KIEV, Ukraine -- Size does matter. Particularly when it comes to campaign ads in Ukraine's January 17 presidential election. Here, the guiding principle is: the bigger, the better. In a country where advertising was practically nonexistent during the Soviet era, today the billboard is king.
One of the first things a visitor notices upon leaving Ukraine's main airport, Boryspil, en route to Kiev is the seemingly endless chain of billboards that escort her all the way to the capital. Currently, it's the slogans of presidential hopefuls that make up the lion's share of this type of advertising.Vadym Karasyov, a prominent Ukrainian political analyst and director of the Institute for Global Strategies, recently made the claim that Ukrainians are not guided by political programs when they go to the polls. Rather, he argued, they vote for the slogan they like best.So Ukraine's 18 presidential candidates have their work cut out for them -- and billboards are proving perhaps the biggest and most immediate way of bringing those slogans to the voter.The 'She' CampaignYulia Tymoshenko, the current prime minister and one of the leading contenders for the presidency, launched her billboard attack well before the campaign's official kickoff on October 18.As early as August, signs were already appearing over the capital's streets bearing messages like: "They strike -- she works," "They block -- she works," and "They ruin -- she works." The slogans were unveiled references to the Ukrainian parliament, which has spent the good part of 2009 doing basically nothing because one faction or another was blocking the rostrum.Despite the fact that the signs bore no identifiable copyright marks, photographs, or indication of political affiliation, it wasn't difficult to decipher that the "she" in question was none other than Tymoshenko.Now "she" is all over the country, on billboards of all shapes and sizes. And in a clever turn, the "she" has now become more than just Ms. Tymoshenko: Now "she" is Ukraine herself. As a recent ad announces: "She works, she will win, she is Ukraine."Some political analysts have praised the "she" campaign as memorable. And indeed, the charismatic Tymoshenko, with her ever-present braids, appears to have had little trouble solidifying her public image. Current polls put her in second place, with a healthy lead over her former Orange Revolution partner, incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko.'For The People'The man she trails behind is Viktor Yanukovych, someone who has had his share of negative image perception. Yanukovych, leader of today's parliamentary opposition, lost in the last presidential election to Yushchenko.A tall, imposing figure of a man, Yanukovych is an awkward and undynamic communicator. Twice imprisoned for theft and violence in his youth, Yanukovych continues to be perceived by some as a thug, despite having his criminal record expunged.Whether the very digitally enhanced image beaming down from his campaign billboards will change that perception remains to be seen. Where Tymoshenko has identified herself as Ukraine, Yanukovych, true to form, is simply himself.Initially, Yanukovych's billboards boasted that each and every person's complaint, idea, and view would be heard. The next round of ads, logically, suggested the listening period was over and one of action had begun. Last but not least, a third group of Yanukovych billboards proclaimed, in a brusque and seemingly Soviet manner: "Your opinion has been heard. The problem has been solved."Currently, his leading campaign slogan is "Ukraine for the people." In a recent call-in program with RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, political analysts deemed the slogan ineffective and perilously reminiscent of the old Soviet slogan "Everything for the people." One listener even suggested that if Yanukovych really is listening to all views and all people, then he should listen to the portion of the electorate who don't want to see him become president and quit the race.Misfires And Mystery MenAnother candidate who has taken his campaign to the billboards is the current parliamentary speaker, Volodymyr Lytvyn. He plastered Kiev with bright yellow, anonymous billboards with such mysterious slogans as "Only he is worthy of leading Ukraine," and "Only he can be trusted with our future."While no one had any trouble identifying the "she" as Tymoshenko, for weeks no one quite knew who the "he" in question could be. Some suspected it was the incumbent, Yushchenko. But then Lytvyn dispelled the mystery and, overnight, his face appeared on billboards.The youngest of the candidates, 35-year-old former Foreign Minister and parliamentary speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk, was initially thought by many to be Ukraine's fresh young hope in these elections. He created the Front for Change, claimed to be a new style of politician, and by spring 2008 he was pulling in 12-13-percent support.And then he hired a Russian team to run his campaign. They devised a pseudo-military approach and message for him. An intent-looking Yatsenyuk now peers down from a billboard that proclaims "Ukraine will be saved by new industrialization." Promises extend to a battle-ready army. A productive agrarian sector. Healthy and educated people. Yatsenyuk's youthfulness and new approach have evaporated amid a misguided, khaki-colored campaign that harks back to Soviet ideas and slogans.Billboard slogans are slowly giving way to television commercials, but the boards still continue to be omnipresent throughout the country.Tymoshenko's slogans have even inspired witty rebuttals from another female candidate on two of the biggest billboards to date, which claim: "I will win, so she can stop working," and "I will win, so she can have a rest."Those promises are made by Inna Bohoslovska, formerly of Yanukovych's Party of Regions, a so-called technological candidate with no chance of winning but whose sole purpose is to siphon votes from others.
Saturday 28 November 2009
EU Turns Away From Ukraine
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- EU officials are casting a wary eye at Ukraine as it prepares for watershed presidential elections in January that look likely to spark a lurch back towards the Russian sphere five years after the former Soviet republic was supposedly set free by the "Orange Revolution".
The cautious approach in Brussels is again raising questions about the EU's apparent lack of a strategic vision – and political courage – in its dealing with its eastern neighbours.Fierce rivalry between President Viktor Yushchenko, who is standing for re-election, and his prime minister and principal opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, is feeding worries about the recession-ravaged country's political and economic stability.Yushchenko's decision this month to approve a 20% increase in wages and pensions, characterised by critics as a crude pre-election bribe, led the IMF to freeze the fourth instalment of a $16.4bn bailout package. That in turn increased credit market fears of a sovereign default.Tymoshenko, a famously combative millionaire currently leading in the polls, accused the president of deliberately sabotaging the IMF agreement to starve her government of cash and undermine her presidential bid.But she in turn has been accused of sucking up to the Russians, in the shape of the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, who as Russia's then president opposed the Orange Revolution and is an inveterate Yushchenko foe.After late-night talks with Tymoshenko in the Crimean resort of Yalta last week, Putin said he had agreed to waive various penalties and amend Russia's natural gas supply contract with Ukraine to avoid a repeat of last January's dispute, which led to serious gas shortages in eastern and central Europe."It would be very good to meet the new year without any shocks," Putin said, adding that transit fees next year would rise by 60% – a change potentially worth billions of dollars to Ukraine. Tymoshenko's response was unctuous. "You, as a strong country, are meeting us halfway," she said.The deal was seen as both a none-too-subtle attempt to show that she, unlike Yushchenko, could do business with Moscow, and as blatant electoral interference by Putin.Ukraine's shenanigans have even led football's ruling body, UEFA, to seek assurances that preparations and financing for the Euro 2012 championship, to be hosted jointly by Poland and Ukraine, will not be affected by the elections. UEFA is also worried that visa-free travel arrangements with the EU have yet to be agreed.All this is watched with trepidation in Brussels, where José Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, recently telephoned Yushchenko to reportedly express concern over the way the IMF bailout and Europe's gas supplies have become political footballs.According to euobserver.com, commission plans to offer €500m in economic aid are under review "because of Kiev's unwillingness to curb public spending or to clean up waste and corruption at its national gas company, Naftogaz". About 80% of EU natural gas supplies from Russia transit Ukraine.Such is the animosity between the rival camps that EU officials fret that the election, which is also contested by the pro-Russian former prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, could end in stalemate and possibly violent recriminations, as happened in 2004 when Yanukovich was initially declared the winner and then unseated.These strains and stresses lend an air of crisis to the EU-Ukraine summit on 4 December, which is shaping up as the first big test for the untried diplomatic skills of the EU's new foreign policy chief, Lady Ashton.Officials say the EU aims to give Ukraine a "stern warning" that substantive political and financial reform is a prerequisite for progress on issues such as visas and future association and trade agreements.But full EU membership, on which Yushchenko set his heart, is now a receding prospect. Impatience with Ukraine across the EU is growing, with France and Germany, for example, delaying its accession to the EU's energy community treaty.More significantly, last year's Russian invasion of Georgia, and Moscow's accompanying claims of Ukrainian support for Tbilisi, have driven home the message in Brussels that forging closer, structural ties with Ukraine could have severe, negative consequences for EU-Russian relations.Given the much reduced appetite for further EU enlargement, it seems certain that the high watermark of EU-Ukraine ties has already passed. It's no consolation for Yushchenko that much the same applies to Georgia, Belarus and Turkey.And for many in Europe who hoped for better, braver things along the EU's post-Soviet eastern frontier, it's galling to conclude that, in a sense, Putin has won.
The cautious approach in Brussels is again raising questions about the EU's apparent lack of a strategic vision – and political courage – in its dealing with its eastern neighbours.Fierce rivalry between President Viktor Yushchenko, who is standing for re-election, and his prime minister and principal opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, is feeding worries about the recession-ravaged country's political and economic stability.Yushchenko's decision this month to approve a 20% increase in wages and pensions, characterised by critics as a crude pre-election bribe, led the IMF to freeze the fourth instalment of a $16.4bn bailout package. That in turn increased credit market fears of a sovereign default.Tymoshenko, a famously combative millionaire currently leading in the polls, accused the president of deliberately sabotaging the IMF agreement to starve her government of cash and undermine her presidential bid.But she in turn has been accused of sucking up to the Russians, in the shape of the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, who as Russia's then president opposed the Orange Revolution and is an inveterate Yushchenko foe.After late-night talks with Tymoshenko in the Crimean resort of Yalta last week, Putin said he had agreed to waive various penalties and amend Russia's natural gas supply contract with Ukraine to avoid a repeat of last January's dispute, which led to serious gas shortages in eastern and central Europe."It would be very good to meet the new year without any shocks," Putin said, adding that transit fees next year would rise by 60% – a change potentially worth billions of dollars to Ukraine. Tymoshenko's response was unctuous. "You, as a strong country, are meeting us halfway," she said.The deal was seen as both a none-too-subtle attempt to show that she, unlike Yushchenko, could do business with Moscow, and as blatant electoral interference by Putin.Ukraine's shenanigans have even led football's ruling body, UEFA, to seek assurances that preparations and financing for the Euro 2012 championship, to be hosted jointly by Poland and Ukraine, will not be affected by the elections. UEFA is also worried that visa-free travel arrangements with the EU have yet to be agreed.All this is watched with trepidation in Brussels, where José Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, recently telephoned Yushchenko to reportedly express concern over the way the IMF bailout and Europe's gas supplies have become political footballs.According to euobserver.com, commission plans to offer €500m in economic aid are under review "because of Kiev's unwillingness to curb public spending or to clean up waste and corruption at its national gas company, Naftogaz". About 80% of EU natural gas supplies from Russia transit Ukraine.Such is the animosity between the rival camps that EU officials fret that the election, which is also contested by the pro-Russian former prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, could end in stalemate and possibly violent recriminations, as happened in 2004 when Yanukovich was initially declared the winner and then unseated.These strains and stresses lend an air of crisis to the EU-Ukraine summit on 4 December, which is shaping up as the first big test for the untried diplomatic skills of the EU's new foreign policy chief, Lady Ashton.Officials say the EU aims to give Ukraine a "stern warning" that substantive political and financial reform is a prerequisite for progress on issues such as visas and future association and trade agreements.But full EU membership, on which Yushchenko set his heart, is now a receding prospect. Impatience with Ukraine across the EU is growing, with France and Germany, for example, delaying its accession to the EU's energy community treaty.More significantly, last year's Russian invasion of Georgia, and Moscow's accompanying claims of Ukrainian support for Tbilisi, have driven home the message in Brussels that forging closer, structural ties with Ukraine could have severe, negative consequences for EU-Russian relations.Given the much reduced appetite for further EU enlargement, it seems certain that the high watermark of EU-Ukraine ties has already passed. It's no consolation for Yushchenko that much the same applies to Georgia, Belarus and Turkey.And for many in Europe who hoped for better, braver things along the EU's post-Soviet eastern frontier, it's galling to conclude that, in a sense, Putin has won.
Ukraine Tears Down Controversial Statue
KIEV, Ukraine -- A statue of a politician considered to be one of the main instigators of the man-made famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the early 1930s, has been demolished.
The authorities tore down the statue of the Communist leader of Ukraine when it was part of the former Soviet Union, Hryhoriy Petrovsky.It as carried out just days before Ukraine commemorates the victims of the famine, known as the Holodomor, or genocide.President Viktor Yushchenko issued a decree ordering the removal of monuments to Soviet leaders, "in memory of the victims of the Holodomor".The statue stood in Kiev's Europe Square - one of the capital's most prestigious locations.Between seven and ten million people died in what officials say was a deliberate policy pursued by the former Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, to destroy the Ukrainian peasantry who were opposed to the collectivisation of farming.Close allyHryhoriy Petrovsky was an ethnic Ukrainian and a committed member of the Bolsheviks - the movement of professional revolutionaries led by Vladimir Lenin, who seized power in 1917 and went on to found the Soviet Union.Petrovksy saw himself as an internationalist, and rejected Ukrainian nationalism.He fought against the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic (1917-1919), which was crushed by the Bolsheviks.Petrovsky became the interior minister of the Russian Soviet Republic before returning to Ukraine in 1919, where he served as prime minister until 1938.He was thought to be a close ally of Stalin, whose purges led to the deaths of thousands of Ukrainian communists.Local historians think he and the Ukrainian Soviet Communist leader, Lazar Kaganovich, were the main executors of Stalin's policies in Ukraine.Other historians, like Vasyl Marochko, a member of an official commission which investigated the Holodomor, say that when Petrovsky realised the extent of the famine he pleaded twice with Stalin to provide Ukrainians with more food.His requests, they say, went unheeded.Increasingly unpopularLast year, the statue to Petrovsky was defaced by young Ukrainian nationalists who threw paint over it, and wrote in graffiti: "To Petrovsky, the executioner of the Ukrainian people".Earlier this year, the still-standing Lenin monument on Kiev's main street, Khreshchatyk, was also damaged by the same group.In that incident, Lenin's nose and one of his hands were broken off with a hammer.Less prominent statues to Ukrainian Soviet communist leaders have been removed before.But Petrovsky, whose body is interred near the Kremlin wall in Moscow, is perhaps the highest profile figure to have his statue demolished.His legacy has not completely vanished, because the central industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk still carries his name, much to the annoyance of some Ukrainians."The city should have been renamed when Ukraine gained its independence," says Vadym Skurativsky, a leading Ukrainian writer.Erasing the pastUkraine has been slow to remove historical monuments to Soviet leaders, despite the country's first president, Leonid Kravchuk, issuing orders aimed at "de-sovietisation" in the early 1990s.The process has gone much further in the Ukrainian-speaking western regions than in the industrialised, largely Russian-speaking eastern regions.The Holodomor has emerged as a contentious issue in Ukraine's relations with Russia.Moscow insists that other republics, particularly southern Russia and Kazakhstan, also suffered from famine during the 1930s.It rejects the assertion from Ukraine's leadership that there was a deliberate policy of anti-Ukrainian "genocide".But Ukrainian historians point to the widespread use of Soviet interior ministry troops to requisition desperately needed food, as well as the ban imposed on the movement of peasants to the cities.The commemorations on Saturday will be marked by church services all over Ukraine, the laying of wreaths, and a gathering of Ukraine's leaders at a recently completed monument to the victims on a hillside location in Kiev.
