization proposed by senator
Short-barreled arms legalization, proposed by Senator Alexander Torshin on Tuesday, was frowned upon by the country’s top officials and saw a mixed reaction from the Russian media.
At the presentation of an expert report “On reform of Russian arms legislation,” the first deputy speaker of the Federation Council said that allowing Russians to keep short-barreled weapons could give the budget a lucrative revenue of 1 trillion rubles ($30.5 billion) within the next five years.
But neither economic gains, nor Torshin’s other argument that armed Russians would make for a “kinder” society, could convince the Kremlin,
Public opinion has also been not on Torshin’s side, according to poll results.
The report, prepared by a team of analysts headed by Torshin, said the measure could become an spur for design by Russian gun manufacturers, and that in a couple of years, Russian short-barreled arms would be able to compete on the international market.
Selling licenses for arms possession for 500 rubles ($15) per item will also bring 2.5 billion rubles ($76.2 million) into the budget every year, the report read.
The group covered by the new legislation, which is yet to be written and submitted for consideration, will be people 23 years old and over with a monthly income of 25,000 rubles – altogether 23 million people.
People with a criminal record as well as those registered as suffering mental disorders or from drug use will not be eligible for arms possession, Torshin said. Currently, 6 million Russians already possess long-barreled guns legally, according to the report.
“Legalization of short-barreled arms is a pressing necessity that corresponds to the demands of modern society,” Torshin said at Tuesday’s presentation, although public opinion polls demonstrate the opposite.
A survey carried out last year by the independent Levada Center uncovered that only 13 percent of Russians would approve legalizing arms possession to increase personal safety. In 2001, the number was 16 percent.
One of the few groups that repeatedly spoke in support of short-barreled arms legalization was Russian nationalists. Anti-corruption blogger and prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny, known for his backing of right-wing movements, has also supported the idea.
Russia to keep Syrian naval base to fight off pirates
Russia is going to stay at its naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus, the country’s navy chief, Vice Admiral Viktor Chirkov, told journalists on Thursday.
Moscow has been leasing the Tartus base since 1971, but today the plan is to use it not for military purposes.
“The joint fleet flotilla will not enter the port of Tartus adding that the base is needed to carry out an anti-pirate mission.
Representatives of the Syrian National Council, a coalition of opposition forces who have been fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, have been strongly opposed to Russia’s warships entering the port.
Earlier, media reports suggested the Tartus base had been used to deliver Russian armaments to the Middle Eastern state, where about 12,000 people have been killed in an ongoing conflict between the authorities and the opposition, according to UN estimates.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed in June that Russia was going to ship repaired helicopters to Assad, its long-term ally in the Middle East. He denied any shipments of modern weapons, however.
Today, experts say that Tartus is just a small center for servicing vessels, the BBC’s Russian service reported. Russia, however, is not going to leave its last military base outside the territory of the former Soviet Union, Chirkov said.
“We needed it to service our ships and vessels, in particular, during an anti-pirate mission in the Gulf of Aden,” the navy chief said.
The military flotilla – comprised of 10 warships and escort vessels, according to Chirkov – will be “carrying out military drills in the Mediterranean,”
False warnings, a mine blaze and a grim find
Finger-pointing continued in the wake of one of Russia’s deadliest natural disasters in recent history, as the country’s top investigator accused local officials of lying about warning residents of a f lash f lood that killed 171 people. Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin said officials in the southern town of Krymsk backdated a document that appeared to introduce a state of emergency ahead of the f lood. At a meeting chaired by President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, Bastrykin said regional officials received warning reports about the f lash flood more than a day before the disaster but failed to raise alarm bells. Three Krymsk officials, including the mayor, were arrested over the weekend on negligence charges related to the disaster.
Rescue workers in Siberia’s Kemerovo region defied the country’s poor track record in dealing with disasters by successfully evacuating all 263 workers from a coal mine that caught fire early on Thursday. Miners were not working in the section of the shaft where the fire broke out, making it easier to evacuate the mine, said a spokesman for the Siberian Coal and Energy Company, which owns the mine. An investigation has been launched to determine what caused the fire.
Czech Republic confirms Bastrykin’s residence permit
The Czech Republic has confirmed that the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, held a residence permit there.
The document was valid between February 2007 and February 2009, and was granted because Bastrykin was CEO of the company Law Bohemia.
Czech police pointed out that Bastrykin broke the law when he did not inform local authorities in time that he had sold his share in the company.
By law the permit should have been annulled as soon as he sold his shares in Law Bohemia, thus Bastrykin held the permit illegally for six months, a police spokeswoman said.
Bastrykin’s Czech residence permit was made public by lawyer and opposition figure Alexei Navalny on Thursday.
Bastrykin has access to state secrets and would be of interest to foreign intelligence, Navalny pointed out.
Winter Olympics host city struck by power crisis
he host city of the next Winter Olympics, the Black Sea resort town of Sochi has been struck by a power crisis due to infrastructure problems.
Local power company Kubanenergo, part of the IDGC holding, has asked local residents to reduce energy consumption and refrain from using electric supplies at their homes.
“According to local power engineers, Sochi’s energy network has been worn out by 85 percent,” Sergei Voskresensky, an expert with engineering company 2K, told the newspaper. “The Olympic development has become an additional load on the networks, and power engineers are trying to reduce it by any means.”
The peak of power consumption in Sochi has also been registered in the summer, when the temperatures go up and hordes of vacationers come to seaside resort in the foot of the Caucasus Mountains.
But this year has seen an increase of 11.6 percent in comparison to the same period in 2011, according to Kubanenergo’s data.
The company has asked people staying in the area to not to turn on their air conditioners, electric kettles or washing machines, at least during the daytime.
The problem should be solved by the time of the games, if not earlier, representatives of IDGC said.
A large-scale reconstruction of the city’s power distribution network is underway, the company said, with two substations built and one more set to become operational by the end of the year.
For now, however, the upcoming Olympics is straining supplies due to the increased use of power at construction sites and negligent workers.
Workers engaged in ground works often damage underground power cables, which exacerbates other power problems. In the first half of 2012, over 70 such cases have been registered.
Rosneft aims for global reach
Rosneft’s bid to buy BP’s 50 percent stake in TNK-BP has the Russian oil giant’s head, Igor Sechin, poised not just for a comeback, but for a longrunning plan to turn the state corporation into a global conglomerate.
State-owned Rosneft’s announcement Tuesday that it was in talks with Britain’s BP about a possible share in TNK-BP, Russia’s thirdlargest oil company, came as little surprise. BP revealed in June that it was seeking an exit from the company due to disputes with its Russian partners, Alfa Access Renova, or AAR, which owns the other 50 percent in the venture.
If the negotiations succeed and Rosneft buys into TNK-BP, the result could be a major transnational oil company with a hefty government stake.
