Gazprom's new joint venture in Africa has raised more than a few eyebrows with a choice of name that sounds uncomfortably like a racial slur, just days ahead of US President Barack Obama's first visit to Moscow.
Nigaz, formed following a $2.5 billion deal between the Russian gas behemoth and Nigeria's National Petroleum Company, has already prompted a rash of jokes on the Internet.
The spelling is even similar to that of US hip hop group Niggaz With Attitude, who are largely credited with starting the gangsta rap music genre.
No one from Gazprom was immediately available for comment on the joint venture.
For US firms, dealing with this company could be an extra burden due to the particular resonance of the word's historical connection with slavery. However, in Russian it has a similar pronunciation but very few of the negative connotations associated with it in other countries.
President Dmitry Medvedev, who is due to meet with Obama in Moscow during the US president's visit to Moscow on July 6-8, oversaw the creation of the Nigaz joint venture in Nigeria earlier this week.
Despite the apparent lack of PR savvy from one of the world's largest companies and a country with a long history of slavery, it is not the first major company to make a naming howler. Powergen's Italian branch named their website powergenitalia.com, while visitors to stationery retailer penisland.net might have got less than they bargained for.
Tuesday 30 June 2009
Monday 29 June 2009
Ukraine Wary Of KGB Terror Files
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine is opening up part of its old KGB archive, declassifying hundreds of thousands of documents spanning the entire Soviet period.
But the move to expose Soviet-era abuses is dividing Ukrainians, the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse reports from Kiev.Deep in the bowels of Ukraine's former KGB headquarters there is a deathly silence. Thousands of boxes, piled floor to ceiling, line the walls. Each box is carefully numbered and each one contains hundreds of documents: case notes on enemies of the former Soviet state.Behind each number, there is a story of personal tragedy.Volodymyr Viatrovych, the chief archivist, pulled out a brown cardboard folder stuffed full of documents: case number 4076. At the centre of the case is a letter, dated 1940 and addressed to "Comrade Stalin, the Kremlin, Moscow"."Dear Iosif Vissarionovich," the letter starts. Nikolai Reva wanted Stalin to know the facts about the great famine of 1932-33, when millions died as a result of the Soviet policy of forced collectivisation.Like many at the time, Mr Reva believed that Stalin was being kept in the dark, and that if only he knew what was happening, he would surely put a stop to it.But his letter landed him in the Gulag. He was eventually rehabilitated - 25 years later.Many met a harsher fate.Leafing through one of many macabre photo albums, Mr Viatrovych pointed to a picture of Ivan Severin, shot in the head by the Soviet security services. Under the picture, in very neat handwriting, is written: "Liquidated, 3 April 1947".Criminal prosecutionMr Viatrovych and his team are helping people to find out what happened to relatives and loved ones, often decades after they disappeared.But the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), now in charge of the files, is declassifying them selectively.They are concentrating on older cases, like that of the "liquidated" Mr Severin, who was part of a guerrilla campaign against Soviet rule in western Ukraine after World War II.The authorities are preparing to mount a criminal prosecution in relation to the famine, or Holodomor, as it is known in Ukraine, though it is doubtful whether there is anyone still alive to stand in the dock.But SBU head Valentyn Nalyvaichenko hopes this is just the beginning."As soon as Russia starts to open and uncover its archives, there will be more and more truth about the real history," he said. At the moment, he added, Russia is not being especially co-operative.But there is another obstacle to complete disclosure, and that is the Ukrainian Security Service itself. They are the ones deciding which files to declassify.I put it to Mr Nalyvaichenko that the SBU is, after all, a successor to the KGB. He came out on the defensive."First and most important for me - we are not a successor to the KGB. That's according to the law," he said.Could he state categorically that no-one working for the SBU today had formerly worked for the KGB?He could not, admitting that 20% of his employees were former KGB officers. Some analysts in Ukraine believe that is a conservative figure.It seems unlikely that SBU officers who worked for the Soviet KGB in the 1970s and 80s will be enthusiastic about declassifying documents that could incriminate them. Even if, as Mr Nalyvaichenko pointed out, the SBU is trying to recruit younger staff.'Not worth it'But not all young Ukrainians have an exclusively negative view of their 20th-Century history.In Kiev, there is a vast monument to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany: a sprawling bronze relief of soldiers bearing guns and bayonets."We love our history," said Svitlana, a young schoolteacher from the southern city of Odessa, on an outing with her class.She was not keen for the children in her charge to be forced to examine the darker chapters of Soviet history."The past is the past," she said. "The history of the famine, the killings, all the things Stalin did. I don't think we should bring them up. There's enough violence today as it is. If we start blaming each other… It's just not worth it."'Witch hunt'The idea of airing the past as part of a healing process, and excluding members of the former regime from positions of authority - a process known as "lustration" - is being actively promoted by some in the Ukrainian administration.But it is highly controversial. Dmytro Tabachnyk, a historian and opposition lawmaker, thinks the notion is absurd."It's a witch hunt," he said. "To start a process of lustration after 18 years of independence would lead society to the brink of civil war."In a forest just outside Kiev, the tree trunks are tied with thousands of white scarves.The scarves are embroidered in the traditional Ukrainian way, with red-and-black geometric patterns, and each one symbolically represents a life lost to Soviet oppression.Under Stalin, the Soviet secret police would bury executed political prisoners at Bykivnia. No-one knows exactly how many bodies lie buried in this wood, but some estimates put the figure at more than 200,000.But, says Nico Lange, the German director of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Kiev, Ukrainians must stop blaming the Russians for their past, and start looking inward."Ukrainians have a tendency to perceive themselves as only victims of those historical processes," he says."But coming to terms with the past really starts when you start uncovering also your own involvement: the oppressions by your own state, the offenders who are from your own people. If you do this work, this very painful work, the truth will finally set you free. And you will not invite new dictators to oppress you again."The Germans have experience of confronting their own past, both following World War II, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall.But it will take a lot of united political will for such a process to get under way in Ukraine.And it may be that, for the moment, there are still too many people alive and in positions of power, who were involved with the Soviet regime in one way or another.
But the move to expose Soviet-era abuses is dividing Ukrainians, the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse reports from Kiev.Deep in the bowels of Ukraine's former KGB headquarters there is a deathly silence. Thousands of boxes, piled floor to ceiling, line the walls. Each box is carefully numbered and each one contains hundreds of documents: case notes on enemies of the former Soviet state.Behind each number, there is a story of personal tragedy.Volodymyr Viatrovych, the chief archivist, pulled out a brown cardboard folder stuffed full of documents: case number 4076. At the centre of the case is a letter, dated 1940 and addressed to "Comrade Stalin, the Kremlin, Moscow"."Dear Iosif Vissarionovich," the letter starts. Nikolai Reva wanted Stalin to know the facts about the great famine of 1932-33, when millions died as a result of the Soviet policy of forced collectivisation.Like many at the time, Mr Reva believed that Stalin was being kept in the dark, and that if only he knew what was happening, he would surely put a stop to it.But his letter landed him in the Gulag. He was eventually rehabilitated - 25 years later.Many met a harsher fate.Leafing through one of many macabre photo albums, Mr Viatrovych pointed to a picture of Ivan Severin, shot in the head by the Soviet security services. Under the picture, in very neat handwriting, is written: "Liquidated, 3 April 1947".Criminal prosecutionMr Viatrovych and his team are helping people to find out what happened to relatives and loved ones, often decades after they disappeared.But the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), now in charge of the files, is declassifying them selectively.They are concentrating on older cases, like that of the "liquidated" Mr Severin, who was part of a guerrilla campaign against Soviet rule in western Ukraine after World War II.The authorities are preparing to mount a criminal prosecution in relation to the famine, or Holodomor, as it is known in Ukraine, though it is doubtful whether there is anyone still alive to stand in the dock.But SBU head Valentyn Nalyvaichenko hopes this is just the beginning."As soon as Russia starts to open and uncover its archives, there will be more and more truth about the real history," he said. At the moment, he added, Russia is not being especially co-operative.But there is another obstacle to complete disclosure, and that is the Ukrainian Security Service itself. They are the ones deciding which files to declassify.I put it to Mr Nalyvaichenko that the SBU is, after all, a successor to the KGB. He came out on the defensive."First and most important for me - we are not a successor to the KGB. That's according to the law," he said.Could he state categorically that no-one working for the SBU today had formerly worked for the KGB?He could not, admitting that 20% of his employees were former KGB officers. Some analysts in Ukraine believe that is a conservative figure.It seems unlikely that SBU officers who worked for the Soviet KGB in the 1970s and 80s will be enthusiastic about declassifying documents that could incriminate them. Even if, as Mr Nalyvaichenko pointed out, the SBU is trying to recruit younger staff.'Not worth it'But not all young Ukrainians have an exclusively negative view of their 20th-Century history.In Kiev, there is a vast monument to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany: a sprawling bronze relief of soldiers bearing guns and bayonets."We love our history," said Svitlana, a young schoolteacher from the southern city of Odessa, on an outing with her class.She was not keen for the children in her charge to be forced to examine the darker chapters of Soviet history."The past is the past," she said. "The history of the famine, the killings, all the things Stalin did. I don't think we should bring them up. There's enough violence today as it is. If we start blaming each other… It's just not worth it."'Witch hunt'The idea of airing the past as part of a healing process, and excluding members of the former regime from positions of authority - a process known as "lustration" - is being actively promoted by some in the Ukrainian administration.But it is highly controversial. Dmytro Tabachnyk, a historian and opposition lawmaker, thinks the notion is absurd."It's a witch hunt," he said. "To start a process of lustration after 18 years of independence would lead society to the brink of civil war."In a forest just outside Kiev, the tree trunks are tied with thousands of white scarves.The scarves are embroidered in the traditional Ukrainian way, with red-and-black geometric patterns, and each one symbolically represents a life lost to Soviet oppression.Under Stalin, the Soviet secret police would bury executed political prisoners at Bykivnia. No-one knows exactly how many bodies lie buried in this wood, but some estimates put the figure at more than 200,000.But, says Nico Lange, the German director of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Kiev, Ukrainians must stop blaming the Russians for their past, and start looking inward."Ukrainians have a tendency to perceive themselves as only victims of those historical processes," he says."But coming to terms with the past really starts when you start uncovering also your own involvement: the oppressions by your own state, the offenders who are from your own people. If you do this work, this very painful work, the truth will finally set you free. And you will not invite new dictators to oppress you again."The Germans have experience of confronting their own past, both following World War II, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall.But it will take a lot of united political will for such a process to get under way in Ukraine.And it may be that, for the moment, there are still too many people alive and in positions of power, who were involved with the Soviet regime in one way or another.
Ukraine Gambling Ban Is Implemented
KIEV, Ukraine -- Following the recent backdown over the presidential veto by President Viktor Kuschenko of the Ukraine, the gambling ban has been imposed with immediate effect in the Ukraine, reports Ukra News. And the ban includes online gambling.
The text of the law was published in the Holos Ukrainy (Voice of Ukraine) newspaper, on June 25, enforcing the vote of the Verkhovna Rada despite President Kuschenko's appeals for a more considered approach, and his unsuccessful attempt to exercise his veto to effect this.The law defines gambling as the activity or organisation of gambling games for profit in terrestrial casinos, via slot machines, at bookmaker’s offices, and in virtual casinos.It also covers any game requiring betting, allowing rewards for wins, and which fully or partially depends on the element of chance.Exceptions include: Lotteries, art contests, billiards, and certain other games such as pickup reward machines that depend on player dexterity or those for charitable causes.The law makes provision for punitive measures against offenders and the confiscation of gambling equipment.
The text of the law was published in the Holos Ukrainy (Voice of Ukraine) newspaper, on June 25, enforcing the vote of the Verkhovna Rada despite President Kuschenko's appeals for a more considered approach, and his unsuccessful attempt to exercise his veto to effect this.The law defines gambling as the activity or organisation of gambling games for profit in terrestrial casinos, via slot machines, at bookmaker’s offices, and in virtual casinos.It also covers any game requiring betting, allowing rewards for wins, and which fully or partially depends on the element of chance.Exceptions include: Lotteries, art contests, billiards, and certain other games such as pickup reward machines that depend on player dexterity or those for charitable causes.The law makes provision for punitive measures against offenders and the confiscation of gambling equipment.
Ukraine President's Party Wants To Leave Coalition
KIEV, Ukraine -- The party of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko called on its deputies to quit the pro-Western government coalition of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the Interfax news agency reported.
Relations have been strained between the two leaders, who will likely face one another in the presidential election set for January, and some lawmakers estimated the move could lead to the total collapse of the ruling coalition."We are ordering deputies to remove their signature from the declaration on the creation of the coalition," read a resolution adopted at a congress of Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party. The measure, however, is non-binding."We are not in agreement with the populist policies and non-professionalism of the prime minister."Our Ukraine lawmaker Ksenia Liapina predicted the coalition with Tymoshenko's party would collapse in the coming week, but another Our Ukraine lawmaker, Sergui Mishchenko said the party's deputies in parliament may not go along with the call by the party congress.Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were allies in the 2004 Orange Revolution, when street demonstrations forced the authorities to hold a fair election that swept Yushchenko in to the presidency, but the two have since become bitter rivals and their internecine squabbling has hobbled pro-Western forces.
Relations have been strained between the two leaders, who will likely face one another in the presidential election set for January, and some lawmakers estimated the move could lead to the total collapse of the ruling coalition."We are ordering deputies to remove their signature from the declaration on the creation of the coalition," read a resolution adopted at a congress of Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party. The measure, however, is non-binding."We are not in agreement with the populist policies and non-professionalism of the prime minister."Our Ukraine lawmaker Ksenia Liapina predicted the coalition with Tymoshenko's party would collapse in the coming week, but another Our Ukraine lawmaker, Sergui Mishchenko said the party's deputies in parliament may not go along with the call by the party congress.Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were allies in the 2004 Orange Revolution, when street demonstrations forced the authorities to hold a fair election that swept Yushchenko in to the presidency, but the two have since become bitter rivals and their internecine squabbling has hobbled pro-Western forces.
Constitutional Instability In Ukraine Leads To 'Legal Turmoil'
KIEV, Ukraine -- On June 28, 1996, Ukraine became the last Soviet republic to adopt a post-Soviet constitution, and that day was designated Constitution Day, a national holiday. Two years later, on October 21, 1998, the Crimean Autonomous Republic adopted its own constitution, recognizing the peninsula within Ukraine.
