NEWSBRIEFS (08/25/02)

NEWSBRIEFS

Population shrinks by 200,000

KYIV - The population of Ukraine fell by nearly 200,000 people in January-June of this year, UNIAN reported on August 9, citing the State Statistics Committee. According to last year's census, there were 48.4 million people living in Ukraine as of December 5, 2001. (RFE/RL Newsline)

13 million live below poverty line

KYIV - The government on August 8 released a report stating that 13.1 million people in Ukraine - 27.2 percent of the population - live below the poverty line, which is officially set at a monthly income of 175 hrv ($33) per person, UNIAN reported. Ukraine's worst poverty-stricken regions are the Zakarpattia Oblast (46.6 percent were below the poverty line in 2001), Crimea (38.4 percent), and Khmelnytskyi Oblast (36.8 percent). A recent World Bank report on the global economy in 2001 includes Ukraine in a group of the world's 65 poorest countries, where GDP per capita does not exceed $745. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Our Ukraine not sure about protests

KYIV - Our Ukraine lawmaker Petro Poroshenko told UNIAN on August 14 that the Political Council of the Our Ukraine parliamentary caucus will gather next week to decide whether the bloc is to take part in protest actions planned by opposition parties for this fall. On July 22 Our Ukraine lawmaker Roman Bezsmertnyi had said that Our Ukraine was pondering whether to use "extreme measures" against the existing power system. Later the same month, Socialist Party lawmaker Yosyp Vinskyi said the opposition had agreed to hold a nationwide protest action on September 16 to demand early presidential elections. Mr. Vinskyi added that the protest will involve activists of the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Our Ukraine. Mr. Vinskyi's announcement has not been officially confirmed by Our Ukraine. Meanwhile, Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko and four other legislators from Our Ukraine met on August 13 with President Leonid Kuchma. According to the Our Ukraine press service, the sides discussed "problematic issues" in Ukraine's development. The press service added that Mr. Kuchma's interlocutors "attracted the president's attention to a number of controversial administrative decisions and mistakes made by top authority bodies in governing the state." President Kuchma reportedly agreed to consult with Our Ukraine on the adoption of "major state decisions." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Russian and Ukrainian PMs hold talks

MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasianov met in Moscow on August 16 with Ukraine's Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh to discuss a number of bilateral issues, Russian and Western news agencies reported. Mr. Kasianov reportedly asked Mr. Kinakh to prepare Ukraine's conditions for joining the Eurasian Economic Commonwealth. He also presented the Ukrainian prime minister with Russia's vision for a joint natural-gas consortium that eventually will include Germany as well, the Associated Press reported. The two prime ministers expressed hope that the concept can be finalized in time for a Ukrainian-Russian summit scheduled for October 7 in Moldova on the sidelines of the CIS summit. Mr. Kasianov also urged Mr. Kinakh to adopt an agreement on Soviet-era property abroad. According to the AP, Mr. Kasianov said that Ukrainian ratification of the so-called "zero option" agreement is "fundamental" for Russia. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Soviet property abroad topic of talks

MOSCOW - Deputy Foreign Minister Anatolii Potapov began talks in Kyiv with his Ukrainian counterpart Oleksander Motsyk about the fate of former Soviet assets abroad, RIA-Novosti reported on August 12. Ukraine is the only former Soviet republic that has not signed the so-called "zero variant" agreement, according to which Russia took upon itself both the foreign debts and assets of the former USSR. Instead, Kyiv asked Moscow to present a list showing the full value of Soviet gold and diamond reserves, the foreign assets of Russian banks, and Russian debts to Ukrainian organizations and citizens. Some observers in Moscow and Kyiv believe that some concessions on both sides might now be made because of the special relationship emerging between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Leonid Kuchma. Russia, in order to keep Ukraine in its orbit, might offer Ukraine 16 percent of former Soviet real estate abroad, the BBC commented on August 13. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine rejects asylum requests

KYIV - Ukrainian authorities have turned down the asylum requests of three Belarusian citizens - Uladzimir Bukhanau, Svyataslau Shapavalau and Syarhey Korneu - who claimed they were persecuted in Belarus for opposition views and activities, the UNIAN news service reported on August 15. The Kyiv city administration's Department for Nationalities and Migration Issues said the three missed the deadline for requesting political asylum and refused to accept their application. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Marchuk: pilots lacked instructions

KYIV - National Security and Defense Council Secretary Yevhen Marchuk, who heads the commission investigating the jet crash in Lviv on July 27, told journalists on August 13 that flight commanders did not give pilots adequate instructions for maneuvers that led to the deaths of 85 spectators, the Associated Press reported. Mr. Marchuk said the two pilots trained for three days prior to the show, but flight commanders and the show's organizers did not conduct a rehearsal of the event. He added that commanders failed to call off the performance after the pilots deviated from the flight plan on their first pass. Mr. Marchuk also rejected pilot Volodymyr Toponar's claim that technical failures caused him to lose control of the SU-27 jet seconds before the crash. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Crimeans sue regional newspaper