“If this happens, Rosneft will start producing twice as much oil as BP, controlling over 30 percent of oil production in the country,” Valery Nesterov, an analyst with Troika Dialog said,
“It will share BP’s number-two spot in terms of its total oil and gas production.”
Rosneft, which already has more oil reserves than any other public company in the world, could up daily oil output to 3.3 million barrels – well ahead of BP (2.3 million barrels) and ExxonMobil (2.2 million barrels), according to a recent Forbes rating.
The move, Nesterov said, is “symptomatic” of Sechin’s appointment to head Rosneft in May, when the company announced a new development strategy. Sechin was forced to leave the board of directors of the oil firm last year, due to a law forbidding government ministers from holding board posts.
“Now the question is, will Rosneft be privatized, or will the government retain a share,” Nesterov said.
Sechin, a key ally of President Vladimir Putin, was appointed to head a presidential energy commission almost immediately after Putin was inaugurated for a third term as president in May. The move handed Sechin considerable clout in the energy sector and raised speculation about statist efforts to thwart privatization in the lucrative energy sector, including in Rosneft.
Putin’s return to the Kremlin and Sechin’s departure from his post as first deputy prime minister spawned debates about where Sechin himself – deemed one of the most powerful men in the government – was headed.
If Rosneft succeeds in talks with BP, it looks poised to take the Kremlin’s oil and gas strategy to a transnational level.
“Most in the government support the idea – which came from the highest level – of a Gazpromtype company in the oil sector, and this is where Rosneft may be headed,” Nesterov said, suggesting there was more support for the government keeping a stake in the company. “With government support it will be gigantic, its capitalization will grow, this will expand its opportunities to get involved in foreign business.”
Vladimir Milov, a former deputy energy minister and president of the Institute for Energy Policy, wrote in an article published in Forbes on Wednesday that the deal heralds renewed nationalization efforts in the oil sector, which were halted shortly after the partition of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Yukos empire in 2004.
Rosneft became Russia’s largest oil company in no small part thanks to its 2004 acquisition of Yuganskneftegaz, a key production asset of Yukos that was auctioned off after Khodorkovsky was jailed on fraud and tax evasion charges.
But talks between Rosneft and BP are expected to continue for as long as six months, and a final deal is far from guaranteed, analysts say.
The talks between Rosneft and BP follow a series of complex dealings between the two oil majors and AAR. In 2011, Rosneft and BP signed a lucrative joint exploration deal in the Arctic, only to be blocked by AAR, which claimed the right to a share in BP’s Russian activities.
In May, just days before Sechin was appointed president of Rosneft, AAR’s billionaire head, Mikhail Fridman, stepped down from his post as TNK-BP’s CEO in an apparent bid to salvage the partnership.
Rosneft’s current interest may also turn out to be an attempt to put pressure on AAR, which is also seeking to buy a 25 percent stake in BP for a “market value” of $7 billion-$10 billion.
Rosneft’s move, in that scenario, would force AAR to raise its bidding price.
“Fridman’s departure was evidence of a serious crisis,” Mikhail Subbotin, an energy expert who heads the CRP consulting group informed.
He added that questions about whether Putin would run for a third term or allow Medvedev to run for a second clouded any solution to the TNK-BP shareholder standoff.
“By his presence alone, Putin protects Sechin’s activities, he cannot be harmed now,” Subbotin said. Still, he added, there is a limit to Sechin’s influence, as was demonstrated earlier this month when the government successfully curbed his powers as head of the presidential energy commission.
As for creating a transnational oil conglomerate controlled by the Kremlin, “there are people in our government who think exactly along those lines,” Subbotin said.
Monday 23 July 2012
Stage And Film Actor And Former Ukrainian Minister Of Culture Dies
KIEV, Ukraine -- Bohdan Stupka one of the best known and loved Ukrainian award-winning actors died at 70 years of age on Sunday, July 22, 2012.
Stupka was recognized as the most famous Ukrainian actor and had a hundred roles in films and over fifty in theaters (on stage).
Stupka was very much appreciated in Ukraine in the entertainment industry.
Bohdan Stupka was born in Kulykiv, which is in Lviv oblast, Ukraine.
Stupka also had been awarded the titles: Artist of Ukraine, People's Artist of the USSR and Hero of Ukraine (The Order of the State in 2011).
His most memorable stage role in the last ten years has been as Tevye the Milkman in Sholom Aleichem's Tevye-Tevel (Fiddler on the Roof (1971)).
After a 2-year stint as the Ukrainian Minister of Culture, he became the Executive Director of the Ivano Franko State Theater in Kiev.
Along with his administrative duties, Mr. Stupka continued to perform several times a week in various new and traditional stage productions.
He also toured with his company, and appeared in two or three films every year.
Despite his busy schedule, he still found time to devote to his wife of many years Larissa, as well as his son Ostap Stupka, and his grandchildren.
Monday 16 July 2012
Russian warships in Syria: Any guesses?
The departure of a large group of ships of the Russian Navy to the coast of Syria is pursuing two well-defined goals, experts believe. The first one of them is to reinforce Russia's stance on Syria with real arguments. The second one is to evacuate Russian citizens from the country, if necessary.
However, they suspect in the West that the training and combat mission of the Russian warships is being carried out to cover up the delivery of arms to the troops of Bashar al-Assad. Many in the West also think that the mission manifests Russia's claim for a piece of the Syrian coast, on which there is an army base in Tartus. Traditionally, the Defense Ministry does not share much information on the subject. Russian defense officials do not hurry to confirm the information saying that the Russian ships will call at a Syrian port.
Landing ship "Caesar Kunikov" of the Black Sea Fleet went to the Mediterranean Sea on Wednesday, Interfax said. "On Sunday, the ship was ordered to follow in the Mediterranean Sea ... The ship will be solving the tasks of military service. The plan of the mission stipulates a stop at the Syrian port of Tartus to replenish stocks. A Marine Corps detachment in on board the ship," said the source. It was also said that that rescue tug "Miner" took the course in the Mediterranean Sea. Earlier, rescue tug SB-5 entered the Mediterranean Sea too.
The first official reaction of the U.S. authorities was diplomatic and calm. "We have received information about the mission of the ships, we've also heard the Russian authorities saying that the ships would call at Tartus for refueling and that their mission was not connected with the Syrian conflict. We hope it's true ... We are in touch with the Russian side on this issue," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.
Erin Pelton, a spokeswoman of the U.S. National Security Council reminded reporters that Russia had is a point of technical servicing in Tartus. "We do not see any reason to believe this campaign is something extraordinary. But I'd recommend asking details from the Russian authorities," Al Arabia quoted Pelton.
