NEWSBRIEFS (10/20/96)

NEWSBRIEFS

Miners' union leaders sentenced

LUHANSK - Petro Kyt and Mykhailo Skrynsky, leaders of the Independent Miners' Union, were sentenced in Luhansk for organizing an illegal strike in July to protest unpaid back wages, UNIAN reported on October 10. The labor leaders were given prison terms of two and a half and three years, respectively, for disturbing the public peace and disrupting traffic. Their attorneys plan to appeal to the Supreme Court. The miners' union has claimed the charges are part of a government campaign to suppress the independent labor movement. (OMRI Daily Digest)

Ukraine reacts to Lebed claim

KYIV - Ukraine's Foreign Ministry criticized a recent open letter from Aleksandr Lebed published by the Black Sea Fleet's newspaper, Flag Rodiny, in which the Russian Security Council secretary claimed Sevastopol had never been officially handed over to Ukraine and never legally lost its Russian status. Mr. Lebed said Russia should take a stronger position on the Black Sea Fleet and over Sevastopol as its base. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Hennadii Udovenko said Kyiv will be guided by a statement by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergii Krylov, who refuted Mr. Lebed, reassuring Kyiv that Sevastopol is legally a Ukrainian city and that Russian President Boris Yeltsin had not raised any territorial claims. Mr. Udovenko warned that the Lebed letter could have a negative effect on negotiations over the division of the Black Sea Fleet. (OMRI Daily Digest)

Tabachnyk accused of abusing authority

KYIV - The Verkhovna Rada's Committee Against Corruption and Organized Crime called on President Leonid Kuchma to fire his chief of staff, claiming they had found evidence that Dmytro Tabachnyk used his position to illegally obtain an apartment in central Kyiv, UNIAN reported on October 9. The committee said Mr. Tabachnyk should be prosecuted, evicted and barred from holding public office. (OMRI Daily Digest)

Ukraine reconsiders closing Chornobyl

KYIV - Yurii Kostenko, environmental protection and nuclear safety minister, said Ukraine may reconsider its pledge to shut down Chornobyl reactor No. 1 by the end of October. According to Mr. Kostenko, closing one reactor could make another one prone to an accident due to a lack of heat in the coming winter. Chornobyl's two working reactors produce 5 percent of Ukraine's electricity. During this month's meeting in Paris between Ukrainian and G-7 experts, Ukraine promised to close one of the two reactors in return for an 118 million ecu ($147 million U.S.) grant allotted to starting the process of shutting down the plant. The G-7 pledged a total of $3.1 billion in aid to Ukraine for shutting down Chornobyl by 2000. (OMRI Daily Digest)

New Crimean speaker visits Kyiv

KYIV - In his first consultations with Ukrainian leaders in Kyiv since his appointment as chairman of the Crimean Parliament, Vasyl Kyseliov discussed the draft Crimean Constitution, the regional budget, taxes and the ongoing resettlement of previously deported ethnic groups in the region, Radio Ukraine reported on October 16. Mr. Kyseliov met with President Leonid Kuchma, Parliament Chairman Oleksander Moroz and Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko. He agreed to encourage the Crimean Parliament to take constructive steps toward a resolution of conflicts over these issues between Kyiv and Simferopil. (OMRI Daily Digest)

National-democrats help Chechens

KYIV - A publishing house in Lviv has just printed Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiev's new book, "Chechnya: The Struggle for Freedom." A consignment of 5,000 Russian-language copies of the book was confiscated by Russian customs at the Ukrainian-Russian border, but other copies are being sent to Russia from Ukraine by circumventing Russian customs, reported Interfax-Ukraine. Meanwhile, in Kyiv, a Chechen Information Center has opened for the declared purpose of supplying accurate information on Chechnya and correcting misinformation often appearing in the Russian media. Rukh is providing legal sponsorship and office space. Rukh leader Vyacheslav Chornovil told a news conference at the movement's headquarters that the center could eventually grow into a semi-official mission, akin to those of Taiwan in some countries. The center is the first of its kind in a former Soviet republic, although individual Chechen representatives authorized by the late president Jokhar Dudaev and by Mr. Yandarbiev have been working informally with sympathizers in the Baltic states. A Chechen Information Center has been operating since 1995 in the Polish city of Krakow. (Jamestown Monitor)

Life expectancy on the decline

KYIV - Declining life expectancy, growing infant mortality, and a high number of abortions all contributed to a negative population growth of -5.8 percent last year, down from -4.7 percent in 1994, Ukrainska Hazeta reported on September 26. Citing various sources, the newspaper said average life expectancy dropped from 69.4 years in 1992 to 68 in 1994. Life expectancy fell dramatically among men, to 62.8 years, largely because the death rate of working-age men was four to five times that of women. Of every 1,000 infants, 14.5 were reported dead by age 1, but the paper added that many hospitals continue the Soviet-era practice of registering infant deaths as stillborns. The number of abortions declined slightly from 1994 to 1995, from 154.3 to 153.1 abortions for every 100 deliveries. (OMRI Daily Digest)

It's Kazakstan, not Kazakhstan

ALMATY - The Kazakstani government has indicated that the spelling of Kazakhstan should be changed to Kazakstan. The former spelling of the republic's name is derived from the Russian-based transliteration. (OMRI Daily Digest)