The authorities tore down the statue of the Communist leader of Ukraine when it was part of the former Soviet Union, Hryhoriy Petrovsky.It as carried out just days before Ukraine commemorates the victims of the famine, known as the Holodomor, or genocide.President Viktor Yushchenko issued a decree ordering the removal of monuments to Soviet leaders, "in memory of the victims of the Holodomor".The statue stood in Kiev's Europe Square - one of the capital's most prestigious locations.Between seven and ten million people died in what officials say was a deliberate policy pursued by the former Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, to destroy the Ukrainian peasantry who were opposed to the collectivisation of farming.Close allyHryhoriy Petrovsky was an ethnic Ukrainian and a committed member of the Bolsheviks - the movement of professional revolutionaries led by Vladimir Lenin, who seized power in 1917 and went on to found the Soviet Union.Petrovksy saw himself as an internationalist, and rejected Ukrainian nationalism.He fought against the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic (1917-1919), which was crushed by the Bolsheviks.Petrovsky became the interior minister of the Russian Soviet Republic before returning to Ukraine in 1919, where he served as prime minister until 1938.He was thought to be a close ally of Stalin, whose purges led to the deaths of thousands of Ukrainian communists.Local historians think he and the Ukrainian Soviet Communist leader, Lazar Kaganovich, were the main executors of Stalin's policies in Ukraine.Other historians, like Vasyl Marochko, a member of an official commission which investigated the Holodomor, say that when Petrovsky realised the extent of the famine he pleaded twice with Stalin to provide Ukrainians with more food.His requests, they say, went unheeded.Increasingly unpopularLast year, the statue to Petrovsky was defaced by young Ukrainian nationalists who threw paint over it, and wrote in graffiti: "To Petrovsky, the executioner of the Ukrainian people".Earlier this year, the still-standing Lenin monument on Kiev's main street, Khreshchatyk, was also damaged by the same group.In that incident, Lenin's nose and one of his hands were broken off with a hammer.Less prominent statues to Ukrainian Soviet communist leaders have been removed before.But Petrovsky, whose body is interred near the Kremlin wall in Moscow, is perhaps the highest profile figure to have his statue demolished.His legacy has not completely vanished, because the central industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk still carries his name, much to the annoyance of some Ukrainians."The city should have been renamed when Ukraine gained its independence," says Vadym Skurativsky, a leading Ukrainian writer.Erasing the pastUkraine has been slow to remove historical monuments to Soviet leaders, despite the country's first president, Leonid Kravchuk, issuing orders aimed at "de-sovietisation" in the early 1990s.The process has gone much further in the Ukrainian-speaking western regions than in the industrialised, largely Russian-speaking eastern regions.The Holodomor has emerged as a contentious issue in Ukraine's relations with Russia.Moscow insists that other republics, particularly southern Russia and Kazakhstan, also suffered from famine during the 1930s.It rejects the assertion from Ukraine's leadership that there was a deliberate policy of anti-Ukrainian "genocide".But Ukrainian historians point to the widespread use of Soviet interior ministry troops to requisition desperately needed food, as well as the ban imposed on the movement of peasants to the cities.The commemorations on Saturday will be marked by church services all over Ukraine, the laying of wreaths, and a gathering of Ukraine's leaders at a recently completed monument to the victims on a hillside location in Kiev.
European Observers See Corruption, Media Bias, Public Disappointment Marring Ukraine Vote
KIEV, Ukraine -- European lawmakers issued scathing criticism of Ukraine's electoral system Thursday as they began a mission to observe a January presidential vote, saying the election will likely be marred by corruption, media bias and widespread public disappointment.
The election is being closely watched by Europe and the U.S. Five years after the Orange Revolution street protests helped propel a pro-Western leader to power over a Russian-backed rival, the front-runners - Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych - appear likely to focus on reinvigorating troubled ties with Moscow.Matyas Eorsi of Hungary, who is leading the observer mission from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, or PACE, told a news conference the election is not expected to meet the organization's standards.Eorsi suggested democratic practices could be swept aside by the bitter rivalries among prominent candidates, who also include incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko."We are worried that political cynicism will be on the rise. We understand that here in Ukraine, the political struggle is widely regarded as a struggle of personalities, ambitions and financial interests rather than a competition of political ideals," he said.Eorsi added that corruption and the media's role are serious concerns. "The media, many of the media, are also under strong financial influence, and very often this financial influence is created by the candidates," he said.Tadeusz Iwinski of Poland, another PACE observer, said Ukrainian election laws lack transparency and urged politicians to heed the group's recommendations for reform. "The problem of electoral laws makes for a permanent challenge," he said.A Central Election Commission spokesman, Konstantin Khivrenko, and a commission member, Mikhail Okhendovsky, declined to comment to The Associated Press on the observers' remarks.The assessment, unusually pessimistic for observers speaking two months before the vote takes place, contrasted with comments from the head of the monitoring mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which also got under way Thursday with a news conference. Heidi Tagliavini said the OSCE mission, which will field more than 600 observers for the Jan. 17 vote, would reserve judgment until they have analyzed the situation."We have arrived here with no preconceived ideas or hidden agendas," Tagliavini said. "We will let the facts speak for themselves."Claims of electoral fraud led to the Orange Revolution - massive protests that erupted after Yanukovych, who had open support from then-Russian President Vladimir Putin, was declared the winner of a 2004 presidential vote. The Supreme Court threw out the election and Yushchenko, who advocates NATO membership for the ex-Soviet republic, won a rerun.After years of political gridlock and economic trouble, Yanukovych is leading in the opinion polls, followed by Tymoshenko - Yushchenko's ally in the Orange Revolution but now his foe.
The election is being closely watched by Europe and the U.S. Five years after the Orange Revolution street protests helped propel a pro-Western leader to power over a Russian-backed rival, the front-runners - Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych - appear likely to focus on reinvigorating troubled ties with Moscow.Matyas Eorsi of Hungary, who is leading the observer mission from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, or PACE, told a news conference the election is not expected to meet the organization's standards.Eorsi suggested democratic practices could be swept aside by the bitter rivalries among prominent candidates, who also include incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko."We are worried that political cynicism will be on the rise. We understand that here in Ukraine, the political struggle is widely regarded as a struggle of personalities, ambitions and financial interests rather than a competition of political ideals," he said.Eorsi added that corruption and the media's role are serious concerns. "The media, many of the media, are also under strong financial influence, and very often this financial influence is created by the candidates," he said.Tadeusz Iwinski of Poland, another PACE observer, said Ukrainian election laws lack transparency and urged politicians to heed the group's recommendations for reform. "The problem of electoral laws makes for a permanent challenge," he said.A Central Election Commission spokesman, Konstantin Khivrenko, and a commission member, Mikhail Okhendovsky, declined to comment to The Associated Press on the observers' remarks.The assessment, unusually pessimistic for observers speaking two months before the vote takes place, contrasted with comments from the head of the monitoring mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which also got under way Thursday with a news conference. Heidi Tagliavini said the OSCE mission, which will field more than 600 observers for the Jan. 17 vote, would reserve judgment until they have analyzed the situation."We have arrived here with no preconceived ideas or hidden agendas," Tagliavini said. "We will let the facts speak for themselves."Claims of electoral fraud led to the Orange Revolution - massive protests that erupted after Yanukovych, who had open support from then-Russian President Vladimir Putin, was declared the winner of a 2004 presidential vote. The Supreme Court threw out the election and Yushchenko, who advocates NATO membership for the ex-Soviet republic, won a rerun.After years of political gridlock and economic trouble, Yanukovych is leading in the opinion polls, followed by Tymoshenko - Yushchenko's ally in the Orange Revolution but now his foe.
Ukrainian Parliament Fails To Override President's Veto Of Flu Bill
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada (parliament) has failed to override President Viktor Yushchenko's veto of legislation to provide more money to fight the flu epidemic in Ukraine, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.
A total of 231 out of the 316 parliamentarians present voted to override the veto, but 300 are needed. The proposal was supported by 152 members of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, 32 members of Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense bloc, 27 Communist Party members, 19 from the Lytvyn Bloc, and one indepedent deputy.The opposition Regions Party abstained. The Verkhovna Rada also rejected five presidential amendments to the law and returned it to the budget committee for revision.On November 3, the Verkhovna Rada first adopted amendments to the state budget which provided for an increase of 1 billion hryvna ($125 million) for flu prevention and treatment, but Yushchenko vetoed the law two weeks later. He said he supports putting additional funds toward fighting the flu, but was against the way the government wanted to finance the increase.He said the law could also lead to the devaluation of the hryvna. Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko criticized Yushchenko for this move and said he bears full responsibility for flu casualties in Ukraine.The number of flu and respiratory disease patients in the country reached some 500,000 and some 400 flu deaths were reported, many of them attributed to swine flu.
A total of 231 out of the 316 parliamentarians present voted to override the veto, but 300 are needed. The proposal was supported by 152 members of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, 32 members of Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense bloc, 27 Communist Party members, 19 from the Lytvyn Bloc, and one indepedent deputy.The opposition Regions Party abstained. The Verkhovna Rada also rejected five presidential amendments to the law and returned it to the budget committee for revision.On November 3, the Verkhovna Rada first adopted amendments to the state budget which provided for an increase of 1 billion hryvna ($125 million) for flu prevention and treatment, but Yushchenko vetoed the law two weeks later. He said he supports putting additional funds toward fighting the flu, but was against the way the government wanted to finance the increase.He said the law could also lead to the devaluation of the hryvna. Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko criticized Yushchenko for this move and said he bears full responsibility for flu casualties in Ukraine.The number of flu and respiratory disease patients in the country reached some 500,000 and some 400 flu deaths were reported, many of them attributed to swine flu.
Russia train crash investigation examines bomb theory
The authorities in Russia are treating the crash of an express train in which at least 25 people were killed as a possible act of terrorism.
A crater has been found near the track, raising suspicions that a bomb may have been used to derail the train.
The prosecutor-general has opened a criminal case on terrorism charges, Russian news agencies report.
The train crashed in remote countryside as the train travelled between Moscow and St Petersburg.
Hundreds of rescuers and officials have been working throughout the night at the scene near the town of Bologoye in Tver region.
Some reports say that as many as 39 people have died.
The train was carrying more than 650 people. More than 90 are in hospital, some of them taken there by helicopter.
The chief of state-owned railroad firm Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, said investigators believed Friday evening's crash was caused by an act of terrorism.
"To put it simply, a terrorist attack" was the main line of inquiry being pursued by experts investigating the derailment, Mr Yakunin said on state television from the scene.
Some passengers reported a loud bang occurring just before the derailment.
And Russian television channels have been broadcasting a recording of a mobile phone call from the train driver to the emergencies ministry. The driver says there has been an explosion under the train.
The train, known as the Nevsky Express, was travelling on one of the busiest rail routes in Russia, and Friday evening is peak travel time.
In 2007, a bomb on the same line derailed a train, injuring nearly 30 passengers.
Two men suspected of having links to Chechen rebels were accused of planting a bomb next to the track.
A crater has been found near the track, raising suspicions that a bomb may have been used to derail the train.
The prosecutor-general has opened a criminal case on terrorism charges, Russian news agencies report.
The train crashed in remote countryside as the train travelled between Moscow and St Petersburg.
Hundreds of rescuers and officials have been working throughout the night at the scene near the town of Bologoye in Tver region.
Some reports say that as many as 39 people have died.
The train was carrying more than 650 people. More than 90 are in hospital, some of them taken there by helicopter.
The chief of state-owned railroad firm Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, said investigators believed Friday evening's crash was caused by an act of terrorism.
"To put it simply, a terrorist attack" was the main line of inquiry being pursued by experts investigating the derailment, Mr Yakunin said on state television from the scene.
Some passengers reported a loud bang occurring just before the derailment.
And Russian television channels have been broadcasting a recording of a mobile phone call from the train driver to the emergencies ministry. The driver says there has been an explosion under the train.
The train, known as the Nevsky Express, was travelling on one of the busiest rail routes in Russia, and Friday evening is peak travel time.
In 2007, a bomb on the same line derailed a train, injuring nearly 30 passengers.
Two men suspected of having links to Chechen rebels were accused of planting a bomb next to the track.
Tuesday 24 November 2009
New gang wars rock underworld
Mafia turf wars could be on their way back - but unlike the carnage of the 90s, the new model is likely to be restricted to specific rackets, such as gambling and drugs.
The fatal shooting of Shabtai Kalmanovich, a convicted former KGB spy and alleged ally of gangland legend Yaponchik, is being widely seen as the first volley of machine-gun fire in a new underworld spat.
But the new battles are not about replacing Yaponchik, according to Mark Galeotti, an expert on the Russian underworld who teaches at New York University. Instead the sudden ban on gambling and booming drugs trade are set to be new flashpoints.
"Yaponchik was by now an anachronism with no real clout," Galeotti said. "His death was more a symptom of rising tensions and the decline of the old ‘social contract' of the underworld. On the other hand there are certainly those, especially from the old ‘vor v zakone' fraternity, who will gladly avenge him."
Kalmanovich's death has been linked to an "ethnic gang" involved in running Moscow's markets - another area where the authorities have recently been cracking down on illegal activity, closing Cherkizovsky and raiding Luzhniki.
RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed police source saying that investigators believed he was shot on the orders of a criminal gang which controls part of a market Kalmanovich wanted to buy.
"I do think a new round of turf wars, with associated killings, is quite likely," Galeotti added in an email. "The new bonanza of illegal gambling, the rising drug profits and the effects of the economic slowdown have all destabilised the old underworld order and it is time for a settling of old scores and, above all, a restructuring."
Both Kalmanovich - gunned down in rush-hour traffic on Krasnopresnenskaya Naberezhnaya - and Yaponchik, shot by a sniper as he left a restaurant, died very public deaths.
But there is little for ordinary Muscovites to fear, even if the violence escalates below the surface.
"This is essentially a war within the underworld," said Galeotti. "There still seems to be an awareness within the gangs that the state will not accept indiscriminate violence of the Yeltsin era variety, where car bombs and drive-by shootings were commonplace. Assassinations will tend to be more precise."
Kalmanovich was also closely involved with basketball, where he owned the Russian and European women's champions Spartak-Vidnoye, having previously run into controversy at UMMC Yekaterinburg in a passport scandal.
A theory that Kalmanovich's death was related to his sporting interests was quickly bounced out of court by Russian basketball chief Sergei Chernov, who worked with him during the Russian women's national team's World Championship silver medal campaign in 2006.
"In sport, people fight it out on the pitch. I am convinced this savagery has nothing to do with sport," Chernov told RIA Novosti, going on to say he had met Kalmanovich earlier on the day of his death. "We talked for about half an hour and I saw no shadow of anxiety or nerves."
My life is something that normal people only see at the movies," Kalmanovich once said in an interview. His CV includes a stint in an Israeli jail over KGB spying, leading three clubs to Euroleague basketball success and becoming a friend to the stars.
Born in Kaunas, Lithuania, in 1947, he and his family emigrated to Israel in the early 70s, where he studied engineering in Jerusalem and started trading and construction businesses.
In 1988 Kalmanovich was sentenced to nine years for spying for the KGB, but was released in 1993 and returned to Russia to set up a business with popular singer Josif Kobzon. He promoted concerts by the likes of Michael Jackson, modernised Tishinsky Market and was director of Dorogomilovsky Market.
In 1996 he became co-owner and manager of Zalgiris basketball club in his native Lithuania, guiding them to the men's Euroleague title in 1999. He later became the first man to lead men's and women's teams to Euro glory, seeing first UMMC Yekaterinburg and later Spartak-Vidnoye take the women's title.
Kalmanovich married three times, including to basketball player Anna Arkhipova.
The fatal shooting of Shabtai Kalmanovich, a convicted former KGB spy and alleged ally of gangland legend Yaponchik, is being widely seen as the first volley of machine-gun fire in a new underworld spat.
But the new battles are not about replacing Yaponchik, according to Mark Galeotti, an expert on the Russian underworld who teaches at New York University. Instead the sudden ban on gambling and booming drugs trade are set to be new flashpoints.
"Yaponchik was by now an anachronism with no real clout," Galeotti said. "His death was more a symptom of rising tensions and the decline of the old ‘social contract' of the underworld. On the other hand there are certainly those, especially from the old ‘vor v zakone' fraternity, who will gladly avenge him."
Kalmanovich's death has been linked to an "ethnic gang" involved in running Moscow's markets - another area where the authorities have recently been cracking down on illegal activity, closing Cherkizovsky and raiding Luzhniki.
RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed police source saying that investigators believed he was shot on the orders of a criminal gang which controls part of a market Kalmanovich wanted to buy.
"I do think a new round of turf wars, with associated killings, is quite likely," Galeotti added in an email. "The new bonanza of illegal gambling, the rising drug profits and the effects of the economic slowdown have all destabilised the old underworld order and it is time for a settling of old scores and, above all, a restructuring."
Both Kalmanovich - gunned down in rush-hour traffic on Krasnopresnenskaya Naberezhnaya - and Yaponchik, shot by a sniper as he left a restaurant, died very public deaths.
But there is little for ordinary Muscovites to fear, even if the violence escalates below the surface.
"This is essentially a war within the underworld," said Galeotti. "There still seems to be an awareness within the gangs that the state will not accept indiscriminate violence of the Yeltsin era variety, where car bombs and drive-by shootings were commonplace. Assassinations will tend to be more precise."
Kalmanovich was also closely involved with basketball, where he owned the Russian and European women's champions Spartak-Vidnoye, having previously run into controversy at UMMC Yekaterinburg in a passport scandal.
A theory that Kalmanovich's death was related to his sporting interests was quickly bounced out of court by Russian basketball chief Sergei Chernov, who worked with him during the Russian women's national team's World Championship silver medal campaign in 2006.
"In sport, people fight it out on the pitch. I am convinced this savagery has nothing to do with sport," Chernov told RIA Novosti, going on to say he had met Kalmanovich earlier on the day of his death. "We talked for about half an hour and I saw no shadow of anxiety or nerves."
My life is something that normal people only see at the movies," Kalmanovich once said in an interview. His CV includes a stint in an Israeli jail over KGB spying, leading three clubs to Euroleague basketball success and becoming a friend to the stars.
Born in Kaunas, Lithuania, in 1947, he and his family emigrated to Israel in the early 70s, where he studied engineering in Jerusalem and started trading and construction businesses.
