NEWSBRIEFS (10/22/00)

NEWSBRIEFS

Officials accused of hiding info

KYIV - National Deputy Oleksander Lavrynovych on October 17 said Ukraine's law enforcement bodies are giving only "a part of the information" to the public about their investigation into the disappearance of opposition journalist Heorhii Gongadze, Interfax reported. Mr. Lavrynovych heads a special commission created by the Verkhovna Rada to look into Mr. Gongadze's disappearance. Olena Prytula, chief editor of the Internet newsletter Ukrayinska Pravda, where Mr. Gongadze worked before his disappearance, said the chief of the Security Service of Ukraine, Leonid Derkach, and Internal Affairs Minister Yurii Kravchenko "are interested in convincing" the president that Mr. Gongadze "disappeared on his own initiative." According to Ms. Prytula, Mr. Gongadze was kidnapped and "is now being kept somewhere." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Legislators protest newspaper's closure

KYIV - Leftist and centrist deputies on October 17 left the parliamentary session hall to protest the closure of the Silski Visti newspaper for non-payment of taxes, Interfax reported. Ivan Bokyi of the Socialist Party caucus demanded that President Leonid Kuchma "immediately" cancel the ban on Silski Visti. The State Tax Administration ordered the newspaper to pay 1.8 million hrv ($330,000 U.S.) in penalties for not having paid income tax on property it received eight years ago. The Kyiv City Arbitration Court rejected the newspaper's appeal to cancel the penalties. Silski Visti has been known for its leftist political sympathies and criticism of the Kuchma administration. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Lawmaker is arrested in Germany

KYIV - Ukrainian Deputy Procurator-General Mykola Obikhod said on October 13 that German authorities have arrested Ukrainian National Deputy Viktor Zherdytskyi in Hannover in connection with a criminal investigation in Germany involving breach of public trust, the Associated Press reported. Mr. Obikhod did not give details of the German case. Mr. Obikhod said Mr. Zherdytskyi is under criminal investigation in Ukraine after more than 87 million German marks ($38.4 million U.S.) in German government compensation payments disappeared at Gradobank, which he headed before being elected to the Verkhovna Rada. Lower Saxony State Prosecutor Thomas Klingle on October 16 said Mr. Zherdytskyi will be tried in Germany on charges of embezzling 86 million marks ($38 million) from a German compensation fund for Nazi victims in Ukraine. Mr. Klingle noted that the German authorities previously failed to persuade the Ukrainian Parliament to lift Mr. Zherdytskyi's immunity and arrested him while he was attempting to withdraw $50,000 from an account at a Hannover bank. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Azerbaijan, Ukraine sign defense pact

KYIV - Visiting Kyiv on October 10-11, Azerbaijan's Defense Minister Safar Abiev signed a defense cooperation agreement for 2001 with his Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksander Kuzmuk. The agreement includes policy cooperation, bilateral cooperation within the NATO Partnership for Peace program and cooperation within the GUUAM alignment, which is composed of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova. The two ministers told journalists that the GUUAM member-states intend to form a joint military subdivision that will participate in peacekeeping operations and protect the planned Caucasus transport corridor, including the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Turan reported. Mr. Abiev also met on October 11 with Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko, who pledged that his Cabinet will seek ways of promoting joint training and data-exchange programs, Interfax reported. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma bans stealing of Russian gas

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma has "categorically" banned the siphoning off of Russian gas in transit via Ukrainian territory, Interfax reported on October 11. The presidential press service said Mr. Kuchma gave the necessary instructions to Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko and managers of the oil and gas sector, but it did not elaborate. Mr. Kuchma said earlier that so far this year Ukraine stole 13 billion cubic meters of Russian gas worth $700 million. Ukraine also acknowledged that it had siphoned off $1.4 billion worth of Russian gas in 1999. The Eastern Economist Daily reported that Fuel and Energy Minister Serhii Yermilov commented that Ukraine has not stolen Russian gas since May, but added that at the beginning of the fall-winter season "some may wish to do so again." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Itera cuts gas supplies to Ukraine

KYIV - The Itera company has cut gas supplies to Ukraine from 30 million cubic meters to 4.8 million cubic meters a day, Interfax reported on October 11. A representative of Itera's Kyiv branch said that four Ukrainian power plants paid for only 27.4 percent of the gas supplied by the company last month and that they currently owe it some $50 million. He noted that Itera plans to continue cooperating with the plants but added that "the deal depends only on payments." Itera sells gas to Ukrainian power plants at $45 per 1,000 cubic meters. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Serial production of AN-70 to begin

KYIV - The Ukrainian government has decided to begin serial production of the AN-70 military transport plane, Interfax and the Associated Press reported. The first plane is to appear by the end of 2002. Ukraine's Defense Ministry plans to purchase one plane a year beginning in 2006. Another buyer will be Russia's Defense Ministry. The AN-70 plane is a Ukrainian-Russian project; the body of the plane will be assembled in the Aviant plant in Kyiv and the Aviakor plant in Samara (Russia), while engines will be built at the Sich plant in Zaporizhia and the Saliut factory in Moscow. One AN-70 will cost nearly $50 million. According to the chairman of the State Committee for Industrial Policy, Volodymyr Novytskyi, 110 planes need to be sold to turn a profit. The AN-70 can carry cargo of 35 tons over a distance of 5,000 kilometers. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Presidents denounce new economic union

TASHKENT - Uzbek President Islam Karimov and his visiting Ukrainian counterpart, Leonid Kuchma, told journalists in Tashkent on October 12 that the Eurasian Economic Union launched in Astana three days earlier on the basis of the CIS Customs Union is "a time bomb" that could destroy the CIS, Interfax and Reuters reported. Mr. Karimov predicted that the new body will not prove capable of resolving problems that its predecessor had created. Mr. Kuchma asked why other CIS members were not invited to join the new body. According to the Associated Press, the two presidents also signed an agreement that will facilitate the return to Ukraine of Crimean Tatars deported to Central Asia by Stalin in 1944. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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