Leonid Kuchma's reelection as president in 1999 gave rise to Ukraine's first non-left parliamentary majority that sought to ditch the country's "semi-presidential" constitution in favor of a full presidential system.The relevant four questions were put to a referendum in April 2000 that was not internationally recognized, and were approved by a suspiciously high percentage of voters.But Kuchma's plans were undermined by the onset of the Kuchma-gate crisis in November of that year, when tapes made illicitly in his office allegedly proved that he ordered violence against journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, who was kidnapped on September 16 and found decapitated on November 2, 2000.Ukrainian politicians traditionally approached constitutional, and indeed all other issues, from the standpoint not of national interests, but personal advantage. Following the 2002 parliamentary elections, Kuchma shifted 180 degrees from his constitutional position two years earlier toward support for a parliamentary system.The architect of this strategy, which had two objectives, was presidential chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk, leader of the Social Democratic Party-united.Disarming YushchenkoThe first objective was to split the opposition by persuading the left, perennial supporters of parliamentarism, to support the constitutional reforms advocated by pro-presidential centrists.The second was to strip popular opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, if he were elected, of the extensive presidential powers enshrined in the 1996 constitution.The second vote in April 2004 failed after some pro-presidential centrists rebelled in protest at the change earlier that month of the election law from mixed to fully proportional. That change had been a condition of support by the left for the constitutional reforms.Ironically, the reforms adopted on December 8, 2004, in a parliamentary vote were identical to those rejected eight months earlier. During those eight months, the authorities waged an all-out campaign to prevent Yushchenko being elected with the powers enshrined in the 1996 constitution.The widespread fraud that marred the presidential ballot led to the so-called Orange Revolution, triggered by Europe's largest postwar mass protests, in which one in five Ukrainians participated.Three European Union-sponsored roundtables resulted in the December 8 compromise agreement that led to a repeat vote on December 26 that Yushchenko won. In return, Yushchenko granted verbal immunity to his defeated rival Kuchma, and Yushchenko's Our Ukraine supported the vote on the constitutional reforms to come into force in 2006. The Yulia Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT) was the only parliamentary force to vote against the constitutional amendments.Constitutional QuestionsAfter being elected president, Yushchenko complained about, but failed to repeal, the constitutional reforms. First, between September 2005, when the Tymoshenko government was removed, until February 2007, when the Orange alliance was reconstituted, the BYuT and Our Ukraine were at loggerheads and divided.Yushchenko and Our Ukraine did not support the BYuT's call to invoke the October 2005 Constitutional Court ruling that constitutional reforms required a national referendum. The BYuT campaigned for such a referendum in the 2006 and 2007 elections.Second, Yushchenko did not establish his National Constitutional Council until December 27, 2007, and only presented his reform proposals on March 31, 2009. But by then he had no hope of implementing them as his popularity rating had collapsed to 2 percent and he had no support in parliament. Our Ukraine had voted to rejoin the coalition in December 2008, against his wishes.The conflict between the president and prime minister continued throughout 2008, and the onset of the global financial crisis in the fall failed to dampen it. During that time, legal and constitutional experts and different political factions all reached the conclusion that the president's daily intervention in economic and energy issues is unconstitutional. (Under the 2006 constitution, the government reports to the parliament, not to the president.)In an April 2008 speech to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Tymoshenko announced a dramatic shift within the BYuT towards support for parliamentarism.Their second conclusion was that without presidential support for the holding of a referendum, the only way the constitution could be changed was through a constitutional majority. But two successive attempts, in September 2008 and May 2009, to form a BYuT-Party of Regions coalition with the aim of pushing through constitutional reforms that would strengthen the parliament both failed, partly due to personal mistrust but also to Party of Regions' demands to have their cake and eat it.While supporting a president elected by parliament (i.e. full parliamentary system), Party of Regions Chairman Viktor Yanukovych simultaneously sought a "guarantee" of two presidential terms with extensive powers similar to those bestowed on the president in the 2006 constitution. German Chancellor Angela Merkel pointed out to Ukrainians in May that parliamentary presidents are ceremonial.Halfway To NowhereTwo further factors are of direct relevance. "Semi" political systems, whether presidential (as in the 1996 constitution) or parliamentary (as in the 2006 constitution), are recipes for instability and conflict.If Ukraine really wants political stability and an escape from constitutional and legal chaos, it should change the constitution either to a full presidential system or towards a full parliamentary system.Prime Minister Tymoshenko acknowledged the inevitability of that choice in the course of a lengthy interview on Channel 5 on June 11. "Semi" systems do not divide powers clearly and are therefore recipes for "chaos," she stressed.Nearly two decades after the disintegration of the Soviet empire, the 27 postcommunist states are divided into two groups: those in Central-Eastern Europe and the Baltic states have parliamentary systems, and those in Eurasia -- presidential systems. The two exceptions are Ukraine and Moldova, with semi-parliamentary and parliamentary systems, respectively.Parliamentarism and democratization went hand-in-hand in Central-Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, facilitating their integration into NATO and the EU. Parliamentarism could therefore further integrate Ukraine into Europe.Ukraine's transition from a semi-presidential to semi-parliamentarian constitution has completely overshadowed Yushchenko's presidency. Personality, ideological, and gender factors have been compounded by constitutionally unclear divisions of powers.U.S. Judge Bohdan Futey noted this month in a Ukrainian legal journal that "these [constitutional] changes interlaced the power of the executive and legislative branches, leaving the country in legal turmoil to this day."Yushchenko’s presidency has been dominated by political crises, governmental instability, elite in-fighting, and constitutional chaos that have combined to undermine the potential generated by the Orange Revolution.With the constitutional question still unresolved as the Yushchenko era nears its end, Ukraine will enter the January 2010 election campaign in the same state of constitutional uncertainty as it did five years ago.
Leonid Kuchma's reelection as president in 1999 gave rise to Ukraine's first non-left parliamentary majority that sought to ditch the country's "semi-presidential" constitution in favor of a full presidential system.The relevant four questions were put to a referendum in April 2000 that was not internationally recognized, and were approved by a suspiciously high percentage of voters.But Kuchma's plans were undermined by the onset of the Kuchma-gate crisis in November of that year, when tapes made illicitly in his office allegedly proved that he ordered violence against journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, who was kidnapped on September 16 and found decapitated on November 2, 2000.Ukrainian politicians traditionally approached constitutional, and indeed all other issues, from the standpoint not of national interests, but personal advantage. Following the 2002 parliamentary elections, Kuchma shifted 180 degrees from his constitutional position two years earlier toward support for a parliamentary system.The architect of this strategy, which had two objectives, was presidential chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk, leader of the Social Democratic Party-united.Disarming YushchenkoThe first objective was to split the opposition by persuading the left, perennial supporters of parliamentarism, to support the constitutional reforms advocated by pro-presidential centrists.The second was to strip popular opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, if he were elected, of the extensive presidential powers enshrined in the 1996 constitution.The second vote in April 2004 failed after some pro-presidential centrists rebelled in protest at the change earlier that month of the election law from mixed to fully proportional. That change had been a condition of support by the left for the constitutional reforms.Ironically, the reforms adopted on December 8, 2004, in a parliamentary vote were identical to those rejected eight months earlier. During those eight months, the authorities waged an all-out campaign to prevent Yushchenko being elected with the powers enshrined in the 1996 constitution.The widespread fraud that marred the presidential ballot led to the so-called Orange Revolution, triggered by Europe's largest postwar mass protests, in which one in five Ukrainians participated.Three European Union-sponsored roundtables resulted in the December 8 compromise agreement that led to a repeat vote on December 26 that Yushchenko won. In return, Yushchenko granted verbal immunity to his defeated rival Kuchma, and Yushchenko's Our Ukraine supported the vote on the constitutional reforms to come into force in 2006. The Yulia Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT) was the only parliamentary force to vote against the constitutional amendments.Constitutional QuestionsAfter being elected president, Yushchenko complained about, but failed to repeal, the constitutional reforms. First, between September 2005, when the Tymoshenko government was removed, until February 2007, when the Orange alliance was reconstituted, the BYuT and Our Ukraine were at loggerheads and divided.Yushchenko and Our Ukraine did not support the BYuT's call to invoke the October 2005 Constitutional Court ruling that constitutional reforms required a national referendum. The BYuT campaigned for such a referendum in the 2006 and 2007 elections.Second, Yushchenko did not establish his National Constitutional Council until December 27, 2007, and only presented his reform proposals on March 31, 2009. But by then he had no hope of implementing them as his popularity rating had collapsed to 2 percent and he had no support in parliament. Our Ukraine had voted to rejoin the coalition in December 2008, against his wishes.The conflict between the president and prime minister continued throughout 2008, and the onset of the global financial crisis in the fall failed to dampen it. During that time, legal and constitutional experts and different political factions all reached the conclusion that the president's daily intervention in economic and energy issues is unconstitutional. (Under the 2006 constitution, the government reports to the parliament, not to the president.)In an April 2008 speech to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Tymoshenko announced a dramatic shift within the BYuT towards support for parliamentarism.Their second conclusion was that without presidential support for the holding of a referendum, the only way the constitution could be changed was through a constitutional majority. But two successive attempts, in September 2008 and May 2009, to form a BYuT-Party of Regions coalition with the aim of pushing through constitutional reforms that would strengthen the parliament both failed, partly due to personal mistrust but also to Party of Regions' demands to have their cake and eat it.While supporting a president elected by parliament (i.e. full parliamentary system), Party of Regions Chairman Viktor Yanukovych simultaneously sought a "guarantee" of two presidential terms with extensive powers similar to those bestowed on the president in the 2006 constitution. German Chancellor Angela Merkel pointed out to Ukrainians in May that parliamentary presidents are ceremonial.Halfway To NowhereTwo further factors are of direct relevance. "Semi" political systems, whether presidential (as in the 1996 constitution) or parliamentary (as in the 2006 constitution), are recipes for instability and conflict.If Ukraine really wants political stability and an escape from constitutional and legal chaos, it should change the constitution either to a full presidential system or towards a full parliamentary system.Prime Minister Tymoshenko acknowledged the inevitability of that choice in the course of a lengthy interview on Channel 5 on June 11. "Semi" systems do not divide powers clearly and are therefore recipes for "chaos," she stressed.Nearly two decades after the disintegration of the Soviet empire, the 27 postcommunist states are divided into two groups: those in Central-Eastern Europe and the Baltic states have parliamentary systems, and those in Eurasia -- presidential systems. The two exceptions are Ukraine and Moldova, with semi-parliamentary and parliamentary systems, respectively.Parliamentarism and democratization went hand-in-hand in Central-Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, facilitating their integration into NATO and the EU. Parliamentarism could therefore further integrate Ukraine into Europe.Ukraine's transition from a semi-presidential to semi-parliamentarian constitution has completely overshadowed Yushchenko's presidency. Personality, ideological, and gender factors have been compounded by constitutionally unclear divisions of powers.U.S. Judge Bohdan Futey noted this month in a Ukrainian legal journal that "these [constitutional] changes interlaced the power of the executive and legislative branches, leaving the country in legal turmoil to this day."Yushchenko’s presidency has been dominated by political crises, governmental instability, elite in-fighting, and constitutional chaos that have combined to undermine the potential generated by the Orange Revolution.With the constitutional question still unresolved as the Yushchenko era nears its end, Ukraine will enter the January 2010 election campaign in the same state of constitutional uncertainty as it did five years ago.
Saturday 27 June 2009
Ukraine May Get IMF Loan For Russian Gas Within Days
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Ukraine’s ambassador to the European Union said today the nation may get a $4 billion loan led by the International Monetary Fund within days to pay for Russian gas.
NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy, Ukraine’s state-owned energy company, said last week it is counting on EU help in receiving credit from international financial institutions for natural-gas payments to Russia’s OAO Gazprom. Ukraine got a $16.4 billion emergency loan from the IMF last year to support its financial system amid the global economic crisis.A dispute between Russia and Ukraine in January left more than 20 countries without gas for almost two weeks. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said this month Ukraine needs about $5 billion for pumping gas into storage this year and warned that a cut-off could be repeated unless the country pays for delivered supplies.“We think that an additional amount of money may be given to Ukraine by the IMF in order to bridge this lack of payments for a short period, and we hope that it will end the problem,” Andri Veselovsky, head of the Ukrainian mission to the EU, said in an interview today in Brussels. “It’s a matter of days, not months.”IMF officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Ukraine says an IMF delegation is in Kiev for the second review of the original loan.Sleepwalking The European Union signaled last week it was concerned about the future supply of Russian gas through Ukraine. European Commission President Jose Barroso said the 27-member state bloc “must not sleepwalk into another gas crisis.”Veselovsky said the problem needs to be addressed. “Yes, we would like to solve it. Yes, we addressed the IMF and other financial institutions and some banks.”Kiev-based Naftogaz got a 3.8 billion hryvnia ($500 million) loan from state-run lender VAT Oshchadbank earlier this month to ensure payment to Gazprom for fuel delivered in May. Naftogaz has a 2009 financial deficit of 27 billion hryvnias, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko said June 11.The east European state will buy natural gas valued at $250 million from Gazprom in June and quadruple the amount next month, Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko said in a statement on the government’s Web site last week.There should be “no doubt” Ukraine will pay for supplies of Russian gas in June and the following months, Veselovsky said today. Under an agreement with Russia, Ukraine must pay for gas within the first seven days of each month.Contracting EconomyUkraine’s economy contracted 8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared with 6.4 percent growth in the previous quarter as the global financial crisis curbed demand for the country’s exports.“Ukraine coped with the current economic and financial crisis, and its economy was very severely hurt by the crisis, more than neighboring countries, so this shortage of money is specific for Ukraine and it needs specific assistance,” Veselovsky said. ‘
NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy, Ukraine’s state-owned energy company, said last week it is counting on EU help in receiving credit from international financial institutions for natural-gas payments to Russia’s OAO Gazprom. Ukraine got a $16.4 billion emergency loan from the IMF last year to support its financial system amid the global economic crisis.A dispute between Russia and Ukraine in January left more than 20 countries without gas for almost two weeks. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said this month Ukraine needs about $5 billion for pumping gas into storage this year and warned that a cut-off could be repeated unless the country pays for delivered supplies.“We think that an additional amount of money may be given to Ukraine by the IMF in order to bridge this lack of payments for a short period, and we hope that it will end the problem,” Andri Veselovsky, head of the Ukrainian mission to the EU, said in an interview today in Brussels. “It’s a matter of days, not months.”IMF officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Ukraine says an IMF delegation is in Kiev for the second review of the original loan.Sleepwalking The European Union signaled last week it was concerned about the future supply of Russian gas through Ukraine. European Commission President Jose Barroso said the 27-member state bloc “must not sleepwalk into another gas crisis.”Veselovsky said the problem needs to be addressed. “Yes, we would like to solve it. Yes, we addressed the IMF and other financial institutions and some banks.”Kiev-based Naftogaz got a 3.8 billion hryvnia ($500 million) loan from state-run lender VAT Oshchadbank earlier this month to ensure payment to Gazprom for fuel delivered in May. Naftogaz has a 2009 financial deficit of 27 billion hryvnias, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko said June 11.The east European state will buy natural gas valued at $250 million from Gazprom in June and quadruple the amount next month, Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko said in a statement on the government’s Web site last week.There should be “no doubt” Ukraine will pay for supplies of Russian gas in June and the following months, Veselovsky said today. Under an agreement with Russia, Ukraine must pay for gas within the first seven days of each month.Contracting EconomyUkraine’s economy contracted 8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared with 6.4 percent growth in the previous quarter as the global financial crisis curbed demand for the country’s exports.“Ukraine coped with the current economic and financial crisis, and its economy was very severely hurt by the crisis, more than neighboring countries, so this shortage of money is specific for Ukraine and it needs specific assistance,” Veselovsky said. ‘
Putin Drops by Store And Raps Pork Prices
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to a Perekryostok supermarket on Wednesday evening and won a promise from the chain's managing director to cut prices on pork. Putin's field trip to the dairy and meat aisles of the supermarket in the Krylatskoye district of western Moscow came amid a government drive to develop new trade legislation, specifically state regulation over retail pricing. Perekryostok is a midprice supermarket chain that belongs to the X5 retail group. "How much is pork?" Putin asked astounded store attendants, Interfax reported. Seeing a price tag of 335 rubles ($11) and consulting a pricing table that listed the item's purchase price as 160 rubles, Putin's calculation yielded an unhappy result. "This is double the price. Is that normal?" the prime minister asked Yury Kobaladze, the managing director of X5. "Is 120 percent a high markup?" Kobaladze asked. "Very high," Putin said. "It will be lowered tomorrow," Kobaladze said. Putin also visited the dairy aisle. "All prices on socially significant products like dairy, bread and eggs are low," store manager Tatyana Rumyantseva told Putin. The unannounced excursion to the store came during a government discussion over legislation to introduce a single set of rules for wholesale, supply and retail chain companies as well as to introduce special rules for the sale of agricultural products. The delegation also included First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, Wimm-Bill-Dann chairman David Yakobashvili, Miratorg agro-holding president Viktor Linnik and Irina Kanunnikova, director of the Russian Union of Independent Retail Chains. After the 10 to 15 minute visit, Putin said goodbye to the customers and the store managers and returned to the White House to continue the meeting. Officials have struck a populist note in recent weeks over food pricing as 75 percent of Russians view growing prices as the country's biggest problem, according to a Levada survey released Tuesday. Inflation has hit 7.2 percent since the beginning of the year, according to State Statistics Service figures posted on its web site Wednesday. The government predicts that inflation could still be less than 13 percent for the year, Central Bank chief Sergei Ignatyev said Wednesday. President Dmitry Medvedev sang the praises of Russian-made food in an interview broadcast on Channel One television on Sunday. He said his family "prefers Russian products," but also expressed alarm at the "middlemen, sometimes legal and sometimes criminal" who "seriously increase the price" of food.
