KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych and his administration embark on implementing four key reforms, namely, tax, administrative, anti-corruption and pension reforms.
This announcement was made by the President and his key staff members during the last four days following the signing of the tax code, a milestone development in the fundamental tax reform.
In the coming days the President and his team plan to announce the launch of additional three reforms. The draft laws are currently being prepared by the President's administration and relevant Ministries.
The first step in this process was taken last week, when the President signed the Tax Code into law. Adopted after a long public discussion with the representatives of national business, the so-called "Ukraine's tax bible" will come into effect as early as January 2011. The number of taxes will be reduced from 42 to 23. The main tax rates (income tax and VAT) will also be decreased.
Pension reform is another key priority. As the Ukrainian population is aging and the Pension Fund's deficit is growing, the government plans to gradually increase the retirement age for women from 55 to 60. This unpopular measure, also faced by many EU countries, is to be introduced by a new law drafted by the President's administration.
The deficit of the Pension Fund of Ukraine is now 60 billion Ukrainian hryvnias (approximately 7.5 billion USD). The ratio between the working and retired people is also getting dangerous: 17 million working people compared to 15 million retirees.
The anti-corruption provisions are foreseen by the National Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2011-2014. Among others, the package includes such measures as securing control over the financing of the political parties and public control over the public funds expenditure.
Ukraine was obliged to adopt anti-corruption legislation as a condition for entering the GRECO group (The Council of Europe's Group of States against Corruption).
The administrative reform, in its turn, is to reduce by more than a third the number of public servants by shutting down one third of the existing Ministries.
Presumably, this reform will be foreseen by the state budget for the next year, which is to be approved by no later than 24 December. A special draft law is also prepared by the President's administration.
Showing posts with label social. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social. Show all posts
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Fears Rise Over Fires In Chernobyl Forests
KIEV, Ukraine -- As fires burn across Ukraine amid a heat wave, international and local experts have warned of the high risk of a wildfire in the highly radioactive 30-kilometer radius around the closed nuclear power plant.
A combination of heat, wind, drought and poor forest management could help spread such a fire in the no-man’s-land “exclusion zone” near the 1986 disaster, which remains the world’s worst nuclear power accident. Wildfires there would release radioactivity in smoke clouds.
The scientific consensus seems to be that the particles would not be of sufficient quantity to seriously endanger people’s health, except perhaps for those closest to the blaze.
Although, as with most Chernobyl-related assessments, nobody knows for sure what the fallout would be.
“There is an extraordinary situation in terms of wildfire risk in the Chernobyl exclusion zone,” said Professor Johannes Goldammer, head of the Global Fire Monitoring Center in Freiburg, Germany.
“The danger results from the lack of any forest management in the decades following the accident. Forest has been growing up without any clearance of dead wood. And there are large stretches where insect infestation has created dying forest that could easily burn.
The whole exclusion zone is at risk of fire.” Goldammer, whose institute is the leading European research center on forest fires, said that “repeated meetings” with Ukrainian officials in recent years have not led to a clear policy “to reduce the risk of fire in the zone.”
Lack of money, he said, shouldn’t be an issue as international groups would be willing to provide emergency grants.
Serhiy Vus, head of the department for the Chernobyl exclusion zone at Kiev Regional State Administration, said on Aug. 6 that there was “a normal and stable situation” in the Chernobyl zone, with two fires reported in early August that were quickly contained.
Experts say the harm caused by the radioactive fallout from a large forest fire in the Chernobyl zone would be limited.
“Our conservative model shows that the radio nuclides released in the smoke would remain below critical level and would not pose a risk to the population,” Goldammer said.
“But it would not surprise me that if it turned out to be higher in the case of an extreme fire. The most dangerous aspect would probably result from radioactivity entering the food chain.” Serhiy Zibtsev, professor at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences in Kiev, had an encouraging assessment.
“The amount would not exceed the critical threshold of danger to the population,” Zibtsev said.
However, localized danger could be serious.
Experts at the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection on Aug. 6 said: “Fires in the Chernobyl area can have radiological effects in the immediately surrounding area if people inhale the radioactive particles in the air.
The level of the resulting radiation exposure depends on the fire and on the individual behavior of these people and cannot be generalized.
However, the fires do not have any radiological consequence for the rest of Europe and Germany, since the dispersion of the radioactive substances is regionally limited. This has been known from former fires in the area.”
The German experts noted that there had been no sign of increased radiation as a result of the wildfires in Russia.
Zibtsev, the Ukrainian professor, said a large-scale fire “could be a catastrophe” in a remote area, if the wind is strong, because of a lack of modern firefighting equipment.
“And remember, once a forest fire reaches 50 hectares, there is no real way of stopping it before it burns out,” he said. While the zone has its own dedicated firefighters, detection of fires remains weak.
Emergency Ministry officials admitted on Aug. 10 that the few inhabitants in the “exclusion zone” impede their ability to spot fires quickly.