Russia's Defense Ministry is being careful with its comments about sending the warships to the Mediterranean Sea. Thus, the press-service of the ministry announced that "the group of the ships of the Northern and Baltic fleets will conduct a training combat mission in the Mediterranean and in the Black Seas, in collaboration with a group of Black Sea Fleet - large landing warships "Nikolay Filchenkov, " "Caesar Kunikov "and escort ship "Smetliviy." The officials also explained that the group included Northern Fleet ships "Admiral Chabanenko", "Aleksandr Otrakovsky," "George the Victorious" and "Kondopoga", as well as support vessels "Nicholai Chiker" and "Sergey Osipov". Later, the Baltic Fleet patrol ship "Yaroslav Mudry" and "Lena" tanker joined them.
However, the Defense Ministry did not specify how close the ships would approach the Syrian coast and whether they planned to call in Tartus. "Since there is a Russian base at the Syrian port of Tartus, it is possible that the ships will enter the port to replenish stocks," Andrei Taraman, the Head of Information said Wednesday.
Back in mid-June, military sources reported that a group of two large amphibious ships from the Black Sea Fleet with "black berets" on board and a rescue tug accompanying them would travel to Tartus to evacuate the personnel of the Russian base and other Russian citizens staying in Syria. The Defense Ministry remained silent for a long time, neither confirming nor denying the information.
There were several official statements released, though. For example, the Defense Ministry denied the rumors saying that "Kaliningrad", a ship of the Baltic Fleet, would join the Black Sea Fleet squadron. However, the ministry did not deny the fact that the Black Sea Fleet ships were getting ready for the mission. The officials accused foreign media of spreading disinformation: the Western media reported that Russia was working to organize joint Syrian-Iranian-Chinese-Russian maneuvers.
The last statement from the Defense Ministry about the departure of the Russian vessels to Syria's Tartus was made in late June, but it did not clarify the situation in general. "The armed forces are not taking any emergency measures... It's too early to think of something bad," said the chief of staff Gen. Nikolai Makarov.
While the Defense Ministry continues to remain silent about the plans of the Russian Navy to visit Tartus, the West speculates on the Mediterranean campaign of the Russian ships. There are two main objectives, journalists and analysts believe - to demonstrate force and prepare for a possible evacuation of Russians.
Western diplomats are convinced that Russia wants to show its support for Assad, and thus warn the West against the military operation in the region, The Telegraph writes. It is worthy of note that Moscow canceled the delivery of Yak-30 planes to Damascus, the newspaper said.
Earlier, Russia would send warships from time to time for maneuvers in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, but the extraordinary scale of the forces sent to the region is seen as a message not only for the region but for the United States and other countries that support the rebels and try to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, writes The New York Times.
There is also an opinion saying that Russia hopes to get hold of a strategically important piece of coast in Tartus. The Kremlin supposedly makes it clear for America and other powers that the preservation of the Russian military base in Tartus is a priority, Foreign Policy said.
Probably, Moscow hopes that the deployment of marines will help Assad's regime defeat his opponents, or preserve Russia's access to Tartus, if the regime falls, the authors of the article wrote. One or more of these groups may conclude that an attack on the Russian forces in Syria is a great way to increase their popularity and legitimacy in comparison with others, says Foreign Policy.
The politicising of Russia's floods
Has the Russian opposition nowhere else to go but blame President Putin for everything? The latest ridiculous and hysterical claims blame Vladimir Putin for last weekend's floods in which 171 people died in Russia's southern region, Krasnodar which lies 1,194 kilometres away.
Even God has problems being omniscient and omnipresent but according to Russia's opposition, Vladimir Putin has already surpassed the almighty in these skills. Why, he is now being blamed for the flash floods in South Krasnodar last weekend. Does he have a direct telephone line to Saint Peter?
To underline how ridiculous the claims are, Vladimir Putin was within minutes of hearing of the tragedy flying over the area, organising not just a Commission but also a full enquiry, organising compensation for the victims, which has already been paid, in cash. A large area was organised with tents to house the residents who lost their homes and food and clothing were distributed to the victims.
The floods were caused not by the Russian President, but by torrential rains which swept down the hillsides and gushed through the area around Krymsk, the worst affected residential centre. 2,700 people were evacuated from their homes. Some areas had one third of annual rainfall in just a few hours, after an entire month of heavy precipitation.
Igor Chestin, of WWF Russia, states that some of the rainwater could have been retained by the forests if they had not been cut down and suggests a reforestation programme.
The Russian authorities have denied claims that the flood was caused by the opening of sluice gates in the nearby Neberdzhayevskoye reservoir but claim that there were failings as regards providing a timely warning for all the residents. Vladimir Puchkov, Ministry of Emergency Situations, has claimed that a preliminary appraisal points towards work not being carried out properly to warn the population.
Tsunami from the sky hits Russia's south. Over 155 killed
As many as 155 people have been killed as a result of the massive flood in Russia's Krasnodar region, also known as Kuban. The death toll continues to grow, but it remains the largest in the town of Krymsk. The number of victims in other disaster-stricken town is much lower: 9 people in Gelendzhik and 2 in Novorossiisk. More than 12,000 people suffered from the disaster.
The Russian government has taken efforts to help the people. Each of the affected families will receive 10,000 rubles ($300) on Monday, July 9th, for urgent needs. Afterwards, each family that lost their loved ones in the flood will receive the compensation of 2 million rubles ($62,000). Each of the affected individuals will receive 150,000 rubles ($4,800).
Unbelievably strong rains took place in several districts of the region on Friday and on Saturday night. The level of precipitation was equal to that common for a period of five months.. The July monthly average for the area is about 70-100 mm, the annual rate - about 700 mm. Met Office predicts rains until the evening of Monday, July 9, with possible heavy thundershowers, but their intensity may not be as high as in the previous days.
Floods occur frequently in the Kuban, but the disasters of such scale may occur once in 50 years. The last major flood in southern Russia occurred in August 2002 - 62 people were killed.
According to deputy head of Russian Water Respirces, Matvei Tarasov, the flooding could be caused with "narrowed or defunct drainage system which resulted in flood waves on the rivers."
The flood triggered serious disruptions in railroad communication with the south of Russia. Many people, who were traveling to the south for their summer holidays, found themselves trapped in their trains. Nearly 29,000 people are left without electricity in the disaster-stricken area.
A local policeman died when he was trying to rescue people from the water. Lieutenant-Colonel Vyacheslav Gorbunov, born in 1969, was riding a boat, looking for anyone whom he could help. The man saved two little children and then returned to help their relatives, when his boat capsized because of the waves.
It has been reported that the flood may have been caused with the drainage of water from Neberdzhaevsky water reservoir near Krymsk. The rumors of the fast rise of the water level being a consequence of the water drainage from the reservoir appeared immediately. President Putin stated, though, that it was technically impossible to release water from the reservoir. Ivan Sengerov, a senior assistance to the chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, stated that the water was being drained automatically during the rainfall. However, it is too early to say that it could lead to the flood, he added.
Natural disasters exhaust Russian economy
Natural disasters that occur annually cause terrible damage to the affected countries. Casualties, destruction of human settlements and infrastructure, pollution, ecological issues, man-made disasters - these effects put countries in a distressed situation and often lead to significant economic decline.