Onishchenko Stands Up for His South Ossetian Passport
Gennady Onishchenko, Russia's chief sanitary inspector, defended his decision to accept citizenship in another country Thursday, although he admitted that it was against Russian law for government officials to have double nationality. Onishchenko was presented with a South Ossetian passport on Wednesday during a meeting with Eduard Kokoity, the leader of the breakaway Georgian region. According to the passport, Onishchenko is registered in a private home in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, Kokoity said, Interfax reported. "It's true that our laws say a government official has no right to have double citizenship," Onishchenko told journalists Thursday. "But I was given this. I didn't write a request for double citizenship," he said. "I consider it a symbol of recognition of my very modest accomplishments." A 2006 federal law that was signed by then-President Vladimir Putin restricts foreign nationals from holding government posts. The law mentions the federal and regional parliaments, the Security Council and the Audit Chamber, without specifically listing the Federal Consumer Protection Service, which Onishchenko heads. After the Georgian-Russian conflict in South Ossetia last August, Onishchenko went to Tskhinvali with Russian sanitary inspectors to test local water quality and epidemiological conditions. No country except Russia and Nicaragua recognizes South Ossetia as an independent country with valid passports. Most South Ossetian residents have Russian passports. "I am very proud," Onishchenko said of his new passport Thursday.
Berezovsky Found Guilty of Car Fraud
A Moscow region court on Thursday convicted self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky and his business associate Yuly Dubov of large-scale fraud, marking the second time Berezovsky has been found guilty in absentia. The Krasnogorsky City Court convicted Berezovsky and Dubov of embezzling 140 million rubles from their LogoVAZ auto dealership empire in 1994 and 1995. The sentences will be handed down Friday, Interfax reported. Prosecutors have asked the court to sentence Berezovsky to 15 years and Dubov to nine years in a medium-security prison. Prosecutors have also asked the court to order Berezovsky to pay 58 million rubles ($1.9 million) in compensation to the Samara regional administration. Berezovsky, who fled Russia in 2000 and received asylum in Britain in 2003, couldn't be reached on his cell phone Thursday afternoon. He has said his legal troubles in Russia are politically motivated. The Prosecutor General's Office has been seeking his extradition since 2002, when it charged him, Dubov and the late Georgian businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili with using the LogoVAZ dealership in a complicated scheme to defraud AvtoVAZ out of more than 2,000 cars worth $13 million in 1994 and 1995. Prosecutors said the three businessmen used the money they made from the car scam to buy real estate in the Moscow region and St. Petersburg as well as to buy shares in two television companies and a publishing house. Berezovsky established LogoVAZ in 1989 with Patarkatsishvili and senior managers of AvtoVAZ. Ostensibly, the company was created to provide the aging AvtoVAZ factory with automation software. Instead, it quickly began selling cars and became the auto giant's official dealer. In 2007, Berezovsky was convicted in absentia by a Moscow court and sentenced to six years in jail on charges of embezzling 215 million rubles from Aeroflot in the 1990s. Berezovsky forbade his lawyers from representing him at the 2007 proceedings, which he called "an absolute farce."
Duma Takes Stab at Child-Friendly Ratings
Back in the 1990s, the police show "Dorozhny Patrul" used to show unpixelated, mutilated bodies at a time when most people were sitting down to dinner. While television has toned down the graphic scenes since then, there is still no clear rating system that specifies whether the content is appropriate for children. That would change under a bill approved by the State Duma in a first reading late Wednesday. The bill, passed by 440 votes with one abstention, would require television shows, movies and computer games to carry ratings for the age groups of 6, 12, 16 and 18. The legislation also would slap the ratings on cellphone games and other materials that people can pay to receive on cellphones, oblige schools and Internet cafes to filter children's access and firm up current television rules that restrict the broadcast of adult material to after 11 p.m. The bill aims to protect children from what its authors call "psychologically traumatizing and defiling" material. "Today, there isn't a single area that doesn't need regulation," said Yelena Mizulina, the head of the Duma's Family, Women and Children Committee, a co-author of the bill. The bill is not about censorship but protecting children from adult material, Mizulina said. "We don't want to use our legislation to limit the market of published information but to regulate the distribution ... [and] make the information field safe for children," she said. The bill describes in detail what scenes are appropriate for children at age 6, 12 and 16. Children under 6 can see stylized violence "as long as the material contains the idea of victory of good over evil and sympathy for the victim," according to the bill, which is published on the Duma's web site. Those aged 6 to 12 can see "a non-naturalistic depiction or description of an accident, disaster or nonviolent death without showing consequences that could give children recurring fears." Those aged 12 to 16 can see episodic, nonsexual violence -- as long as there's "sympathy" for the victim -- and episodic non-naturalistic sex. Teenagers from 16 to 18 can see artistically justified sex scenes as long as they're not pornographic. They shouldn't see any scenes of drug use, but can see "the dangerous consequences of abuse." The bill obliges movies and computer games to display age certificates but makes this voluntary for other forms of entertainment. It also leaves open who would carry out the voluntary certification. Nevertheless, companies would face real penalties if they failed to flag adult material that went on sale, Mizulina said. "They could be punished administratively, right up to suspending the activity of the legal entity for a period up to three months," she said. According to the bill, television channels would be obliged to warn viewers of shows with adult material and only broadcast material suitable for those over 16 after 9 p.m. and those over 18 after 11 p.m. The bill would not affect news broadcasts and live shows. Under the bill, adult-oriented shows would be preceded by a verbal warning running along the bottom of the screen for at least three minutes before the broadcast. "The bill does not break the principle of self-regulation," Mizulina said. "When showing information, television will simply have to take into consideration what is harmful for children of a certain age." The bill also calls for age certification of films in movie theaters, where the current legal situation is unclear. Films are already divided into what is suitable for children over 12, 14, 16 and 18, said Yelena Bogrova, the deputy head of the Culture Ministry's cinema department for state registry, which classifies films. "We can't enforce it, especially because many movie theaters are now private," she said. A spokeswoman for a major film distributor in Russia, who asked that her company not be identified, said movie theaters always display a film's rating, but the information does not appear in advertisements and posters. Age restrictions are specified when the Culture Ministry gives out distribution licenses, and checks are carried out on whether movie theaters display the information, said Alexei Sokhnev, head of the expert and analytical cinema department of the Culture Ministry. In adopting a ratings system, Russia would join countries like the United States and Britain that for years have required age certificates on the packaging of movie recordings, television shows, computer games and even music albums. The Russian bill does not address albums. The bill is the latest in a long line of legislation that has attempted to regulate television and other entertainment mediums. "There have been at least a dozen similar attempts since the mid-1990s," said Andrei Richter, head of Moscow's Media Law and Policy Institute. "All of them have failed, mostly because the government does not want to irritate the national broadcasters." Nevertheless, similar bills have become law on a regional level, Richter said. Those laws require local government agencies to provide the age ratings, a practice that Richter called expensive and impracticable. Richter praised the Duma's bill as "positive," saying sex and violence are common on daytime television. Nevertheless, he was skeptical about it becoming law. "I see no reason why this particular bill should be luckier than its predecessors," Richter said.
Politkovskaya Acquittals Overturned
Defense lawyers took four months to exonerate their clients in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. It took the Supreme Court less than an hour Thursday to throw out the jury's acquittal of the four men and order a retrial. The Supreme Court's military collegium overturned the jury's unanimous acquittal after prosecutors complained that the trial judge had made numerous procedural violations and improperly showed a bias against the defendants in his closing remarks. "The principle of contentiousness was violated during the trial," prosecutor Vera Pashkovskaya told the Supreme Court on Thursday. Defense lawyer Murad Musayev protested that if any violations had been made, they were all "in favor of the prosecutors." The defense was supported by Politkovskaya's family. "I think that the jury's decision was logical. We ask the court not to cancel the acquittal," said Anna Stavitskaya, a lawyer for Politkovskaya's son and daughter. The son, Ilya Politkovsky, echoed that sentiment in brief remarks to the court. Reporters and cameramen packed a small courtroom in the Supreme Court to hear Thursday's ruling. Three of the defendants, Chechen brothers Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov and former Federal Security Service officer Sergei Ryaguzov, also sat in the court. Four months after being freed, they had gained weight and looked tanned, in marked contrast to their pale and exhausted appearance during the trial at the Moscow District Military Court. They smiled and spoke with reporters as the Supreme Court judges considered the appeal in their chambers. The brothers, who were accompanied by their mother, Zalpa Makhmudova, said they had been relaxing and had planted a garden in Chechnya. The fourth defendant, former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, is under arrest in a separate case, and he was shown from prison via a video link on two big screens. The clanging and banging of steel prison doors echoed in the courtroom. The Supreme Court judges spent about 50 minutes in their chambers before emerging to announce the retrial. Musayev told reporters that he had expected the decision and accused the Kremlin of meddling in the case because it was embarrassed to have no convictions in the high-profile murder. "This ruling has been agreed on the very top," he said as he left the court. Prosecutors "will correct their mistakes in the new trial, and there will be pressure on the jury." The brothers and their mother left with tears in their eyes, barely able to speak to the crowd of journalists. "We have never been on the run, and we are not planning to be. No matter how long these trials might last, we will fight for the truth," Dzhabrail Makhmudov said. Three of the four defendants are accused of playing minor roles in the murder of Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist for Novaya Gazeta and a relentless critic of the country's ruling elite who was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment building in central Moscow on Oct. 7, 2006. Prosecutors say Dzhabrail Makhmudov drove the gunman to Politkovskaya's apartment building and that the gunman was a third Makhmudov brother who remains at large. Ibragim Makhmudov was accused of calling to alert his brothers that Politkovskaya was on her way home. Khadzhikurbanov purportedly recruited the Makhmudov brothers and supplied the pistol used in the shooting. The fourth defendant, Ryaguzov, was accused of extortion in a case not related to the murder. Stavitskaya, the Politkovskaya family lawyer, said the retrial might start this fall in the Moscow District Military Court. The first trial lasted from November 2008 to late February. Politkovskaya's murder sparked an international outcry and rekindled fears about the safety of journalists working in the country. Prosecutor General Yury Chaika suggested in August 2007 that the mastermind of Politkovskaya's murder was hiding abroad and that the crime was an attempt to discredit the Kremlin. Politkovskaya's family has accused prosecutors of poorly investigating the murder. Ilya Politkovsky told reporters after the first trial that he believed that the defendants were somehow involved in his mother killing. But he and Politkovskaya's supporters fear that if the trio is convicted, the authorities will stop searching for the real killers and the organizer of the murder. "We're more interested in the mastermind and the killer," Sergei Sokolov, deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta, said on Ekho Moskvy radio. "It's completely obvious that today's ruling was based on a political decision, not a procedural one. For the authorities, the most important thing was just to make sure someone went to prison."
Tuesday 23 June 2009
Ukraine’s Political Paralysis Gives Black Eyes To Orange Revolution Heroes
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine, which has suffered a roundhouse blow from the economic crisis, has had no finance minister since February. It also has no foreign minister or defense minister. The transportation minister just stepped down. The interior minister has offered to resign as well, after being accused of drunken behavior.
The president and the prime minister are no longer speaking, though they were once allies and heroes of the Orange Revolution, which brought a pro-Western government to power in 2005. The spirit of that uprising has apparently been squandered in a country that seems permanently gripped by political paralysis.The public appears so frustrated that the leader of the opposition, who has close ties to the Kremlin and is often portrayed as the villain of the Orange Revolution, is the early favorite to win the presidential election next January.The mood here is reflected in the popularity of a video clip that has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in recent days. It shows the prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, who once enthralled Ukraine with her rousing slogans and peasant-braid-as-tiara hairstyle, just before she was to give a televised speech this month.Her teleprompter suddenly malfunctions, and she snaps, “It’s all gone.”Ms. Tymoshenko was referring to her text, but her words — which can also be translated as, “Everything’s fallen apart” — have been viewed as something of an epitaph for her political movement.The deadlock has led the major European nations to voice growing alarm that Ukraine is incapable of dealing with its disintegrating economy.They fear that an economic collapse here could reverberate throughout the former Soviet bloc and beyond.On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of Germany and Poland made an unusual joint visit to the capital, Kiev. The German, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, declared that he was “extremely worried” about Ukraine, suggesting that its politicians must stop feuding if they wanted more assistance.European officials also warned that Ukraine had fallen drastically behind on its preparations for serving as a host of the European soccer championship in 2012, and risked losing the event.The major cabinet posts are unfilled in part because Ms. Tymoshenko and the president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, cannot agree on replacements. Ms. Tymoshenko used Parliament to dismiss the defense and foreign ministers, who are nominated by the president.Behind the scenes, the president’s associates have contended that Ms. Tymoshenko is untrustworthy and has Machiavellian designs on power. Her side has responded that the president is a bumbling politician who is jealous of her charisma and public support.Optimists in Kiev said the situation had worsened largely because the political class was jockeying before the presidential election, and they pointed out that the country’s leaders had always found a way to pull back from the brink. For example, they agreed on budget measures to comply with a $16.4 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.Whatever the discord, Ukraine is more free than most former Soviet republics, with a relatively uncontrolled news media and a far less repressive security apparatus.Still, things have unquestionably soured. The popularity of President Yushchenko, who achieved worldwide attention during the Orange Revolution when his face was scarred in an attempted poisoning that remains unsolved, has sunk into the low single digits, and he is given little chance of winning re-election.Mr. Yushchenko has been chided by even his own advisers for a lackluster bearing that has turned off the public, and it was in evidence this month at a nationally televised news conference.He began with a statement that ground on for half an hour and was spoken without notable intensity, even when he attacked Ms. Tymoshenko.Relations between the two have so deteriorated that Ms. Tymoshenko even tried this month to build a coalition with an Orange Revolution foe, Viktor F. Yanukovich, a former prime minister who leads the opposition in Parliament. That effort imploded in a cacophony of charges and countercharges.Ukraine’s last finance minister, Viktor M. Pynzenyk, who is widely respected, acknowledged in an interview that the government had become hopelessly dysfunctional.Mr. Pynzenyk said the politicians’ refusal to face up to the financial crisis with proper austerity measures had clearly worsened matters, and said they were running enormous deficits to pander to voters. He said he resigned because it was impossible to conduct the country’s fiscal affairs.“People are disillusioned not with the Orange Revolution, but with the politicians,” Mr. Pynzenyk said.He assailed the recent attempt by Ms. Tymoshenko to ally with Mr. Yanukovich. She had sought to amend the Constitution so that the president would be chosen by Parliament, not popularly elected.Under their deal, Mr. Yanukovich would have been president and Ms. Tymoshenko would have occupied a strengthened post of prime minister. At the last moment, Mr. Yanukovich backed out.“In my opinion, what happened in the last month represented a threat to establish an authoritarian regime,” Mr. Pynzenyk said. “Power has become the goal, and this is a very dangerous path.”Ukraine has earned so much attention because it is one of the largest countries in Europe, with 46 million people, and serves as a vital transportation point for natural gas from Russia. Ukraine’s fractious politics have helped to strain relations with Russia, which has shut the flow of gas in payment disputes twice in recent years.After the Orange Revolution, Ukraine was held up as an example of how countries, whether post-Soviet or elsewhere, could move past authoritarianism. But the problems here are now cited by Russian officials as evidence of what awaits countries that embrace a Western democratic model.While Ms. Tymoshenko’s standing may have been damaged in recent weeks, she is considered a highly skillful politician who has mounted comebacks before, and polls indicate that she would be competitive with Mr. Yanukovich in the next presidential election.Hryhoriy M. Nemyria, a deputy prime minister and Tymoshenko adviser, said Ms. Tymoshenko’s plan to change the Constitution was needed because lines of authority between the president and the prime minister were vague and bred conflict. Ukraine would be better off with a parliamentary system like Germany’s, he said.He said Ms. Tymoshenko would be a formidable force in the election. “The thing she is definitely not lacking is leadership skills,” he said. “That is something that might be in great deficit in some of the other candidates.”Oles Dony, a young member of Parliament who was active in the Orange Revolution and supported the president, said he believed that Ukrainians would not shy away from taking part in the presidential campaign, despite recent events.“People are tired, not of politics, but of all these characters and their style of behavior,” he said. “But they are not tired of democracy.”