In 1988 Kalmanovich was sentenced to nine years for spying for the KGB, but was released in 1993 and returned to Russia to set up a business with popular singer Josif Kobzon. He promoted concerts by the likes of Michael Jackson, modernised Tishinsky Market and was director of Dorogomilovsky Market.
In 1996 he became co-owner and manager of Zalgiris basketball club in his native Lithuania, guiding them to the men's Euroleague title in 1999. He later became the first man to lead men's and women's teams to Euro glory, seeing first UMMC Yekaterinburg and later Spartak-Vidnoye take the women's title.
Kalmanovich married three times, including to basketball player Anna Arkhipova.
Russia’s significant seven
Power in Russia is split between four traditional factions - old-school siloviki, post-Soviet liberals, big business and the church.
That's according to Forbes magazine, whose power list surprised nobody by naming Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the third most powerful person in the world, behind Barack Obama and Chinese president Hu Jintao, but far ahead of President Dmitry Medvedev, who came in at No. 43.
However, the inclusion of Deputy PM Igor Sechin - seen as a hard-line Putin ally - one place ahead of the more liberal Medvedev on the global list gave a clear nod in the direction of the siloviki faction.
The sitting president still has his allies in the corridors of power, though, according to Forbes Russia editor Maxim Kashulinsky.
He drew up the list of most influential Russians, and included Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin - regarded as a fellow liberal - at No.4.
But as long as oil remains the driving force of modern Russia, Forbes argues, Sechin's role in securing natural resource deals around the world make him more powerful than the president's men.
Unlike the West, where politics is often seen as subservient to big business, it's clear that there's no danger of that tail wagging the Kremlin's dog.
Lukoil president Vagit Alekperov and oligarch Oleg Deripaska come in fifth and sixth on the Russian list, respectively.
And the Forbes rationale highlights Alekperov's longevity in the key oil sector as a consequence of his steering clear of politics.
"[He] has effectively survived where many oligarchs have not, by staying away from political games and continuing to invest in his core business," Forbes Russia concluded.
Deripaska's place in the Russian power vertical was made plain in June when Putin summoned the billionaire to a factory in Pikalyovo and gave him a dressing down reminiscent of a headmaster dealing with someone smoking behind the bike sheds.
However, since then the boss of Basic Element has proved to the government that the 200,000 jobs he provides make him too big to cast aside - successfully renegotiating $20 billion of debts which had him on the brink of collapse.
Forbes' final key power-broker is Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church and rated by some as the human face of Russia's political and social order.
When Russia's record on HIV/AIDS control came under fire at the United Nations recently, the state's chief medic Gennady Onishchenko argued that the church's influence should be used to curb sexual promiscuity and drug use.
Tellingly, in Russia there was no room for a significant media figure on the list. While Rupert Murdoch was ranked seventh worldwide and Oprah Winfrey stood at 45 on the global list, no figure from Russian journalism featured in Kashulinsky's group of movers and shakers.
That's according to Forbes magazine, whose power list surprised nobody by naming Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the third most powerful person in the world, behind Barack Obama and Chinese president Hu Jintao, but far ahead of President Dmitry Medvedev, who came in at No. 43.
However, the inclusion of Deputy PM Igor Sechin - seen as a hard-line Putin ally - one place ahead of the more liberal Medvedev on the global list gave a clear nod in the direction of the siloviki faction.
The sitting president still has his allies in the corridors of power, though, according to Forbes Russia editor Maxim Kashulinsky.
He drew up the list of most influential Russians, and included Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin - regarded as a fellow liberal - at No.4.
But as long as oil remains the driving force of modern Russia, Forbes argues, Sechin's role in securing natural resource deals around the world make him more powerful than the president's men.
Unlike the West, where politics is often seen as subservient to big business, it's clear that there's no danger of that tail wagging the Kremlin's dog.
Lukoil president Vagit Alekperov and oligarch Oleg Deripaska come in fifth and sixth on the Russian list, respectively.
And the Forbes rationale highlights Alekperov's longevity in the key oil sector as a consequence of his steering clear of politics.
"[He] has effectively survived where many oligarchs have not, by staying away from political games and continuing to invest in his core business," Forbes Russia concluded.
Deripaska's place in the Russian power vertical was made plain in June when Putin summoned the billionaire to a factory in Pikalyovo and gave him a dressing down reminiscent of a headmaster dealing with someone smoking behind the bike sheds.
However, since then the boss of Basic Element has proved to the government that the 200,000 jobs he provides make him too big to cast aside - successfully renegotiating $20 billion of debts which had him on the brink of collapse.
Forbes' final key power-broker is Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church and rated by some as the human face of Russia's political and social order.
When Russia's record on HIV/AIDS control came under fire at the United Nations recently, the state's chief medic Gennady Onishchenko argued that the church's influence should be used to curb sexual promiscuity and drug use.
Tellingly, in Russia there was no room for a significant media figure on the list. While Rupert Murdoch was ranked seventh worldwide and Oprah Winfrey stood at 45 on the global list, no figure from Russian journalism featured in Kashulinsky's group of movers and shakers.
Murder in the chapel
A Russian Orthodox priest gunned down in his Moscow church may have been targeted by cult members or Muslim fundamentalists.
Daniil Sysoyev, 34, died in hospital after being shot in the head by a masked gunman in St. Thomas the Apostle Church, near Kantemir-ovskaya metro, on Thursday evening.
A spokesman for the investigators told Rossiya TV: "The main theory is that religious motives are behind the crime."
And that was backed up by a report in Komsomolskaya Pravda claiming that Sysoyev had told reporters he had faced 14 death threats - largely linked to his missionary work in Muslim areas and his efforts to help people trying to leave religious sects.
"They've threatened to cut my head off 14 times," the paper quoted the priest as saying. "The FSB got in touch a year ago to say they had uncovered a murder plot against me."
Sysoyev also told the paper that in the past year, his church had "christened 80 Muslims, among them Tatars, Uzbeks, Chechens and Dagestanis" and that many Orthodox priests feared "revenge" for missionary work among Muslims.
Daniil Sysoyev, 34, died in hospital after being shot in the head by a masked gunman in St. Thomas the Apostle Church, near Kantemir-ovskaya metro, on Thursday evening.
A spokesman for the investigators told Rossiya TV: "The main theory is that religious motives are behind the crime."
And that was backed up by a report in Komsomolskaya Pravda claiming that Sysoyev had told reporters he had faced 14 death threats - largely linked to his missionary work in Muslim areas and his efforts to help people trying to leave religious sects.
"They've threatened to cut my head off 14 times," the paper quoted the priest as saying. "The FSB got in touch a year ago to say they had uncovered a murder plot against me."
Sysoyev also told the paper that in the past year, his church had "christened 80 Muslims, among them Tatars, Uzbeks, Chechens and Dagestanis" and that many Orthodox priests feared "revenge" for missionary work among Muslims.
Fraud central
Russia has the highest level of fraud anywhere in the world - according to a recent survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Some 71 per cent of respondents said they had been fraud victims in the last 12 months alone, a "shocking" 12 per cent rise from the company's last survey in 2007.
The instances of economic crime have shot up during the crisis, which has caused cash flows to dry up; more than half the people surveyed said their organisation was more at risk in the current economic situation than previously.
The significant increase in this type of fraud may result from failures in controls arising from budget cuts," PwC said in their report.
Transparency International was only slightly less scathing on Russia's corruption record, placing the country 146 out of 180 - on a par with Sierra Leone.
The release of both reports within days of each other delivered a graphic reminder that investing in Russia remains a risk.
"[The reports] made for grim reading, and highlights just how much work Russia needs to do to improve its investment image," UralSib's chief strategist Chris Weafer said in a research note.
Russia scored a measly 2.1 out of 10 and, according to the organization, corruption is destroying the country's economic potential.
"We cannot move forward," Transparency International said in a statement. "Corruption, if it remains as it is now, will continue to devour those resources we could invest in our future."
In his state of the nation address earlier this month and in an article in Novaya Gazeta, President Dmitry Medvedev outlined proposals to tackle the problem of corruption.
However, Transparency International branded the enforcement of Russia's current laws inadequate to deal with the problem.
"The quality of the application of the new Russian anticorruption legislation leaves much to be desired," the organisation said, adding; "Even the best laws, without daily strict and effective application, in practice will not change anything."
Misappropriation of assets remains the most prevalent form of economic crime in Russia, with 48 per cent of the PwC respondents saying they had been affected by it in the last year.
The reports are likely to put off potential investors in Russia and could prove damaging to an economy hoping for a kick-start from foreign investment.
"This is clearly an issue that can't be overlooked by any organisation doing business, or planning to do business, in Russia," .
Some 71 per cent of respondents said they had been fraud victims in the last 12 months alone, a "shocking" 12 per cent rise from the company's last survey in 2007.
The instances of economic crime have shot up during the crisis, which has caused cash flows to dry up; more than half the people surveyed said their organisation was more at risk in the current economic situation than previously.
The significant increase in this type of fraud may result from failures in controls arising from budget cuts," PwC said in their report.
Transparency International was only slightly less scathing on Russia's corruption record, placing the country 146 out of 180 - on a par with Sierra Leone.
The release of both reports within days of each other delivered a graphic reminder that investing in Russia remains a risk.
"[The reports] made for grim reading, and highlights just how much work Russia needs to do to improve its investment image," UralSib's chief strategist Chris Weafer said in a research note.
Russia scored a measly 2.1 out of 10 and, according to the organization, corruption is destroying the country's economic potential.
"We cannot move forward," Transparency International said in a statement. "Corruption, if it remains as it is now, will continue to devour those resources we could invest in our future."
In his state of the nation address earlier this month and in an article in Novaya Gazeta, President Dmitry Medvedev outlined proposals to tackle the problem of corruption.
However, Transparency International branded the enforcement of Russia's current laws inadequate to deal with the problem.
"The quality of the application of the new Russian anticorruption legislation leaves much to be desired," the organisation said, adding; "Even the best laws, without daily strict and effective application, in practice will not change anything."
Misappropriation of assets remains the most prevalent form of economic crime in Russia, with 48 per cent of the PwC respondents saying they had been affected by it in the last year.
The reports are likely to put off potential investors in Russia and could prove damaging to an economy hoping for a kick-start from foreign investment.
"This is clearly an issue that can't be overlooked by any organisation doing business, or planning to do business, in Russia," .
Russian Post slashes 33,000 jobs
In the latest blow for employment in the crisis, Russian Post announced on Monday it would be firing at least 33,000 people, or 8 per cent of its workforce, in 2010.
Russian Post, or PochtaRossii, said on its web site that the job cuts were planned earlier this year in an effort to streamline the state-owned organisation and reduce administrative staff. In the first nine months of 2009, structural subdivisions in the management were cut by almost half, and staff in those subdivisions reduced by 27.8 per cent.
Russian Post currently employs 415,000 workers, a 3 per cent cut from the 423,000 people it employed in January. The planned overhaul is part of a large-scale plan aimed at cutting costs and improving financial performance.
Vladimir Osakovsky, economist at Unicredit Securities, said the job losses had come as part of a modernization programme, and were not a direct result of the crisis.
"Of course it's possible that the economic situation triggered these layoffs now, but it was bound to happen anyway," Osakovsky said.
However, laid-off employees may have a hard time finding a new job.
According to Natalya Pavlova, a senior account manager at employment firm Coleman Services, the job market has perked up considerably since the beginning of this year. However, from the jobseeker's point of view, she says, it is still a very severe world out there.
"If an employer publishes a vacancy in any open source, the company will receive at least 100 resumes within the first couple of days," she said. "The job market is saturated with CVs of good but unemployed professionals who would severely compete in their search for a job."
Russian Post, or PochtaRossii, said on its web site that the job cuts were planned earlier this year in an effort to streamline the state-owned organisation and reduce administrative staff. In the first nine months of 2009, structural subdivisions in the management were cut by almost half, and staff in those subdivisions reduced by 27.8 per cent.
Russian Post currently employs 415,000 workers, a 3 per cent cut from the 423,000 people it employed in January. The planned overhaul is part of a large-scale plan aimed at cutting costs and improving financial performance.
Vladimir Osakovsky, economist at Unicredit Securities, said the job losses had come as part of a modernization programme, and were not a direct result of the crisis.
"Of course it's possible that the economic situation triggered these layoffs now, but it was bound to happen anyway," Osakovsky said.
However, laid-off employees may have a hard time finding a new job.
According to Natalya Pavlova, a senior account manager at employment firm Coleman Services, the job market has perked up considerably since the beginning of this year. However, from the jobseeker's point of view, she says, it is still a very severe world out there.
"If an employer publishes a vacancy in any open source, the company will receive at least 100 resumes within the first couple of days," she said. "The job market is saturated with CVs of good but unemployed professionals who would severely compete in their search for a job."
Second Russia weapons depot blast kills eight soldiers
At least eight people have been killed at a Russian ammunition depot, 10 days after explosions tore through the same site, the defence ministry says.
The explosion happened at the Arsenal 31 depot on the outskirts of Ulyanovsk, 900km (550 miles) south-east of Moscow.
The dead were reportedly all members of a bomb disposal unit, who were loading live ammunition onto a lorry.
The previous explosions and fires killed two soldiers as they attempted to decommission weapons.
Two people were also injured in Monday's accident, a defence ministry spokesman said.
The blast took place at 1430 (1130 GMT) when the team were clearing the area in the navy base which had been affected by the huge explosions and fire on 13 November.
Investigations are under way into both incidents.
At the time of the November incident, officials said artillery shells and torpedoes were kept at the arsenal.
The explosion happened at the Arsenal 31 depot on the outskirts of Ulyanovsk, 900km (550 miles) south-east of Moscow.
The dead were reportedly all members of a bomb disposal unit, who were loading live ammunition onto a lorry.
The previous explosions and fires killed two soldiers as they attempted to decommission weapons.
Two people were also injured in Monday's accident, a defence ministry spokesman said.
The blast took place at 1430 (1130 GMT) when the team were clearing the area in the navy base which had been affected by the huge explosions and fire on 13 November.
Investigations are under way into both incidents.
At the time of the November incident, officials said artillery shells and torpedoes were kept at the arsenal.
Medvedev orders investigation of Magnitsky jail death
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered an investigation into the death in prison of a lawyer who was awaiting trial on charges of tax evasion.
Sergei Magnitsky, 37, who was being held on suspicion of conspiracy, died last week from what investigators said was acute heart failure.
It has since emerged he had repeatedly complained that prison authorities had refused to allow him medical care.
He acted for a company that was once Russia's top foreign investor.
Hermitage, the brainchild of US businessman William Browder, was one of the largest investment funds in Russia from the mid-1990s.
Mr Browder said the Russian authorities withheld medical treatment from Mr Magnitsky because he refused to sign a confession.
Mr Medvedev had ordered Russia's chief prosecutor and justice minister to investigate the case, said a Kremlin statement.
Deaths in custody, sometimes involving ill-treatment, are not uncommon in Russia.
But Mr Magnitsky's role in defending Hermitage means that the case has drawn wider attention and immediate comment.
Mr Magnitsky had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy after agreeing to defend Hermitage against alleged tax evasion.
In 2005, Mr Browder was banned from Russia as a threat to national security, after Hermitage publicised accusations of large-scale corruption in state corporations.
Mr Browder says he was punished for being a threat to corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.
Sergei Magnitsky, 37, who was being held on suspicion of conspiracy, died last week from what investigators said was acute heart failure.
It has since emerged he had repeatedly complained that prison authorities had refused to allow him medical care.
He acted for a company that was once Russia's top foreign investor.
Hermitage, the brainchild of US businessman William Browder, was one of the largest investment funds in Russia from the mid-1990s.
Mr Browder said the Russian authorities withheld medical treatment from Mr Magnitsky because he refused to sign a confession.
Mr Medvedev had ordered Russia's chief prosecutor and justice minister to investigate the case, said a Kremlin statement.
Deaths in custody, sometimes involving ill-treatment, are not uncommon in Russia.
But Mr Magnitsky's role in defending Hermitage means that the case has drawn wider attention and immediate comment.
Mr Magnitsky had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy after agreeing to defend Hermitage against alleged tax evasion.
In 2005, Mr Browder was banned from Russia as a threat to national security, after Hermitage publicised accusations of large-scale corruption in state corporations.
Mr Browder says he was punished for being a threat to corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.
Ukraine's `Hot Air' Bedevils Global Climate Deal
KONSTANTINOVKA, Ukraine -- Vladimir Gapor is a plumber by trade, but now he's a scavenger, prying bits of scrap steel from the ruins of his old factory and selling them for a pittance.
