NEWSBRIEFS (05/21/00)

NEWSBRIEFS

Belarus, Ukraine discuss bilateral trade

MIENSK - Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko visited Miensk on May 16, seeking ways to expand and liberalize bilateral trade, the Belapan and Interfax news services reported. Trade turnover plunged from $1.5 billion in 1997 to $700 million last year, primarily because both Miensk and Kyiv lacked hard currency to pay for imports. Mr. Yuschenko commented that his talks with Belarus' Prime Minister Uladzimir Yarmoshyn were "quite productive." Mr. Yuschenko also met with President Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus to discuss Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma's visit to Belarus later this month. Mr. Lukashenka said Belarus has "practically no political disagreements" with Ukraine, adding that he will be able to resolve all economic problems between the two states at his upcoming meeting with Mr. Kuchma. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukrainian miners stage warning strike

KYIV - Some 6,000 miners at 150 coal mines staged a one-day warning strike on May 16 to demand back wages and the resumption of coal purchases by the state, Interfax and Reuters reported. The protest was organized by the Union of Coal Industry Workers. The union pledged to resort to "harsher protests" by the end of May if the government does not address the miners' demands. Last week's strike organized by the Independent Union of Miners ended after the Verkhovna Rada amended the budget to increase subsidies to the coal industry. Some 40,000 miners had launched an indefinite strike in 19 mines in Donetsk, Luhansk and Volyn oblasts on May 10. Ukraine's Independent Trade Union of Miners said the miners are protesting the late payment of wages and mounting wage arrears, low earnings in the mining industry in comparison with other national economic sectors and insufficient budget subsidies to the industry. According to official data, Ukraine's wage arrears totaled 6.5 billion hrv ($1.2 billion) as of April 10, of which 747 million hrv were in the mining sector. Only eight of Ukraine's 191 mines are profitable. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine, Azerbaijan discuss peacekeeping

KYIV - Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk met with his counterpart from Azerbaijan, Vilayat Guliyev, on May 15 to discuss Kyiv's possible participation in an OSCE peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh. Mr. Tarasyuk said Ukraine is ready to contribute to the contingent if the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and Azerbaijan deem it necessary. Mr. Guliyev expressed Azerbaijan's interest in building a pipeline to carry oil from its Caspian Sea deposits through Ukraine to Poland. "Azerbaijan has always stood for diversifying oil pipelines. This is in the interests of both Azerbaijan and Ukraine," the Associated Press quoted Mr. Guliyev as saying. Mr. Tarasyuk said the Ukrainian pipeline for the Baku-Supsa-Odesa-Brody-Gdansk oil transportation project is 70 percent completed. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Privatization of power supplies is decreed

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma signed a decree on the privatization of more regional power distributors, Interfax reported on May 15. The state has so far sold more than 75 percent of the shares in seven of Ukraine's 27 regional power suppliers. Mr. Kuchma's decree allows the sale of more than 75 percent of shares in another eight companies, more than 60 percent in 10, and more than 50 percent in two. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rada vice-chair comments on referendum

KYIV - Vice-Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Stepan Havrysh told journalists on May 15 that the president has urged the Parliament to adopt constitutional amendments in line with the April 16 referendum and to do so no later than February 2001, Interfax reported. According to Mr. Havrysh, President Kuchma will not oppose lawmakers if the Verkhovna Rada introduces "some corrections" into the constitutional formulations approved by the referendum. Mr. Havrysh suggested that the president might introduce the constitutional amendments by decree if lawmakers failed to pass them. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Demonstrators react to bread price hike

KYIV - Two opposing rallies were held at the Kyiv City Administration building on May 13 in response to the city authorities' decision to nearly double prices for bread as of May 10, Interfax reported. A rally organized by the Social Democratic Party (Unified) protested the hike, calling it "the beginning of famine" and demanding the ouster of Kyiv Mayor Oleksander Omelchenko. The other demonstration, organized by workers at city bakeries, expressed support for the hike and protested "Communist methods of fighting for social rights." Mr. Omelchenko told the gatherings that Kyiv has "the cheapest bread in Ukraine." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine, Vietnam to cooperate in military

KYIV - "We are on the threshold of large-scale military and military-technical cooperation between our countries," Interfax quoted Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksander Kuzmuk as saying on May 13, following a meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart, Pham Van Tra. The two sides plan to sign a five-year military cooperation accord by September. "Ukraine is ready to sell military equipment to Vietnam. The Vietnamese side is now determining its capabilities for the purchase of arms," the Associated Press quoted Gen. Kuzmuk as saying. The sides also agreed that 30 Vietnamese officers will receive training at Ukrainian military schools beginning on September 1. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rada sends referendum bills to court

