NEWSBRIEFS (12/02/01)

NEWSBRIEFS

Rada to ask for help in Gongadze case

KYIV - The ad hoc parliamentary committee investigating the murder of journalist Heorhii Gongadze said on November 27 that it will appeal to the Council of Europe to help organize an international commission to probe the Gongadze case, Interfax reported. Committee head Oleksander Zhyr said the international commission is necessary because the Ukrainian authorities, including President Leonid Kuchma, have thus far been uncooperative in the case. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Methane blast kills five miners

DONETSK - Methane gas exploded on November 27 in the Skochynskyi coal mine in Donetsk, killing five miners, reported the Associated Press, citing Ukraine's Emergency Situations Ministry. One miner is still missing. In 1998 a methane explosion at the Skochynskyi mine killed 63 and injured 51 miners. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Putin announces "Year of Ukraine"

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin signed a decree proclaiming 2002 the "Year of Ukraine in the Russian Federation" and set up a 20-member coordinating council to focus on expansion of bilateral ties in culture, education and science, ORT reported on November 26. The council will be headed by the chief of the presidential staff, Aleksandr Voloshin, and will include Media Minister Mikhail Lesin, Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoi, LUKoil head Vagit Alekperov, and aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska. Meanwhile, Russian Security Council Secretary Vladimir Rushailo said in an interview with the Kyiv-based Russian-language newspaper Den that the Russian and Ukrainian presidents have met over a dozen times this year, and that such "intensive contacts are unprecedented for the decade since both countries became independent." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Russian media center opens in Kyiv

KYIV - A Russian media center - founded by the Media Soyuz journalist organization, the Public Council of the Ukrainian-Russian Cooperation, the Internet newspaper ukraina.ru, and other organizations - opened in Kyiv on November 26, Inter television reported. "Our countries are present in each other. The problem of our past was that we could not find a form for this presence, or we proposed wrong forms. We have to find the right forms that would be convenient for us," ukraina.ru Project Director Gleb Pavlovskii said of the center's tasks. The center is headed by Inter television presenter Oleksander Kolodiv. Media Soyuz President Aleksandr Liubimov said Mr. Kolodiv was chosen because a Ukrainian journalist "will not be associated with Russian imperialism." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukrainian, Romanian ministers meet

KYIV - Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana discussed border and minority issues as well as economic and trade relations with his Ukrainian counterpart, Anatolii Zlenko, on November 27 in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian media. "I am delighted to say today that we are ready for constructive work aimed at finding an appropriate legal form of solving border issues," Ukrainian Television quoted Mr. Zlenko as saying. Kyiv and Bucharest are currently at loggerheads over the delimitation of the continental shelf with oil deposits around the Serpents Island in the Black Sea. In turn, Mr. Geoana said both countries are today witnessing an "impressive breakthrough" in bilateral relations. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Romanian comments on Ukraine census

KYIV - Meeting on November 27 with Verkhovna Rada Vice-Chairman Viktor Medvedchuk Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana suggested "avoiding the confusion about the definition of the ethnicity of the Romanians who say that they are Moldovans" during the Ukrainian Census scheduled for December 5-14, UNIAN reported. Mr. Geoana said that "Stalin's theory about the existence of a Moldovan language and a Moldovan nation is [still] being implemented," adding that this theory is "fiction that formally hampers the development of relations" between Ukraine and Romania. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ministry reports on arms reduction

KYIV - "We are considering the long-term possibility of further reduction of armaments and military hardware: about 2,000 tanks and armored combat vehicles, more than 1,000 field guns and multiple rocket launchers, and more than 350 assault helicopters," Ukraine's acting Chief of the General Staff Mykola Palchuk told Interfax on November 26. He noted that over the past five years Ukraine's armed forces had closed down the headquarters of three fronts, five armies and 14 divisions, as well as took more than 4,000 tanks and other combat vehicles as well as some 800 warplanes and helicopters, off combat duty. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Voronin backs Ukraine's Communists