For others beyond this manufacturing graveyard, however, Ukraine's economic collapse has produced a potential multibillion-dollar bonanza. In an era of climate change regulation and carbon trading, Ukraine, ironically, is profiting from the smokeless smokestacks of its industrial shutdown.How well and how long it will profit is an under-the-radar issue complicating negotiations for a worldwide climate accord being sought at a 192-nation conference in Copenhagen next month.Gapor's old factory, which made glass for the Soviet military and space program, shut down in the early 1990s after the Soviet Union disintegrated. Private wrecking crews and desperate jobless people like Gapor then turned the town's industries, which once employed 16,000 workers, into heaps of bricks.In the days when Ukraine was a Soviet republic, Konstantinovka was a booming town of 100,000 with 25 factories. Concert music filled its Palace of Culture, its workers were rewarded with trips to Crimea's beaches, and its children with stays at mountain "pioneer camps." Today just five workshops still operate, and the population is down to 60,000, many unemployed having migrated to Moscow, Kiev or Western Europe to find jobs, leaving families behind.The surrounding province in eastern Ukraine, plagued by bad management and lack of investment, has lost 10 percent of its population, said Vladimir Morozov, an environmental engineer in the regional capital, Donetsk. Wealthy oligarchs, not communists, now rule the economy, he said, and they show no interest in rebuilding a wretched backwater.The industrial collapse has been bad for jobs but good for the climate. Ukraine produces less than half the greenhouse gases it did 20 years ago, and under a trading system devised in the negotiations for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, curbing the gases blamed for global warming, it is allowed to sell credits for every ton of carbon dioxide saved.Countries or companies that cannot meet commitments to reduce emissions can buy these "allowances" from those that have cut emissions more than required and have a surplus to sell. Point Carbon, a Norwegian-based consulting firm, estimates 9 billion allowances are available, mostly in Russia.Earlier this year, each one-ton allowance sold for $10 when Ukraine signed a $300 million deal with Japan. The Kiev government has almost 1 billion more tons to put on the market, said Irina Stavchuk of the National Ecological Center of Ukraine."The hot air business is the main goal of the government," Stavchuk said.Income from such deals is supposed to be earmarked for clean-energy and other "green" projects. But critics have questioned how well that guideline is followed.While Western industrial powers must cut carbon emissions, and many developing nations are asked to shift to low-carbon economic growth, a few Eastern European countries have little incentive to constrain their polluting, since they're already far below emissions limits.In a way, these nations have the best of both worlds. They can make millions selling carbon credits, while enjoying a comfortable cushion to pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere without worrying about energy efficiency or cleaning up their factories.But the credits could lapse in 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires. Russia, Ukraine and other beneficiaries want these pollution rights extended in the new deal to be struck at Copenhagen. Other countries want to redress what they believe is an unfair loophole. Carbon traders, meanwhile, fear the weight of hot air credits will drive down market prices sharply.As part of a new climate treaty, Ukraine is being asked to commit to a ceiling on emissions and it has pledged to emit 20 percent less in 2020 than it did in the benchmark year of 1990. Since its current emissions are about 52 percent below 1990, it will be left with plenty of credits to sell.Last week Russia, the biggest holder of hot air credits, increased its pledged 2020 target to as much as 25 percent below 1990 — about where its emissions are today."We have to get rid of this hot air problem because it really threatens the environmental integrity of the whole system," said Sven Harmeling, a climate expert for the nonprofit group Germanwatch.But a solution will be hard to find at Copenhagen when countries have so much at stake, Harmeling said.The billion-dollar diplomatic debate in the Danish capital seems a world away from grimy Konstantinovka, where ex-plumber Gapor chipped away at concrete blocks, plucking out steel reinforcement rods to sell at 1 hryvnia, or 12 cents, per kilogram (2.2 pounds)."We need to survive somehow," he said.Nearby, crusading local journalist Vladimir Berezin climbed onto a mound of rubble."We call this place the Cemetery of Communism," he said. A dozen 180-meter-tall (590-foot-tall) smokestacks stood like memorial obelisks over the devastation. The entrance to an abandoned building bore the slogan honoring Vladimir Lenin, founding father of the Soviet Union: "Our Aim is Communism and the Ideas of Lenin are Immortal.""It's true," Berezin said. "Here you can see Lenin's ideas. Here you see our communism."
For others beyond this manufacturing graveyard, however, Ukraine's economic collapse has produced a potential multibillion-dollar bonanza. In an era of climate change regulation and carbon trading, Ukraine, ironically, is profiting from the smokeless smokestacks of its industrial shutdown.How well and how long it will profit is an under-the-radar issue complicating negotiations for a worldwide climate accord being sought at a 192-nation conference in Copenhagen next month.Gapor's old factory, which made glass for the Soviet military and space program, shut down in the early 1990s after the Soviet Union disintegrated. Private wrecking crews and desperate jobless people like Gapor then turned the town's industries, which once employed 16,000 workers, into heaps of bricks.In the days when Ukraine was a Soviet republic, Konstantinovka was a booming town of 100,000 with 25 factories. Concert music filled its Palace of Culture, its workers were rewarded with trips to Crimea's beaches, and its children with stays at mountain "pioneer camps." Today just five workshops still operate, and the population is down to 60,000, many unemployed having migrated to Moscow, Kiev or Western Europe to find jobs, leaving families behind.The surrounding province in eastern Ukraine, plagued by bad management and lack of investment, has lost 10 percent of its population, said Vladimir Morozov, an environmental engineer in the regional capital, Donetsk. Wealthy oligarchs, not communists, now rule the economy, he said, and they show no interest in rebuilding a wretched backwater.The industrial collapse has been bad for jobs but good for the climate. Ukraine produces less than half the greenhouse gases it did 20 years ago, and under a trading system devised in the negotiations for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, curbing the gases blamed for global warming, it is allowed to sell credits for every ton of carbon dioxide saved.Countries or companies that cannot meet commitments to reduce emissions can buy these "allowances" from those that have cut emissions more than required and have a surplus to sell. Point Carbon, a Norwegian-based consulting firm, estimates 9 billion allowances are available, mostly in Russia.Earlier this year, each one-ton allowance sold for $10 when Ukraine signed a $300 million deal with Japan. The Kiev government has almost 1 billion more tons to put on the market, said Irina Stavchuk of the National Ecological Center of Ukraine."The hot air business is the main goal of the government," Stavchuk said.Income from such deals is supposed to be earmarked for clean-energy and other "green" projects. But critics have questioned how well that guideline is followed.While Western industrial powers must cut carbon emissions, and many developing nations are asked to shift to low-carbon economic growth, a few Eastern European countries have little incentive to constrain their polluting, since they're already far below emissions limits.In a way, these nations have the best of both worlds. They can make millions selling carbon credits, while enjoying a comfortable cushion to pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere without worrying about energy efficiency or cleaning up their factories.But the credits could lapse in 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires. Russia, Ukraine and other beneficiaries want these pollution rights extended in the new deal to be struck at Copenhagen. Other countries want to redress what they believe is an unfair loophole. Carbon traders, meanwhile, fear the weight of hot air credits will drive down market prices sharply.As part of a new climate treaty, Ukraine is being asked to commit to a ceiling on emissions and it has pledged to emit 20 percent less in 2020 than it did in the benchmark year of 1990. Since its current emissions are about 52 percent below 1990, it will be left with plenty of credits to sell.Last week Russia, the biggest holder of hot air credits, increased its pledged 2020 target to as much as 25 percent below 1990 — about where its emissions are today."We have to get rid of this hot air problem because it really threatens the environmental integrity of the whole system," said Sven Harmeling, a climate expert for the nonprofit group Germanwatch.But a solution will be hard to find at Copenhagen when countries have so much at stake, Harmeling said.The billion-dollar diplomatic debate in the Danish capital seems a world away from grimy Konstantinovka, where ex-plumber Gapor chipped away at concrete blocks, plucking out steel reinforcement rods to sell at 1 hryvnia, or 12 cents, per kilogram (2.2 pounds)."We need to survive somehow," he said.Nearby, crusading local journalist Vladimir Berezin climbed onto a mound of rubble."We call this place the Cemetery of Communism," he said. A dozen 180-meter-tall (590-foot-tall) smokestacks stood like memorial obelisks over the devastation. The entrance to an abandoned building bore the slogan honoring Vladimir Lenin, founding father of the Soviet Union: "Our Aim is Communism and the Ideas of Lenin are Immortal.""It's true," Berezin said. "Here you can see Lenin's ideas. Here you see our communism."
Ukrainians Hold Muted Celebration Of 2004 ‘Orange Revolution’
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainians turned out yesterday in Kiev to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Orange Revolution, amid disillusionment with political leaders and a severe economic crisis.
Several dozen people celebrated in the capital’s main square - a stark contrast to the tens of thousands who on November 22, 2004 led protests which prompted the cancellation of rigged election results.Draped in orange, the colour of pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko, the demonstrators protested a vote that returned the Russian-backed incumbent President Viktor Yanukovich.After three weeks, the peaceful uprising achieved its goal - the supreme court annulled the vote due to fraud, ordered a new poll and after a clear victory Yushchenko was declared president on January 23, 2005.But hopes of prosperity have been set back by the economic crisis which saw the national currency lose 40% of its value and aspirations of political stability undermined by bickering national leaders.“Of course I feel disappointed. (The political leaders) have betrayed the ideas of the revolution,” said Andry Avramenko, who took part in the Orange Revolution protests and had an orange scarf draped round his neck.
Several dozen people celebrated in the capital’s main square - a stark contrast to the tens of thousands who on November 22, 2004 led protests which prompted the cancellation of rigged election results.Draped in orange, the colour of pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko, the demonstrators protested a vote that returned the Russian-backed incumbent President Viktor Yanukovich.After three weeks, the peaceful uprising achieved its goal - the supreme court annulled the vote due to fraud, ordered a new poll and after a clear victory Yushchenko was declared president on January 23, 2005.But hopes of prosperity have been set back by the economic crisis which saw the national currency lose 40% of its value and aspirations of political stability undermined by bickering national leaders.“Of course I feel disappointed. (The political leaders) have betrayed the ideas of the revolution,” said Andry Avramenko, who took part in the Orange Revolution protests and had an orange scarf draped round his neck.
Ukrainian Presidential Candidate Arseniy Yatseniuk’s Foreign Policy
KIEV, Ukraine -- In 2008-2009 Arseniy Yatseniuk grew rapidly in popularity and was seen as the rising star of a “new generation of Ukrainian politicians,” with some even touting him as “Ukraine’s Obama” who would inevitably prove “pro-Western.”
Evidence of Yatseniuk’s pro-Western stance was seen when he promoted Ukraine’s trans-Atlantic integration as foreign minister in 2007-2008, his election in the first five candidates of the pro-Western Our Ukraine-People’s Self Defense bloc in the 2007 elections and his signature (together with President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko) on a January 2008 letter to NATO requesting a Membership Action Plan for Ukraine.These assumptions about Yatseniuk were not based on his statements or election program, which was only released in October. Yatseniuk’s foreign policy shift away from Brussels and Moscow is described by Ukrainian experts as “isolationist” or a nationalist third-way.In June 2009, Yatseniuk’s main financial sponsor –oligarch Viktor Pinchuk– pressured him to exchange Ukrainian for Russian political technologists: Timofei Sergeitsev, Dmitry Kulikov and Iskander Valitov.These political technologists had a poor reputation – they had not only worked in Viktor Yanukovych’s 2004 dirty election campaign, but also belonged to the State Duma Expert Council controlled by the Ukrainophobe Konstantin Zatulin who is banned from entering Ukraine.Russian political technologists moved Yatseniuk away from his pro-Western orientation to a Ukrainian “third way,” isolationist-nationalist platform. In an interview in Korrespondent, Yatseniuk praised the former Russian President Vladimir Putin for bringing order to Russia.When asked if he wanted to be a “Ukrainian Putin” he replied that he planned to be neither a “Putin” nor an “Obama,” indicating the isolationist-nationalism position he was adopting. Yatseniuk has also used the global economic crisis to become a critic of liberalism.Since last summer Yatseniuk has abandoned the pro-NATO position that he held in 2007-2008. In a lengthy interview in Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraini, Yatseniuk stated his now often repeated phrase that Ukraine is not being invited into NATO or the E.U. and, therefore, membership in both organizations is currently not an issue for the country.Yatseniuk’s election program, speeches and statements call for a new “Eastern European union” of countries not given a membership option by the E.U. which he defines as “Greater Europe”.One of the first public discussions of Yatseniuk’s isolationist-nationalism took place at the annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) summit on September 25-26. YES, a pro-E.U. lobbying NGO funded by Pinchuk gave the floor to the three main presidential candidates – Tymoshenko, Yatseniuk and Yanukovych – in a live broadcast on ICTV, one of four television channels owned by Pinchuk.Yatseniuk’s speech at the YES summit confused Ukrainian and foreign guests with voters watching ICTV unclear as to what he really stood for, and if he supported or opposed Ukraine’s membership of the E.U. (NATO was not even raised).“Nobody to the very end understood what Yatseniuk meant when he spoke of Greater Europe,” Glavred editor and Yatseniuk sympathizer Alyona Getmanchuk observed on September 28. Yatseniuk could not answer repeated questions as to what ideological niche he represented.Ukrainian media analysis following the YES summit was uniformly critical, stating that he was a different man the year before, when he was described as the “most progressive pro-European” Ukrainian politician. Yatseniuk’s speech shocked guests for the “aggressiveness” of its “message”.Yatseniuk’s Greater Europe is an alternative to Western and Russian integrationist projects and would unite Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in a new union with its center in Kyiv. Greater Europe would focus on four joint projects in energy, transport and communications, industry and access to world markets and the military-industrial complex.In Yatseniuk’s “Ukrainian Interests” he explained the roots of his Greater Europe idea as lying in the most “powerful geopolitical project in the history of mankind –Kyiv Rus”. Yatseniuk stressed the role of Kyiv as the ideological center of eastern Pan Slavism, Eastern European Orthodox civilization and the ideological kernel of the Russian empire.Kyiv should, Yatseniuk believes, be revived as the center of a new geopolitical project and “Eastern European empire with its center in Kyiv”. “Ukraine can and should become the initiator of a new Eastern European union that I see from Uzhorod to Vladivostok. And Kyiv will be its center,” he asserted.As Ukrainian experts noted, Yatseniuk has “borrowed” the ideas of Ukrainian right and left-wing populist-nationalists who propagated the theme of “away from Moscow and the West” in the 1990’s.In 1993 Dmytro Korchynsky, the then leader of the extreme right-wing Ukrainian National Assembly (UNA), said: “Our people have become used to living in a big state. We will make Ukraine into a large state so that the people will have no need to change their habits”.UNA’s fusion of pan-Slavism and Ukrainian nationalism came one year after its paramilitary People’s Self Defense Forces (UNSO) fought in the Trans-Dniestr conflict on the side of separatists. Korchynsky is now head of Bratstvo, a member of the Eurasian Youth Movement.Left-wing Ukrainian left-wing populist-nationalism was popularized by two Prime Ministers in 1995-1997: Yevhen Marchuk and Pavlo Lazarenko. This translated into political support in the in the 1998 elections in the Social Democratic united and Hromada parties respectively.Yatseniuk’s Greater Europe is also similar to the 2003 CIS Single Economic Space that unites the same four countries with Kyiv replacing Minsk as its center.In 2008 Yatseniuk was seen as the new face of Ukrainian politics supporting a pro-Western foreign policy; but, this was before Ukrainians and Westerners had seen his program.Since last summer, his election program has positioned Yatseniuk as the candidate supporting an isolationist-nationalist third way, without deference to either Moscow or Brussels and Washington
Evidence of Yatseniuk’s pro-Western stance was seen when he promoted Ukraine’s trans-Atlantic integration as foreign minister in 2007-2008, his election in the first five candidates of the pro-Western Our Ukraine-People’s Self Defense bloc in the 2007 elections and his signature (together with President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko) on a January 2008 letter to NATO requesting a Membership Action Plan for Ukraine.These assumptions about Yatseniuk were not based on his statements or election program, which was only released in October. Yatseniuk’s foreign policy shift away from Brussels and Moscow is described by Ukrainian experts as “isolationist” or a nationalist third-way.In June 2009, Yatseniuk’s main financial sponsor –oligarch Viktor Pinchuk– pressured him to exchange Ukrainian for Russian political technologists: Timofei Sergeitsev, Dmitry Kulikov and Iskander Valitov.These political technologists had a poor reputation – they had not only worked in Viktor Yanukovych’s 2004 dirty election campaign, but also belonged to the State Duma Expert Council controlled by the Ukrainophobe Konstantin Zatulin who is banned from entering Ukraine.Russian political technologists moved Yatseniuk away from his pro-Western orientation to a Ukrainian “third way,” isolationist-nationalist platform. In an interview in Korrespondent, Yatseniuk praised the former Russian President Vladimir Putin for bringing order to Russia.When asked if he wanted to be a “Ukrainian Putin” he replied that he planned to be neither a “Putin” nor an “Obama,” indicating the isolationist-nationalism position he was adopting. Yatseniuk has also used the global economic crisis to become a critic of liberalism.Since last summer Yatseniuk has abandoned the pro-NATO position that he held in 2007-2008. In a lengthy interview in Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraini, Yatseniuk stated his now often repeated phrase that Ukraine is not being invited into NATO or the E.U. and, therefore, membership in both organizations is currently not an issue for the country.Yatseniuk’s election program, speeches and statements call for a new “Eastern European union” of countries not given a membership option by the E.U. which he defines as “Greater Europe”.One of the first public discussions of Yatseniuk’s isolationist-nationalism took place at the annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) summit on September 25-26. YES, a pro-E.U. lobbying NGO funded by Pinchuk gave the floor to the three main presidential candidates – Tymoshenko, Yatseniuk and Yanukovych – in a live broadcast on ICTV, one of four television channels owned by Pinchuk.Yatseniuk’s speech at the YES summit confused Ukrainian and foreign guests with voters watching ICTV unclear as to what he really stood for, and if he supported or opposed Ukraine’s membership of the E.U. (NATO was not even raised).“Nobody to the very end understood what Yatseniuk meant when he spoke of Greater Europe,” Glavred editor and Yatseniuk sympathizer Alyona Getmanchuk observed on September 28. Yatseniuk could not answer repeated questions as to what ideological niche he represented.Ukrainian media analysis following the YES summit was uniformly critical, stating that he was a different man the year before, when he was described as the “most progressive pro-European” Ukrainian politician. Yatseniuk’s speech shocked guests for the “aggressiveness” of its “message”.Yatseniuk’s Greater Europe is an alternative to Western and Russian integrationist projects and would unite Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in a new union with its center in Kyiv. Greater Europe would focus on four joint projects in energy, transport and communications, industry and access to world markets and the military-industrial complex.In Yatseniuk’s “Ukrainian Interests” he explained the roots of his Greater Europe idea as lying in the most “powerful geopolitical project in the history of mankind –Kyiv Rus”. Yatseniuk stressed the role of Kyiv as the ideological center of eastern Pan Slavism, Eastern European Orthodox civilization and the ideological kernel of the Russian empire.Kyiv should, Yatseniuk believes, be revived as the center of a new geopolitical project and “Eastern European empire with its center in Kyiv”. “Ukraine can and should become the initiator of a new Eastern European union that I see from Uzhorod to Vladivostok. And Kyiv will be its center,” he asserted.As Ukrainian experts noted, Yatseniuk has “borrowed” the ideas of Ukrainian right and left-wing populist-nationalists who propagated the theme of “away from Moscow and the West” in the 1990’s.In 1993 Dmytro Korchynsky, the then leader of the extreme right-wing Ukrainian National Assembly (UNA), said: “Our people have become used to living in a big state. We will make Ukraine into a large state so that the people will have no need to change their habits”.UNA’s fusion of pan-Slavism and Ukrainian nationalism came one year after its paramilitary People’s Self Defense Forces (UNSO) fought in the Trans-Dniestr conflict on the side of separatists. Korchynsky is now head of Bratstvo, a member of the Eurasian Youth Movement.Left-wing Ukrainian left-wing populist-nationalism was popularized by two Prime Ministers in 1995-1997: Yevhen Marchuk and Pavlo Lazarenko. This translated into political support in the in the 1998 elections in the Social Democratic united and Hromada parties respectively.Yatseniuk’s Greater Europe is also similar to the 2003 CIS Single Economic Space that unites the same four countries with Kyiv replacing Minsk as its center.In 2008 Yatseniuk was seen as the new face of Ukrainian politics supporting a pro-Western foreign policy; but, this was before Ukrainians and Westerners had seen his program.Since last summer, his election program has positioned Yatseniuk as the candidate supporting an isolationist-nationalist third way, without deference to either Moscow or Brussels and Washington
EU-Ukraine Summit To Mark New Chapter In Bilateral Relations
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The EU aims to give Ukraine a stern warning about financial and political reform at an upcoming summit, as the two sides head into a new, more pragmatic chapter in bilateral relations.