Any major earthquake, flood, or a hurricane causes significant harm to the state budget of the affected country. Human losses are irretrievable, and sometimes it is impossible to restore entire cities or regions. The main task of the authorities is to keep the economy from fluctuations, save infrastructure and to ensure that the financial component of the tragedy is not fatal to the state budget. It takes days, weeks or months after the disaster.
In Russia, the most frequently occurring natural disasters are earthquakes, landslides, storms, hurricanes, forest fires and floods. The latest tragedy in the Krasnodar Region that saw a two-month amount of rain on July 7 had killed over a hundred people, and tens of thousands were injured.
The flooding has caused horrible damage to the Krymsk city, Gelendzhik and Novorossiysk. Villages were flooded, roads washed away, electricity supply was disrupted, there was a breakage of wires, and small businesses have suffered greatly due to the flooding of shops, stalls and offices. The total flood damage in the area today is estimated at one billion rubles, but this number is expected to grow
According to the calculations of a special commission created to determine the damage, as of July 9 the flooding destroyed 5,185 houses, and 2,035 yards with a population of 26,475 people in the cities of Gelendzhik, Krymsk, Novorossiysk, settlements Divnomorskoe, Nizhnebakansky, Neverdjayevskaya, and Kabardinka.
In addition, three kindergartens, a school, city hospital, medical midwife center and tuberculosis hospital were damaged. Some power lines, distributing pipelines, culverts, bridges and local roads have also suffered. The federal highway M-4 "Don", with only one lane in the area of Aderbievki, was also damaged.
According to the President Vladimir Putin, the victims of the disaster in the Kuban region will be paid up to 160,000 rubles from the federal and regional budgets, and the families who lost relatives will receive 2 million rubles. The President also said that new houses in place of the lost ones will be built with the money of the federal treasury.
The flooding is not the first one in the Krasnodar Region. Just two years ago, in October of 2010, a flooding occurred in Kuban and caused the damage of 2.5 billion rubles. The consequences of that tragedy were less devastating with 17 people killed, six missing, 7,500 people injured, and 1,500 homes flooded. According to the current data on the consequences of the latest flood, there are 26 thousands victims and 5 thousands flooded homes.
In terms of the economic and business losses of the area, the scale of the disaster is considerably larger. In addition to the already mentioned small businesses, travel companies have suffered losses because the flood occurred at the height of the travel season. Today it is unclear whether these companies will receive compensation from specific individuals responsible for the unpreparedness of the communities to natural disaster, or whether the enormous losses will be blamed on "high water" and unstable climate of the Russian south.
Other countries have also suffered significant natural disasters in recent years. With the advent of the new millennium, nature has dealt more severe blows to the economies of different countries. Tsunami, active volcanoes and earthquakes have caused great damage to the economies.
In 2004, a devastating wave struck South-East Asia, covering coastal areas of Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. As a result of the disaster, the countries lost 10.7 billion dollars. A flood in the already impoverished country of Haiti in 2010 killed 10,000 people, destroyed tens of thousands of homes, particularly in the province of Puerto Plata.
Damage from natural disasters was estimated at several billion dollars. One of the most "expensive" disasters of this century was the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011, where the natural disaster was followed by a technology-related accident at the nuclear power plant "Fukushima". As a result of the disaster, Japan's economy has lost 265 billion dollars only in the first half of 2011.
The total losses incurred by the global economy over the past year as a result of natural and man-made disasters were calculated at $370 billion dollars. For comparison, in 2010 the total amount of damage to the element of the global economy was at $226 billion dollars.
On the bright side, according to statistics, countries are now better prepared for disasters, and pay enough attention to the improvement of early emergency warning systems. Such insurance in the future should help not only reduce economic losses from natural disasters, but, first and foremost, reduce human losses.
Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus to integrate joint air defense system
While Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are flirting with the U.S. for the sake of getting personal benefits, Kazakhstan and Russia along with Belarus are going to integrate the joint air defense system by 2013. For this purposes, Astana and Minsk will receive S-300 system that never went to Iran. This decision has caused concern in Lithuania. Protests from the West are awaited.
Now, according to the CSTO agreement, the joint air defense system is active in five countries of the CIS. It is noteworthy that this list includes Ukraine, even though on a bilateral basis. Games with the European Union are one thing, but so far Kyiv prefers to trust its own safety to Moscow. Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan nearly ceased their participation in this program. This is not surprising given that the alliance promised more money if Tashkent, Dushanbe and Ashgabat are supportive of the U.S. Army.
Alexander Lukashenko and Nursultan Nazarbayev honor each letter of the contract and do not intend to refuse cooperation with Russia. These mental and cultural idiosyncrasies that unite the three countries are foreign to other Central Asian states and even more so Eastern Europe, whose political direction has long been shifted towards the European Union. Perhaps, a slight cooling in the relations between the CIS countries is quite natural. In any case, for the Kremlin today it is not very beneficial to pull Ashgabat, Dushanbe and Tashkent over to its side exclusively for military purposes. They are well aware how important they will be after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Ashgabat has not participated in the meetings of the Coordinating Committee on Air Defense at the Council of Ministers of Defense of the CIS since 1995. Moscow has welcomed the resumption of participation of Turkmenistan in the meetings of the delegation of CIS Air Defense Coordination Committee. However, Turkmenistan's air defense is self-sufficient. "They do all types of repair and maintenance on their own," GeorgiaTimes quoted Russian Air Force Deputy Chief of Defense, Major General Pavel Kurachenko.
However, Moscow did not rule out the prospect of accession to the united defense of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. So far the bet is placed on reliable partners - Astana and Minsk. This cooperation has already angered Lithuania, because Belarus and Kazakhstan may end up with anti-aircraft S-300 to protect their borders, which Vilnius does not like. The local Sejm in February ruled that it was an aggressive military alliance and not air defense system that is being created next to the country borders.
"There is no warming between Belarus and Lithuania, because strong military strategy of the two states is being carried out. Lithuanian entrepreneurs conducting business in Belarus should focus on the stable EU and NATO, because the desire to rush into privatized space of Belarus will make them hostages," Regnum quoted member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Seim Emanuelis Zingeris.
Today it was announced that Kyrgyzstan has opened a regular meeting of the Coordinating Committee. The closest joint military training exercise for air defense will be CIS air defense exercise "Clear Sky" to be held in October of 2012 in Kazakhstan. Apparently, the fears of the Baltic and other European fosterlings of America do not concern the leadership of the countries who designed their response to NATO.
What should the combined air defense system be like? Since the problem of the European missile defense is one of the hottest in Russia's relations with the United States and NATO, there is a serious problem of military security. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow naively believed that the new joint defense will be based on close relationships and interdependence of all ex-military components. However, many neighbors in the CIS countries have not resolved their territorial disputes and the division of ex-USSR property is not over. Despite the fact that many countries have capable armies, the aggressor is no longer fighting with the Army and Navy.
