NEWSBRIEFS

President signs land code

KYIV - Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has signed the Land Code adopted last month in a stormy debate, Interfax reported on November 13. The code makes farmland the property of agricultural workers as of the beginning of 2002. The code allows limited land sales between 2005 and 2010, and free trade in farmland after 2010. Ukraine's Communists, who oppose private land ownership, have announced their intention to challenge the code's legality in the Constitutional Court. Meanwhile, the deputy chief of the presidential administration, Pavlo Haidutskyi said Mr. Kuchma will soon ask the Verkhovna Rada to speed up the adoption of some 30 bills necessary to implement the Land Code. Mr. Haidutskyi suggested that the president may introduce some provisions of the Land Code by decree if the Parliament fails to pass the appropriate laws. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma dismisses air defense chief

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma has dismissed Air Defense Commander Volodymyr Tkachov, Interfax reported on November 13. The commander offered his resignation last month in connection with the accidental downing of a Russian passenger plane by a Ukrainian missile. (RFE/RL Newsline)

World Bank cites conditions for loans

KYIV - Luca Barbone, the World Bank director for Ukraine and Belarus, told Ukrainian Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh on November 9 that the bank will continue to support the government's economic program with further loans if it resumes the privatization of regional power distribution companies (oblenergos) and raises tariffs for electricity distributed by already privatized oblenergos, Interfax reported. In particular, Mr. Barbone said Ukraine could obtain $100 million as early as this month and $250 million in mid-2002. Mr. Barbone praised Ukraine's economic progress and pledged $50 million under the bank's new project to establish a social investment fund in the country. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Kinakh said on November 12 that the government will not agree to increase electricity tariffs for the population. He added that the government will look for "alternative solutions" to meet the World Bank's condition, UNIAN reported. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Crimean Tatars re-elect Jemilev

SYMFEROPOL - The fourth congress (Kurultai) of Crimean Tatars on November 11 re-elected Mustafa Jemilev as chairman of the Mejlis, their legislative body, New Channel television reported. The Kurultai decided to support the National Rukh of Ukraine (led by Hennadii Udovenko) in the 2002 parliamentary elections. Mr. Udovenko's party, which is a member of Viktor Yuschenko's Our Ukraine election bloc, offered to include two Crimean Tatars on its list. The strategy for the election to the Crimean Supreme Council is to be outlined by the Kurultai at another meeting. Mr. Jemilev warned that Crimean Tatars will resort to wide-scale civil disobedience if the number of their deputies elected to the Crimean legislature fails to correspond to their share of the Crimean population, that is, some 15 percent. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Presidents discuss border control

VINNYTSIA - At their meeting in Vinnytsia on November 9, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and his Moldovan counterpart, Vladimir Voronin, arrived at a "political resolution" to give their governments 10 days to prepare a document, along with representatives of Moldova's breakaway Transdniester region, on joint control over commodity shipments across the Ukrainian-Moldovan border, Interfax reported. Mr. Kuchma said Ukraine will not introduce economic sanctions against Transdniester. He also hinted that there will be no joint Ukrainian-Moldovan customs posts, which were proposed by Chisinau in a bid to curb smuggling into and out of Transdniester. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Zhirinovsky expects summit to yield pact

MOSCOW - The Russian Duma's vice-chairman, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, said in Moscow on November 8 that he expects that during the summit meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush a document comparable to the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 will be signed, together with corresponding protocols to it, Interfax reported. Mr. Zhirinovsky said Muslims and international terrorism "have helped bring together" Moscow and Washington. He offered to accompany President Putin to the United States in order to give him advice. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Will Russia be integrated into the West?