In an anecdote told by one EU official, a close ally of Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko, Oleh Rybachuk, visited Brussels shortly after the Orange Revolution in November 2004. Following a marathon of meetings in various formats in the EU institutions, Mr Rybachuk's frustration came to a head. "He just said 'Look, who do I have to talk to round here to get Ukraine into the European Union?'" the EU official recalled.Five years down the line, the EU has a new "foreign minister" who is preparing to attend the summit in Kiev on 4 December.But the event is likely to be the last of its kind for the Orange Revolution hero, Mr Yushchenko, who trails badly in polls ahead of presidential elections in January.The question of EU accession remains firmly off the agenda despite romantic ideas among some Ukrainian diplomats that the country should submit a formal application for membership next year.The EU is equally unwilling to open up borders with its eastern neighbour: At a meeting of foreign ministers last week, only Lithuania, Estonia and Slovakia backed a plan to offer Ukraine a "roadmap" for visa-free travel in the next few years.Even Poland, traditionally Ukraine's biggest friend in Brussels, has become fed up with its internal instability and confrontational negotiating tactics.If Ukraine embroils the EU in a fresh gas crisis with Russia in January, as feared, or fails to hold normal presidential elections, relations will deteriorate further.The EU is keen to keep making progress on a technical Association Agreement and to help Ukraine cope with its recession.But European Commission plans to offer a further €500 million in economic aid are under review because of Kiev's failure to curb public spending or to clean up waste and corruption at its national gas company, Naftogaz.Limited objectivesIn this context, the union's main objective at the summit will be to "send clear messages on the need for determined and decisive action on reform," according to an internal EU paper. The union does not expect a quick reaction. "What kind of commitment can we ask from the Ukrainians in this regard even before the elections?" the internal paper said.Ukraine's likely next president and current prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, is accused of cultivating an authoritarian style reminiscent of the country's pre-Orange Revolution leader, Leonid Kuchma.She is also building closer relations with Moscow: Her recent gas deals with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin could help Russia to gain control of Naftogaz' pipeline network. Nobody expects her to follow Mr Yushchenko's plan to evict the Russian navy from Crimea in 2017 or to steer Ukraine toward Nato.The EU's lack of ambition to anchor Ukraine to the West is criticised by some."There is a lack of strategic political thinking in the EU as far as Ukraine is concerned," Ukraine's deputy foreign minister, Konstantin Yeliseyev, said on a visit to Brussels last week. "I hope the current bad weather with regard to our European aspirations does not lead to a permanent ice age."Pragmatism sets inBut the drift away from the heady times of colour revolutions is being increasingly welcomed inside the EU.A senior diplomat from one former Communist EU country told EUobserver that Ukraine is likely to act as a model for EU relations with other post-Soviet states. The contact envisaged that in the coming years the union will roll out trade and visa deals with Belarus, Moldova and Georgia. But it will not push for a democratic government in Minsk or for Chisinau and Tbilisi to regain control of Russian-held regions."Under Tymoshenko Ukraine will be more Kuchma-like. But she is a rational person. Ukraine will be more stable and more predictable if she is in charge," the EU diplomat said.
In an anecdote told by one EU official, a close ally of Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko, Oleh Rybachuk, visited Brussels shortly after the Orange Revolution in November 2004. Following a marathon of meetings in various formats in the EU institutions, Mr Rybachuk's frustration came to a head. "He just said 'Look, who do I have to talk to round here to get Ukraine into the European Union?'" the EU official recalled.Five years down the line, the EU has a new "foreign minister" who is preparing to attend the summit in Kiev on 4 December.But the event is likely to be the last of its kind for the Orange Revolution hero, Mr Yushchenko, who trails badly in polls ahead of presidential elections in January.The question of EU accession remains firmly off the agenda despite romantic ideas among some Ukrainian diplomats that the country should submit a formal application for membership next year.The EU is equally unwilling to open up borders with its eastern neighbour: At a meeting of foreign ministers last week, only Lithuania, Estonia and Slovakia backed a plan to offer Ukraine a "roadmap" for visa-free travel in the next few years.Even Poland, traditionally Ukraine's biggest friend in Brussels, has become fed up with its internal instability and confrontational negotiating tactics.If Ukraine embroils the EU in a fresh gas crisis with Russia in January, as feared, or fails to hold normal presidential elections, relations will deteriorate further.The EU is keen to keep making progress on a technical Association Agreement and to help Ukraine cope with its recession.But European Commission plans to offer a further €500 million in economic aid are under review because of Kiev's failure to curb public spending or to clean up waste and corruption at its national gas company, Naftogaz.Limited objectivesIn this context, the union's main objective at the summit will be to "send clear messages on the need for determined and decisive action on reform," according to an internal EU paper. The union does not expect a quick reaction. "What kind of commitment can we ask from the Ukrainians in this regard even before the elections?" the internal paper said.Ukraine's likely next president and current prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, is accused of cultivating an authoritarian style reminiscent of the country's pre-Orange Revolution leader, Leonid Kuchma.She is also building closer relations with Moscow: Her recent gas deals with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin could help Russia to gain control of Naftogaz' pipeline network. Nobody expects her to follow Mr Yushchenko's plan to evict the Russian navy from Crimea in 2017 or to steer Ukraine toward Nato.The EU's lack of ambition to anchor Ukraine to the West is criticised by some."There is a lack of strategic political thinking in the EU as far as Ukraine is concerned," Ukraine's deputy foreign minister, Konstantin Yeliseyev, said on a visit to Brussels last week. "I hope the current bad weather with regard to our European aspirations does not lead to a permanent ice age."Pragmatism sets inBut the drift away from the heady times of colour revolutions is being increasingly welcomed inside the EU.A senior diplomat from one former Communist EU country told EUobserver that Ukraine is likely to act as a model for EU relations with other post-Soviet states. The contact envisaged that in the coming years the union will roll out trade and visa deals with Belarus, Moldova and Georgia. But it will not push for a democratic government in Minsk or for Chisinau and Tbilisi to regain control of Russian-held regions."Under Tymoshenko Ukraine will be more Kuchma-like. But she is a rational person. Ukraine will be more stable and more predictable if she is in charge," the EU diplomat said.
Thursday 19 November 2009
Price for gas Ukraine buys from Russia may increase to $270-$300
Natural gas that Ukraine will buy from Russia in the first quarter of 2010 will cost $270-$300 per 1,000 cubic meters compared to $208.1 per 1,000 cubic meters in the fourth quarter of 2009, said Bohdan Sokolovsky, a Ukrainian presidential representative for international energy security. "If we talk about the beginning of the year, January, there are estimates on gas imported from Russia - this is from $270 to $300 per 1,000 cubic meters. I am inclined to think the latter figure is more correct, judging by the trends in the price for the oil basket," Sokolovsky said at a press conference in Kyiv.Talking about the price for gas transit, Sokolovsky suggested it could increase by $0.7-$0.8 for transporting 1,000 cubic meters of gas per 100 kilometers, which means that the 2009 transit tariffs will increase by 41%-47% from $1.7."In line with the formula stipulated in the transit contract, the price should increase by about 70-80 cents. This is certainly a bit too little," he said.It was reported earlier that, since the signing of a gas deal between Gazprom and Naftogaz of Ukraine in January 2009, the price for Russian gas bought by Ukraine has been calculated by a formula, in which the gas price directly depends on the world oil prices. Considering that Ukraine was granted a 20% discount in 2009, the gas price in 2010 can grow by 25% even if all the other factors remain the same.The price for Russian gas bought by Ukraine in the first quarter of 2009 was $360 per 1,000 cubic meters, in the second quarter it declined to $270.95 and in the third to $198.34 and then rose to $208.12 in the fourth quarter.We remind that Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko on Nov. 19 urged Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in an open letter to change an agreement on supplies of Russian natural gas.
Yuschenko to ask parliament to pass amendments to 2009 budget to raise army financing
Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko will ask leaders of parliamentary factions to pass amendments to the state budget for this year concerning the financing of the Armed Forces. Yuschenko said this on Wednesday while introducing Ivan Svyda as the new chief of the general staff of the armed forces."I believe that my address to the parliament of the country, leaders of main political forces will be heard and that the issue of the financial provision of Ukraine's Armed Forces in 2009 will be raised during the current session of the Verkhovna Rada and we will reach a positive conclusion," Yuschenko said.The president once again stressed that the insufficient financing of Ukraine's army was a result of the policies of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's government."The disorganized and imbalanced army is obviously the aim of the premier's policies," he said.
Ukraine looks for next IMF loan tranche in December
Ukraine’s cooperation with the International Monetary Fund is “absolutely necessary” and the country hopes to obtain the next round of funds as early as next month, Foreign Minister Petro Poroshenko said.
The former Soviet state is dependent on a $16.4 billion IMF loan to avoid bankruptcy amid a recession and to maintain payments for the transit of Russian natural gas to Europe. The Washington-based IMF earlier this month decided to delay disbursement of the next $3.4 billion portion of the loan after Ukrainian lawmakers failed to rein in social spending.
Ukraine’s hryvnia pared intra-day losses after Poroshenko’s comments, and traded little changed at 8.1250 against the dollar at 5:37 p.m. in Kiev. It earlier declined as much as 0.9 percent. The extra yield investors demand to own Ukraine’s international debt dropped for the first time in three days, declining 17 basis points to 11.25 percentage points, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. EMBI+ indexes.
“We have a new project of the budget law and we’re preparing a special letter from the prime minister and finance minister to the IMF and a separate letter from the governor of the national bank,” Poroshenko said in a Bloomberg News interview in Brussels today. “It has helped a lot to put cooperation with the IMF on track and we expect the IMF mission to return to Ukraine by the end of this year.”
December ‘Possible’
Poroshenko, head of the central bank council, said he thought payment of the next installment of the IMF loan to Ukraine would be “possible” in December. The country has already used $10.6 billion of the credit in three installments to stay afloat after the global economic slump cut demand for its exports, such as steel, and hit its banking industry.
The loan should not be spent on financing a budget deficit but for “helping Ukraine to provide reform to the sectors that most urgently need it” such as the energy and financial sectors, Poroshenko said.
Countries including France and the U.K. announced at a meeting today of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels that they want “strict conditionality” on the next installment of IMF loans for Ukraine.
“There’s real disappointment among many of Ukraine’s friends over the inability to enact reforms,” Pierre Lellouche, France’s European affairs minister, told reporters.
The suspension of IMF financing prompted Fitch Ratings on Nov. 12 to cut Ukraine’s long-term foreign-currency credit rating to B- from B, six levels below investment grade and on par with Argentina and Lebanon.
Political Infighting
The economic situation in the east European state has been aggravated by political infighting before presidential elections scheduled for Jan. 17. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko and pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych are competing in the race.
“I’m an optimist and I think it will be absolutely necessary for Ukraine before and after the presidential election to continue cooperation with the IMF,” Poroshenko said. “It would be impossible during the crisis and a very difficult economic situation to find a way out without cooperation with the IMF. I think all participants of the presidential race are fully in support of this position.”
Poroshenko said Ukraine’s economy may show a “modest growth” next year after shrinking an annual 15.9 percent in the third quarter and 17.8 percent in the second. At the same time the country will have to cut spending, “undertake serious steps” to pay back its debt and demonstrate that it is a “reliable partner for investors,” he added.
Budget Policy
Implementation of a “firm” budget policy by the government and continuation of cooperation with the IMF should help bring back investors to Ukraine and provide for the country “a great chance to demonstrate certain stability of national currency,” Poroshenko said.
The central bank “almost didn’t spend” its reserves to support the hryvnia in the last month, he said, adding that the stabilization of the currency reflected the “return of trust” from investors.
“It’s been self-regulating within the last several weeks because of firm monetary policy and because of stopping pressure from financial speculators,” Poroshenko said. “The firm monetary policy will continue.”
“But if necessary, Ukraine has currency reserves and the central bank has a possibility to intervene and to support the hryvnia,” he said. “But that would be only to take away the peak of demand, we cannot run against the trend. We cannot waste our gold currency reserves.”
Commodity Prices
The hryvnia has rallied almost 10 percent from a six-month low on Sept. 4. With the Ukrainian economy being export- oriented, the stability of the currency will also depend on global commodity prices, especially steel, agriculture and chemical products, according to Poroshenko.
Poroshenko said he didn’t expect any disputes with Russia over the transit of gas via Ukraine to western Europe. A dispute between Russia and Ukraine in January left more than 20 countries without gas for almost two weeks.
“This year’s situation is completely different from the previous one,” he said. “Beforehand it was a dispute on prices and we didn’t have an agreement. It was a political question. Today we don’t expect any disputes, neither on price, nor on the essence of the agreement.”
Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last week the country may halt gas transit through Ukraine if the former Soviet state can’t keep up payments. Ukraine ships about 80 percent of Russian gas exports to Europe.