Now, the Alliance uses mainly military aircraft. Accordingly, the only shield is air defense system. Reluctance to invest in air defense resulted in Saddam Hussein and Iraq's defeat in the shortest period of time, while "humanitarian bombing" of Belgrade lasted several months since Yugoslavia had an old, but still quite effective air defense.
While Russia, becoming the successor of the Soviet Union, wondered what to do about a new air defense system, the Bush administration in 2002 decided to deploy strategic bases of interceptor missiles and radar defense system in Europe. Later it was placed in close proximity to the Russian borders - in Poland and the Czech Republic. Accordingly, Russia has to have a response for every American step.
In the meantime, only Belarus and Russia have the joint air defense system. Now the Russian army has four divisions S-400, two of which are deployed in the Moscow suburbs, one - in the Baltic Fleet, and one - in Nakhodka. By the end of 2012, when Astana and Moscow intend to complete the creation of the joined defense system, Russian forces will be given the fifth set of the regimental S-400.
According to Doctor of Military Sciences, retired Lieutenant-General Mikhail Naumenko, the majority of the territory of the CIS states is relatively small, and the speed of modern air attack increased so that the national air defense forces may simply not have time to use or fully use their fighting potential. The depth of the territories of Central Asian republics ranges from 100 to 400-500 kilometers, Caucasus - from 150 to 300 kilometers. At the flight speed of modern air attack devices of 2,000-2,200 miles per hour, they will reach the borders of the republics in three to 15 minutes.
The resisting Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have much to lose. Their participation in the common benefit of defense is obvious. It should be remembered that the main NATO allies - Germany, France, Canada and Britain - have rejected the U.S. strategy of the European missile defense. They stated that such actions jeopardize strategic stability. The U.S. has not renounced intervention in Iran adjacent to Uzbekistan.
Why didn't Russia use veto right on Libya?
Why did Russia not use the veto on Libya? Where is the money that was lent to Sarkozy by Gaddafi? What are the chances of a repetition of the "Libyan scenario" in Syria? Who set the West against Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad? Said Gafurov, scientific director of the Institute of Oriental and African studies, answered these and other questions for "Pravda.Ru."
It is believed that Russia "washed its hands" in terms of the Libyan issue.
"Russia, as you know, abstained in the UN on the adoption of resolution 1973. The then President Medvedev later said in an interview with the Financial Times that Russia made a tragic mistake. Had we known that "resolution 1973" would be interpreted this way we would have voted against it. In fact, Medvedev has publicly stated that the West simply deceived Russia.
And I repeat, what is going on in Libya has nothing to do with democracy. All this can only be called a military coup and subsequent intervention. I do not have any other words."
What is the story with the money that Gaddafi has lent to Sarkozy?
"I do not think that Sarkozy kept the money lent by Libya in the central French bank. Some Libyan fund that must have been registered in Europe, most likely in violation of electoral laws of France, transferred the money for the election campaign of Sarkozy. There are documents from the French prosecutor's office in this regard, and we, I think, will get to see the end of this criminal case.
I think the Persian Gulf sheiks promised to buy the French government bonds to fill the gap in the budget of France, because the war is an expensive business. While it brought big profits to French companies, it is not a given that it was enough to plug the gaps in the budget, and now the West in many ways is holding back the repetition of the events in Syria in Libya because they simply cannot afford it."
Can the West repeat this war?
"The West would have calmed down if it were not for the East - Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The West should solve the problem with the budget deficit and the collapse of its economy, and the possible collapse of the euro area, and a war needs to be funded, but there are no funds. Huge amounts of money are coming from the Persian Gulf. Now each of Syria's enemies wants to destroy it with the hands of their allies. Even in Russia the Embassy of Qatar is paying large sums of money to Russian journalists, leaders of medium news agencies and the media.
Would you like to ask me what they are paying for? A representative of the Syrian rebels in Moscow, Mahmoud Hamza, regularly receives money at the box office of the Qatari embassy. Other Syrians, even oppositional, refuse to give their good name to the business fueled by Qatari money of the terrorists. Only those people who have fully compromised themselves receive money from Doha."
Will the "Libyan scenario" be repeated in Syria?
"The agreement, the plan of Kofi Annan that the Syrians need to solve their problems themselves, without outside interference, has to be executed. This is the position of Russia, and I fully agree with it. Syria must follow the path of democracy and freedom, and foreign aggression on the territory of Syria has to be prevented. The Syrian army and the government do not want to fight! Why would Syria's army shoot its own people? If they are able to, I repeat, prevent foreign interference, it would be a way out."
What are the ways of the West to unleash a war against Syria?
"There are many of them. From the formation of foreign legions, invasion of Syria from Turkey to the Libyan scenario with the bombing option. But I think none of the NATO countries would do it. After all, it's not just about the fact that the Syrians know how to fight. The fact is that they know, paradoxically, how to lose. The entire history of Syria is a chain of losses, after which they retreated and regrouped, continued to fight and eventually won in this way.
The Syrians have held free parliamentary elections. During the next presidential election, I am convinced that the opposition will not be able to have a candidate who would win over Bashar, and I doubt that the opposition will have time to grow a candidate in their ranks if it blows up bombs in the streets instead of campaigning. In the meantime, Bashar beats any candidate with the advantage of at least six to four. The situation in Syria is now much safer than it appears from the Western media and "Al-Jazeera," there is a normal life, children go to school, people work, earn money, but Bashar is the guarantor of the economic stability in their country."
Whose side will have the advantage?
"NATO is stronger than Syria. However, I cannot imagine the countries of the bloc deciding to use direct aggression. Even political statements by the heads of this block suggest that the countries belonging to NATO want the Syrians to solve their problems, and we should talk about a national dialogue. In Western countries, there is opposition fueled by Middle Eastern money who wants to destabilize Syria.
And you will notice that most of the world is opposed to NATO. Here's an example. There was a meeting of the Russian and U.S. Presidents Putin and Obama, but that same day, there was a meeting of the leaders of the BRICS. Nobody knows what they were talking about, there was no communique published, but it is known that four topics were discussed, including Syria, Iran, the IMF and the European crisis, and one of the most important four topics was Syria. The BRICS countries coordinate their efforts, nearly all of Latin America and all the moderate Arab countries are against neo-colonialism of the West. In Egypt, for example, the government is allegedly on the side of the rebels, but journalists in major newspapers are in favor of the Syrian government."
Russia and China favor duty free stores most
Buyers from Russia, China and Brazil purchase more items of luxury brands in the Duty Free stores of largest airports of the world than buyers from other countries. The outbreak of consumer interest has spurred sales, and traders expect a growth of demand in the next two years. In Russia, the number of duty-free shops will increase, but they will be Duty Free shops at train stations.