“There needs to be automatic detection, including towers with cameras and remote sensors,” Goldammer said. While the health dangers to the general population may not be high, risks could be more serious to firefighters and other workers in the zone who would battle such a blaze.
Oleksandr Klyuchnikov, president of Ukrainian Nuclear Society, who has worked at the Chernobyl reactor since the accident in 1986, said weather conditions would determine whether the smoke was carried to Kiev.
Klyuchnikov noted that radioactivity in the zone has already increased lately, due to more dust created by the extreme heat. Goldammer said Ukraine is on the right track in restricting access to forests and raising public awareness of the issue and the need for responsible behavior.
“All the fires in western Russia were caused by humans,” he said, “ranging from shashlyk fires and dropped cigarettes to farmers burning the stubble off fields.
The lack of people in the exclusion zone therefore reduces fire risk. But we all know that people live in the zone, and also enter the zone especially to hunt and, of course, there is also work going on there. So there should be no complacency on this account.”
A combination of heat, wind, drought and poor forest management could help spread such a fire in the no-man’s-land “exclusion zone” near the 1986 disaster, which remains the world’s worst nuclear power accident. Wildfires there would release radioactivity in smoke clouds.
The scientific consensus seems to be that the particles would not be of sufficient quantity to seriously endanger people’s health, except perhaps for those closest to the blaze.
Although, as with most Chernobyl-related assessments, nobody knows for sure what the fallout would be.
“There is an extraordinary situation in terms of wildfire risk in the Chernobyl exclusion zone,” said Professor Johannes Goldammer, head of the Global Fire Monitoring Center in Freiburg, Germany.
“The danger results from the lack of any forest management in the decades following the accident. Forest has been growing up without any clearance of dead wood. And there are large stretches where insect infestation has created dying forest that could easily burn.
The whole exclusion zone is at risk of fire.” Goldammer, whose institute is the leading European research center on forest fires, said that “repeated meetings” with Ukrainian officials in recent years have not led to a clear policy “to reduce the risk of fire in the zone.”
Lack of money, he said, shouldn’t be an issue as international groups would be willing to provide emergency grants.
Serhiy Vus, head of the department for the Chernobyl exclusion zone at Kiev Regional State Administration, said on Aug. 6 that there was “a normal and stable situation” in the Chernobyl zone, with two fires reported in early August that were quickly contained.
Experts say the harm caused by the radioactive fallout from a large forest fire in the Chernobyl zone would be limited.
“Our conservative model shows that the radio nuclides released in the smoke would remain below critical level and would not pose a risk to the population,” Goldammer said.
“But it would not surprise me that if it turned out to be higher in the case of an extreme fire. The most dangerous aspect would probably result from radioactivity entering the food chain.” Serhiy Zibtsev, professor at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences in Kiev, had an encouraging assessment.
“The amount would not exceed the critical threshold of danger to the population,” Zibtsev said.
However, localized danger could be serious.
Experts at the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection on Aug. 6 said: “Fires in the Chernobyl area can have radiological effects in the immediately surrounding area if people inhale the radioactive particles in the air.
The level of the resulting radiation exposure depends on the fire and on the individual behavior of these people and cannot be generalized.
However, the fires do not have any radiological consequence for the rest of Europe and Germany, since the dispersion of the radioactive substances is regionally limited. This has been known from former fires in the area.”
The German experts noted that there had been no sign of increased radiation as a result of the wildfires in Russia.
Zibtsev, the Ukrainian professor, said a large-scale fire “could be a catastrophe” in a remote area, if the wind is strong, because of a lack of modern firefighting equipment.
“And remember, once a forest fire reaches 50 hectares, there is no real way of stopping it before it burns out,” he said. While the zone has its own dedicated firefighters, detection of fires remains weak.
Emergency Ministry officials admitted on Aug. 10 that the few inhabitants in the “exclusion zone” impede their ability to spot fires quickly.
“There needs to be automatic detection, including towers with cameras and remote sensors,” Goldammer said. While the health dangers to the general population may not be high, risks could be more serious to firefighters and other workers in the zone who would battle such a blaze.
Oleksandr Klyuchnikov, president of Ukrainian Nuclear Society, who has worked at the Chernobyl reactor since the accident in 1986, said weather conditions would determine whether the smoke was carried to Kiev.
Klyuchnikov noted that radioactivity in the zone has already increased lately, due to more dust created by the extreme heat. Goldammer said Ukraine is on the right track in restricting access to forests and raising public awareness of the issue and the need for responsible behavior.
“All the fires in western Russia were caused by humans,” he said, “ranging from shashlyk fires and dropped cigarettes to farmers burning the stubble off fields.
The lack of people in the exclusion zone therefore reduces fire risk. But we all know that people live in the zone, and also enter the zone especially to hunt and, of course, there is also work going on there. So there should be no complacency on this account.”
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Ukraine’s Dilemma
KIEV, Ukraine -- Five years ago, Ukraine’s presidential elections captured the imagination as Viktor Yushchenko emerged triumphant.
