NEWSBRIEFS (07/07/96)

NEWSBRIEFS

100,000 miners go on strike

KYIV - More than 100,000 coal miners in eastern Ukraine went on strike on July 3 to demand wages that have not been paid for months, a union official said. "They struck today to get the 105 trillion karbovantsi ($595 million) that they are owed," Yuriy Berdnyk, head of Ukraine's second largest coal miners' union said here. He said 36 of 251 pits in the Donbas region were striking. "We are striking in order to survive, because people cannot work when they are not being paid. Until now, Ukraine's leaders have not been solving our problems," Mr. Berdnyk continued. A coal industry ministry spokesman said only 30 pits had struck, and that wages amounted to 90 trillion karbovantsi. Ukraine owes the equivalent of $1.3 billion in back wages to workers, including teachers and physicians. The average pay for miners is $50 to $75 a month. Spending has been held back under a tight monetary and fiscal policy to win International Monetary Fund credits, but as a result many public-sector jobs have not been paid for several months. (Reuters)

Belarus procurator cancels Kuropaty case

MIENSK - The Belarusian procurator general announced on July 1 that it has closed the investigation into the mass murders committed by the NKVD (forerunner of the KGB) in the Kuropaty forest near the capital. The office confirmed the estimate that at least 30,000 people were shot and buried in mass graves in that forest, but it claimed to lack archival evidence for clarifying the circumstances and identifying the perpetrators. The criminal case was launched in 1988, but the Lukashenka regime has failed to pursue it. In other news, the Communist-controlled Belarusian Parliament has ruled that the national flag and emblem adopted in 1991 are no longer valid state symbols, Radio Rossiyi reported June 28. This decision is in accord with the May 1995 referendum, instigated by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, in which 75 percent of ballots cast were in favor of changing state symbols to Soviet-style ones. The new official Belarusian flag is red and green with an embroidered border but without the hammer and sickle. The national emblem is also a replica of the Soviet emblem, but replaces the hammer and sickle with an outline of Belarus. (Interfax/ OMRI Daily Digest)

Ukrainian-Japanese relations advance

KYIV - On an official visit to Ukraine, Japanese Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda told President Leonid Kuchma and Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko that Japan considers "independent Ukraine an important factor of international stability." The high-level talks included G-7 aid to Ukraine's energy sector, possible Japanese investment in Ukraine and the utilization of $200 million worth of loans extended recently by Japan's Export-Import Bank. (Jamestown Monitor)

CE denounces continuation of executions

STRASBOURG, France - The Council of Europe on June 28 condemned Russia, Ukraine and Latvia for continuing to carry out executions of criminals, RFE/RL reported. The council's Parliamentary Assembly issued a resolution warning the three countries that they could risk expulsion if they did not meet commitments to place a moratorium on executions and abolish the death penalty. The CE also called on Lithuania to institute a moratorium on executions without delay. Moldova was praised for abolishing capital punishment shortly after it joined the council last year. According to a report discussed at the assembly, Russian President Boris Yeltsin rejected 46 appeals for pardons from prisoners on death row this year. (OMRI Daily Digest)

Ukraine census set for 1999

KYIV - The National Council on Statistics has undertaken preliminary measures to prepare for the next Ukrainian census, to be conducted in 1999, Respublika said on July 2. Minister for Statistics Mykola Borysenko stated at a recent council meeting that the changed socioeconomic situation in the country cries out for a new census, inasmuch as deep-rooted economic and other problems need to be thoroughly understood through statistical evidence. A nationwide census of commercial and non-commercial organizations is also needed. (Respublika)

Russians taught pan-Russian geography

MOSCOW - The Russian Ministry of Education has recommended the continued use of geography textbooks which portray the entire territory of the former Soviet Union as belonging to Russia, reported Novoye Russkoye Slovo on July 2. The textbook "Geography of Russia: Population and Household" counts among the "agro-industrial centers of Russia" the Kharkiv, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovske, Kherson and Ternopil oblasts of Ukraine. "Russian" ports include the Ukrainian cities of Odessa, Mykolayiv and Mariupil; while the chief "recreational centers of Russia" are Odessa, the Crimea and the Carpathian Mountains. Similar facts are given in the textbook "Nature in Russia," which contains numerous maps of the entire post-Soviet space and defines it as a "single landmass of the CIS and Baltic countries." (Svoboda)

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