The success of the representatives of the BRIC countries in the field of duty-free money spending was reported by The Guardian, citing a study by the Swedish company Generation Research. It estimated that sales of perfumes, cosmetics and luxury goods in Duty Free shops in the past three years have increased by 28 percent. Analysts expect sales growth by 25 percent over the next two years, and the total turnover of these stores could reach $44.5 billion dollar.
The study highlighted that the number of stores of luxury brands in the air harbors of the world is increasing. Plans for expansion of airport networks were announced by Tiffany & Co, Estée Lauder and Louis Vuitton.
Stores in the airports where passengers often have a considerable amount of time for shopping bring the largest revenues to the operators of Duty Free. In addition, airports traditionally have good sales of alcohol for flights.
Skytrax called London's Heathrow Airport the largest and most successful duty-free shopping area. On the territory of 48,000 square meters in five airport terminals some 80 international and British brands are housed and visited by millions of passengers. Heathrow has 67 million travelers a year. Last year alone, the turnover of the retailers in the airport amounted to 1.7 billion pounds, or $2.6 billion. This year the number will be even higher, as London will host the Summer Olympics. According to some projections, sales at Heathrow will rise two-fold.
Primarily, major airports sell alcohol, various accessories, perfumes, cosmetics, clothing and footwear. The major buyers of "deluxe" goods are different categories of Chinese consumers.
Personal income growth in China has led to the fact that the urban population in terms of this indicator is approaching the inhabitants of the country's richest metropolis - Shanghai.
China is considered the fastest growing market of luxury goods in the world by brokerage firm CLSA and the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
However, prospective evaluations of the experts differ. CLSA predicts that China will become the world's largest luxury market in 2020, and PwC expects it to happen by 2015. On average, according to a number of brands, China already consumes nearly 40 percent of the manufactured luxury products.
According to the Association of Duty Free Trade, in Russia at the end of 2011 there were over 150 Duty Free shops managed by over 25 major Duty Free operators. By some estimates, their combined annual turnover is around one billion euros.
The number of Duty Free shops in Russia will increase dramatically in the near future. Earlier it was allowed to create such shops within the automotive, aviation, and marine and river crossing points across the Russian border.
However, in April of this year, Russian Prime Minister signed a decree that allows the "Russian Railways" (RZD) to open Duty Free stores at railway stations.
Duty Free will open at Russian railway stations operating international trains. According to the chief directorate of railway stations Sergei Abramov, over 30 duty free zones can be created that will be funded by private investors. The first such store can be opened at the Finland Train Station in Saint Petersburg.
The rate of return at these stores may be lower on average than in airports. This is due to the peculiarities of the organization of passenger traffic. Passengers spend less time at a train station than in an airport. Moreover, these stores will sell much less alcohol, as there is no ban on bringing alcohol into train cars.
Russia to deliver tanks and helicopters to US-unfriendly states
Russia offered Zimbabwe to conclude an intergovernmental agreement about the mutual protection of investments. Russian companies may thus obtain an opportunity to develop one of the world's largest deposits of platinum. In return, Zimbabwe, which remains under the influence of sanctions from the USA and EU, will receive military hardware from Russia. Moreover, Russia intends to ship a large batch of arms to another US-unfriendly country.
Russia is currently in talks with Zimbabwe about the above-mentioned agreement, the Kommersant Daily wrote with reference to a source in the presidential administration. The document, the newspaper wrote, is being developed in accordance with Putin's decree from May 16th in connection with Russia's intention to enter the market of the African country.
It goes about Darwendale platinum project. Russian Technologies State Corporation has already won the support from Zimbabwean officials during the visit to the country in April, an official with the Kremlin administration said. The Zimbabwean authorities, he added, are interested in the deliveries of Russian arms, particularly helicopters. "It goes about the delivery of rights to Russian Technologies for the development of the deposit in return for helicoThe deposit in Darwendale Valley is the second largest deposit of platinum in the world. It is situated in the south-eastern part of Africa. It also contains palladium, gold, rhodium, nickel and copper. The proven reserves of platinum make up 19 tons with total resources of 755 tons. The potential of the deposit is 43-45 million ounces of platinum, or 1,3-1,4 thousand tons.
The license for the development of Darwendale belongs to Ruschrome Mining - a joint company of the government of Zimbabwe and the Russian center for business cooperation with foreign countries. Martin Rushwaia, a constant secretary of Zimbabwe's Defense Ministry serves as the chairman of Board of Directors of Ruschrome. Andrei Shutov, formerly a businessman in Renova group of companies, presides over the Russian consortium of investors.
Ruschrome received the license for the exploration and development of the deposit for 25 years. All preparations were completed in January of this year, and the company received an opportunity to start the development of the deposit. The total volume of investments in the project makes up $300 million. The estimated production volume - 2 million tons of ore a year, Business-TASS reports.
It is worthy of note that "arms in exchange for goods" schemes used to be practiced by the USSR. Peru, for example, paid fishing quotas to the Soviet Union, Algeria - hydrocarbons, Nigeria - cocoa. However, experts say that the above-mentioned variant - helicopters in exchange for the right to develop the platinum deposit - may not work for Russia due to the instability of the political regime in Zimbabwe.
Robert Mugabe has been ruling Zimbabwe since 1980. The West considers him a dictator. There is a strong opposition in the country that enjoys the support from the West. The opposition may come to power in the country in the foreseeable future. Rumor has it that Mugabe suffers from cancer.
Meanwhile, Russia may send military hardware to another US-unfriendly country - Venezuela. The governmental delegation of Venezuela is negotiating the terms of the delivery of a large batch of T-72 tanks to Caracas within the scope of the Russian loan, the Kommersant said.
This may mark a second large delivery of Russian tanks to Venezuela during the recent two years. The previous delivery of 92 T-72B1B tanks was successfully completed in March of this year.
The new deliveries will be conducted within the framework of the Russian loan of $4 billion. The previous batch was delivered to Venezuela on the base of the 2.2-billion-dollar loan. Russia gave the loan to Venezuela after the latter recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Arms deliveries to Caracas are a part of the strategy of Russia's economic expansion in Venezuela. However, despite the enormous investments, Russia comes second after Belarus on the Venezuelan market. The commodity circulation between the two countries has increased more than 200 times during the recent five years and made up $1.3 billion last year. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has recently called Venezuela a "platform for the Belarusian expansion."pters," another official said.
Russia to keep an eye on its children in USA?
he Russian State Duma is planning to ratify the treaty about the adoptions of Russian children by Americans. Russia will be able to control the situation with foster families. Meanwhile, a delegation of the Russian Federation was not even allowed to the "children's ranch", where the adoptive parents of Russian children send kids for "reeducation."
In 2011, 970 Russian children were adopted to the U.S. Only China and Ethiopia have larger indicators. Russia is one of the leading donors providing its young citizens to foreigners. The widespread belief that mainly disabled children abandoned by their Russian parents are adopted is refuted by experts.