On Sunday, Ukrainians vote in the first presidential election since 2004 and in very different circumstances from the Orange Revolution. Mr Yushchenko’s failure to create stability, fight corruption or protect citizens against a rapacious bureaucracy has created widespread disillusion.The gloom is compounded by the economic crisis, which has forced Kiev into an International Monetary Fund rescue programme.Despite the political chaos, the Orange Revolution’s legacy has survived in a free media, openness to the outside world, and multi-party competition. Despite constant Russian interference, Ukraine’s sense of identity as an independent state has grown. And, despite the economic crisis, Ukraine is a richer place than five years ago, with a better stock of housing, cars and consumer goods.But Mr Yushchenko’s political failures have left voters with a lamentable electoral choice. He stands no chance of retaining office. The top contenders are Viktor Yanukovich, the opposition leader, and Yulia Tymoshenko, the prime minister, Mr Yushchenko’s 2004 ally but now his bitter rival.It is humiliating for Ukraine that Mr Yanukovich, whose 2004 presidential campaign was widely seen as fraudulent, has not been hounded out of politics. He has survived thanks to a cynical political culture and the backing of big business. Even Mr Yushchenko has done deals with him.Ms Tymoshenko should, in principle, be a more attractive choice, given her Orange credentials. But she has proved herself shamelessly opportunistic and shares the blame with Mr Yushchenko for the failures of the Orange camp. Her economic policies show a unnerving penchant for populist intervention, eg with arbitrary price caps.In international affairs, both would balance ties with Russia with a slow push for European Union integration. Not much to choose between Ms T and Mr Y on this score.So, whom to back in Sunday’s first round and next month’s run-off? Given the candidates’ shortcomings, voters must focus on what is important. The key now is political stability.Only a stable Ukraine can achieve economic reform and recovery. Ms Tymoshenko is the polar opposite of a stabilising force. Mr Yanukovich, for all his manifest faults, may prove the lesser evil. Pity Ukraine that it has come to this.
On Sunday, Ukrainians vote in the first presidential election since 2004 and in very different circumstances from the Orange Revolution. Mr Yushchenko’s failure to create stability, fight corruption or protect citizens against a rapacious bureaucracy has created widespread disillusion.The gloom is compounded by the economic crisis, which has forced Kiev into an International Monetary Fund rescue programme.Despite the political chaos, the Orange Revolution’s legacy has survived in a free media, openness to the outside world, and multi-party competition. Despite constant Russian interference, Ukraine’s sense of identity as an independent state has grown. And, despite the economic crisis, Ukraine is a richer place than five years ago, with a better stock of housing, cars and consumer goods.But Mr Yushchenko’s political failures have left voters with a lamentable electoral choice. He stands no chance of retaining office. The top contenders are Viktor Yanukovich, the opposition leader, and Yulia Tymoshenko, the prime minister, Mr Yushchenko’s 2004 ally but now his bitter rival.It is humiliating for Ukraine that Mr Yanukovich, whose 2004 presidential campaign was widely seen as fraudulent, has not been hounded out of politics. He has survived thanks to a cynical political culture and the backing of big business. Even Mr Yushchenko has done deals with him.Ms Tymoshenko should, in principle, be a more attractive choice, given her Orange credentials. But she has proved herself shamelessly opportunistic and shares the blame with Mr Yushchenko for the failures of the Orange camp. Her economic policies show a unnerving penchant for populist intervention, eg with arbitrary price caps.In international affairs, both would balance ties with Russia with a slow push for European Union integration. Not much to choose between Ms T and Mr Y on this score.So, whom to back in Sunday’s first round and next month’s run-off? Given the candidates’ shortcomings, voters must focus on what is important. The key now is political stability.Only a stable Ukraine can achieve economic reform and recovery. Ms Tymoshenko is the polar opposite of a stabilising force. Mr Yanukovich, for all his manifest faults, may prove the lesser evil. Pity Ukraine that it has come to this.
Thursday, 8 January 2009
Russian sentenced for defacing friend's internet profile
MOSCOW (MN) - A 22-year old man from the Urals city of Izhevsk got 1 year suspended sentence for defacing the profile of his acquaintance on the Russian social network odnoklassniki.ru, the Gazeta.ru internet daily reported on Wednesday.
The daily quoted a report by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor's Service that said that the young man managed to enter the profile of the girl he knew by guessing the password which was the owner's birth date figures. Upon succeeding in this, he changed one of the photos on the web page to another one "of erotic character" the report says.
Apart from 1 year suspended sentence the court ordered the young man to pay a fine of 20 thousand rubles (over $700).
The daily quoted a report by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor's Service that said that the young man managed to enter the profile of the girl he knew by guessing the password which was the owner's birth date figures. Upon succeeding in this, he changed one of the photos on the web page to another one "of erotic character" the report says.
Apart from 1 year suspended sentence the court ordered the young man to pay a fine of 20 thousand rubles (over $700).
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