SYMFEROPOL - Three residents of Crimea filed a lawsuit against the newspaper Krymskaya Pravda and the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Mykhailo Bakhariev, at the city court of Symferopol, announced the Crimean branch of Rukh on July 15. The claimants want the court to protect their honor and national dignity, and order the newspaper to compensate them for moral damages. They say they were offended by an article that Mr. Bakhariev published in Krymskaya Pravda in October 2001, in which the author wrote that there is no such thing as a Ukrainian nation or a Ukrainian language and that "Ukrainians are part of the Russian nation, speaking one of the Russian dialects." One of the claimants, Oleh Fomushkin, chairman of the Crimean Union of Landowners and also the leader of the Crimean branch of Rukh, argued that Mr. Bakhariev's statements are dangerous because the newspaper and the author have been able to mislead a large readership inasmuch as Krymskaya Pravda is the most popular newspaper in the Crimea. Mr. Fomushkin also alleged that the article "incites ethnic hatred between the Ukrainian and Russian sister-nations." The claimants said that a number of other "xenophobic and intolerant statements" were also published in the newspaper. They want the newspaper publish a refutation of Mr. Bakhariev's statements and pay compensation for moral damages in the amount of 1 million hrv (about $200,000 U.S.) from the newspaper and 200,000 hrv (about $40,000) from the author of the disputed article. (Ukrainian Media Bulletin, European Institute for the Media)

Our Ukraine businessmen targeted?

KYIV - Our Ukraine lawmaker Oleh Riabchuk told the UNIAN news service on August 8 that within the past week Ukrainian law enforcement bodies have launched 20 criminal investigations against companies founded by national deputies belonging to the Our Ukraine bloc or those in which Our Ukraine lawmakers had stakes. Mr. Riabchuk said representatives of the Directorate for Combating Organized Crime "openly demand [that Our Ukraine lawmakers involved in those companies] leave Our Ukraine" since, Mr. Riabchuk added, "a head-on onslaught on the part of the directorate is under way." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Prisoners end hunger strike in Prague

PRAGUE - Several dozen Ukrainian citizens serving their terms at the Pankrac prison in Prague, the Czech Republic, ended a one-week hunger strike on August 5, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reported. "They protested the conditions in which they are kept, [they protested] the level of health care, they complained that it takes a long time for Czech authorities to review their cases, or they protested their imprisonment since they consider themselves innocent," an official from the Embassy of Ukraine in Prague told RFE/RL in commenting on the reasons for the strike. More than 500 Ukrainians are incarcerated in Czech prisons. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Court reopens Aleksandrov case

KYIV - The Supreme Court on July 25 upheld the acquittal of Yurii Verediuk - who was accused of killing television journalist Ihor Aleksandrov in Slaviansk (eastern Ukraine) in July 2001 - and called for a new investigation into the slaying, the Associated Press reported. Mr. Verediuk was convicted last year for beating Mr. Aleksandrov to death, but an appeals court overturned the conviction in May after the judge said the evidence presented was groundless. Mr. Verediuk died from heart failure last week. His death is seen as a major setback for Mr. Aleksandrov's family and for the Institute for Mass Information, which in Ukraine represents the international human rights group Reporters Without Borders. They believe Mr. Verediuk was bribed to take responsibility for the killing and hoped that he would provide evidence incriminating someone else. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Lukashenka cites 'reciprocal measures'

MIENSK - "European Union or U.S. discriminating measures against our exports are explainable even if unpardonable. They do not treat us, mildly speaking, as their equals," Belarusian television quoted President Alyaksandr Lukashenka as saying on July 24. "But if similar things are done with regard to us by Ukraine ... then your inaction, esteemed comrades in the government, cannot be explained. Ukraine has categorized Belarus as a country with a non-market economy. You see, they consider themselves to be a market-economy country. And on this basis, they are trying to dictate their own conditions of economic cooperation by introducing limitations on Belarusian exports. I have said many times that it is necessary to opportunely take reciprocal measures against the countries that apply discriminating measures with regard to Belarusian commodities." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rivne wants veteran status for UPA

RIVNE - The Rivne Oblast Council has appealed to the Ukrainian president, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Verkhovna Rada to adopt legislation declaring the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) a belligerent side in World War II and giving veteran status to former UPA combatants. The UPA, created by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), fought German troops and Soviet and Polish forces in Nazi-occupied Ukraine and continued its military operations against the Soviets and the Poles after World War II. The governmentrecently announced that it has prepared a draft bill on honoring the UPA as "fighters for freedom and independence of Ukraine." (RFE/RL Newsline)

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