In particular, the Commissioner for Children's Rights Pavel Astakhov said that most American prospective parents, when filling out a questionnaire, indicated they would prefer to adopt a healthy baby.
Often, when children move to a new family in the U.S., the situation suddenly changes. Adoptive parents convicted of abusing foster sons and daughters justify their actions by saying that the children supposedly "deserved punishment" by their bad behavior caused by their psychological state.
According to Astakhov, many of the adopted Russian children are ascribed fetal alcohol syndrome and syndrome of lack of affection, but there are no documents to confirm this diagnosis. However, this "presumption of guilt" allows U.S. courts to give very light sentences for adoptive parents who abused their children.
For example, an American couple who tortured their adopted son to death (80 wounds were found on his body) was sentenced only to a few months in prison. This is not an exception but a common practice. According to the ombudsman for children's rights in Russia, most courts in such cases would give a short or suspended sentence, or even release them altogether.
Last week a court in Wisconsin began a hearing of another American couple who for seven years had abused six adopted children from Russia. The O'Brien spouses developed their own system of punishment: beating children with a stick and a belt - the number of hits would correspond to the child's age. They put them in the snow naked and forced them to sit in a dog kennel.
But these are only the facts that become public. Many "ordinary" beatings and cases of humiliation will forever remain untold by the newspapers and court records like Ranch for Kids in Montana.
Recently, a very representative delegation from Russia that in addition to Pavel Astakhov also included Commissioner for Human Rights and Foreign Minister Konstantin Dolgov, and Russian consul was trying to get there. They wanted to see the living conditions of the Russian children. The ranch was created precisely in order for adoptive parents unable to cope with raising children from Russia to bring them there - temporarily or permanently.
The Russian authorities have failed to learn what is going on in the children's "ranch," because they simply were not allowed in, based on the inviolability of private property. No one knows how many more of these "children's ranches" exist in the US, especially since they are located in remote areas.
Theoretically, this situation would be resolved by the treaty between Russia and the United States on the Adoption of Children signed by the heads of international agencies of the two countries a year ago. Now it is to be ratified in the Duma. It means not only strict selection of candidates for adoptive parents, but also control over the conditions of child's life in the new family.
However, the treaty does not take into consideration a very important moment - a possibility of the child willing to go back to Russia. This is especially true for the teens who are already quite capable to assess how they are actually treated.
The United States government provides certain benefits to adopters in the form of tax incentives, attractive home loans, and free medical insurance. It would be wrong to say that all adoptive parents are guided solely by material gain, but this aspect is worth considering.
In the meantime, the Russian authorities are only planning to tighten control over adoptions by foreigners. The Kemerovo region implemented a general ban on giving local orphans to the U.S. An exception is made only for close relatives - grandparents, sisters and brothers. Prior to the ban, American citizens were most numerous among the foreigners adopting local children.
Lightning strikes children during unusually heavy storm in Moscow
A storm with heavy rain and flashes of lightning struck Moscow on Friday afternoon, July 13th. The storm led to casualties and flooded many streets in different parts of Moscow.
In the north-west of Moscow, two children were struck by lightning, both were hospitalized, one in serious condition. The incident occurred in Strogino, near the Moscow River in a forested area, ITAR-TASS reported.
Interfax later specified that the children were walking along the Alley of Life in Stroginsky Park. The lightning struck the ground. The girl, aged 14, suffered serious injuries; the boy - aged only three years - lost consciousness.
Life News reports citing eyewitness that the three-year boy and the 14-year-old were swimming in a pond near a summer cafe on the alley, when the storm began. The children hid under a tree, but the lightning struck the tree, underneath which the children were hiding. "The boy was all covered with burns!" an eyewitness told .
Spokespeople for law-enforcement agencies in the Moscow region said that in Sergiev Posad (a town near Moscow) a lightning killed two guest workers from Uzbekistan - a father and son, aged 53 and 18. According to Life News, Ismail Usmanov and his son Camille were repairing the roof when a powerful discharge of electricity hit the roof.
Many of the streets of Moscow were flooded, which made the traffic situation on the last day of the week even more complicated.
Many Muscovites wrote in social networks that the rain, which lasted in the city center for about 10 minutes, flooded Solyanka and Ordynka Streets, Spartakovskaya Square and Sadovnicheskaya Street. The water level in some places completely hid car wheels, RIA Novosti said.
"The cars are swimming on the parking lot... There's water inside the cars," Internet users wrote posting photographs and videos. "The water level reached 20 centimeters and even 40-45 centimeters in some places," another eyewitness said.
According to eyewitnesses, the heavy downpour flooded the streets in Kitay-Gorod, Taganka and Leninsky Prospekt.
"Shosse Entuziastov is paralyzed completely because of the rain, nothing can be seen, the drivers are afraid to go," - said another eyewitness.
"In Sadovaya Street, the water level is up to the chest," another eyewitness who found himself in the midst of the storm, said.
"The cars randomly swim and bump into each other," another person wrote.
Moscow's most expensive apartment available for nearly $29 million
As of the end of June 2012, initial sales in the segment of premium-class residential real estate in Moscow were conducted in 36 elite complexes (excluding the "Moscow City"). The complexes included more than three thousand apartments with the total area of approximately 510,000 sq.m.
According to experts, the volume of available premium class primary housing in Moscow at the end of June amounted to about 1.25 thousand apartments, or approximately 218,000 sq.m. With the current level of demand on such offers, the supply will last for 2.5-3 years.
The most expensive initial proposal in June was a penthouse of 826 sq m. on Ostozhenka Street for 28.9 million dollars. The "cheapest" was a flat of 57 square meters in Tverskoy district priced at 0.7 million dollars, reports 1dom.ru.
The Moscow real estate market has faced an unusual situation. Prices have been growing despite the availability of new projects, mainly due to strong demand. As a result, some developers pushed the prices of their objects up by almost a third since the beginning of the year. However, there are no apparent reasons for such a development on the market, experts said.
This year, the demand on the elite real estate market is based on several factors. First, luxury apartments were in high demand because of the new election cycle. It is no secret that officials make the lion's share of buyers on this market. Increased demand was recorded in February - it was about 2.5 times higher than in January, which was largely due to the political situation in the country and, in particular, with the desire of buyers to close their deals before the presidential election.
In the spring of 2012 the demand for luxury housing was fueled with the traditional seasonal revival of the market.
All this was happening against the background of the coherent struggle of the Moscow authorities against new projects and the revision of previously concluded investment contracts. As a result, effective demand and the shortage of supply led to higher prices.
According to forecasts, by the end of the year the cost of housing of the upper price range could grow to 15-17%.
The situation is even more surprising because growth does not happen any more in other segments of the Moscow market.
Ukraine To Send 245 Athletes To London 2012 Olympics
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine will send 245 athletes to the London 2012 Summer Olympics, the press service of the National Olympic Committee has reported, quoting its head, Serhiy Bubka.