MOSCOW - Aleksandr Dugin, the leader of the Eurasia movement, told smi.ru on November 8 that the upcoming Russian-American summit will not lead to the integration of Russia into the West because the contradictions between Russia and the West are too great. As a result, Mr. Dugin said, the summit will probably be a disappointment for Moscow and force President Vladimir Putin to revert to his earlier more confrontational approach with Washington. But Sergei Rogov, the director of the Moscow-based USA and Canada Institute, said the summit may prove to be a turning point in East-West relations unequaled in the past 50 years, Russian agencies reported. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Yet another election bloc emerges

KYIV - The National Rukh of Ukraine for Unity on November 8 announced the creation of a new election bloc named National Movement (Rukh) of Ukraine, Interfax reported. The bloc will apparently add to the confusion among the electorate, since there are already two other Rukhs in Ukraine: the National Rukh of Ukraine led by Hennadii Udovenko and the Ukrainian National Rukh headed by Yurii Kostenko. "The parties of Udovenko and Kostenko are living out their last months," Bohdan Boiko, leader of the National Rukh of Ukraine for Unity, told journalists. Mr. Boiko's party was created in an unsuccessful bid to unite the once monolithic Rukh, which split into the Udovenko and Kostenko factions following the death in a car accident of charismatic Rukh leader Vyacheslav Chornovil in 1999. Messrs. Udovenko and Kostenko, who joined the Our Ukraine election bloc of former Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko, have pledged to address the unification of their parties next year. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Leftists mark October Revolution Day

KYIV - Some 1,500 people participated in a march and a rally organized by leftist parties and organizations in Kyiv on November 7 to mark the 84th anniversary of the Bolshevik coup in Russia in 1917, Interfax reported. The demonstrators adopted a resolution that condemns the government for "moral and social terror against the working people," slams Ukraine's cooperation with the United States and NATO, and protests the recently adopted land code allowing private land sales. Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko denounced the government for permitting U.S. transport planes to cross Ukrainian airspace in the campaign against Afghanistan's Taliban. October Revolution demonstrations were held also in other Ukrainian cities: Symferopol (3,000 people), Sevastopol (3,000), Dnipropetrovsk (1,000), Odesa (300), Kharkiv (200) and Lviv (100). (RFE/RL Newsline)

Forum becomes Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc

KYIV - The anti-presidential National Salvation Forum led by former Vice Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been renamed the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Interfax reported on November 7, quoting Sobor Party leader Anatolii Matvienko. Apart from the Sobor Party, the bloc includes the Fatherland Party, Social Democratic Party, Republican Party, Conservative Republican Party, Patriotic Party and Christian Democratic Party. Ms. Tymoshenko said the bloc has already agreed on candidate quotas on a joint election list in next year's parliamentary ballot, but gave no details. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Spanish foreign minister visits Kyiv

KYIV - Ukraine and Spain on November 7 signed an agreement on cooperation in combating crime, an accord on scientific and technological cooperation, and a memorandum on consultations between their foreign ministries. Following talks with Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique, his Ukrainian counterpart Anatolii Zlenko said both countries will soon sign documents on the prevention of double taxation as well as on cultural cooperation and tourism. Mr. Pique assured Mr. Zlenko that during its presidency of the European Union in 2002, Spain will offer all-round support to Ukraine regarding Kyiv's integration with Europe. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Moscow comments on self-determination

UNITED NATIONS - Dmitrii Kniazhinskii, a Russian representative to the 56th United Nations General Assembly, told that body on November 9 that the right of peoples to self-determination cannot be invoked as a justification for undermining the territorial integrity or political unity of existing sovereign states, Interfax reported. He said that the international community must "decisively block any separatist manifestations and firmly and in a thoroughgoing manner defend the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity of states, and the inviolability of their borders." He also expressed Moscow's concern about financial mismanagement at the United Nations. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Majority of Ukrainians not optimistic

KYIV - In a poll conducted by the Oleksander Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Studies on October 1-25 among some 11,000 adult Ukrainians, 57.7 percent of respondents said the current situation in the country is difficult, Interfax reported on November 3. Of those polled, 19.2 percent said the situation in the country is "disastrous" and only 2 percent said it is "good." According to 13.7 percent of Ukrainians, the situation will "significantly worsen" in the near future, while 18.8 percent said it will "somewhat worsen." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine exceeds grain harvest target