“We don’t have any problems with supplies,” Poroshenko said. “Ukraine pays for gas in time and has more than 27 billion cubic meters of gas in underground storage that can be used as a reserve to supply gas to Europe. The only question we can discuss is to continue cooperation with the IMF and with the European Union.”
The former Soviet state is dependent on a $16.4 billion IMF loan to avoid bankruptcy amid a recession and to maintain payments for the transit of Russian natural gas to Europe. The Washington-based IMF earlier this month decided to delay disbursement of the next $3.4 billion portion of the loan after Ukrainian lawmakers failed to rein in social spending.
Ukraine’s hryvnia pared intra-day losses after Poroshenko’s comments, and traded little changed at 8.1250 against the dollar at 5:37 p.m. in Kiev. It earlier declined as much as 0.9 percent. The extra yield investors demand to own Ukraine’s international debt dropped for the first time in three days, declining 17 basis points to 11.25 percentage points, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. EMBI+ indexes.
“We have a new project of the budget law and we’re preparing a special letter from the prime minister and finance minister to the IMF and a separate letter from the governor of the national bank,” Poroshenko said in a Bloomberg News interview in Brussels today. “It has helped a lot to put cooperation with the IMF on track and we expect the IMF mission to return to Ukraine by the end of this year.”
December ‘Possible’
Poroshenko, head of the central bank council, said he thought payment of the next installment of the IMF loan to Ukraine would be “possible” in December. The country has already used $10.6 billion of the credit in three installments to stay afloat after the global economic slump cut demand for its exports, such as steel, and hit its banking industry.
The loan should not be spent on financing a budget deficit but for “helping Ukraine to provide reform to the sectors that most urgently need it” such as the energy and financial sectors, Poroshenko said.
Countries including France and the U.K. announced at a meeting today of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels that they want “strict conditionality” on the next installment of IMF loans for Ukraine.
“There’s real disappointment among many of Ukraine’s friends over the inability to enact reforms,” Pierre Lellouche, France’s European affairs minister, told reporters.
The suspension of IMF financing prompted Fitch Ratings on Nov. 12 to cut Ukraine’s long-term foreign-currency credit rating to B- from B, six levels below investment grade and on par with Argentina and Lebanon.
Political Infighting
The economic situation in the east European state has been aggravated by political infighting before presidential elections scheduled for Jan. 17. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko and pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych are competing in the race.
“I’m an optimist and I think it will be absolutely necessary for Ukraine before and after the presidential election to continue cooperation with the IMF,” Poroshenko said. “It would be impossible during the crisis and a very difficult economic situation to find a way out without cooperation with the IMF. I think all participants of the presidential race are fully in support of this position.”
Poroshenko said Ukraine’s economy may show a “modest growth” next year after shrinking an annual 15.9 percent in the third quarter and 17.8 percent in the second. At the same time the country will have to cut spending, “undertake serious steps” to pay back its debt and demonstrate that it is a “reliable partner for investors,” he added.
Budget Policy
Implementation of a “firm” budget policy by the government and continuation of cooperation with the IMF should help bring back investors to Ukraine and provide for the country “a great chance to demonstrate certain stability of national currency,” Poroshenko said.
The central bank “almost didn’t spend” its reserves to support the hryvnia in the last month, he said, adding that the stabilization of the currency reflected the “return of trust” from investors.
“It’s been self-regulating within the last several weeks because of firm monetary policy and because of stopping pressure from financial speculators,” Poroshenko said. “The firm monetary policy will continue.”
“But if necessary, Ukraine has currency reserves and the central bank has a possibility to intervene and to support the hryvnia,” he said. “But that would be only to take away the peak of demand, we cannot run against the trend. We cannot waste our gold currency reserves.”
Commodity Prices
The hryvnia has rallied almost 10 percent from a six-month low on Sept. 4. With the Ukrainian economy being export- oriented, the stability of the currency will also depend on global commodity prices, especially steel, agriculture and chemical products, according to Poroshenko.
Poroshenko said he didn’t expect any disputes with Russia over the transit of gas via Ukraine to western Europe. A dispute between Russia and Ukraine in January left more than 20 countries without gas for almost two weeks.
“This year’s situation is completely different from the previous one,” he said. “Beforehand it was a dispute on prices and we didn’t have an agreement. It was a political question. Today we don’t expect any disputes, neither on price, nor on the essence of the agreement.”
Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last week the country may halt gas transit through Ukraine if the former Soviet state can’t keep up payments. Ukraine ships about 80 percent of Russian gas exports to Europe.
“We don’t have any problems with supplies,” Poroshenko said. “Ukraine pays for gas in time and has more than 27 billion cubic meters of gas in underground storage that can be used as a reserve to supply gas to Europe. The only question we can discuss is to continue cooperation with the IMF and with the European Union.”
Kyiv mayor asks Kyivmetrobud to continue construction of second line of city sewer mains
The Kyiv Mayor's Office has asked OJSC Kyivmetrobud underground construction company to continue the construction of the second line of the city sewage mains, and has promised to find funds to finance the work. Members of the Kyiv City Administration considered this issue on Nov. 16.According to Kyivmetrobud Director General Volodymyr Petrenko, at present a total of 8.2 kilometers out of 9.8 kilometers of the second line of the city sewage mains has been already constructed. The major work was done in 2007-2008, when five kilometers of the line was built.This year only Hr 19 million was allocated for the construction of the mains."The funds have been already spent and currently Kyivmetrobud is undertaking everything possible so as not to stop construction", Petrenko said."But starting from Monday we have no way to continue doing this," he said.Deputy Head of Kyiv City Administration Anatoliy Holubchenko asked the leadership of Kyivmetrobud to continue the work."I address you on behalf of all Kyiv residents and on my behalf with a request to continue the work, and I promise that you will receive money," Holubchenko said.
Kyiv recommended to quadruple number of roads and restore balance between banks in new development plan
The Kyiv city authorities have been recommended to work to restore balance in development of the left bank of the city, quadruple the number of roads, and make other significant changes to the city’s plan of general development that was debated at a special meeting earlier this week.Visiting architects from Germany and Britain who took part in the debate also recommended to conduct a series of discussions with city residents before the plan is approved.Other participants of the discussion included members of the municipal and central government, and architects from other cities of Ukraine.The decision to approve a new general plan for the city’s development in the next 25 years was approved in Sept. 2008. The deadline for preparation of the first draft by a special working group runs out at the end of this year.According to the new plan, 49 parks and 84 public gardens will be upgraded, and the river Lybid and other small rivers in Kyiv will be revived. The area of roads is planned to quadruple, multi-level tunnels and flyovers are planned to be created at major junctions in the city center, and 26 million square meters of residential properties are planned to be built.According to Kommersant report, nearly all foreign experts strongly recommended that the general plan should be open for a broad discussion with city residents. German architect Werner Durt said that in 2004 the concept for reconstruction of Berlin had to be debated by the German parliament to solve the conflict between the residents and developers. “This was the only way to solve the conflict of interests between developers and the community,” he said.Also, foreign experts recommended the working group to limit commercial advertising on buildings and billboards, develop the metro network, the public transport infrastructure and pedestrian zones.“In Germany we have already realized that pedestrians should have priority over automobile transport,” Durt said.Foreign experts have also made recommendations to remove the imbalance between the development of the left and the right banks of Kyiv. The general architect of Rhein-Ruhr region in Germany said that 40 percent of Kyiv residents live on the left bank, but it only provides 14 percent of jobs in the city.“Moreover, the residents of the right bank consider the left one non-prestigious. We have the same problem in some cities. If the balance is not restored, the left bank might develop vast social problems” he warned.Vasyl Prysyazhniuk, head of the municipal organization Center for city construction and architecture, who heads the working group for development of the general plan, said that all the recommendations will be generalized and reported to the city government. He agreed that the left bank requires greater infrastructural development.“This is a part of a reason for transport problems in Kyiv,” he said. “We have an opportunity to create on the left bank offices, trade centers and entertainment centers. Especially needed is the reconstruction and technical upgrade of all existing industrial enterprises on the left bank,” Prysyazhniuk said.He said his draft city development plan also provides for a full reconstruction and face-lift of all embankments of Kyiv.
Russia, EU to keep constructive relationship under new EU leadership
Stockholm, November 19 - Relations between Russia and the EU will develop constructively no matter who heads the European Union, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said. "Whoever may come to the leadership of the European Union or its individual executive institutions, all these respected people will realize the importance of relations between the EU and Russia. Similarly whoever may be the president of the Russian Federation, we realize perfectly well what unified Europe means to us," he said at a press conference following the Russia-EU summit in Stockholm.Medvedev stressed that Russia is also part of Europe and "relations with the EU for Russia are a key component of international relations."He said that according to different estimates 50% to 60% of Russia's turnover is with European countries. "Therefore we are inevitable partners. Moreover, we are friendly partners. In this respect I am sure that everything is going to be good in the future as well," he said.The new leadership of the EU will be elected on Nov. 19.
Russia makes new climate change offer
Russia indicated on Wednesday that it is ready to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 25 percent, if other countries do the same, the president of the European Union said. The pledge, made during an EU-Russia summit in Stockholm, was the latest indication that Russia and the bloc are improving their strained relations and renewing their strategic cooperation. On Monday, they agreed to create an early warning system regarding energy supplies to prevent a fiasco like the one last winter when Moscow cut off natural gas supplies to western Europe."This was one of the best summits we've had so far," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at the one-day meeting.Relations between the EU and Russia, whose bilateral trade last year was $382 billion (€255 billion), suffered a major setback over the past year due to the war in Georgia in August 2008 and the dispute over natural gas supplies last January."I am quite satisfied," said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. "We managed to discuss issues in a constructive manner, without the emotions that have hindered previous meetings."Swedish and European leaders placed emphasis on climate change, given the U.N. conference on global warming in Copenhagen next month. They wanted to persuade Russia to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and may have succeeded."I very much welcome the signal from President Medvedev today of their (Russia's) proposed emission reduction target of 25 percent," said Barroso.Previously Russia has said it is willing to cut emissions by 10-15 percent from 1990 levels, while EU members are committed to 20 percent reductions by 2020.For his part, Medvedev suggested that Russia was ready to increase its commitment to slash greenhouse gases, if other big nations did the same. He did not specify how steep Russia was ready to increase its emissions, but the Interfax news agency, citing an unidentified source, said Russia could attain the 25 percent figure through a 40 percent increase in energy efficiency.On trade, EU leaders urged Russia, which is the EU's third largest trading partner, to join the World Trade Organization as quickly as possible — and here too they received an upbeat message from Russia's president."For us, the main thing is speed. Whatever path is the shortest, that's the path we'll take," said Medvedev.Russia is the only major world economy that is not a WTO member, and Moscow recently stepped back from its insistence that Russia only join the trade regulator together with Kazakhstan and Belarus. The EU had criticized the earlier position, saying it would delay Russia's membership in the World Trade Organization.As always, energy issues occupied a central position at the summit — the 24th between the EU and Russia. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned last week that Russia would again close the valves on gas pipelines flowing west, if Ukraine fails to pay for its shipments or begins siphoning illegally — a warning that raised the hackles of some EU leaders.To prevent a repeat of January's fiasco, the two sides agreed to create an early warning system comprised of information exchange, onsite inspections, and advance warnings in cases when energy supplies are deliberately severed.Russia is the EU's largest energy supplier, providing 20 percent of the bloc's natural gas needs through the Ukrainian pipeline.
Rights groups want Russia lawyer death investigated
MOSCOW - Human rights groups have called for an independent investigation into the sudden death of a 37-year-old witness in a Russian legal battle over tax fraud. Sergei Magnitsky, a suspect in a tax evasion case against Hermitage, once Russia's biggest investment fund, died of heart failure in prison on Monday, state prosecutors said.Magnitsky's lawyer had complained that he had been denied medical attention during almost a year in custody, and on Wednesday called for an investigation into whether the state had failed to provide the necessary care.Russia's Interior Ministry's investigative committee has said it had not been aware of any serious health problems."If it is true that Magnitsky complained about his health and was in a facility that did not have a prison hospital ... it is more than troubling," said Allison Gill, Moscow director of New York-based Human Rights Watch."When someone dies in custody, international standards state the burden is on national governments to explain the circumstances of the death," she said, adding that an investigation should be launched.A second human rights expert said the Russian system tended to keep prisoners in jail regardless of health -- a situation that needed to be reformed."It wasn't necessary to keep him (Magnitsky) in jail -- just to make some restrictions on his freedom of movement within Moscow," said Valery Borshchev, a Russia-based human rights and prison rights activist.Magnitsky was a former legal adviser to Hermitage's co-founder Bill Browder who fell out with Russian authorities after publicly berating big companies over their treatment of minority shareholders.The U.S.-born hedge fund manager was denied entry into Russia in 2005 on national security grounds and has since waged a corporate and legal war against the country.He has accused Russian officials of taking cash from the state budget and has in turn been accused of tax evasion -- a case that also implicated Magnitsky and led to his arrest in November last year on conspiracy charges.
Medvedev: Russia, Europe keen to increase energy supply potential
Stockholm, November 18 - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev thanked Sweden for allowing the building the Nord Stream pipeline through its country's economic zone and promised assistance in diversifying energy resources to Europe. "We appreciate the decision that was made by the Swedish government upon serious elaboration and reflection, on the basis of the internal procedures for permitting the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline through the [Swedish] economic zone," Medvedev told a press conference after talks with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on Nov. 18."This attests to Stockholm's thought-through position and also to the fact that this project is mutually beneficial and is of interest to Europe since it is aimed at making European energy security more versatile," Medvedev said."This is our common goal: the more opportunities we have for supplying energy resources, the more independent Europe will be in terms of sources of energy supply," he said."Russia has always believed that these processes should be helped. Somewhere these processes are being helped by Russia, somewhere this is done without our involvement, but that is normal too, there is nothing special about it," Medvedev said.
Tuesday 17 November 2009
Russia police corruption row rages on
The political storm triggered in Russia over accusations of police corruption is still rumbling on.
It all started when a major in the Militia, as Russia's police force is still known, went public this week with details of alleged corruption among his fellow officers in the southern Russian city of Novorossiysk.
Alexei Dymovsky had many complaints about his superiors, but perhaps the most serious was that they deliberately fabricated cases to suggest clear-up rates were improving.
What was even more shocking was that he posted his concerns on the video-sharing site YouTube for Russia and the rest of the world to see.
In the video, he called upon the Russian leadership to make the law enforcement agencies act properly. His superiors were furious, and the fallout has begun.
Mr Dymovsky has now been suspended, and his colleagues and former officers from the Novorossiysk police garrison accused him of "slinging mud at achievements accumulated over the years".
He was, they said, a "disgruntled man, denigrating the effort of honest officers".
They have threatened him with libel charges.
Meanwhile, the Russian Interior Minister, Rashid Nurgaliyev, has ordered an inquiry, and the Prosecutor General's Office has also taken an interest.
The authorities have acknowledged that the problems described by Major Dymovsky are widespread and far from new.
As a journalist working for the official magazine of the Soviet police in the 1980s, I heard many stories about the "pressers" - those bullying senior officers, motivated by careerism, leaving trampled people in their wake as they progressed through the ranks.
I heard dozens of stories of junior officers forced to write humiliating self-denunciations for failing to reach performance targets.
Arguably, Maj Dymovsky's greatest mistake was to voice what everybody in Russia already knows.
But what motivated him to do so?
There has always been a category of professional complainers in Russia, people convinced that the "kindly Tsar" knows nothing of the corruption permeating everything everywhere else.
So, Maj Dymovsky called upon President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin directly for help, bypassing both his own managers and the Interior Ministry, which controls the Militia.
Fate has not always been kind to Russia's complaining class. In Soviet times, many of them ended up in psychiatric hospitals.
Things are easier now, of course, but there are still plenty of conspiracy theories as to why Maj Dymovsky behaved as he did.
It has been suggested that he was acting on behalf of former police officers with their own grudges and agendas, or - the most serious thing you can be accused of in Russia these days - he was acting on behalf of western intelligence agencies or non-governmental groups.
Maj Dymovsky denies this.
Mr Medvedev and Mr Putin are unlikely to agree to Maj Dymovsky's request for a personal meeting.
It would be a public humiliation for the interior minister who has repeatedly pledged personally to tackle every case of corruption in the militia.
Yet it might just convince a rather cynical public that Mr Nurgaliyev is serious, were he to hold an open meeting with Maj Dymovsky to listen to his accusations in person.
Russia has conducted campaigns against corrupt police officers before.
From 1982-1986, a time of authoritarian Soviet rule, some 200,000 officers were dismissed.
The method was simple: those visibly living beyond their means were asked to write resignation letters. As an alternative, they were offered a spell behind bars.
So what is stopping Russian leaders from adopting similarly harsh tactics?
The respected Russian political analyst, Alexander Goltz, says: "The staircase needs to be swept from the top.