The Ukrainians will compete in 28 sports.
A total of 78 Ukrainian sportsmen will compete in track and field events, 24 in rowing, 14 in swimming, ten in wrestling and judo, seven in boxing, nine in weightlifting, eight in shooting, and nine in diving.
In addition, Ukrainian athletes will participate in fencing competitions, tennis and table tennis, modern pentathlon, archery, artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, sailing and many other sports.
The Ukrainian Olympic team will include well-known athletes, such as Olympic champions Vasyl Lomachenko (boxing), Olha Kharlan (saber fencing), Artur Ayvazyan (shooting), Iryna Merleni (wrestling), Inna Osypenko-Radomska (canoe) Natalia Dobrynska (athletics); silver medalist Vasyl Fedoryshyn (wrestling); bronze medalists Yuriy Cheban (rowing and canoe), Illia Kvasha and Oleksiy Pyrohov (diving).
According to the National Olympic Committee, Ukraine had 230-strong team at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, 231 Ukrainian athletes competed in Sydney in 2000, 245 in Athens in 2004, and 254 in Beijing in 2008.
The XXX Summer Olympic Games are scheduled to take place in London from July 27 to August 12, 2012.
Ukraine Tax Police Raid TV Station Before Election
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's tax police raided the office of TVi television station on Thursday, three months before a parliamentary election, accusing the outlet, which is often critical of the government, of tax evasion.
TVi interrupted its usual programming to show tax inspectors browsing through heaps of financial documents in its Kiev office.
The State Tax Service said it had launched a criminal case against TVi's chief executive, Mykola Knyazhitsky, after finding out that the station had evaded more than 3 million hryvnias ($375,000) in VAT payments, the Interfax news agency reported.
TVi has challenged the back tax claim in court, Interfax said.
Batkivshchyna, the main opposition party, accused the government of censorship.
"Batkivshchyna view this cynical move by the authorities as yet another attempt to limit freedom of speech in the country and introduce political censorship at the television station under the cover of a criminal case," it said in a statement.
Opinion polls show that Batkivshchyna, led by jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, is close behind President Viktor Yanukovich's Party of the Regions in the run-up to the October elections.
TVi's management has said the station is owned by Konstantin Kagalovsky, a former shareholder of now-defunct Russian oil giant Yukos.
Court Ruling Paves Way For Lytvyn Ouster
KIEV, Ukraine -- The Constitutional Court on Thursday announced a ruling that makes it easier for lawmakers to replace the speaker of Parliament.
The ruling is a direct threat to Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, who now may be quickly replaced with a figure that would be more loyal to the ruling Regions Party.
Parliament, which is on summer recess, may hold an emergency session on July 31, the earliest the ruling party may make an attack against Lytvyn, according to people familiar with the plans.
The move is seen to be aimed at solving a political crisis which erupted after approval of a recent controversial bill that may introduce Russian as the second state language in many Ukrainian regions.
Lytvyn has refused to sign the bill, de-facto blocking it from reaching the office of President Viktor Yanukovych, who must sign it into the law.
The bill is seen as benefiting the Regions Party ahead of October elections, but may split the country by languages used by local governments.
Lytvyn shortly after the approval of the bill earlier this month announced his resignation, but lawmakers refused to accept it last week.
The reason is that the Regions Party would never be able to appoint a new speaker, without cooperation from opposition lawmakers.
Parliament’s regulations call for the vote to dismiss or to appoint a speaker would be carried out by secret ballots and at least 300 lawmakers in the 450-seat Parliament would have to participate in the vote.
The Regions Party and its allies in Parliament control 250 seats, which means it would not be able to appoint the new speaker, sending the country further down the political crisis.
That’s why the Regions Party submitted an appeal to the Constitutional Court earlier this week asking if Parliament’s regulation was in line with the constitution.
“I think that all lawyers understand that this norm does correspond to the constitution,” Oleksandr Yefremov, the leader of the Regions Party in Parliament, said.
“That’s why when Regions party lawmakers made the appeal they made it with full understanding that this norm does not meet the constitution.”
It took the court only two days to deliberate on the appeal - unprecedented pace for a court that usually takes at least one month to do that – suggesting the ruling may be rushed and politically motivated.
Yanukovych is thought to control the Constitutional Court through loyalist judges that had been appointed to the panel.
The court, in a controversial ruling in October 2010, cancelled Ukraine’s 2004 constitution and replaced it with 1996 constitution that dramatically increases powers of Yanukovych.
Lytvyn, in a statement on Wednesday, said that the Constitutional Court had no jurisdiction over deciding on a matter that is regulated by Parliament.
Lytvyn called for a conciliatory meeting between political groups and language experts to find a compromise.
He said that Parliament had committed “immense violations” in approving the bill.
Ukraine Upset By Putin 'Rudeness' During Visit
KIEV, Ukraine -- The visit of President Vladimir Putin to Ukraine, aimed at tightening ties with Russia's neighbour, appeared to have the opposite effect Friday as leading figures castigated him for "rudeness" in showing up four hours late.
Putin on Thursday held talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych in the Crimean resort of Yalta, seen as an attempt to smooth out a dispute over Ukraine's gas imports from Russia.
The Russian president arrived several hours behind schedule but rather than rushing to meet his host he instead went to greet a group of Russian bikers known as the "Night Wolves" whose events he has attended in the past.
After talking with his biker friends -- who included a legendary Russian biker known as the "Surgeon" -- Putin finally headed to Yalta to meet Yanukovych.
"President Putin exceeded the limits of a delay. He went to look at motorheads and their friends, showing his priorities" in Ukraine, Emergency Situations Minister Viktor Baloga wrote on his Facebook page.
Adding that once Putin finally showed up he failed to offer Ukraine any concession in the gas dispute, Baloga said: "It is no longer interesting for Ukraine to hear this. Kremlin, please change the music."
Former foreign minister Volodymyr Ogryzko fumed: "Instead of hurrying to the meeting he stopped to have a drink with the bikers. In my opinion this is a diplomatic slap or rudeness."
Leading commentator Vitaly Portnikov said that the meeting with the bikers was aimed at humiliating Yanukovych and undermining Ukraine's independence.
"What Putin allowed to happen is aimed ... at showing that Yanukovych is not a president but a simple governor (of a region) who will wait as long as he is told," he said in a commentary on the Lb.ua site.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov sought to downplay the affair.
"President Putin, just as President Yanukovych, said themselves they were very happy" with their meeting, Peskov was quoted as saying by the Ria Novosti news agency.
Putin's day did not end with the talks: according to footage posted on the lifenews.ru website he then went late at night night to the Crimea villa of former Ukrainian presidency chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk.
The news site said Putin is the godfather of a daughter of Medvedchuk, who was a key figure at the presidency during the rule of Leonid Kuchma.
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