The president and the prime minister are no longer speaking, though they were once allies and heroes of the Orange Revolution, which brought a pro-Western government to power in 2005. The spirit of that uprising has apparently been squandered in a country that seems permanently gripped by political paralysis.The public appears so frustrated that the leader of the opposition, who has close ties to the Kremlin and is often portrayed as the villain of the Orange Revolution, is the early favorite to win the presidential election next January.The mood here is reflected in the popularity of a video clip that has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in recent days. It shows the prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, who once enthralled Ukraine with her rousing slogans and peasant-braid-as-tiara hairstyle, just before she was to give a televised speech this month.Her teleprompter suddenly malfunctions, and she snaps, “It’s all gone.”Ms. Tymoshenko was referring to her text, but her words — which can also be translated as, “Everything’s fallen apart” — have been viewed as something of an epitaph for her political movement.The deadlock has led the major European nations to voice growing alarm that Ukraine is incapable of dealing with its disintegrating economy.They fear that an economic collapse here could reverberate throughout the former Soviet bloc and beyond.On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of Germany and Poland made an unusual joint visit to the capital, Kiev. The German, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, declared that he was “extremely worried” about Ukraine, suggesting that its politicians must stop feuding if they wanted more assistance.European officials also warned that Ukraine had fallen drastically behind on its preparations for serving as a host of the European soccer championship in 2012, and risked losing the event.The major cabinet posts are unfilled in part because Ms. Tymoshenko and the president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, cannot agree on replacements. Ms. Tymoshenko used Parliament to dismiss the defense and foreign ministers, who are nominated by the president.Behind the scenes, the president’s associates have contended that Ms. Tymoshenko is untrustworthy and has Machiavellian designs on power. Her side has responded that the president is a bumbling politician who is jealous of her charisma and public support.Optimists in Kiev said the situation had worsened largely because the political class was jockeying before the presidential election, and they pointed out that the country’s leaders had always found a way to pull back from the brink. For example, they agreed on budget measures to comply with a $16.4 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.Whatever the discord, Ukraine is more free than most former Soviet republics, with a relatively uncontrolled news media and a far less repressive security apparatus.Still, things have unquestionably soured. The popularity of President Yushchenko, who achieved worldwide attention during the Orange Revolution when his face was scarred in an attempted poisoning that remains unsolved, has sunk into the low single digits, and he is given little chance of winning re-election.Mr. Yushchenko has been chided by even his own advisers for a lackluster bearing that has turned off the public, and it was in evidence this month at a nationally televised news conference.He began with a statement that ground on for half an hour and was spoken without notable intensity, even when he attacked Ms. Tymoshenko.Relations between the two have so deteriorated that Ms. Tymoshenko even tried this month to build a coalition with an Orange Revolution foe, Viktor F. Yanukovich, a former prime minister who leads the opposition in Parliament. That effort imploded in a cacophony of charges and countercharges.Ukraine’s last finance minister, Viktor M. Pynzenyk, who is widely respected, acknowledged in an interview that the government had become hopelessly dysfunctional.Mr. Pynzenyk said the politicians’ refusal to face up to the financial crisis with proper austerity measures had clearly worsened matters, and said they were running enormous deficits to pander to voters. He said he resigned because it was impossible to conduct the country’s fiscal affairs.“People are disillusioned not with the Orange Revolution, but with the politicians,” Mr. Pynzenyk said.He assailed the recent attempt by Ms. Tymoshenko to ally with Mr. Yanukovich. She had sought to amend the Constitution so that the president would be chosen by Parliament, not popularly elected.Under their deal, Mr. Yanukovich would have been president and Ms. Tymoshenko would have occupied a strengthened post of prime minister. At the last moment, Mr. Yanukovich backed out.“In my opinion, what happened in the last month represented a threat to establish an authoritarian regime,” Mr. Pynzenyk said. “Power has become the goal, and this is a very dangerous path.”Ukraine has earned so much attention because it is one of the largest countries in Europe, with 46 million people, and serves as a vital transportation point for natural gas from Russia. Ukraine’s fractious politics have helped to strain relations with Russia, which has shut the flow of gas in payment disputes twice in recent years.After the Orange Revolution, Ukraine was held up as an example of how countries, whether post-Soviet or elsewhere, could move past authoritarianism. But the problems here are now cited by Russian officials as evidence of what awaits countries that embrace a Western democratic model.While Ms. Tymoshenko’s standing may have been damaged in recent weeks, she is considered a highly skillful politician who has mounted comebacks before, and polls indicate that she would be competitive with Mr. Yanukovich in the next presidential election.Hryhoriy M. Nemyria, a deputy prime minister and Tymoshenko adviser, said Ms. Tymoshenko’s plan to change the Constitution was needed because lines of authority between the president and the prime minister were vague and bred conflict. Ukraine would be better off with a parliamentary system like Germany’s, he said.He said Ms. Tymoshenko would be a formidable force in the election. “The thing she is definitely not lacking is leadership skills,” he said. “That is something that might be in great deficit in some of the other candidates.”Oles Dony, a young member of Parliament who was active in the Orange Revolution and supported the president, said he believed that Ukrainians would not shy away from taking part in the presidential campaign, despite recent events.“People are tired, not of politics, but of all these characters and their style of behavior,” he said. “But they are not tired of democracy.”
US Vice President Biden Heads To Ukraine, Georgia
WASHINGTON, DC -- US Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Georgia and Ukraine next month for talks on boosting the former Soviet republics' economies and supporting democratic reforms, his office said Monday. Both trips involve political sensitivities with Russia, and the visit would come shortly after US President Barack Obama travels to Moscow.
Biden's office says the trip will come during the week of July 20-24. More details will be released later.Biden would be the highest-ranking US official to travel to Georgia since its war with Russia last year, while Ukraine has been embroiled in a natural gas dispute with Russia that threatens the European Union's supplies. Biden will head to the region from July 20-24 and plans to meet with political leaders and opposition figures in both countries. In a statement, the vice president's office said that Biden would "demonstrate US support for continued democratic and economic reforms and discuss issues of mutual interest in both countries."In May, Biden visited Europe's Balkan region, meeting with political leaders in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo.
Biden's office says the trip will come during the week of July 20-24. More details will be released later.Biden would be the highest-ranking US official to travel to Georgia since its war with Russia last year, while Ukraine has been embroiled in a natural gas dispute with Russia that threatens the European Union's supplies. Biden will head to the region from July 20-24 and plans to meet with political leaders and opposition figures in both countries. In a statement, the vice president's office said that Biden would "demonstrate US support for continued democratic and economic reforms and discuss issues of mutual interest in both countries."In May, Biden visited Europe's Balkan region, meeting with political leaders in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo.
Ukraine Military Says Sea Breeze-2009 Exercise Called Off
KIEV, Ukraine -- There will be no Sea Breeze naval exercises with NATO forces in Ukraine's Crimea this summer, a source in the Ukrainian Navy command said on Monday.
A military exercise with the participation of foreign troops requires parliamentary permission, but the Ukrainian parliament has refused to even consider the matter.The source said the U.S. military command had informed Ukraine last week that the Ukrainian-U.S. naval exercise would not take place this year.Sea Breeze-2009 was due to be conducted in July.Sea Breeze exercises have been held annually in the Crimea since 1997, and have been subject to occasionally violent anti-NATO protests in recent years.Last year's Sea Breeze drills saw protesters set up camps along the Black Sea coast, and reportedly attempt to prevent foreign warships, participating in the exercises, from leaving the port of Odessa.
A military exercise with the participation of foreign troops requires parliamentary permission, but the Ukrainian parliament has refused to even consider the matter.The source said the U.S. military command had informed Ukraine last week that the Ukrainian-U.S. naval exercise would not take place this year.Sea Breeze-2009 was due to be conducted in July.Sea Breeze exercises have been held annually in the Crimea since 1997, and have been subject to occasionally violent anti-NATO protests in recent years.Last year's Sea Breeze drills saw protesters set up camps along the Black Sea coast, and reportedly attempt to prevent foreign warships, participating in the exercises, from leaving the port of Odessa.
Ukraine Faces 'Serious' Gas Situation
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Brussels called for talks with Russian and international monetary officials in an effort to avert a gas crisis stemming for Ukrainian economic troubles.
Jose Manuel Barroso, who was confirmed for a second term as European Commission president, said the European Union would talk with gas and financial officials to help Ukraine pay for its Russian gas supplies, the Financial Times reports."We must not sleepwalk into another crisis," he said. "There is indeed the risk of a crisis in weeks, not months."A January dispute over contracts and arrears between Kiev and Moscow forced Russian gas giant Gazprom to cut gas supplies for Ukraine. With 80 percent of Russian gas bound for Europe headed through Ukrainian territory, that row left European customers in the cold for weeks.A settlement resolving the dispute requires Ukraine to settle its monthly gas debt by the seventh of each month, but Gazprom has expressed concern each month since January over Kiev's ability to come forward with the money.Barroso told reporters the EU does not have the resources to meet Ukrainian requests for $4 billion to cover gas payments but said that was a matter best left to the international monetary regime."We don't have that money in the budget. We want to help our Ukrainian friends, but they have a structural problem," he said. "They're in a serious situation."
Jose Manuel Barroso, who was confirmed for a second term as European Commission president, said the European Union would talk with gas and financial officials to help Ukraine pay for its Russian gas supplies, the Financial Times reports."We must not sleepwalk into another crisis," he said. "There is indeed the risk of a crisis in weeks, not months."A January dispute over contracts and arrears between Kiev and Moscow forced Russian gas giant Gazprom to cut gas supplies for Ukraine. With 80 percent of Russian gas bound for Europe headed through Ukrainian territory, that row left European customers in the cold for weeks.A settlement resolving the dispute requires Ukraine to settle its monthly gas debt by the seventh of each month, but Gazprom has expressed concern each month since January over Kiev's ability to come forward with the money.Barroso told reporters the EU does not have the resources to meet Ukrainian requests for $4 billion to cover gas payments but said that was a matter best left to the international monetary regime."We don't have that money in the budget. We want to help our Ukrainian friends, but they have a structural problem," he said. "They're in a serious situation."
Ukraine Finds 250 Contraband Turtles On Train
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian border guards seized 250 turtles being smuggled into the country on a train, where they had been hidden and strapped down with tape to prevent them from moving, officials said on Monday.
The turtles were seized late on Sunday at the Ukrainian-Russian border on a train from the central Asian country of Uzbekistan, the Ukrainian border guard service said in a statement.The reptilian cargo belonged to an Uzbek conductor aboard the train, which came from the Uzbek capital Tashkent and was bound for the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine.The turtles, some of them hidden in bags, had been stashed in toilets and inside a train carriage wall."The turtles were initially left on the premises of the customs service to undergo veterinary control," Mykhailo Kablak, a spokesman for the regional branch of the border guard service, told AFP."According to preliminary information, they are all in good health and will be taken to the zoo in Kharkiv," Kablak said. He added that the smuggler had sought to sell the turtles in Ukraine.
The turtles were seized late on Sunday at the Ukrainian-Russian border on a train from the central Asian country of Uzbekistan, the Ukrainian border guard service said in a statement.The reptilian cargo belonged to an Uzbek conductor aboard the train, which came from the Uzbek capital Tashkent and was bound for the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine.The turtles, some of them hidden in bags, had been stashed in toilets and inside a train carriage wall."The turtles were initially left on the premises of the customs service to undergo veterinary control," Mykhailo Kablak, a spokesman for the regional branch of the border guard service, told AFP."According to preliminary information, they are all in good health and will be taken to the zoo in Kharkiv," Kablak said. He added that the smuggler had sought to sell the turtles in Ukraine.
Central European Leaders Call For Unity In The Face Of Crisis
NOVI SAD, Serbia -- Central European leaders from 14 countries have called for more regional cooperation in the wake of the global economic crisis and for a better distribution of energy resources.
At a regional summit in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, host president Boris Tadic led the calls for solidarity in dealing with both economic and energy issues."We cannot permit that (these matters) become a source of our division, especially in the period of crisis," he said.The region has been battered by the global economic crisis hitting the budding economies of the formerly communist central and eastern Europe particularly hard. Measures to tackle the recession, including cuts in the welfare benefits and salaries have provoked widespread protests from Latvia to the Balkans.Austrian President Heinz Fischer said the global economic crisis remained "the most fundamental challenge," requiring multilateral cooperation."We must focus on the necessity to keep social balance and cohesion in our own societies. There's a special responsibility to protect the poorer and weaker," he said.Key region in securing Europe's energy suppliesApart from the economic woes of the global economic crisis, the summit's focus has been on energy issues. The region suffered severe shortages of heating gas last winter, when a dispute over payments between Russia and Ukraine saw supplies cut, particularly to Bosnia, Bulgaria and Serbia.Serbian President Boris Tadic pointed out that Serbia and other western Balkan states were key to securing energy and stability for the rest of Europe."Our region is becoming an energy bridge leading to consumers in other parts of Europe. I am sure that we are going to succeed in this if we pursue a common energy policy."Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Ukrainian leader Victor Yushchenko joined the call for better distribution and diversification of energy resources.Yushchenko urged European countries to adopt a "common policy and a common gas market" to minimize the risk of another gas crisis in the future.The meeting brought together presidents from 14 countries - Austria, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Italy, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine - for the 16th time.