KYIV - Vice Prime Minister Leonid Kozachenko on November 1 said Ukraine has harvested 40 million tons of grain crops including maize, which is 5 million tons more than the government's target for 2001, UNIAN reported. Mr. Kozachenko said agricultural production growth now stands at 10 percent, while the food-processing industry is up 60 percent compared with the same period in 1999. According to Mr. Kozachenko, Ukraine currently covers 95 percent of its food demand domestically and only 5 percent through imports. He also noted that for the first time in 10 years Ukraine has registered no decrease in its number of livestock. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kyiv sees increase in oil, gas thefts

KYIV - Mykhailo Kornienko, the head of the Ukrainian Internal Affairs Ministry's Chief Department for Combating Organized Crime, told journalists on November 1 that Naftohaz Ukrainy suffered losses of 16 million hrv ($3 million) in 2001 due to the illegal siphoning of oil and gas condensate from pipelines, ITAR-TASS reported. Mr. Korniyenko said the company registered 60 to 70 cases of such thefts in previous years, while the figure for this year has already reached 949. According to Mr. Korniyenko, the situation is dangerous, particularly since criminal groups steal gas and oil in cooperation with officials from the country's oil and gas sector. He pointed to the fact that oil and gas are usually stolen from the pipelines that are not guarded. Only 1,400 out of the 76,700 kilometers of Ukrainian pipelines are guarded. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Patriarchate appeals to ROC abroad

MOSCOW - The Moscow Patriarchate has sent an appeal for unity to the meeting of the special assembly of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad that recently assembled in New York to choose a new leader because of the retirement of Metropolitan Vitalii, Interfax reported on October 23. The Patriarchate's message said that all the historic causes that were responsible for the division between the Moscow Church and the émigré Church have been destroyed, and that it is now time for the Orthodox Church Abroad to reunite with the Mother Church. (RFE/RL Newsline)

OCA urges union with Moscow

MOSCOW - The Orthodox Church of America on October 24 urged the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to unite with the Moscow Patriarchate as the Patriarchate has requested, Interfax reported on October 24. But even if theological and ideological issues are resolved, the two Churches remain divided on property questions: In the émigré Church, each congregation owns its property, while in the patriarchal Church, the Patriarchate itself is the owner. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukrainian TV available via Internet

MOSCOW - On October 23 in Moscow, the strana.ru information service and the Ukraine.ru information center presented their joint Internet project that makes it possible for Russian audiences to watch Ukraine's leading TV networks UT-1, UT-2, Inter, STB, One Plus One and ICTV in real time on the Internet. "For the first time, Ukrainian television can be watched all over the Russian Federation," UNIAN quoted Gleb Pavlovskii, the project leader and director of Russia's Effective Politics Center, as saying.(RFE/RL Newsline)

NTV to be broadcast in Ukraine

MOSCOW - Interfax reported on October 23 that in the near future, a new company - NTV-Ukraine - will begin broadcasting the programs of NTV in Ukraine. The creators of NTV-Ukraine believe, the news agency said, that "the creation of a single information space is possible only on the foundation of a civilized approach to the distribution of information which observes all licensing and copyright laws." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Officers to be fired for smuggling aliens

KYIV - The Internal Affairs Ministry is going to dismiss several regional heads of the traffic police and 20 of their subordinates for assisting illegal immigrants trying to enter the country, New Channel television reported on October 18. In a recent operation, policemen dressed like immigrants traveled across Ukraine and offered bribes to road police for information about the safest way of reaching the country's western border. A total of 20 road police were caught red-handed accepting bribes from fake immigrants. The internal affairs minister ordered the firing of the bribe-takers as well as the heads of the road police in the regions where the bribes were accepted. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, November 18, 2001, No. 46, Vol. LXIX

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