CHISINAU - Moldova's President Vladimir Voronin said he will back "Communist comrades" in the next parliamentary elections in Ukraine. He said the Communists may help in bringing about a solution of the conflict with the Transdniester. He explained that each time he meets his Ukrainian counterpart, Leonid Kuchma, they agree on setting up the joint Customs posts that Chisinau wants in place, but that later "our Ukrainian colleagues dial back, claiming this is an economic blockade against the Transdniester." The Ukrainian authorities, he said, "behave as if the problem is more important for Ukraine than for Moldova," and by so doing they condone smuggling by the Transdniester authorities, Infotag reported. He said that unlike Russia, the Ukrainians have not yet learned "what is by now clear to everybody," namely that the Transdniester is ruled by "a criminal group" and that "the Smirnov regime seeks to immortalize itself" under the guise of the "presidential elections" scheduled for December 9. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma makes new appointments

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma has appointed Valentyna Dovzhenko as head of the State Committee for Family and Youth Affairs, Mariya Bulatova as head of the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports, and Mykola Kalenskyi as head of the State Customs Service, Interfax and ITAR-TASS reported on November 22. Two days earlier it was reported that the president had appointed Vitalii Haiduk as the new fuel and energy minister. Mr. Haiduk served as vice minister of fuel and energy from January 2000 to April 2001. "I do not think this is the right moment for reforms. We must stabilize the situation and guarantee that the country will live through the winter normally and there will be light and heating in every home," Inter television quoted Mr. Haiduk as saying. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine: Russia's top trade partner

MOSCOW - Ukraine has become Russia's top trading partner in the CIS, ITAR-TASS reported on November 20. Russia's trade turnover with Ukraine was up 12 percent to $6.9 billion in the first nine months of 2001, compared with the same period last year. Russia's trade turnover with Belarus was worth $6.8 billion in January-September 2001. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rada restricts alcohol, tobacco ads

KYIV - The Verkhovna Rada on November 15 passed amendments to a law on advertisements, banning the advertising of alcohol and tobacco products "on all information carriers," Interfax reported. The move in effect limits the visual promotion of cigarettes and alcoholic drinks to billboard advertising. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Romania "surprised" by remarks

BUCHAREST - The Romanian Foreign Ministry on November 15 said in a communiqué it was "surprised" by the statements made earlier that day by Ukrainian Ambassador to Bucharest Anton Buteiko and wants the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Kyiv to confirm whether Mr. Buteiko had "an official mandate" to make those declarations, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. Mr. Buteiko said that Ukraine would be in a position to agree to arbitration by the International Court in The Hague in a dispute concerning the border in the Black Sea's continental shelf after Romania officially agrees to recognize that Ukraine inherits from the former Soviet Union all the rights over the state border with Romania. Observers say that in doing so, Bucharest would lose any claim to the continental shelf around the oil-rich Serpents' Island. Mr. Buteiko also said the delimitation of the border in the Black Sea is an issue concerning not only Ukraine and Romania, but also Turkey, Russia and Hungary. He also accused Romania of spreading in the media "misleading and tendentious information" on the dispute. The Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry said negotiations under way with Ukraine have so far yielded no results, and appealing to the court in The Hague would be in line with "European practice" and with the annex of the 1997 basic treaty between the two countries. It also expressed "perplexity" that Mr. Buteiko "involved other states in the region in the dispute, without those states having been consulted or having agreed to that involvement." (RFE/RL Newsline)

OSCE invited to monitor elections

KYIV - Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Anatolii Zlenko on November 8 extended an official invitation to the OSCE to send its monitors to observe Ukraine's parliamentary elections on March 31, 2002, Ukrainian media reported. The invitation was passed to Gerard Stoudmann, the head of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, who was visiting Kyiv. Mr. Stoudmann said the OSCE will send a long-term monitoring mission in early February, while several hundred observers from the OSCE and the Council of Europe will arrive in Ukraine shortly before the election day. "I would like to emphasize that the general atmosphere, people's attitudes and election legislation have changed greatly since my last visit to Ukraine. The election legislation has really become more perfect," Inter television quoted Mr. Stoudmann as saying. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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