At a regional summit in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, host president Boris Tadic led the calls for solidarity in dealing with both economic and energy issues."We cannot permit that (these matters) become a source of our division, especially in the period of crisis," he said.The region has been battered by the global economic crisis hitting the budding economies of the formerly communist central and eastern Europe particularly hard. Measures to tackle the recession, including cuts in the welfare benefits and salaries have provoked widespread protests from Latvia to the Balkans.Austrian President Heinz Fischer said the global economic crisis remained "the most fundamental challenge," requiring multilateral cooperation."We must focus on the necessity to keep social balance and cohesion in our own societies. There's a special responsibility to protect the poorer and weaker," he said.Key region in securing Europe's energy suppliesApart from the economic woes of the global economic crisis, the summit's focus has been on energy issues. The region suffered severe shortages of heating gas last winter, when a dispute over payments between Russia and Ukraine saw supplies cut, particularly to Bosnia, Bulgaria and Serbia.Serbian President Boris Tadic pointed out that Serbia and other western Balkan states were key to securing energy and stability for the rest of Europe."Our region is becoming an energy bridge leading to consumers in other parts of Europe. I am sure that we are going to succeed in this if we pursue a common energy policy."Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Ukrainian leader Victor Yushchenko joined the call for better distribution and diversification of energy resources.Yushchenko urged European countries to adopt a "common policy and a common gas market" to minimize the risk of another gas crisis in the future.The meeting brought together presidents from 14 countries - Austria, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Italy, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine - for the 16th time.
Sunday 21 June 2009
Luzhkov, a Market and a $2Bln Haul
Last September, a police raid on Moscow's sprawling Cherkizovsky Market resulted in the confiscation of 6,000 containers of purportedly pirated and smuggled goods from China worth $2 billion — the biggest haul of contraband in Russia's history. Yet there was little mention of the seizure until earlier this month, when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suddenly asked why the investigation was showing no results. "A result would be to send people to jail — but where are the convictions?" Putin asked senior ministers at a June 1 government meeting, according to a transcript on his web site. Unsurprisingly, authorities showed a flurry of activity after the prime minister's public complaints. The Investigative Committee said last week that a criminal case had been opened and three customs officers have been arrested for illegally clearing the goods. Prosecutor General Yury Chaika announced that 22 containers with Chinese-made children's clothes would be destroyed because of "health risks." The case did not stop there. Last Sunday, Chaika's deputy Alexander Buksman upped the ante by calling Cherkizovsky Market "hellspawn" that needed to be exterminated. "It is a source of corruption, offenses and various crimes. We need the will and the power to tear out this pest," Buksman said in televised remarks. Cherkizovsky is no small enterprise — the market is said to be Eastern Europe's biggest trading ground. Closing it would not only put thousands of traders out of work but destroy a profitable part of Ast Group, the conglomerate that controls it. Ast Group is owned and controlled by Telman Ismailov, a 52-year-old, Azeri-born businessman who rose from humble beginnings as a small trader to become one of the country's wealthiest people. Forbes ranks him as Russia's 61st wealthiest individual with an estimated personal fortune of $600 million. And Ismailov is said to be a close friend of Mayor Yury Luzhkov. While the multimillionaire has not been accused of wrongdoing by law enforcement agencies, he was the target of a recent documentary film that claimed that billions of dollars have been laundered at Cherkizovsky Market. The film, titled "Cherkizon" and aired on June 8 on Rossiya state television, was authored by Arkady Mamontov, a muckraking journalist who in the past has been accused of producing work for the Kremlin. Thus, it came as little surprise when Luzhkov appeared on TV Center, the channel that he controls, earlier this week and promised to shut the market by the end of the year. "After everything that happened, I think the market will certainly be closed. And we will try to have this done by the end of the year," a somewhat tense Luzhkov said Tuesday. The next day, the Investigative Committee said it would send Luzhkov written recommendations on how to accomplish this. It also announced that it would oversee a new joint committee of prosecutors and officials from the Interior Ministry, customs and security services to investigate the case further. Mamontov and news reports on state-controlled media have suggested that Ismailov was falling from grace because he had been feasting in a time of famine. On May 23, a week before Putin's remarks, Ismailov threw a party that might have just been too lavish for the crisis-fraught times. A coterie of celebrities, including Richard Gere, Sharon Stone and Paris Hilton, appeared at the glamorous opening of his Mardan Palace Hotel in Antalya, Turkey, which reportedly cost $1.5 billion to build. Located on the Mediterranean coast, the luxurious hotel boasts a 16,000-square-meter outdoor pool that takes a half-hour to traverse by gondola and that hides a glass-domed underwater aquarium. The hotel also offers gold-plated mirrors on the floors of suites' bathrooms and a private beach made of 9,000 tons of silky white sand imported from Egypt. Russian media showed Ismailov dressed in a three-piece suit at the opening, sitting on a posh, embroidered sofa with golden lion armrests. Another prominent guest at the opening was Mayor Luzhkov, who attended with his billionaire wife, Yelena Baturina, national media reported. Ismailov has denied that he or his company have anything to do with the market accusations. His lawyer, Pavel Astakhov, said in a statement that Ast Group was merely subletting space and could not be blamed for tenants' illegal activities. "The seized goods belonged to tenants who brought them to the storage facilities. Only they, traders or manufacturers can be held responsible for smuggling or counterfeit," the statement said. Messages left over the past week at the many companies that make up Ast Group were not returned. Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the case Thursday. Analysts agreed that the sudden market investigation could not be a coincidence, but they were divided over whether the real target was Ismailov or Luzhkov.
"There is a complicated web here, and it is difficult to understand who wins and who loses," said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst who follows Moscow city politics at the Carnegie Moscow Center. Sergei Mitrokhin, head of the liberal Yabloko party and a City Duma deputy, suggested that Ismailov's decision to invest his fortune in Turkey rather than at home had upset the federal government. "By spending all this money abroad, he did not behave gratefully. That is why authorities are now investigating business activities that they had long closed their eyes to," Mitrokhin said. Others called the affair the beginning of the end of Luzhkov's career. "Ismailov has slowly been moving his assets into Turkey, and it would be impossible for him to do this without Luzhkov's political cover," said Alexei Mukhin, an analyst with the Center for Political Information. "This is the first step in a campaign to unseat Luzhkov," he said. The mayor seemed to hit back at his critics in an article in Thursday's Moskovsky Komsomolets, which quoted an anonymous source in the city administration as saying that Luzhkov would not bow out easily. "If the pressure gets too strong, he can go all-in like Murtaza Rakhimov did," the source said. Earlier this month, Bashkortostan President Rakhimov launched a strong public attack on the "vertical power" system set up by Putin. But Mitrokhin said he saw no evidence that the country's leadership wanted to challenge the city's powerful mayor. He said a massive market like Cherkizovsky needed more than just cover from City Hall. "It cannot exist without tacit support from the police, customs and federal authorities," he said. Mitrokhin noted that City Hall had tried unsuccessfully to close the market before. "Luzhkov tried a few times, but he was barred from doing that," he said. Spokespeople at City Hall refused to comment on the market investigation. But Luzhkov said Tuesday that City Hall had failed in previous attempts to challenge the market's rental agreement in the courts. He said 80 percent of the market's premises were rented from the Federal Sports University and that the university had no right to engage in the trading business. The Investigative Committee, for its part, has opened an investigation into former university rector Oleg Matytsin, who signed the current rental agreement with the market. Matytsin, who left his post in 2006, is accused of abuse of office because rent payments bypassed the federal budget and went straight to the university, the committee said in a statement posted on its web site. The university hit back this week, saying in a statement on its web site that it had canceled the lease agreement as early as 2007 but that tenants had won court rulings allowing them to stay until December 2009. Rent is seen as the key to profitability at Cherkizovsky and other markets, where middlemen like Ismailov's Ast Group rent comparably cheap government land and sublet it to traders at much higher prices. In another sign that Ismailov's once-excellent ties with City Hall are deteriorating, investigators have questioned his brother Fazil Izmayilov, the prefect of the capital's northern administrative district, Izvestia reported. Izmayilov, who looks strikingly similar to Ismailov and shares the same patronymic, Mardanovich — has changed the spelling of his surname, the newspaper reported, citing sources in the city administration. The brothers are members of the city's tightly knit community of Mountain Jews who hail from Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus and speak an Iranian language. A representative of the community described Ismailov as a "well respected" and "very generous" member. "Most Russians have broken the law in one way or another," he said on condition of anonymity. "But Ismailov, I think, is actually cleaner than many people." Meanwhile, some national media have speculated that Ismailov might opt for a better future in Turkey, reporting that he has applied for citizenship. Yet despite his $1.5 billion investment there, some locals seem ungrateful. Antalya Mayor Mustafa Akaidyn has ordered an investigation into the hotel construction because of possible planning violations, RIA-Novosti reported Thursday.
"There is a complicated web here, and it is difficult to understand who wins and who loses," said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst who follows Moscow city politics at the Carnegie Moscow Center. Sergei Mitrokhin, head of the liberal Yabloko party and a City Duma deputy, suggested that Ismailov's decision to invest his fortune in Turkey rather than at home had upset the federal government. "By spending all this money abroad, he did not behave gratefully. That is why authorities are now investigating business activities that they had long closed their eyes to," Mitrokhin said. Others called the affair the beginning of the end of Luzhkov's career. "Ismailov has slowly been moving his assets into Turkey, and it would be impossible for him to do this without Luzhkov's political cover," said Alexei Mukhin, an analyst with the Center for Political Information. "This is the first step in a campaign to unseat Luzhkov," he said. The mayor seemed to hit back at his critics in an article in Thursday's Moskovsky Komsomolets, which quoted an anonymous source in the city administration as saying that Luzhkov would not bow out easily. "If the pressure gets too strong, he can go all-in like Murtaza Rakhimov did," the source said. Earlier this month, Bashkortostan President Rakhimov launched a strong public attack on the "vertical power" system set up by Putin. But Mitrokhin said he saw no evidence that the country's leadership wanted to challenge the city's powerful mayor. He said a massive market like Cherkizovsky needed more than just cover from City Hall. "It cannot exist without tacit support from the police, customs and federal authorities," he said. Mitrokhin noted that City Hall had tried unsuccessfully to close the market before. "Luzhkov tried a few times, but he was barred from doing that," he said. Spokespeople at City Hall refused to comment on the market investigation. But Luzhkov said Tuesday that City Hall had failed in previous attempts to challenge the market's rental agreement in the courts. He said 80 percent of the market's premises were rented from the Federal Sports University and that the university had no right to engage in the trading business. The Investigative Committee, for its part, has opened an investigation into former university rector Oleg Matytsin, who signed the current rental agreement with the market. Matytsin, who left his post in 2006, is accused of abuse of office because rent payments bypassed the federal budget and went straight to the university, the committee said in a statement posted on its web site. The university hit back this week, saying in a statement on its web site that it had canceled the lease agreement as early as 2007 but that tenants had won court rulings allowing them to stay until December 2009. Rent is seen as the key to profitability at Cherkizovsky and other markets, where middlemen like Ismailov's Ast Group rent comparably cheap government land and sublet it to traders at much higher prices. In another sign that Ismailov's once-excellent ties with City Hall are deteriorating, investigators have questioned his brother Fazil Izmayilov, the prefect of the capital's northern administrative district, Izvestia reported. Izmayilov, who looks strikingly similar to Ismailov and shares the same patronymic, Mardanovich — has changed the spelling of his surname, the newspaper reported, citing sources in the city administration. The brothers are members of the city's tightly knit community of Mountain Jews who hail from Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus and speak an Iranian language. A representative of the community described Ismailov as a "well respected" and "very generous" member. "Most Russians have broken the law in one way or another," he said on condition of anonymity. "But Ismailov, I think, is actually cleaner than many people." Meanwhile, some national media have speculated that Ismailov might opt for a better future in Turkey, reporting that he has applied for citizenship. Yet despite his $1.5 billion investment there, some locals seem ungrateful. Antalya Mayor Mustafa Akaidyn has ordered an investigation into the hotel construction because of possible planning violations, RIA-Novosti reported Thursday.
Medvedev Looks to Harness Young IT Talent
An IT company's sterile white offices are not the typical venue for a Kremlin meeting. But they seemed quite fitting for the launch of President Dmitry Medvedev's newest commission Thursday. Medvedev led an entourage to the offices of Kaspersky Lab, the computer security company, for the maiden meeting of his Commission on the Modernization and Technological Development of the Economy. Company founder Yevgeny Kaspersky gave the president a tour of the desks where programmers develop the world-renowned anti-virus software bearing his name. Then the guests, including Rusnano head Anatoly Chubais and Sberbank CEO German Gref, trooped into a glass-windowed conference room. "Intellect and innovation are our main advantage," Medvedev told the men in dark suits seated along a long table. "But we speak more about this than anything else. That's why we are aiming to make this field one of the most prestigious to work in," Medvedev said, according to a transcript of the meeting posted on the Kremlin's web site. Medvedev said a main goal of the new commission would be to secure financial support for "scientific research and educational programs."There is no question that Russia has talent when it comes to IT, even though the country's contribution in the world's IT field remains relatively humble. Russian students regularly outscore their foreign peers in IT, as illustrated in April when young Russians swept the prestigious ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest in Stockholm for the third year in a row. The key to continued success, however, lies in developing an education system that can offer cutting-edge resources and build students' ability to problem solve, students and industry players said. The education system established by the Soviet Union was considered among the finest in the world, but corruption and laxness crept in after the Soviet collapse, prompting a top-to-bottom overhaul that the Kremlin expects to complete by next year. While the general level of Russian education has declined in recent years, IT studies remain a bright spot. "The rumors about the death of education in Russia are very exaggerated," said Kirill Korniliev, the Russia and CIS director for IBM, which sponsored the Stockholm contest. "The level is very good. The problem is how to use it." Natural science classes at Russian universities are as good or better than schools abroad, but there is a lack of computer science classes and professors in Russia, said Ivan Romanov, the 2006 programming winner at the Stockholm championship. As a result, students often engage in extracurricular activities to improve their skills, such as programming contests called Olympiads that are sponsored by schools or companies. "We were studying computer sciences ourselves while participating in Olympiads," Romanov explained by e-mail from Zurich, where he is working now.
Vladislav Isenbayev, a 2009 winner, said the Olympiads made a big difference. "One of the reasons we succeeded was good teamwork, which the Chinese team lacked, because we had participated in several competitions together," he said by telephone from St. Petersburg. Isenbayev, a third-year student at a St. Petersburg university, recently received a job offer from South Korean electronics giant Samsung, but he said he had not decided whether to accept it yet. Students who manage to succeed in the difficult Stockholm contest can be called real innovators, Korniliev said, explaining that innovation nowadays requires two things: "the ability to invent and to use the inventions in business." "In the globalized economy, work flows to the countries that offer the best talent and the best efficiencies to their customers and partners," Korniliev said. "In recent years, India has been a very attractive source of IT programming talent. However, Russian technology specialists have a competitive advantage in their aptitude for problem solving and their ability to handle complicated tasks," he said. In Stockholm, each team faced real-world problems like how to optimize rush-hour traffic in a city within four hours. The Russians offered solutions the fastest, winning three out of the four gold medals at the world finals of the competition, which has been held since 1977 and is watched closely by the industry for bright new prospects. The other gold medal went to a Chinese team. The nine winners represented three teams from three Russian universities who made it to the last round of 100 teams in Stockholm from an initial 7,109 teams from 88 countries. "Russian education creates systematic thinking. Everything is all right with our education. So far," Korniliev said. Romanov agreed, adding that there are also many talented students who are interested in programming.
