NEWSBRIEFS (10/17/04)

NEWSBRIEFS

Ailing Yushchenko returns

KYIV - Leading opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko on October 10 returned to Ukraine from the Rudolfinerhaus hospital in Vienna, where he underwent additional treatment last week for a mysterious illness, Ukrainian media reported. Before continuing on to Kyiv, a sickly looking Mr. Yushchenko addressed a cheering crowd of supporters, estimated by some sources at 100,000, in the western-Ukrainian city of Lviv. "I am a healthy man, and everything I possess belongs to a free and democratic Ukraine," he said in Lviv. In Kyiv, however, Mr. Yushchenko told journalists that his treatment will be continued. Austrian doctor Michael Zimpfer, who accompanied Mr. Yushchenko on his trip home, told journalists that the cause of the presidential candidate's illness remains unclear. Dr. Zimpfer added that it will take medical experts some three weeks to determine whether Mr. Yushchenko was poisoned. Interfax reported on October 12 that Mr. Yushchenko is planning to meet with a forum of Ukrainian students in Kyiv on October 16. Mr. Yushchenko's associates from the Our Ukraine bloc and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc reportedly campaigned for him in the provinces last week while he was in Vienna. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma's worst failures are cited

KYIV - Viktor Yushchenko said in an interview published in the October 9-15 issue of the Zerkalo Nedeli weekly that the three worst failures of Leonid Kuchma's 10-year presidency are his lost battle against corruption and crime; the suppression of free speech and introduction of mechanisms for the censorship and deceit of his countrymen; and the glaring poverty of the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians, particularly against the background of the huge fortunes accrued by a small number of oligarchs. Listing President Kuchma's greatest achievements, Mr. Yushchenko named economic decrees issued shortly after the promulgation of the country's Constitution in 1996; the conclusion of a treaty on friendship and cooperation with Russia; and the president's decision not to run for a third term. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Parliament's probe is inconclusive

KYIV - The ad hoc parliamentary commission for investigating the alleged poisoning of opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko has failed to confirm that the Our Ukraine leader was deliberately poisoned, Ukrainian media reported on October 7. "[The commission's investigation] gives no grounds today to assert that there has been an attempt on the life of Viktor Yushchenko," lawmaker Volodymyr Sivkovych, head of the commission, said in the Verkhovna Rada on October 7. "[The investigation] also gives no grounds to say that Viktor Yushchenko's organism has not been influenced by some poison or other substance," Mr. Sivkovych added. Verkhovna Rada Vice-Chairman Oleksander Zinchenko read a statement - signed by Ukrainian physician Mykola Korpan and Dr. Michael Zimpfer, director of the Rudolfinerhaus hospital in Vienna, which has been treating Mr. Yushchenko for his mysterious illness - saying that Mr. Yushchenko may have been affected by a biological agent. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Protests and controversy in Rada

KYIV - Lawmakers from the pro-government coalition in the Verkhovna Rada on October 8 walked out of the session hall in protest against what they say is the opposition's use of the parliamentary rostrum for exercising "shady election techniques," Interfax reported. National Deputy Volodymyr Zubanov read the pro-government coalition's statement saying that the opposition in the Verkhovna Rada "is defaming the honor and dignity of the authorities." The statement also accused the parliamentary leadership of failing to "counteract the rudeness of the political opposition forces." According to Interfax, two deputies from the pro-government Agrarian Party and Regions of Ukraine caucuses remained in the hall and took part in several votes, using the magnetic voting cards of their absent colleagues and thus contributing to the formal passage of several bills. It is not clear whether these bills will be considered as legally adopted by the legislature. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rada extends moratorium on land sales

KYIV - The Verkhovna Rada on October 6 passed a new version of amendments to the Land Code, thereby extending the moratorium on the sale of farmland by individuals and legal entities in Ukraine from January 1, 2005, to January 1, 2008, Interfax reported. In June the Parliament adopted the bill that extended this moratorium to January 1, 2007, but President Leonid Kuchma vetoed it the following month. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Wolfowitz speaks on Ukraine and NATO

WARSAW - U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said on October 5 that it was important to expand NATO to Ukraine, where a pro-Western opposition candidate is tipped to win presidential elections later this month. "It is particularly important to extend the values of what NATO stands for to the whole of Europe," Mr. Wolfowitz said in a speech at Warsaw University. "As President [George W.] Bush said here in Warsaw, we must extend our hand to Ukraine as Poland has done with such determination," he added. Ukraine announced in 2002 that it planned to join NATO and has set 2011 as a target date for starting negotiations on European Union membership. But outgoing President Leonid Kuchma has recently sought to move closer to Russia, stepping back from the earlier goal of membership in NATO and the EU, and agreeing to form a Single Economic Space with Russia and two other major former Soviet republics. (Agence-France Presse, Action Ukraine Report)

Freedom House volunteer denied entry

KYIV - Following an order from the Security Service of Ukraine, border guards at Kyiv's Boryspil Airport on October 12 denied entry to Serbian national Aleksandar Maric, a volunteer at the U.S.-based Freedom House human rights organization's Kyiv office, Interfax and UNIAN reported. According to a co-worker, Mr. Maric has a one-year multi-entry Ukrainian visa and had been in Ukraine for two months before going to Budapest for a few days. After spending the night at the airport, Mr. Maric was sent back on a flight to Belgrade. Mr. Maric reportedly was one of the leaders of the Serbian youth organization Otpor, which was instrumental in toppling the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia in 1999. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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