"If the state can use the police to bankrupt the oil giant, Yukos, every neighbourhood police officer understands he can do whatever he wants to the shop owner opposite."
Russia's recent experience suggests that the state is quite picky about who is labelled corrupt.
In 2008 an MP, Alexander Khinshtein, accused one of Russia's most senior judicial officials, Alexander Bastyrkin, Head of the procurator's investigative committee, of having private business interests - in contravention of the law.
Mr Khinshtein invited the official to sue him, or to resign. He did neither.
At the two men's next public meeting, Mr Bastyrkin announced that he had "explained himself to the country's leadership, and that's the only explaining he needed to do".
Russia's leadership likes to flag up its major achievement - "stability". Yet more and more Russians compare the current era with the zastoi of the late Brezhnev period.
Zastoi is Russian for stagnation, but it also refers to the crushing dullness, the emptiness, of life.
Russia now has little of the desire for reform and change that characterised society in the late 1980s.
The national mood won't allow it.
That's why it's thought that Alexei Dymovsky's demarche will have little if any effect.
It all started when a major in the Militia, as Russia's police force is still known, went public this week with details of alleged corruption among his fellow officers in the southern Russian city of Novorossiysk.
Alexei Dymovsky had many complaints about his superiors, but perhaps the most serious was that they deliberately fabricated cases to suggest clear-up rates were improving.
What was even more shocking was that he posted his concerns on the video-sharing site YouTube for Russia and the rest of the world to see.
In the video, he called upon the Russian leadership to make the law enforcement agencies act properly. His superiors were furious, and the fallout has begun.
Mr Dymovsky has now been suspended, and his colleagues and former officers from the Novorossiysk police garrison accused him of "slinging mud at achievements accumulated over the years".
He was, they said, a "disgruntled man, denigrating the effort of honest officers".
They have threatened him with libel charges.
Meanwhile, the Russian Interior Minister, Rashid Nurgaliyev, has ordered an inquiry, and the Prosecutor General's Office has also taken an interest.
The authorities have acknowledged that the problems described by Major Dymovsky are widespread and far from new.
As a journalist working for the official magazine of the Soviet police in the 1980s, I heard many stories about the "pressers" - those bullying senior officers, motivated by careerism, leaving trampled people in their wake as they progressed through the ranks.
I heard dozens of stories of junior officers forced to write humiliating self-denunciations for failing to reach performance targets.
Arguably, Maj Dymovsky's greatest mistake was to voice what everybody in Russia already knows.
But what motivated him to do so?
There has always been a category of professional complainers in Russia, people convinced that the "kindly Tsar" knows nothing of the corruption permeating everything everywhere else.
So, Maj Dymovsky called upon President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin directly for help, bypassing both his own managers and the Interior Ministry, which controls the Militia.
Fate has not always been kind to Russia's complaining class. In Soviet times, many of them ended up in psychiatric hospitals.
Things are easier now, of course, but there are still plenty of conspiracy theories as to why Maj Dymovsky behaved as he did.
It has been suggested that he was acting on behalf of former police officers with their own grudges and agendas, or - the most serious thing you can be accused of in Russia these days - he was acting on behalf of western intelligence agencies or non-governmental groups.
Maj Dymovsky denies this.
Mr Medvedev and Mr Putin are unlikely to agree to Maj Dymovsky's request for a personal meeting.
It would be a public humiliation for the interior minister who has repeatedly pledged personally to tackle every case of corruption in the militia.
Yet it might just convince a rather cynical public that Mr Nurgaliyev is serious, were he to hold an open meeting with Maj Dymovsky to listen to his accusations in person.
Russia has conducted campaigns against corrupt police officers before.
From 1982-1986, a time of authoritarian Soviet rule, some 200,000 officers were dismissed.
The method was simple: those visibly living beyond their means were asked to write resignation letters. As an alternative, they were offered a spell behind bars.
So what is stopping Russian leaders from adopting similarly harsh tactics?
The respected Russian political analyst, Alexander Goltz, says: "The staircase needs to be swept from the top.
"If the state can use the police to bankrupt the oil giant, Yukos, every neighbourhood police officer understands he can do whatever he wants to the shop owner opposite."
Russia's recent experience suggests that the state is quite picky about who is labelled corrupt.
In 2008 an MP, Alexander Khinshtein, accused one of Russia's most senior judicial officials, Alexander Bastyrkin, Head of the procurator's investigative committee, of having private business interests - in contravention of the law.
Mr Khinshtein invited the official to sue him, or to resign. He did neither.
At the two men's next public meeting, Mr Bastyrkin announced that he had "explained himself to the country's leadership, and that's the only explaining he needed to do".
Russia's leadership likes to flag up its major achievement - "stability". Yet more and more Russians compare the current era with the zastoi of the late Brezhnev period.
Zastoi is Russian for stagnation, but it also refers to the crushing dullness, the emptiness, of life.
Russia now has little of the desire for reform and change that characterised society in the late 1980s.
The national mood won't allow it.
That's why it's thought that Alexei Dymovsky's demarche will have little if any effect.
Russia's Iran reactor 'delayed'
Russia has said a nuclear power station it has been building at Bushehr in southern Iran will not be completed by the end of this year as planned.
Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said the delay in launching the plant, which will have two pressurised water reactors, was for "technical reasons".
Correspondents say Russia's decision to delay the opening is clearly political.
On Sunday, Russia and the US both warned Iran that time was running out for talks over its nuclear programme.
Speaking after talks in Singapore, US President Barack Obama said it was unfortunate that Iran still seemed unable to say yes to a "creative" international plan to allay suspicions that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons.
His Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, said he still hoped to persuade Tehran to send its low-enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be further processed to fuel an Iranian research reactor, but warned that "other means" could be employed if progress was not made on the issue.
Iran has failed to give a clear response.
The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is expected to unveil its latest report on Iran on Monday.
The report will cover findings by inspectors who recently visited the newly-revealed uranium enrichment facility near Qom. Teheran says its nuclear programme is for entirely peaceful purposes.
Russian officials had said earlier this year that the Bushehr plant would be completed before 2010, but on Monday Mr Shmatko said that although progress had been made, there would be no launch. "We expect serious results by the end of the year, but the launch itself will not take place," he told reporters. "The engineers have to reach their findings."
"The building of the Bushehr station is defined absolutely 100% by technological conditions."
The Bushehr nuclear plant was first planned with German help in 1974, but was shelved after the Islamic Revolution. Russia took up the project in 1995, and after numerous delays a timetable for construction was finalised two years ago.
Any nuclear fuel from the plant will be brought from and returned to Russia so that it cannot be used for a weapons programme.
The BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow says the decision to delay the completion of Bushehr is clearly political - an expression of Russia's frustration at Iran's failure to accept the offer now on the table from the international community.
Russia has other levers over Tehran - it is also delaying the delivery of what could prove to be a crucial air-defence system for Iran, our correspondent says.
The contract for the S-300 surface-to-air missiles was signed two years ago, but Moscow says nothing has been delivered so far.
In recent weeks, top Iranian officials have called for the highly-sophisticated missiles to be handed over.
Speaking on Sunday after talks with Mr Obama, President Medvedev said he was unhappy with the pace of progress on the enrichment deal offered to Iran.
Mr Obama said Iran had failed "so far at least" to respond positively to a deal to send enriched uranium abroad for reprocessing. Russia and France have offered to do this.
Under the plan brokered by the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, and agreed by Russia, the US and France, Iran would send about 1,200kg (2,600lb), or 70%, of its low-enriched uranium, to Russia by the year's end for processing.
Subsequently, France would convert the uranium into fuel rods for use in a reactor in Tehran that produces medical isotopes.
This is seen as a way for Iran to get the fuel it needs, while giving guarantees to the West that it will not be used for nuclear weapons.
Iran has raised "technical and economic considerations" with the IAEA and has missed deadlines to respond.
Iran revealed the existence of the Fordo enrichment facility, which is being built about 30km (20 miles) north of Qom, in September.
Mr Obama's administration has set an end-of-year deadline for serious progress towards a comprehensive solution.
Correspondents say Russia and China are reluctant to agree to new Security Council sanctions, so a coalition of countries, including the EU, might take action themselves.
Iran is already subject to UN sanctions, including financial scrutiny and restrictions on arms imports, and for keeping uranium enrichment activities at its Natanz plant secret.
Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said the delay in launching the plant, which will have two pressurised water reactors, was for "technical reasons".
Correspondents say Russia's decision to delay the opening is clearly political.
On Sunday, Russia and the US both warned Iran that time was running out for talks over its nuclear programme.
Speaking after talks in Singapore, US President Barack Obama said it was unfortunate that Iran still seemed unable to say yes to a "creative" international plan to allay suspicions that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons.
His Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, said he still hoped to persuade Tehran to send its low-enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be further processed to fuel an Iranian research reactor, but warned that "other means" could be employed if progress was not made on the issue.
Iran has failed to give a clear response.
The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is expected to unveil its latest report on Iran on Monday.
The report will cover findings by inspectors who recently visited the newly-revealed uranium enrichment facility near Qom. Teheran says its nuclear programme is for entirely peaceful purposes.
Russian officials had said earlier this year that the Bushehr plant would be completed before 2010, but on Monday Mr Shmatko said that although progress had been made, there would be no launch. "We expect serious results by the end of the year, but the launch itself will not take place," he told reporters. "The engineers have to reach their findings."
"The building of the Bushehr station is defined absolutely 100% by technological conditions."
The Bushehr nuclear plant was first planned with German help in 1974, but was shelved after the Islamic Revolution. Russia took up the project in 1995, and after numerous delays a timetable for construction was finalised two years ago.
Any nuclear fuel from the plant will be brought from and returned to Russia so that it cannot be used for a weapons programme.
The BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow says the decision to delay the completion of Bushehr is clearly political - an expression of Russia's frustration at Iran's failure to accept the offer now on the table from the international community.
Russia has other levers over Tehran - it is also delaying the delivery of what could prove to be a crucial air-defence system for Iran, our correspondent says.
The contract for the S-300 surface-to-air missiles was signed two years ago, but Moscow says nothing has been delivered so far.
In recent weeks, top Iranian officials have called for the highly-sophisticated missiles to be handed over.
Speaking on Sunday after talks with Mr Obama, President Medvedev said he was unhappy with the pace of progress on the enrichment deal offered to Iran.
Mr Obama said Iran had failed "so far at least" to respond positively to a deal to send enriched uranium abroad for reprocessing. Russia and France have offered to do this.
Under the plan brokered by the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, and agreed by Russia, the US and France, Iran would send about 1,200kg (2,600lb), or 70%, of its low-enriched uranium, to Russia by the year's end for processing.
Subsequently, France would convert the uranium into fuel rods for use in a reactor in Tehran that produces medical isotopes.
This is seen as a way for Iran to get the fuel it needs, while giving guarantees to the West that it will not be used for nuclear weapons.
Iran has raised "technical and economic considerations" with the IAEA and has missed deadlines to respond.
Iran revealed the existence of the Fordo enrichment facility, which is being built about 30km (20 miles) north of Qom, in September.
Mr Obama's administration has set an end-of-year deadline for serious progress towards a comprehensive solution.
Correspondents say Russia and China are reluctant to agree to new Security Council sanctions, so a coalition of countries, including the EU, might take action themselves.
Iran is already subject to UN sanctions, including financial scrutiny and restrictions on arms imports, and for keeping uranium enrichment activities at its Natanz plant secret.
EU Running On Empty In Ukraine
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Ukrainian politics is like Mexican telenovelas. The characters are the same for years and years: charming but cunning Tymoshenko, dull but pragmatic Yanukovych, idealistic but weak Yushchenko, plus the whole plethora of old faces from Litvin to Tihipko. Yatsenyuk is the only new face, campaigning with smart khaki billboards, but with surprisingly old-fashioned views.
However, the 2010 election campaign is different from the past elections in Ukraine. The change is not in personalities, but in subtleties of their rhetoric.These are the first elections in a decade when none of the main contenders comes forth with a strong pro-EU message. Until now all political parties that mattered made European integration part of their party programmes. Failing to do that meant less popularity among the Ukrainian population, buying into everything European, from evroremont (expensive and well-done apartment renovation) to evrogroby (lacquered wooden coffins).The start of the 2010 campaign suggests that the idea is slowly losing its appeal. The EU, absorbed by its institutional and now economic crises, has too little on offer for Ukraine. The popular support for European integration has decreased from 65 percent in 2002 to 43 percent in 2008. As a result, many Ukrainian politicians appear sceptical, if not outright critical, of the EU. The idea of the "third way," highlighting Ukraine's exceptionalism, is instead making its headway.Who stands for the EU in Ukraine?Just a year ago, Arseniy Yatsenyuk - a presidential candidate and leader of the newly created Front for Change - was the embodiment of hopes for a new generation of politicians: young, modern and European. And he became indeed the first to prove that the winds were changing in Ukraine. But in rather surprising ways.With the help of his PR-technologists, Yatsenyuk has revealed his quixotic plan. Ukraine, according to Yatsenyuk, should reject both European integration and integration with Russia as "pseudo-policies." Instead of being pushed and pulled by others into unrealistic projects, Kyiv, according to Yatsenyuk, should become the capital of an "Eastern European Space," comprising everything in-between Uzhgorod on Ukraine's border with the EU to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Russia's Far East.Geography suggested that the Eastern European Space was simply another edition of Slavic brotherhood with a Ukrainian spin. The pro-European electorate, who deserted Yatsenuk, seems to have run out of options.Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych are the most probable candidates for the second round. Both are moderately pro-European in their rhetoric, but much less so in their deeds. Yanukovych is openly backed by the Russian "United Russia" party. His electoral manifesto does not contain a single word on European integration, and some of his influential aids threw their support behind the Single Economic Space with Russia.Tymoshenko pushed away the pro-European electorate with her controversial slip of the tongue that the Ukrainians "are craving a dictatorship." Yushchenko is the most pro-European, but his record in office hardly strengthens the popularity of the idea.Reforms not rhetoricTheir real failure is not in rhetoric, but in insufficient reforms, however. For example, the grand project of the EU and Ukraine – that of modernisation of Ukraine's gas transit system - has stumbled over the corrupt interests of power elites. Now the EU is threatening to halt the disbursement of money it promised in July 2009, as Ukraine does not seem committed enough to pursuing energy sector reform.The politicians of smaller calibre have surprisingly similar insights on Ukrainian foreign policy. Both Vladimir Lytvin and Serhiy Tihipko argued in favour of a self-sufficient Ukraine. Anatoly Gritsenko, known as a pro-European politician, argued that "In five years we would be knocking on the doors of neither the EU, nor NATO, nor the Tashkent agreement nor the Single Economic Space. Internal efficiency is our priority. And a strong army."The same trend can be observed among the Ukrainian bureaucrats. An Ukrainian official, involved in the negotiations over a new Association Agreement with the EU, aptly described his growing disillusion: "There are two types of people, who work on the European integration in Ukraine: enthusiasts and idiots. If before, there were more enthusiasts, than idiots; now there are more idiots than enthusiasts." In fact, new dismissive if not derogatory terms like euro-romanticism and euro-idiotism are entering routine discourse.What is left? There are few candidates who can credibly promote the idea of European integration in Ukraine. And even fewer are successful in this. However, European integration remains the main and perhaps only idea that can unite Ukraine's divided society, and set Ukrainian politicians on a path to modernisation. This adds urgency to the EU task.It is time for the EU to understand that promoting EU values abroad is not about some magic magnetism, it is hard work. Perhaps with the Lisbon Treaty ratified, the EU will be able to mobilise itself for more ambitious policies in the neighbourhood. Unless the EU presents a success story, be it in Moldova, Georgia or Ukraine, it may find even fewer believers in European ideas a few years down the road in the post-Soviet space.