Several big IT companies have opened research offices in Saratov after a series of programming contest victories by students from Saratov State University, said Romanov, who represented the university in 2006. A team from the Saratov university also was a gold winner in 2009. Romanov, who works at an IBM laboratory in Zurich, said he likes his work environment because he has "creative latitude" and "an abundance of interesting projects" that allow him to create completely new solutions. International industry leaders are very interested in the development of Russia's IT market and as a result bring their most progressive developments and new educational methods to Russia, often with a special focus on students, said Mikhail Zaskalet, general manager of Dell Russia. "Nowadays, optimization in all senses is becoming nearly a religion, and specialists, especially in the IT realm, which is supposed to make business more effective, are needed more than ever," Zaskalet said. IBM opened a laboratory to engage Russian specialists in innovative technology projects in 2006, and the specialists helped build the world's fastest computer, Roadrunner, located at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Kaspersky called for improvements to the education system in order to produce more IT specialists after Medvedev presented him with a state award for his achievements last Friday. "It is possible that this will require 10 to 15 years of hard work, but there is no other way for Russian companies to be competitive in Western and Eastern markets," he said at a Kremlin awards ceremony. Medvedev, meeting with the student winners at his residence last month, lamented that Russia has talent but fails to find commercial applications for it. A few days after the meeting, he announced the creation of the Commission on Modernization and Technological Development of the Economy. It is the sixth presidential commission and the third established by Medvedev since he took office in May 2008. "The situation with innovation at enterprises … is not only failing to change but is worsening because of the crisis," Medvedev said in explaining the need of the new commission last month. The commission decided at its meeting Thursday to set up five working groups to focus on five priority areas: nuclear technology; space and communications technology; energy efficiency; medical technology; and information technology, including supercomputers. The composition of the working groups is to be determined within 10 days, and the team leaders are to be approved in early July. The good news for the commission is that the black days of the country's "brain drain" seem to be over. Thousands of talented IT specialists went abroad to find work during the turbulent economic times that followed the Soviet collapse. "Programmers used to move abroad to work for big companies like Google, but now, Google opens its branch offices here," 2009 winner Maxim Buzdalov said in a television interview. "It is more profitable to provide work for Russians in their own country," he said. Zaskalet, of Dell Russia, noted that IT specialists can make good money these days. "At the moment, the brain drain problem barely exists," he said.
Carrefour Opens First Russian Store
French retail giant Carrefour opened its first Russian store Thursday, hoping to become a leading player despite a late arrival on the domestic market. Carrefour has invested 8 million euros ($11.1 million) into the 14,300-square-meter, two-story hypermarket located in a shopping mall in western Moscow, said Carrefour Group executive director Thierry Garnier. Although the French company is Europe's top retailer, its entrance onto the Russian market comes after other foreign chains like Auchan and Metro Cash and Carry are already fully established. Auchan operates in eight Russian cities, with 20 locations in the greater Moscow area alone. Metro has 48 Russian locations. Carrefour will also have to compete with Russia's own X5 Retail Group and the Mosmart chain. By the end of the year, Carrefour plans to open two more stores in Krasnodar and Lipetsk, both in shopping centers. The company will eventually expand to other store formats but is starting with hypermarkets "because this format works well in Russia," said Carrefour Russia CEO Jacobo Caller, who previously headed the company's unit in Romania. Carrefour also operates supermarkets, discount stores and convenience stores. Spirits were high at the opening, where guests were entertained by mimes, accordion players and a dancing troupe that did a hip-hop number using shopping carts and cardboard boxes as props. The ribbon was cut to the sounds of "La Marseillaise" by nine people, including representatives from the Industry and Trade Ministry, the European Commission and the French Embassy in Moscow. The retailer was first rumored to come to Russia in the late 1990s and even opened an office in Moscow but pulled out of talks about a store opening during the 1998 financial crisis. Carrefour executives parried questions about the company's late entry into Russia. "We were waiting for the best moment to enter the market," Garnier said. "We are in Russia for the long term." But the late entry is unlikely to be a boon in Carrefour's case. "They are rather late in coming," said Maria Sulima, a retail analyst with Metropol. "At this point, it would be more effective to purchase a chain with already developed logistics and distribution networks." Three stores in six months is an adequate pace for a new player, though some chains like Magnit opened 11 hypermarkets last year, Sulima said. Carrefour's Garnier declined to comment on the retailer's possible acquisition of Sedmoi Kontinent, a Russian retailer that currently has 140 stores. "There are new rumors every day; I cannot comment on the rumors," he said. Vedomosti reported on Thursday that Carrefour stopped talks on purchasing the chain for 45 days. Carrefour evaluated the company at $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion and made an offer in February. The retailer also bid to acquire the Lenta chain last fall. Any existing Russian chain could be purchased right now "if the price is right," Sulima said.
Kidnapped Son of Rosneft Exec Freed
The teenage son of Rosneft vice president Mikhail Stavsky has been freed two months after being kidnapped at a Moscow university, and investigators said Thursday that they were questioning a Chechen suspect in connection with the abduction. Stavsky's 19-year-old son, also named Mikhail, was rescued Wednesday night "as a result of a joint operation" conducted by officers of the Interior Ministry's criminal investigation department and the Investigative Committee, the committee said in a statement. The teenager is in good health, and investigators were interviewing him Thursday, the statement said. A female Grozny resident, 34, has been detained in Moscow on suspicion of involvement in Stavsky's abduction, and investigators were questioning her on Thursday, the committee said. Officials familiar with case refused to release any details of the operation, including whether a ransom had been paid or whether any other suspects had been detained. "The operation is not over yet, and we can't talk about it," said a spokesman with the Interior Ministry's criminal investigation department. Viktoria Tsyplenkova, a spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee's Moscow branch, which is leading the probe into the kidnapping, refused to comment, citing the ongoing investigation. Rosbalt cited a law enforcement source as saying the kidnappers released Stavsky from a car on a road. Stavsky then returned home on his own, the source said. The source also said Stavsky had not seen the faces of his kidnappers and no suspects had been detained. No ransom was paid for his release, Rosbalt reported. Life.ru, citing "official sources," reported that the kidnappers released their hostage amid fears that the police might track them down. It said the police had started searching Moscow apartments where Stavsky had been held at various times after his abduction in April. The kidnappers had demanded a 50 million euro ($71 million) ransom, Novaya Gazeta reported June 1, citing a law enforcement source. Another source told the newspaper that the captors hoped to force the father to make concessions in the oil and gas business and perhaps even secure his resignation as Rosneft vice president, a post he has occupied since 2005. Rosneft is the country's largest oil company, and its chairman is powerful Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin. Investigators said in early June that they had drawn facial composite sketches of two kidnappers. Investigators suspect that an international crime group specializing in kidnappings and headed by Uruguayan resident Denis Shilin is behind the kidnapping, Kommersant reported earlier this month. A suspected member of the crime group, former Moscow police officer Andrei Alyoshin, was arrested in July 2008 and charged this month with four abductions. The news that the younger Stavsky had been abducted only emerged when Novaya Gazeta wrote about it on June 1, about six weeks after the kidnapping. On April 13, Stavsky was pushed into a BMW car by four unidentified kidnappers outside the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas in southwestern Moscow. The abduction is the highest-profile case since LUKoil chief financial officer Sergei Kukura was grabbed by unknown attackers in 2002. Kukura was later freed unharmed. No one has been convicted in that case. Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin had taken the Stavsky investigation under his personal control, Anatoly Bagmet, head of the committee's Moscow branch, said Thursday, Interfax reported.
Oil Tax Plan Would Ease Burden on New Fields
The majority of new oil projects in Russia will not be profitable even with oil prices at $150 per barrel, according to an Energy Ministry proposal on how to reduce taxes at undeveloped fields. Based on data from oil companies, the ministry determined that under the current tax regime most new oil projects would not be financially viable. Of the nearly 10 major deposits, just three would make sense to develop and even then only with a Urals crude price of no less than $60 to $90 per barrel. Without additional tax incentives for new fields, Russian firms will produce 40 million tons less crude in 2013 than they did last year, the ministry said. Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko promised oil firms a new taxation system in February, saying at the time that the development of 94 percent of new fields would be unprofitable under the current tax system and low oil prices. For undeveloped deposits, taxes will be taken from the real accumulated income, or more simply, from the company's excess profit, Shmatko said. Officials raised the idea of a tax on additional income after oil prices collapsed late last year. The export tariffs were not dropping quickly enough to keep up with plummeting crude prices, and in October oil companies were reporting losses of $120 to $140 per ton of exported oil. The mineral extraction tax could be canceled for new fields or could be calculated based on production and transportation costs rather than on volume. In return, a new tax on additional income could be implemented, the Energy Ministry proposal says. The Energy Ministry has submitted it to an intergovernmental group that will need to develop a consensus version, a ministry spokesman said. Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov said Wednesday that it would be "good" if the government were able to rework the taxation system this year. The main task is to "minimize the taxes on the initial and final phases of the development" and to "collect more when the field is producing more," he said, Interfax reported. Under the Finance Ministry's proposal for tax policy until 2012, a tax on additional income would take effect no sooner than 2011 or 2012, with the rates ranging from 15 percent to 60 percent. Russia is one of the few countries with export tariffs for the oil and gas sector, said Simon Wardell, energy analyst at IHS Global Insight. Switching the tariffs, which fluctuate with the price of oil, in favor of another tax would allow Russian companies to plan more effectively, he added. From January to April, the federal budget took in 2.2 trillion rubles ($70.5 billion), 11.5 percent of which was from oil export duties and 9 percent from the mineral extraction tax on crude. But the Energy Ministry's proposals will not likely lead to a noticeable decline in budget revenue, said Alexandra Suslina of the Economic Expert Group. "Some of the new fields have already received holidays on the mineral extraction tax -- no one was expecting an increase in tax revenue from them," she said.
Klitschko To Fight At 60,000 Seat Venue
BERLIN, Germany -- When Vladimir Klitschko steps into the ring against Ruslan Chagaev at Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen on Saturday, it will be in front of the largest boxing audience in Germany since Max Schmeling fought in the 1930s.
Action inside the ropes, however, might not live up to the hype.Klitschko, the IBF and WBO heavyweight champion, was supposed to be fighting David Haye to settle a running verbal feud. But Haye bowed out earlier this month, saying he had injured his back.Haye asked to reschedule the fight in July, but Klitschko wanted to keep the date and the 60,000-seat sellout - the biggest boxing crowd in Germany since Schmeling fought Adolf Heuser in front of 70,000 people in Stuttgart on June 2, 1939."It's a chance that's coming around for the first time in my entire sporting career," the 33-year-old Ukrainian said. "I'm incredibly excited about the 60,000 fans."Chagaev, 30, was named the WBA's "champion in recess" in 2008 after withdrawing from two fights against Nikolai Valuev. After a third bout between the two scheduled for last month in Helsinki was cancelled due to Hepatitis-B antigens being found in Chagaev's blood, the WBA announced Valuev as the rightful champion and put Chagaev's honorary title "under review."As of Friday, the WBA had not clarified whether Klitschko (52-3) will fight for a piece of that title on top of defending his belts.Michael Ehnert, the doctor for Universum, which is promoting Saturday's fight, said Chagaev is fit to fight in Germany."Since getting Hepatitis B many years ago, Ruslan is simply a carrier of Hepatitis-B antigens. This has not led to an infection," Ehnert said.Klitschko has said he has been immunized against Hepatitis B and is not worried about the fight.In February, Chagaev (25-0 with one draw) won a technical decision over Carl Davis Drumond in Rostock, Germany. It was the Uzbekistan-born boxer's first fight in more than a year.
Action inside the ropes, however, might not live up to the hype.Klitschko, the IBF and WBO heavyweight champion, was supposed to be fighting David Haye to settle a running verbal feud. But Haye bowed out earlier this month, saying he had injured his back.Haye asked to reschedule the fight in July, but Klitschko wanted to keep the date and the 60,000-seat sellout - the biggest boxing crowd in Germany since Schmeling fought Adolf Heuser in front of 70,000 people in Stuttgart on June 2, 1939."It's a chance that's coming around for the first time in my entire sporting career," the 33-year-old Ukrainian said. "I'm incredibly excited about the 60,000 fans."Chagaev, 30, was named the WBA's "champion in recess" in 2008 after withdrawing from two fights against Nikolai Valuev. After a third bout between the two scheduled for last month in Helsinki was cancelled due to Hepatitis-B antigens being found in Chagaev's blood, the WBA announced Valuev as the rightful champion and put Chagaev's honorary title "under review."As of Friday, the WBA had not clarified whether Klitschko (52-3) will fight for a piece of that title on top of defending his belts.Michael Ehnert, the doctor for Universum, which is promoting Saturday's fight, said Chagaev is fit to fight in Germany."Since getting Hepatitis B many years ago, Ruslan is simply a carrier of Hepatitis-B antigens. This has not led to an infection," Ehnert said.Klitschko has said he has been immunized against Hepatitis B and is not worried about the fight.In February, Chagaev (25-0 with one draw) won a technical decision over Carl Davis Drumond in Rostock, Germany. It was the Uzbekistan-born boxer's first fight in more than a year.
European Union: Ukraine Needs Help To Avert New Gas Crisis
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union will not help Ukraine pay for Russian gas imports but international financial institutions may help avert a looming crisis, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.
"That is not our responsibility, I should make that clear," Barroso told reporters when asked about EU help at a summit of leaders on Friday.Barroso warned heads of state that Ukraine's financial difficulties might lead to Russia cutting off gas supplies next month, including gas intended for transit to Europe, just as it did in January during a mid-winter pricing dispute."There is the risk of another major gas crisis in weeks," he later told reporters.Russia supplies about 25 percent of EU gas consumption and about 80 percent of those supplies flow to Europe through Ukraine's pipeline network.Barroso told leaders he spoke on Thursday with international agencies including the International Monetary Fund and European gas companies to find a way through the impasse."IFIs (International Financial Institutions) and the European gas companies said they were willing... to help provide stop-gap funding," he said, according to speaking notes seen by Reuters.Separately, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said individual consumers were paying 85 percent of their gas bills but local energy and utility companies were paying no more than 30 percent, aggravating the debts of state gas company Naftogaz."How can the government and Naftogaz do conjuring tricks in settling accounts with Russia for gas when within the country there are 26 billion hryvnias ($3.4 billion) in debts for gas?" she told local officials in Ukraine."That is the total which is to be paid for gas which we consume for the whole year and the figure is rising every month, and turning into a national tragedy."Naftogaz says it will struggle to pay future bills and needs to raise credits worth about $4.2 billion, which it hopes will come from European banks.But it also says large-scale borrowing can be avoided if European gas companies buy gas from Russia and store it in Ukraine to help avert a new crisis.German utility RWE expressed interest in Ukraine's idea and said it had put proposals on the table. But Germany's biggest gas company, E.ON Ruhrgas, ruled such plans out.European industry group Eurogas said it was still consulting its members and could not yet gauge their response.
"That is not our responsibility, I should make that clear," Barroso told reporters when asked about EU help at a summit of leaders on Friday.Barroso warned heads of state that Ukraine's financial difficulties might lead to Russia cutting off gas supplies next month, including gas intended for transit to Europe, just as it did in January during a mid-winter pricing dispute."There is the risk of another major gas crisis in weeks," he later told reporters.Russia supplies about 25 percent of EU gas consumption and about 80 percent of those supplies flow to Europe through Ukraine's pipeline network.Barroso told leaders he spoke on Thursday with international agencies including the International Monetary Fund and European gas companies to find a way through the impasse."IFIs (International Financial Institutions) and the European gas companies said they were willing... to help provide stop-gap funding," he said, according to speaking notes seen by Reuters.Separately, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said individual consumers were paying 85 percent of their gas bills but local energy and utility companies were paying no more than 30 percent, aggravating the debts of state gas company Naftogaz."How can the government and Naftogaz do conjuring tricks in settling accounts with Russia for gas when within the country there are 26 billion hryvnias ($3.4 billion) in debts for gas?" she told local officials in Ukraine."That is the total which is to be paid for gas which we consume for the whole year and the figure is rising every month, and turning into a national tragedy."Naftogaz says it will struggle to pay future bills and needs to raise credits worth about $4.2 billion, which it hopes will come from European banks.But it also says large-scale borrowing can be avoided if European gas companies buy gas from Russia and store it in Ukraine to help avert a new crisis.German utility RWE expressed interest in Ukraine's idea and said it had put proposals on the table. But Germany's biggest gas company, E.ON Ruhrgas, ruled such plans out.European industry group Eurogas said it was still consulting its members and could not yet gauge their response.
