NEWSBRIEFS ON UKRAINE (12/27/92)

NEWSBRIEFS ON UKRAINE

NEW YORK - Ukraine's first ambassador to Poland, Gennadiy Udovenko, presented his credentials to Polish President Lech Walesa in Warsaw on December 16. Mr. Udovenko, formerly Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations, conveyed greetings from President Leonid Kravchuk and reaffirmed the president's invitation to President Walesa to visit Ukraine. (Ukrinform)
KIEV - The United Social Democratic Party of Ukraine held its third congress on December 12 to 13 and adopted a resolution to merge with the Social Democratic Party. The merger will pose a definite puzzle for the Ministry of Justice, since it remains largely unknown which of the two political parties will disband itself and which will become the single successor. (Ukrinform)
KIEV - The Liberal Democratic Party held its second congress on December 13, attended by 34 delegates from eight regional party organizations. The delegates made some amendments to the party rules, Volodymyr Klymchuk, a literary critic, was elected LDPU chairperson. (Ukrinform)
KIEV - An international seminar to discuss environmental education issues in the context of the Chornobyl accident opened here on December 14. Sponsored by the UNESCO Secretariat and the Ukrainian Ministry for Environmental Protection, the seminar drew participants from Russia, Austria, the U.K., Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, the U.S., France and Switzerland. The participants discussed various subjects including environmental ethics and education; non-governmental organizations and the media's role in enhancing the public's environmental awareness; problems of experts' training; forms and methods of environmental education and enlightenment. (Ukrinform)
TERNOPIL - The presidential representative in this oblast, Roman Hromiak, has announced that October 14, the Day of St. Mary the Protectress, will be observed as an official holiday. (Respublika)
ZAPORIZHZHIA - About 100 German families from the former Soviet Union, chiefly from Central Asia, have arrived in southern Ukraine with over 1,500 more applications currently waiting to be acted upon, said the coordinator of the International Aid Foundation, Thomas Spross, speaking with a correspondent from Ukrinform. Mr. Spross said, after a two-day mission to the Zaporizhzhia region, that German settlers arriving here felt much better when compared with the locations of their previous residences. According to current estimates, some 40,000 ethnic Germans will return to southern Ukraine from other CIS member-states by the year 2000. (Ukrinform)
KIEV - Coca-Cola and the Rosinka (Dewdrop) soft drink production association have reached agreement to establish a joint venture. The U.S. company is reported to have agreed to invest about $6 million to $7 million U.S. dollars to re-equip the Ukrainian partner's outdated production lines. Under a previously signed agreement, Coca-Cola has already supplied some $1 million worth of concentrate as part of its share in the joint venture's authorized stock. Each party's respective share is subject to further negotiations. The Rosinka management is planning to convert to a joint-stock company since the U.S. company has repeatedly made it clear it will not make any deals with government-run structures.
KIEV - On December 9, the official government news agency, Ukrinform, carried President Leonid Kravchuk's denunciation of the Russian Supreme Soviet's negative influence on Russian-Ukrainian relations. Mr. Kravchuk had called a news conference to register his dissatisfaction with the Russian legislative body, citing its decision to review the 1954 agreement to transfer the Crimea to Ukraine, and to review the status of the city of Sevastopil. The president was quoted by Ukrinform as stating that the Russian Parliament was interfering in Ukrainian internal affairs by questioning its territorial integrity. (RFE/RL Daily Report)
MOSCOW - The Interfax news agency carried a report on December 9 about a news conference held here by representatives of 12 Cossack armies who announced the formation of a new force that would "cover Russia's borders and defend a single and indivisible Russia." Ivan Rybokon, head of the Kuban Cossack Army, said the force wished to be directly subordinate to the president, as the Cossacks had been under the command of the tsar, prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. The representatives also claimed to have made several proposals on Cossack state service and a government-backed program of Cossack revival, according to the report. (RFE/RL Daily Report)
SEVASTOPIL - According to a statement released by Ukrainian Rear-Admiral Boris Kozhin, the local shipyards will produce two vessels for the Ukrainian navy by the end of the year, and another five to eight in 1993. He also said that the formal reorganization of the Navy is well under way. (Respublika)

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