However, the 2010 election campaign is different from the past elections in Ukraine. The change is not in personalities, but in subtleties of their rhetoric.These are the first elections in a decade when none of the main contenders comes forth with a strong pro-EU message. Until now all political parties that mattered made European integration part of their party programmes. Failing to do that meant less popularity among the Ukrainian population, buying into everything European, from evroremont (expensive and well-done apartment renovation) to evrogroby (lacquered wooden coffins).The start of the 2010 campaign suggests that the idea is slowly losing its appeal. The EU, absorbed by its institutional and now economic crises, has too little on offer for Ukraine. The popular support for European integration has decreased from 65 percent in 2002 to 43 percent in 2008. As a result, many Ukrainian politicians appear sceptical, if not outright critical, of the EU. The idea of the "third way," highlighting Ukraine's exceptionalism, is instead making its headway.Who stands for the EU in Ukraine?Just a year ago, Arseniy Yatsenyuk - a presidential candidate and leader of the newly created Front for Change - was the embodiment of hopes for a new generation of politicians: young, modern and European. And he became indeed the first to prove that the winds were changing in Ukraine. But in rather surprising ways.With the help of his PR-technologists, Yatsenyuk has revealed his quixotic plan. Ukraine, according to Yatsenyuk, should reject both European integration and integration with Russia as "pseudo-policies." Instead of being pushed and pulled by others into unrealistic projects, Kyiv, according to Yatsenyuk, should become the capital of an "Eastern European Space," comprising everything in-between Uzhgorod on Ukraine's border with the EU to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Russia's Far East.Geography suggested that the Eastern European Space was simply another edition of Slavic brotherhood with a Ukrainian spin. The pro-European electorate, who deserted Yatsenuk, seems to have run out of options.Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych are the most probable candidates for the second round. Both are moderately pro-European in their rhetoric, but much less so in their deeds. Yanukovych is openly backed by the Russian "United Russia" party. His electoral manifesto does not contain a single word on European integration, and some of his influential aids threw their support behind the Single Economic Space with Russia.Tymoshenko pushed away the pro-European electorate with her controversial slip of the tongue that the Ukrainians "are craving a dictatorship." Yushchenko is the most pro-European, but his record in office hardly strengthens the popularity of the idea.Reforms not rhetoricTheir real failure is not in rhetoric, but in insufficient reforms, however. For example, the grand project of the EU and Ukraine – that of modernisation of Ukraine's gas transit system - has stumbled over the corrupt interests of power elites. Now the EU is threatening to halt the disbursement of money it promised in July 2009, as Ukraine does not seem committed enough to pursuing energy sector reform.The politicians of smaller calibre have surprisingly similar insights on Ukrainian foreign policy. Both Vladimir Lytvin and Serhiy Tihipko argued in favour of a self-sufficient Ukraine. Anatoly Gritsenko, known as a pro-European politician, argued that "In five years we would be knocking on the doors of neither the EU, nor NATO, nor the Tashkent agreement nor the Single Economic Space. Internal efficiency is our priority. And a strong army."The same trend can be observed among the Ukrainian bureaucrats. An Ukrainian official, involved in the negotiations over a new Association Agreement with the EU, aptly described his growing disillusion: "There are two types of people, who work on the European integration in Ukraine: enthusiasts and idiots. If before, there were more enthusiasts, than idiots; now there are more idiots than enthusiasts." In fact, new dismissive if not derogatory terms like euro-romanticism and euro-idiotism are entering routine discourse.What is left? There are few candidates who can credibly promote the idea of European integration in Ukraine. And even fewer are successful in this. However, European integration remains the main and perhaps only idea that can unite Ukraine's divided society, and set Ukrainian politicians on a path to modernisation. This adds urgency to the EU task.It is time for the EU to understand that promoting EU values abroad is not about some magic magnetism, it is hard work. Perhaps with the Lisbon Treaty ratified, the EU will be able to mobilise itself for more ambitious policies in the neighbourhood. Unless the EU presents a success story, be it in Moldova, Georgia or Ukraine, it may find even fewer believers in European ideas a few years down the road in the post-Soviet space.
Sunday 15 November 2009
Yatseniuk: Russia might claim UAH 50 billion in fine for Ukraine's importing less natural gas
Presidential candidate Arsenii Yatseniuk, a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the faction of the Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense Bloc, has said Russia can claim a fine worth UAH 50 billion for Ukraine's importing less natural gas.Ukrainian News learned this from a statement by the press service of Yatseniuk. "The fact of Ukraine's not importing a big volume of natural gas means one thing: Ukraine owes fines to Russia - the sum has grown to nearly UAH 50 billion there. Nobody forgives these sums to anybody for nothing," he said at a press conference in Kirovohrad.According to the presidential candidate, Ukraine will have to sacrifice something with the signing of a new agreement on gas supplies."A new agreement has not appeared. Even if this agreement appears, I understand very well that it will envisage reduction in economic sanctions on the one hand, but consolidation of the political pressure on the other hand," Yatseniuk said.The presidential candidate does not rule out a slight reduction in natural gas price for Ukraine, and the reduction can be used by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in her presidential election campaign."The elections are at hand and there is necessity of showing a sort of a victory. We have taken debt, we have paid to Russians for natural gas imports, and ahead of the elections [she] needs to show that the gas price for Ukraine has been cut, for example, by 5%. And [Tymoshenko will] call this a great victory. And who cares that the price of natural gas for Europe is lower by 20% than the price for Ukraine?" the presidential candidate said.Presidential candidate Yatseniuk professes the lower energy dependency of Ukraine through growth in the share of consumption of its own cheap electricity, reducing losses in the power grids, the reduction in the consumption of energy carriers, and developing alternative energy.As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on November 14 she would discuss at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Yalta (Crimea) on November 19 the question of optimization of the price of Russian natural gas for Ukraine.She also pledged of absence of fines from Russia for Ukraine's importing less natural gas than provided by the gas contracts between Russia's Gazprom gas monopoly and the Naftohaz Ukrainy national oil and gas company.
Eighteen to run for Ukraine's presidency
Eighteen people will run in Ukraine's presidential election on January 17, 2010. The term when a candidate could reapply for registration if their initial registration application was rejected expired on Nov. 11.The Central Election Commission should decide by Nov. 13 whether to register those whose applications have been accepted.Apart from the 18 candidates, a number of other nominees who also submitted their applications to the Central Election Commission, including former major of the presidential state guard Mykola Melnychenko. But none of them have a chance to be registered as they have not paid the mandatory election deposit of Hr 2.5 million.According to the opinion polls, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the leader of the opposition Party of Regions Victor Yanukovych will be the front runners in the presidential race.Incumbent President Victor Yuschenko will be also running for a second term in office.Other candidates are Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn, former parliamentary speaker and head of the Front for Change party Arseniy Yatseniuk, and former NBU governor Sergiy Tigipko. All three are running for the presidential office for the first time.The Communist Party Leader Petro Symonenko and Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz, Civil Position leader, ex-minister of defense Anatoliy Hrytsenko and MP Inna Bohoslovsta will also contest for the post.Besides, the CEC registered self-nominee Vasyl Protyvsikh, whose surname translates as "Against-everyone," as a candidates for president of Ukraine. Head of the Ivano-Frankivsk Chamber of Commerce Protyvsikh had a different last name - Humeniuk - before Oct. 2, 2009.
Yanukovych would have won if elections were held next Sunday
Party of Regions leader Victor Yanukovych would have gained the largest number of votes in the Ukrainian presidential election if the election were held next Sunday, the Ukrainian Project System said. The agency polled 1, 200 adults by phone on Nov. 4-10, 2009.Some 21.4% of the respondents said they would vote for Yanukovych, 18.1% for Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, 7.8% for Front for Change leader Arseniy Yatseniuk, 6.9% for Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn and 3.8% for Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko.Some 3.2% preferred President Viktor Yuschenko, 2.1% - businessman Sergiy Tigipko, 1.5% - Oleksandr Pabat, and 1.4% - Oleh Tiahnybok.A total of 2.3% said they would prefer another candidate.Some 4.5% said they would not vote; 9.5% would support neither candidate; and 17.2% would still have to make their choice.
Ukrainian speaker says Prime Minister Tymoshenko won’t be dismissed before elections
Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn is sure that Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will not be dismissed before the presidential elections. "I am rushing to calm everybody down. All this behind-the-scenes talk that the replacement of the Ukrainian prime minister could be brought up will not materialize," Lytvyn said on Inter television channel on Friday evening."Nobody will want to take on such responsibility and add points in favor of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko before the end of the presidential campaign," he said.Even if a proposal to dismiss Tymoshenko is submitted to the parliament by a group of parliamentarians or by President Viktor Yuschenko, Tymoshenko will continue to perform prime ministerial duties, he said.Otherwise, "She would say: my dear fellows, I was keeping everything together as much as I could. However small the pensions and the salaries were, they were paid. Now you are seeing a complete collapse, and those who voted for this decision are responsible for this," he said.The same situation happened in 2006, when Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov was dismissed, Lytvyn said."The ratings of those political groups that voted for Yekhanurov's dismissal dropped. I think the right conclusion was made out of this and nothing of the sort will happen again," he said.
Ukraine grateful to Canada for commitment to provide humanitarian aid to battle influenza epidemic
Ukraine is grateful to Canada for its commitment to provide humanitarian aid to battle influenza epidemic, reads a report made by the press service of the ministry of foreign affairs of Ukraine. In course of a meeting of Petro Poroshenko, the minister of foreign affairs, with Canada's Ambassador in Ukraine, Daniel Caron, on November 13 the parties discussed, among other issues, ways of deepening bilateral relations, mechanisms facilitating development of trade-economic and investment cooperation, such as signing a free trade agreement between Ukraine and Canada.As Ukrainian News earlier reported, President Viktor Yuschenko has appealed to leaders of seven countries and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation leadership to provide humanitarian aid of anti-influenza vaccine.Before this, on November 2, the Ukrainian president turned to leaders of eight countries, President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, and Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen for help in stemming the epidemic of influenza in Ukraine.The World Health Organisation is ready to help Ukraine receive vaccine against the А(H1N1) influenza.On October 30, the ministry of healthcare declared an epidemic of the A(H1N1) influenza in Ukraine.
Moscow unemployment falls
For the first time this year unemployment in Moscow fell in October, the city's employment service reported on its web site.
In the last week of October, jobless numbers fell by 137, bringing the total October drop to 553 people. "The number of unemployed registered at present is 59,800 people, or 0.9 per cent of the economically active population of the city," the statement said. City authorities have set a goal of not letting unemployment exceed 1 per cent of the economically active population.
In the last week of October, jobless numbers fell by 137, bringing the total October drop to 553 people. "The number of unemployed registered at present is 59,800 people, or 0.9 per cent of the economically active population of the city," the statement said. City authorities have set a goal of not letting unemployment exceed 1 per cent of the economically active population.
Flu fear grips Moscow
Don't panic! That's the official word from above as authorities aim to calm the capital's fear of swine flu. Televised scenes from neighbouring countries such as Ukraine - where entire districts have been locked down under quarantine due to rampant flu outbreaks - have been stoking the flu fear furnace.
The nation's deputy health minister, Veronika Skvortsova, said last week that Russia was better placed than most to withstand the flu onslaught.
"Fears concerning a negative development in the scenario of the pandemic are unfounded," RIA Novosti quoted Skvortsova as saying. "We are hoping for the best, but are preparing for the worst."
As of Monday, Russia had 4,560 confirmed cases of swine flu, 14 of which had been fatal as of Friday. Skvortsova said that approximately 6 per cent of cases were serious, with 25 per cent of these cases requiring respiratory support in hospital.
As part of efforts to combat the bug, authorities brought forward the starting date for a nationwide vaccination campaign from the usual December to November 9. Timofei Peshkov, press secretary for Mikrogen, a company that is manufacturing the vaccine, said that workers in its two plants in Ufa and Irkutsk had been toiling 12 to 16 hours a day, "working their fingers to the bone". Mikrogen said it had already produced several million doses of vaccine.
First in line for the new vaccine are people working in essential services fields such as water and gas works, housing, transport and emergency services.
"In that way we are trying to create a safety screen to block the infection's spread," said Skvortsova. Late November should see health workers vaccinated, followed by pregnant women, the elderly and then children.
Moscow's multiple measures
The capital has not avoided the flu's feverish grasp. The city branch of the State Consumer Department said that incidents of flu and respiratory disease exceeded epidemic levels by 93.5 per cent in Moscow.
"In the period from October 26 to November 1, 2009, there were 166,129 cases of flu and respiratory disease, of which 105,746 were children," said a statement from the department. "Compared to the previous week, this was an increase of 57.2 per cent, which exceeded the level for the same period last year by 2.6 times."
The city's health department said that Moscow was well prepared to battle the epidemic.
"In the Stolichniye Apteki chain of chemists there is a full range of necessary medical preparations with a total value of some 100 million roubles," said a statement from the department. "They have 500,000 medical masks." According to the service, some 350,000 masks have been sold over the last two weeks.
Other measures that have been taken include house calls for pregnant women.
"In particular, the monitoring of registered pregnant women will now take place predominantly at home," read a statement from the health department. The statement said that any pregnant women found to have flu would be treated with doctor's house calls on a daily basis.
Moscow's theatregoers are to be issued with medical masks at the theatres, said First Deputy Mayor Lyudmila Shvetsova. "If a person comes to the theatre there is nowhere he can escape from a sneezing citizen sitting nearby," said Shvetsova, adding that with the masks theatregoers could fence themselves off.
The city's school children have an extra week of time off as the autumn break has been extended by a week to November 15, said the city's sanitary anti-epidemic committee. "The extension of the school holidays by a week is due to the difficult situation with flu and respiratory diseases that exists in the city at present," read a statement by the committee.
Commuter concern
The Moscow metro has a three-stage disinfection system in place to keep the transport system as pathogen-free as possible.
Deputy head of the Kaluzhskaya depot, Dmitry Dremov, said that every wagon is disinfected on a regular basis.
"Once a day we clean and disinfect [them] with the help of chemicals," said Dremov. "Cleaning with steam and ultraviolet light is carried out once a week."
Alexander Kapov, press secretary for Mosgortrans, which runs the city's trams, trolleybuses and buses, said that the vehicles were washed down every day after they returned to their depots.
"Besides this we regularly disinfect the transport in order to fight seasonal diseases," said Kapov.
The deputy health minister said that despite the best efforts of the public transport officials to keep the systems disease-free, to avoid falling ill citizens should still wear masks when using public transport, as "nothing more effective has yet been thought up," said Skvortsova.
The nation's deputy health minister, Veronika Skvortsova, said last week that Russia was better placed than most to withstand the flu onslaught.
"Fears concerning a negative development in the scenario of the pandemic are unfounded," RIA Novosti quoted Skvortsova as saying. "We are hoping for the best, but are preparing for the worst."
As of Monday, Russia had 4,560 confirmed cases of swine flu, 14 of which had been fatal as of Friday. Skvortsova said that approximately 6 per cent of cases were serious, with 25 per cent of these cases requiring respiratory support in hospital.
As part of efforts to combat the bug, authorities brought forward the starting date for a nationwide vaccination campaign from the usual December to November 9. Timofei Peshkov, press secretary for Mikrogen, a company that is manufacturing the vaccine, said that workers in its two plants in Ufa and Irkutsk had been toiling 12 to 16 hours a day, "working their fingers to the bone". Mikrogen said it had already produced several million doses of vaccine.
First in line for the new vaccine are people working in essential services fields such as water and gas works, housing, transport and emergency services.
"In that way we are trying to create a safety screen to block the infection's spread," said Skvortsova. Late November should see health workers vaccinated, followed by pregnant women, the elderly and then children.
Moscow's multiple measures
The capital has not avoided the flu's feverish grasp. The city branch of the State Consumer Department said that incidents of flu and respiratory disease exceeded epidemic levels by 93.5 per cent in Moscow.
"In the period from October 26 to November 1, 2009, there were 166,129 cases of flu and respiratory disease, of which 105,746 were children," said a statement from the department. "Compared to the previous week, this was an increase of 57.2 per cent, which exceeded the level for the same period last year by 2.6 times."
The city's health department said that Moscow was well prepared to battle the epidemic.
"In the Stolichniye Apteki chain of chemists there is a full range of necessary medical preparations with a total value of some 100 million roubles," said a statement from the department. "They have 500,000 medical masks." According to the service, some 350,000 masks have been sold over the last two weeks.
Other measures that have been taken include house calls for pregnant women.
"In particular, the monitoring of registered pregnant women will now take place predominantly at home," read a statement from the health department. The statement said that any pregnant women found to have flu would be treated with doctor's house calls on a daily basis.
Moscow's theatregoers are to be issued with medical masks at the theatres, said First Deputy Mayor Lyudmila Shvetsova. "If a person comes to the theatre there is nowhere he can escape from a sneezing citizen sitting nearby," said Shvetsova, adding that with the masks theatregoers could fence themselves off.
The city's school children have an extra week of time off as the autumn break has been extended by a week to November 15, said the city's sanitary anti-epidemic committee. "The extension of the school holidays by a week is due to the difficult situation with flu and respiratory diseases that exists in the city at present," read a statement by the committee.
Commuter concern
The Moscow metro has a three-stage disinfection system in place to keep the transport system as pathogen-free as possible.
Deputy head of the Kaluzhskaya depot, Dmitry Dremov, said that every wagon is disinfected on a regular basis.
"Once a day we clean and disinfect [them] with the help of chemicals," said Dremov. "Cleaning with steam and ultraviolet light is carried out once a week."
Alexander Kapov, press secretary for Mosgortrans, which runs the city's trams, trolleybuses and buses, said that the vehicles were washed down every day after they returned to their depots.
"Besides this we regularly disinfect the transport in order to fight seasonal diseases," said Kapov.
The deputy health minister said that despite the best efforts of the public transport officials to keep the systems disease-free, to avoid falling ill citizens should still wear masks when using public transport, as "nothing more effective has yet been thought up," said Skvortsova.
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