Friday 19 June 2009
Nigeria 'Wrong' To Seize Weapons
The owners of a Ukrainian aircraft seized in northern Nigeria with a cargo of weapons say the authorities there have no reason to hold it. Nigerian officials say they found 18 crates of weapons on board the plane bound for Equatorial Guinea.
The Ukrainian company told Russian news agency Itar-Tass the aeroplane landed in Kano city to refuel and had all the correct permits and documents.It was initially reported that the aircraft had made an emergency landing.The plane was flying from Croatia and Ukrainian arms export agency Ukrspetseksport said the cargo did not belong to Ukraine."There were all [the] permits for this flight, including from the Nigerian authorities. There were no violations regarding either the plane or the cargo, or the documents," Meridian Director-General Mykola Minyaylo was quoted as saying."The plane was flying from Zagreb to Equatorial Guinea and landed in Nigeria to refuel."The seven-member crew had had their passports seized but were in good physical condition, he said.The BBC's Mustafa Mohamed in Kano says the aircraft has been placed under guard, and security forces are continuing their investigations.Attack on palaceEarlier this year, the authorities in Equatorial Guinea arrested a number of people in connection with an attack on the presidential palace in the capital, Malabo.A the time of the incident, in February, state radio in Equatorial Guinea said that those detained had been operating with members of a militant group based in Nigeria's Niger Delta region.It said some of those who attacked the palace had been killed or wounded.The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) denied involvement.Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema later dismissed several government ministers.The president has been in power in the oil-rich former Spanish colony since seizing power in a coup in 1979.His government has long been accused of human rights abuses and of suppressing political opposition.Last year, a former British army officer, Simon Mann, was sentenced to 34 years in jail for plotting to overthrow him in 2004.
The Ukrainian company told Russian news agency Itar-Tass the aeroplane landed in Kano city to refuel and had all the correct permits and documents.It was initially reported that the aircraft had made an emergency landing.The plane was flying from Croatia and Ukrainian arms export agency Ukrspetseksport said the cargo did not belong to Ukraine."There were all [the] permits for this flight, including from the Nigerian authorities. There were no violations regarding either the plane or the cargo, or the documents," Meridian Director-General Mykola Minyaylo was quoted as saying."The plane was flying from Zagreb to Equatorial Guinea and landed in Nigeria to refuel."The seven-member crew had had their passports seized but were in good physical condition, he said.The BBC's Mustafa Mohamed in Kano says the aircraft has been placed under guard, and security forces are continuing their investigations.Attack on palaceEarlier this year, the authorities in Equatorial Guinea arrested a number of people in connection with an attack on the presidential palace in the capital, Malabo.A the time of the incident, in February, state radio in Equatorial Guinea said that those detained had been operating with members of a militant group based in Nigeria's Niger Delta region.It said some of those who attacked the palace had been killed or wounded.The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) denied involvement.Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema later dismissed several government ministers.The president has been in power in the oil-rich former Spanish colony since seizing power in a coup in 1979.His government has long been accused of human rights abuses and of suppressing political opposition.Last year, a former British army officer, Simon Mann, was sentenced to 34 years in jail for plotting to overthrow him in 2004.
Are Ukrainian Journalists Missing The Real Story?
KIEV, Ukraine — Merely saying the forest’s name — Bykivnya — can cause strong emotions for millions of Ukrainians. This is where the secret police of Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin buried 100,000 of their victims between 1937 and 1941 in a mass grave northeast of Kiev.
President Victor Yushchenko did not mince words during his recent speech there, on Ukraine’s Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression.“Here, at Bykivnya, Stalin and his monstrous hangmen killed the bloom of Ukraine. There is no forgiveness and there will be none,” he told several thousand mourners and, of course, Ukrainian journalists.The mourners wept, while processing through the site behind Orthodox clergy who carried liturgical banners containing iconic images of Jesus and Mary.“Because of the national symbolism of this ceremony, the priests there may not be important,” said Victor Yelensky, a sociologist of religion associated with the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences.“But the priests have to be there because this is Ukraine and this is a ceremony that is about a great tragedy in the history of Ukraine.“So the priests are there. It is part ... of a civil religion.”This is where the story gets complicated. In the Ukrainian media, photographs and video images showed the clergy, with their dramatic banners and colorful vestments. However, in their reporting, journalists never mentioned what the clergy said or did.Mainstream media reports also failed to mention which Orthodoxy body or bodies were represented. This is an important gap because of the tense and complicated nature of the religious marketplace in this historically Eastern Orthodox culture.It would have been big news, for example, if clergy from the giant Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) — with direct ties to Moscow — had taken part in a ceremony that featured Yushchenko, who, as usual, aimed angry words to the north.But what if the clergy were exclusively from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate), born after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 and linked to declarations of Ukrainian independence? What if there were also clergy from a third body, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, born early in the 20th century?A rite featuring clergy from one or both of these newer churches also would have been symbolic. After all, these days almost anything can create tensions between Ukraine and Russia, from natural gas prices to efforts to emphasize the Ukrainian language, from exhibits of uniquely Ukrainian art to decisions about which statues are torn down or which are erected.But it’s hard for Ukrainian journalists to ask these kinds of questions and print what they learn when people answer them, according to a circle of journalists — secular and religious — at a Kiev forum last week focusing on trends in religion news in their nation. I was one of the speakers, along with another colleague from the Oxford Centre for Religion & Public Life.As in America, Ukrainian journalists often assume that politics is the only faith that matters in life. The journalists in Kiev also said that they struggle to escape Soviet-era rules stating that religion was bad, irrelevant or, at best, merely private. Many journalists lack historical knowledge required to do accurate coverage of religion, while others do not care, because they shun organized religion.“Many would say that, if we do not play the violin, we really should not attempt to comment on how others play the violin,” said Yuri Makarov, editor in chief of Ukrainian Week, speaking through a translator.This blind spot is unfortunate, because Ukrainian journalists may have missed a crucial piece of the Bykivnya story, said Yelensky. It’s hard to understand the soul of Ukraine without grasping the power of religion.“For many Orthodox people in western Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable to live in any way under the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate. At the same time, for many Orthodox in eastern Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable to not to be associated and in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. In the middle are places like Kiev. ...“This is a division that is inside Ukrainian society. Is it based on religion? No. Is religion right there in the heart of it? Yes.”
President Victor Yushchenko did not mince words during his recent speech there, on Ukraine’s Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression.“Here, at Bykivnya, Stalin and his monstrous hangmen killed the bloom of Ukraine. There is no forgiveness and there will be none,” he told several thousand mourners and, of course, Ukrainian journalists.The mourners wept, while processing through the site behind Orthodox clergy who carried liturgical banners containing iconic images of Jesus and Mary.“Because of the national symbolism of this ceremony, the priests there may not be important,” said Victor Yelensky, a sociologist of religion associated with the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences.“But the priests have to be there because this is Ukraine and this is a ceremony that is about a great tragedy in the history of Ukraine.“So the priests are there. It is part ... of a civil religion.”This is where the story gets complicated. In the Ukrainian media, photographs and video images showed the clergy, with their dramatic banners and colorful vestments. However, in their reporting, journalists never mentioned what the clergy said or did.Mainstream media reports also failed to mention which Orthodoxy body or bodies were represented. This is an important gap because of the tense and complicated nature of the religious marketplace in this historically Eastern Orthodox culture.It would have been big news, for example, if clergy from the giant Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) — with direct ties to Moscow — had taken part in a ceremony that featured Yushchenko, who, as usual, aimed angry words to the north.But what if the clergy were exclusively from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate), born after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 and linked to declarations of Ukrainian independence? What if there were also clergy from a third body, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, born early in the 20th century?A rite featuring clergy from one or both of these newer churches also would have been symbolic. After all, these days almost anything can create tensions between Ukraine and Russia, from natural gas prices to efforts to emphasize the Ukrainian language, from exhibits of uniquely Ukrainian art to decisions about which statues are torn down or which are erected.But it’s hard for Ukrainian journalists to ask these kinds of questions and print what they learn when people answer them, according to a circle of journalists — secular and religious — at a Kiev forum last week focusing on trends in religion news in their nation. I was one of the speakers, along with another colleague from the Oxford Centre for Religion & Public Life.As in America, Ukrainian journalists often assume that politics is the only faith that matters in life. The journalists in Kiev also said that they struggle to escape Soviet-era rules stating that religion was bad, irrelevant or, at best, merely private. Many journalists lack historical knowledge required to do accurate coverage of religion, while others do not care, because they shun organized religion.“Many would say that, if we do not play the violin, we really should not attempt to comment on how others play the violin,” said Yuri Makarov, editor in chief of Ukrainian Week, speaking through a translator.This blind spot is unfortunate, because Ukrainian journalists may have missed a crucial piece of the Bykivnya story, said Yelensky. It’s hard to understand the soul of Ukraine without grasping the power of religion.“For many Orthodox people in western Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable to live in any way under the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate. At the same time, for many Orthodox in eastern Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable to not to be associated and in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. In the middle are places like Kiev. ...“This is a division that is inside Ukrainian society. Is it based on religion? No. Is religion right there in the heart of it? Yes.”
Ukraine: The Politics Of Hairstyle
KIEV, UKRAINE – It was one of the icons of Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution”: Yulia Tymoshenko’s blond braid, coiled around her head like a crown, hit news pages the world over as she stood defiantly alongside Viktor Yushchenko at Independence Square in Kiev in 2004 to protest a rigged presidential vote.
The traditional Ukrainian braid became a permanent feature atop Ms. Tymoshenko’s head in the run-up to the elections, underlining her patriotic credentials and appeal in the nationally minded western part of the country.It soon became the world’s most famous political hairstyle and a central part of her image as the Orange Princess.So when Tymoshenko, now Ukraine’s prime minister, turned up to a cabinet meeting last month with her hair combed back into a modest bun, tongues were set wagging.“No supermodel or Hollywood actress can create such a furor over a change of hairstyles as Tymoshenko,” wrote leading news magazine Korrespondent. “Ministers, journalists, and even political analysts forgot about the agenda and started guessing what had prompted her to change her image.”With the next presidential election approaching in January, was she trying to soften her patriotic image in an effort to appeal to Russia-friendly voters in the east and south of Ukraine? After all, she has recently been courting closer relations with the Kremlin.Or perhaps this was an “anticrisis” hairstyle, an attempt to distract from questions about her handling of Ukraine’s significant economic woes or to present a more austere, professional image.For her part, Tymoshenko pleaded with reporters not to read anything into her new hairdo. “A normal woman is simply obliged sometimes to change her image. I, too, continually try to be a normal woman. Unfortunately, work gets in the way.”
The traditional Ukrainian braid became a permanent feature atop Ms. Tymoshenko’s head in the run-up to the elections, underlining her patriotic credentials and appeal in the nationally minded western part of the country.It soon became the world’s most famous political hairstyle and a central part of her image as the Orange Princess.So when Tymoshenko, now Ukraine’s prime minister, turned up to a cabinet meeting last month with her hair combed back into a modest bun, tongues were set wagging.“No supermodel or Hollywood actress can create such a furor over a change of hairstyles as Tymoshenko,” wrote leading news magazine Korrespondent. “Ministers, journalists, and even political analysts forgot about the agenda and started guessing what had prompted her to change her image.”With the next presidential election approaching in January, was she trying to soften her patriotic image in an effort to appeal to Russia-friendly voters in the east and south of Ukraine? After all, she has recently been courting closer relations with the Kremlin.Or perhaps this was an “anticrisis” hairstyle, an attempt to distract from questions about her handling of Ukraine’s significant economic woes or to present a more austere, professional image.For her part, Tymoshenko pleaded with reporters not to read anything into her new hairdo. “A normal woman is simply obliged sometimes to change her image. I, too, continually try to be a normal woman. Unfortunately, work gets in the way.”
Wednesday 17 June 2009
Russia Has Paid Ukraine Total Gas Transit Fees For 2009 - Putin
MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia has already paid Ukraine in full for its 2009 gas transit fees, a payment that effectively amounts to a huge loan to the crisis-battered country, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.
"We pre-paid our Ukrainian partners for the transit of our gas to Europe to the start of next year, 2010, inclusive. Essentially this is a credit of $2.2 billion," he said, quoted by Interfax news agency."These are very significant resources which our Ukraine partners have effectively received from Russia," Putin said at a meeting with Alexei Miller, chief executive of Russian state-controlled gas giant OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS)."I hope very much that discipline within the framework of existing contracts will be maintained by both sides and in the future," he added.Russia has warned repeatedly that Ukraine - which has been hit hard by the global economic crisis - will have trouble paying its natural gas bills and that any failure to pay could trigger a repeat of the January gas crisis.Ukraine says it has the money to pay its bills, and it avoided a looming crisis earlier this month when it paid its May gas bill. However, there is widespread doubt about whether Kiev can pay its next gas bill for June.In the January gas crisis, a bitter price dispute between Moscow and Kiev caused Gazprom to cut gas supplies to Ukraine, leaving more than a dozen European countries without Russian gas in the middle of winter.Some 80% of Russian gas exports to the European Union pass through Ukraine.
"We pre-paid our Ukrainian partners for the transit of our gas to Europe to the start of next year, 2010, inclusive. Essentially this is a credit of $2.2 billion," he said, quoted by Interfax news agency."These are very significant resources which our Ukraine partners have effectively received from Russia," Putin said at a meeting with Alexei Miller, chief executive of Russian state-controlled gas giant OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS)."I hope very much that discipline within the framework of existing contracts will be maintained by both sides and in the future," he added.Russia has warned repeatedly that Ukraine - which has been hit hard by the global economic crisis - will have trouble paying its natural gas bills and that any failure to pay could trigger a repeat of the January gas crisis.Ukraine says it has the money to pay its bills, and it avoided a looming crisis earlier this month when it paid its May gas bill. However, there is widespread doubt about whether Kiev can pay its next gas bill for June.In the January gas crisis, a bitter price dispute between Moscow and Kiev caused Gazprom to cut gas supplies to Ukraine, leaving more than a dozen European countries without Russian gas in the middle of winter.Some 80% of Russian gas exports to the European Union pass through Ukraine.
Ukraine Minister Resigns Over Euro-2012 Preparations
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's transport minister resigned on Wednesday, saying Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was blocking funds needed to prepare for the Euro-2012 football championships.
Yosip Vinsky, who rivals say may run against Tymoshenko in a presidential election early next year, said the government was not doing enough to prepare for Europe's top international football competition, which Ukraine is co-hosting with Poland."The prime minister is blocking ... the deployment of sufficient resources for the construction of infrastructure for the Euro-2012 championships," Vinsky said, according to quotes provided by his press service to announce his resignation.The preparations were one of a series of political and policy disagreements with Tymoshenko that forced him to resign, Vinsky said.UEFA president Michel Platini last month warned the Euro-2012 final could be moved to Warsaw if problems with Kiev's main stadium, airport and transport infrastructure were not resolved.Vinsky is the fourth minister to leave the government this year amid political turmoil in the run up to next year's presidential election.