KYIV - The Verkhovna Rada on May 11 voted 304-7, with four abstentions, to send to the Constitutional Court two draft bills on how the Constitution of Ukraine should reflect the results of the April 16 referendum, Interfax reported. The first bill was submitted to the Parliament by President Leonid Kuchma, while the second was sponsored by 152 lawmakers primarily from leftist and centrist caucuses. The Associated Press quoted a parliamentary spokesman as saying that the lawmakers' bill proposes granting the Parliament the right to appoint and dismiss the prime minister and Cabinet members. Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court is examining the legality of resolutions adopted by the parliamentary majority outside the parliamentary building after the Verkhovna Rada split into two warring factions in January. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rada adopts laws on amnesty, budget

KYIV - The Verkhovna Rada on May 11 passed a law stating that amnesty may be offered to those convicted for "minor crimes," primarily minors, people with children who are minors or disabled, pregnant women, the elderly, and war veterans, Interfax reported. The Parliament also amended the 2000 budget to increase revenues from 32.8 billion hrv to 33.7 billion hrv ($6.2 billion). The amendments stipulate that an additional 200 million hrv be directed to local budgets, and that other funds be allocated as follows: 195 million hrv to support the agricultural sector, 35 million hrv for the shutdown of Chornobyl, 80 million hrv for restructuring the coal sector and 195 million hrv for subsidies to coal mines. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Putin comments on Slavic victory

ST. PETERSBURG - Writing in The St. Petersburg Times on May 9, Yevgeniya Albats discussed President Vladimir Putin's suggestion last week that the Soviet victory in World War II was "the victory of Slavic peoples." Such a remark not only minimizes the contribution of all other Soviet peoples to the war effort, she said, but recalls the words of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in his 1945 toast to the Great Russian people, whom he described as "the most outstanding nation of all the nations comprising the Soviet Union." Ms. Albats, whose Jewish father became an invalid after fighting in World War II, concluded that in 1991 the Soviet Union, as a party state, "proved once again that the idea of ethnic supremacy is self-destructive. It seems," she said, that "our new president, inaugurated on [May 7], did not study his history lessons well enough." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Lviv Oblast orders Nashe Radio off air

KYIV - The head of Lviv Oblast Administration, Stepan Semchuk, has signed an order to halt transmissions by Nashe Radio in the oblast. The official reason for closure of the station is that over 90 percent of the information on this channel is in Russian. The chair of the Verkhovna Rada Committee for Freedom of Speech and Information, Oleksander Zinchenko, said the decision by Lviv authorities is a severe violation of the freedom of speech. He added that "only the courts or the National Council on TV and Radio and its regional branches may issue such a decision." (Eastern Economist)

Sejm ratifies abolition of death penalty

WARSAW - By a vote of 257-117, with 33 abstentions, the Polish Parliament, or Sejm, on April 14 voted to authorize the president to sign a protocol to the European Human Rights Convention that abolishes the death penalty. The move bans Poland from reintroducing capital punishment, which was formally dropped with the introduction of the post-Communist penal code on September 1, 1998. Poland suspended executions by hanging in 1988. "This symbolic act brings us into a group of modern European states. We are no longer in the infamous group of countries, such as Albania, Russia or Turkey, which have not ratified the convention," Justice Ministry spokeswoman Barbara Makosa-Stepkowska said. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Journalists demand limits on court fines

KYIV - In an action protesting what they condemned as the suppression of the media in Ukraine by courts that impose exorbitant fines, some 50 journalists on May 3 erected a five-meter-high barricade and marched along a central Kyiv street with their mouths taped shut, the Associated Press and Interfax reported. The journalists demanded that the Verkhovna Rada amend the law on the media to establish limits on the size of the fine the media must pay if found guilty of libel or other offenses. More than 2,250 lawsuits were filed against Ukrainian newspapers in 1999 for damages totaling 90 billion hrv ($16.8 billion). That sum is nearly double Ukraine's planned budget revenues in 2000. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Suspect arrested in attack on embassy

MOSCOW - Russia's Federal Security Service on May 7 announced the arrest of a Moscow resident who is suspected of having opened fire on the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on March 28, 1999, Interfax reported. The suspect was part of a group protesting NATO's operations in Kosovo. Officials said a criminal case has been opened and that charges are to be brought against the man in the near future. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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