Yosip Vinsky, who rivals say may run against Tymoshenko in a presidential election early next year, said the government was not doing enough to prepare for Europe's top international football competition, which Ukraine is co-hosting with Poland."The prime minister is blocking ... the deployment of sufficient resources for the construction of infrastructure for the Euro-2012 championships," Vinsky said, according to quotes provided by his press service to announce his resignation.The preparations were one of a series of political and policy disagreements with Tymoshenko that forced him to resign, Vinsky said.UEFA president Michel Platini last month warned the Euro-2012 final could be moved to Warsaw if problems with Kiev's main stadium, airport and transport infrastructure were not resolved.Vinsky is the fourth minister to leave the government this year amid political turmoil in the run up to next year's presidential election.
Tuesday 16 June 2009
Russia Leads Europe In Reporter Killings
A new count shows that Russia leads Europe in the number of journalists killed in homicides and accidents since 1991 and that many of the deaths were politically motivated but largely ignored by law enforcement authorities. The International Union of Journalists presented on Monday a report that lists 312 homicides and accidents in Russia. On the list are four journalists who died this year, including Anastasia Baburova, a freelance reporter with Novaya Gazeta who was shot dead in central Moscow with human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov on Jan. 19. In contrast, two journalists have been killed in Germany since 1991, while one journalist has been killed in Britain and no journalists have been killed in France or Italy, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. No suspects have been identified in Baburova's death or in many of the other cases named in the report. John Crowfoot, editor and author of the report, criticized law enforcement authorities for not doing more to bring the killers to justice. "There is a group of states which have a persistent problem of impunity. They are Turkey, India, Mexico, Brazil and Russia," Crowfoot said in an interview after a news conference where he presented the report. "It's important to have independent information, especially if you are doing business," he added. Crowfoot said at the news conference that reporters and lawyers needed to work more closely with the police and prosecutors. But no law enforcement officials who were invited to the presentation of the report showed up, said Alexei Simonov, head of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, which helped compile the statistics for the report. "They consider the data that we publish as a product of idiocy," he said with indignation. Oleg Panfilov, head of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, which also participated in preparing the report, said several deaths from the 1990s were probably missing from the report, but few if any deaths had escaped observers' notice since 2000. Among the highest-profile of those deaths were the killing of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya in her apartment building in 2006 and the shooting death of U.S. reporter Paul Klebnikov outside the offices of Forbes' Russia edition in 2004. No one has been jailed in either killing, both of which occurred in Moscow. Moscow is the most dangerous place for journalists in Russia, even more than in relatively unsafe regions like Chechnya, the new report says. "The ones who are more often being targeted for the work they do are editors of a new paper or web site. They are trying to start something new ... and [are] being targeted," Crowfoot said.
Heated Ukraine Polls Ahead
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine is readying itself for a fiercely competitive presidential election after the collapse of a proposed coalition deal between the two largest parties that would have redrawn political boundaries.
The failed talks leave unresolved for now long-running debates on changing the constitution to make Ukraine easier to govern after 4 1/2 years of turmoil since the "Orange Revolution" swept pro-Western politicians to power.How to resolve that depends largely on who wins the election, with the race's two frontrunners the chief players in the failed deal - Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-premier Viktor Yanukovich.But, unlike in many former Soviet republics, the result of the contest-likely to take place in January - is far from predictable given a record of hard-fought and spirited, though violence-free, campaigns. "We are heading into a mad election campaign similar to Russian roulette, where no one knows who will win or lose," said Viktor Nebozhenko of the Ukrainian Barometer think tank.After the election, constitutional change will again be raised. No one can run the country on his own and the oligarchs will force politicians to reach a deal. If Tymoshenko and Yanukovich can't do this, it will be done without them." Yanukovich leads polls with over 20 percent support. Tymoshenko is close behind on 15 percent, with a former speaker of parliament, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, third on 12 percent.President Viktor Yushchenko, the prime minister's estranged ally from the revolution, trails in single figures. A deal had been mooted off and on for months between Tymoshenko and Yanukovich despite their long-running, public hostility to each other dating from well before the 2004 mass "orange" protests against election fraud when they stood on opposing sides.It was uncertain how Moscow would have seen the deal as it has exploited constant turmoil in Ukraine. The European Union has long called for stability on its eastern border.The accord was based on a coalition with 300 seats in the 450-seat parliament, enough to change the constitution and have the president elected by the assembly rather than by popular vote. Yanukovich would have become president and Tymoshenko would have remained premier, with the two forces dividing up key jobs.The deal's collapse prompted the sort of recriminations that have tainted politics since Yushchenko took office in the aftermath of the 2004 mass protests promising quick reforms to bring Ukraine out of Russia's shadow and closer to the West. "What we saw was the triumph of what has become the typical logic of mistrust, suspicion and egoistic interests in Ukrainian politics," said Volodymyr Fesenko of the Penta think tank. "Tymoshenko and Yanukovich can now present constitutional reform as a bargaining chip in the campaign.The deal's proponents saw a cure for the paralysis of endless rows, most pitting Tymoshenko against Yushchenko, as the financial crisis sent industrial production plunging by a third. It was also promoted as a historic chance to overcome hostility between nationalist western Ukraine, where Tymoshenko gets most of her backing, and the Russian-speaking industrial east, Yanukovich's main support base.In the end, Yanukovich backed out, saying he could not envisage a president unelected by voters. Tymoshenko accused him of squandering a final chance for Ukrainian unity.Yushchenko, openly derided by most Ukrainians, said he had helped counter the deal amounting to a "constitutional coup." But even with the deal pronounced dead, officials from both have suggested they could keep talking.Yanukovich, who was backed by Moscow, was the big loser in the "orange" upheavals. Initially declared the winner of the rigged 2004 presidential poll, he lost to Yushchenko in a rerun ordered by the courts.The deal to proceed with the new election was underpinned by heated parliamentary debate which overhauled the constitution by trimming the president's powers at the height of the protests.All politicians agree a new revision of some sort is needed. Parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, who played a key role in resolving the deadlock in 2004, said a consensus would have to be found after the election. "The main issue lies in how to preserve the country after the presidential campaign is over so that it does not disintegrate in the process of political confrontation."
The failed talks leave unresolved for now long-running debates on changing the constitution to make Ukraine easier to govern after 4 1/2 years of turmoil since the "Orange Revolution" swept pro-Western politicians to power.How to resolve that depends largely on who wins the election, with the race's two frontrunners the chief players in the failed deal - Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-premier Viktor Yanukovich.But, unlike in many former Soviet republics, the result of the contest-likely to take place in January - is far from predictable given a record of hard-fought and spirited, though violence-free, campaigns. "We are heading into a mad election campaign similar to Russian roulette, where no one knows who will win or lose," said Viktor Nebozhenko of the Ukrainian Barometer think tank.After the election, constitutional change will again be raised. No one can run the country on his own and the oligarchs will force politicians to reach a deal. If Tymoshenko and Yanukovich can't do this, it will be done without them." Yanukovich leads polls with over 20 percent support. Tymoshenko is close behind on 15 percent, with a former speaker of parliament, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, third on 12 percent.President Viktor Yushchenko, the prime minister's estranged ally from the revolution, trails in single figures. A deal had been mooted off and on for months between Tymoshenko and Yanukovich despite their long-running, public hostility to each other dating from well before the 2004 mass "orange" protests against election fraud when they stood on opposing sides.It was uncertain how Moscow would have seen the deal as it has exploited constant turmoil in Ukraine. The European Union has long called for stability on its eastern border.The accord was based on a coalition with 300 seats in the 450-seat parliament, enough to change the constitution and have the president elected by the assembly rather than by popular vote. Yanukovich would have become president and Tymoshenko would have remained premier, with the two forces dividing up key jobs.The deal's collapse prompted the sort of recriminations that have tainted politics since Yushchenko took office in the aftermath of the 2004 mass protests promising quick reforms to bring Ukraine out of Russia's shadow and closer to the West. "What we saw was the triumph of what has become the typical logic of mistrust, suspicion and egoistic interests in Ukrainian politics," said Volodymyr Fesenko of the Penta think tank. "Tymoshenko and Yanukovich can now present constitutional reform as a bargaining chip in the campaign.The deal's proponents saw a cure for the paralysis of endless rows, most pitting Tymoshenko against Yushchenko, as the financial crisis sent industrial production plunging by a third. It was also promoted as a historic chance to overcome hostility between nationalist western Ukraine, where Tymoshenko gets most of her backing, and the Russian-speaking industrial east, Yanukovich's main support base.In the end, Yanukovich backed out, saying he could not envisage a president unelected by voters. Tymoshenko accused him of squandering a final chance for Ukrainian unity.Yushchenko, openly derided by most Ukrainians, said he had helped counter the deal amounting to a "constitutional coup." But even with the deal pronounced dead, officials from both have suggested they could keep talking.Yanukovich, who was backed by Moscow, was the big loser in the "orange" upheavals. Initially declared the winner of the rigged 2004 presidential poll, he lost to Yushchenko in a rerun ordered by the courts.The deal to proceed with the new election was underpinned by heated parliamentary debate which overhauled the constitution by trimming the president's powers at the height of the protests.All politicians agree a new revision of some sort is needed. Parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, who played a key role in resolving the deadlock in 2004, said a consensus would have to be found after the election. "The main issue lies in how to preserve the country after the presidential campaign is over so that it does not disintegrate in the process of political confrontation."
Monday 15 June 2009
Yushchenko Leaves Russian In Draft Constitution Out Of Respect For Russians
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said he has decided to leave a mention of the Russian language in his draft new constitution out of respect for the Russian community in the country.
“I would like to make myself clear as president that the current version of the language policy in Ukraine is correct” the Ukrainian language is an official language, a maternal language that is protected and developed by a special law,” Yushchenko said during a teleconference with law students on Friday.“As for the Russian language and other ethnic minority languages, we fully comply with the requirements of the European convention on languages [European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages],” he said.According to the president, the Russian language is mentioned in the draft constitution “solely out of tactfulness and respect for the minority that is the biggest among ethnic minorities” in Ukraine.He noted that the principles proclaimed in the current constitution would be continued.“This is an ethical compromise and respect for the people who know this language,” he added.Yushchenko believes that it won’t be possible to change the constitution before the upcoming presidential election to be held on January 17, 2010.Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vasily Kirilich said the problem of the Russian language in the country was far-fetched."I do not see any problems with the Russian language in Ukraine," he said after a visit to the country by OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Knut Vollebaek.In Ukraine "every citizen speaks the language which he considers native or which he more comfortable for communication", Kirilich said."Where else in the world is there a parliament where deputies speak a foreign [Russian] language, except for the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada?" he said.He stressed the need "to speak about what Ukraine and Russia have in common rather then focus on what they have in difference"."Our countries have very many common and generally positive things," Kirilich said.Vollebaek studied the educational rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. During his trips to Kiev, the Crimea, the Donetsk and Lvov regions, Vollebaek visited educational institutions where teaching is conducted in Russian and meet with members of the Russian community, central and regional authorities.Vollebaek is now expected to prepare a report with recommendations on how to ensure the educational rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. The document will be handed over to the Russian government.Kirilich said the reports should be expected by autumn.Ukraine does not have to account to anyone for its language policy, Culture and Tourism Minister Vasily Vovkun said."Our actions should be principled, consistent and offensive because they are based on the Constitution of Ukraine and national interests," Vovkun said.The minister made it clear that "the development of an integral national language and cultural space based on the promotion of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of public life, on the presence of the national cultural product in proper volumes on the domestic market has been determined by the government as an important strategic objective. But the implementation of this strategic task envisages, among other things, the adoption and practical realisation of Ukraine's Language Policy Concept, the new Ukrainian law 'On the Official Language', and amendments to the Law on the Ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages."Having emphasised the need for strict compliance with language legislation in Ukraine, Vovkun expressed his readiness to "allow Russian-speaking residents of cities in the east and south of the country to learn the official language through language courses set up under cultural institutions, such as libraries, higher educational institutions, theatres, research and methodology centres."However he did not specify whether it would be an operational or obligatory procedure for people living in regions that have been fighting for the quality of the Russian and Ukrainian languages for more than 20 years.However Verkhovna Rada member Vadim Kolesnichnko said the rights of Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine were systematically violated."The Verkhovna Rada has adopted 43 laws that exclude the Russian language from our life," Kolesnichenko said."Over 3,000 schools have been destroyed" over the years of independence, he said.Teaching in universities in 19 Ukrainian regions where half of the population speak Russian is conducted in Ukrainian. There are no Russian-language schools in six regions, and four regions each have only one.According to the lawmaker, the Russian language has been barred from radio, television, films, and business. "The future of our children is not enviable" in such a situation, he added.
“I would like to make myself clear as president that the current version of the language policy in Ukraine is correct” the Ukrainian language is an official language, a maternal language that is protected and developed by a special law,” Yushchenko said during a teleconference with law students on Friday.“As for the Russian language and other ethnic minority languages, we fully comply with the requirements of the European convention on languages [European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages],” he said.According to the president, the Russian language is mentioned in the draft constitution “solely out of tactfulness and respect for the minority that is the biggest among ethnic minorities” in Ukraine.He noted that the principles proclaimed in the current constitution would be continued.“This is an ethical compromise and respect for the people who know this language,” he added.Yushchenko believes that it won’t be possible to change the constitution before the upcoming presidential election to be held on January 17, 2010.Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vasily Kirilich said the problem of the Russian language in the country was far-fetched."I do not see any problems with the Russian language in Ukraine," he said after a visit to the country by OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Knut Vollebaek.In Ukraine "every citizen speaks the language which he considers native or which he more comfortable for communication", Kirilich said."Where else in the world is there a parliament where deputies speak a foreign [Russian] language, except for the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada?" he said.He stressed the need "to speak about what Ukraine and Russia have in common rather then focus on what they have in difference"."Our countries have very many common and generally positive things," Kirilich said.Vollebaek studied the educational rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. During his trips to Kiev, the Crimea, the Donetsk and Lvov regions, Vollebaek visited educational institutions where teaching is conducted in Russian and meet with members of the Russian community, central and regional authorities.Vollebaek is now expected to prepare a report with recommendations on how to ensure the educational rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. The document will be handed over to the Russian government.Kirilich said the reports should be expected by autumn.Ukraine does not have to account to anyone for its language policy, Culture and Tourism Minister Vasily Vovkun said."Our actions should be principled, consistent and offensive because they are based on the Constitution of Ukraine and national interests," Vovkun said.The minister made it clear that "the development of an integral national language and cultural space based on the promotion of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of public life, on the presence of the national cultural product in proper volumes on the domestic market has been determined by the government as an important strategic objective. But the implementation of this strategic task envisages, among other things, the adoption and practical realisation of Ukraine's Language Policy Concept, the new Ukrainian law 'On the Official Language', and amendments to the Law on the Ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages."Having emphasised the need for strict compliance with language legislation in Ukraine, Vovkun expressed his readiness to "allow Russian-speaking residents of cities in the east and south of the country to learn the official language through language courses set up under cultural institutions, such as libraries, higher educational institutions, theatres, research and methodology centres."However he did not specify whether it would be an operational or obligatory procedure for people living in regions that have been fighting for the quality of the Russian and Ukrainian languages for more than 20 years.However Verkhovna Rada member Vadim Kolesnichnko said the rights of Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine were systematically violated."The Verkhovna Rada has adopted 43 laws that exclude the Russian language from our life," Kolesnichenko said."Over 3,000 schools have been destroyed" over the years of independence, he said.Teaching in universities in 19 Ukrainian regions where half of the population speak Russian is conducted in Ukrainian. There are no Russian-language schools in six regions, and four regions each have only one.According to the lawmaker, the Russian language has been barred from radio, television, films, and business. "The future of our children is not enviable" in such a situation, he added.
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