NEWSBRIEFS (10/08/00)

NEWSBRIEFS

President: no change in foreign policy

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma promised on October 2 that Ukraine's foreign policy will not change following Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk's dismissal and replacement by Anatolii Zlenko, Interfax reported. "Nobody should have any doubts about that," Mr. Kuchma noted, introducing Mr. Zlenko at the Foreign Affairs Ministry. President Kuchma said Ukraine's course toward European integration also will remain unchanged. He stressed the need to find "an efficient algorithm" of relations with Russia, adding that those relations should be based "not [on] confrontation, but [on] mutually beneficial cooperation." Mr. Zlenko said Ukraine gives top priority to relations with the European Union, the United States and Russia. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Moroz comments on Tarasyuk's dismissal

KYIV - Parliament Chairman Ivan Pliusch said on October 2 that Borys Tarasyuk was ousted as foreign affairs minister because of his unsatisfactory performance in integrating Ukraine with Europe and promoting Ukrainian trade there, Interfax reported. "We are lagging behind in mutually advantageous economic cooperation [with Europe] on many counts," Mr. Pliusch said. Ukrainian political analyst Mykhailo Pohrebynskyi commented the same day that Ukraine has proved unable to live up to the high expectations that were raised in the West by Mr. Tarasyuk and other Ukrainian politicians. (RFE/RL Newsline)

U.S. envoy bids farewell to Ukraine

KYIV - Steven Pifer, whose term as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine ends next week, delivered a speech in Ukrainian to students of the National University of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy on October 3, the Associated Press reported. Mr. Pifer said the U.S.-Ukrainian contacts are "impressive," and he praised military cooperation between those two countries, including Ukraine's participation in peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo and in NATO-sponsored multinational exercises. Ambassador Pifer noted, however, that Soviet attitudes continue to remain an obstacle to the development of the lagging economy. He also stressed that Ukraine must work harder to ensure the freedom of media and the rule of law. "An absolutely key aspect of a democratic state is a free, diverse and robust press," he said. Mr. Pifer concluded by saying that Ukraine's success will also serve U.S. interests. (RFE/RL Newsline)

NBU to support hryvnia by all means

KYIV - National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) official Serhii Yaremenko has pledged that the bank will seek to prevent the devaluation of the hryvnia "by all possible means," the Eastern Economist Daily reported on October 4. Mr. Yaremenko said the bank is ready to spend up to $120 million on the currency market to stabilize the national currency. Over the past week the bank has spent $34 million to keep the hryvnia from falling. The official exchange rate is 5.44 hrv to $1. Meanwhile, NBU Chairman Volodymyr Stelmakh told the Verkhovna Rada that the devaluation of the hryvnia in 2001 will be between 8 and 10 percent if Ukraine manages to obtain foreign credits, including those from the International Monetary Fund's suspended $2.6 billion loan package. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Officials to pay for 'flop' at Olympics

KYIV - Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko on October 2 pledged to hold some sports officials accountable for Ukraine's "flop" at the Olympic Games in Sydney, Interfax reported. "This is a failure to some extent. ... We did not expect such a poor performance," Mr. Yuschenko commented. Ukraine's 239 sportsmen in Sydney won three gold, 10 silver and 10 bronze medals, as a result of which Ukraine finished in 21st place. Kyiv had expected the Ukrainian team to finish among the top 10, as it did in Atlanta four years ago, when Ukraine won nine gold, two silver and 12 bronze medals. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Chornobyl may become research center

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma suggested on September 27 that the Chornobyl nuclear power plant be turned into an international atomic energy research center after it is shut down in December, ITAR-TASS reported. Mr. Kuchma's spokesman Oleksander Martynenko said the president has decreed that a committee be set up on the plant's closure to investigate such possibilities. Volodymyr Lytvyn , the head of the presidential administration, is to chair the group, which is charged with creating jobs for those who will lose their positions as a result of the plant's closure. Meanwhile, a reactor at the Rivne nuclear plant was re-started on September 27 after being shut down two days earlier due to a failure in its turbogenerator. Of Ukraine's 14 commercial nuclear reactors, only 10 are currently in operation. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Interpol asked to help find Gongadze

KYIV - Ukrainian police are seeking the aid of Interpol in locating missing journalist Heorhii Gongadze, the DPA news agency reported. Mr. Gongadze was last seen leaving work on September 16. A massive manhunt ordered by President Leonid Kuchma has not found any clues about his disappearance. News sources have suggested that articles on Gongadze's website (http://www.pravda.com.ua) accusing Ukrainian politicians and businessmen of corruption are connected to his disappearance. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Teachers promised more money next year

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma said on September 28 that the government will raise salaries for all employees in the education sector in 2001 and wipe out all wage arrears to teachers by the end of that year, the Eastern Economist Daily reported. There are some 500,000 teachers in Ukraine who make an average of 137 hrv ($25 U.S.) per month. Social Policy and Labor Minister Ivan Sakhan said that other state employees will receive 25 percent wage hikes next year. He said it is the first time in three years that wages for those employees will be increased. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Communism found guilty at tribunal

VILNIUS - An international tribunal investigating the crimes of communism on September 27 announced a verdict of guilty against Communist institutions. The panel, which held hearings in June and September, said the aim of the proceedings, which have no legal force, was for the crimes of communism to be aired in public. The panel said that the various Communist parties and their institutions - especially those in Soviet-occupied states - were criminal organizations whose members carried out acts of physical, emotional and material damage and can be labeled as criminals. The vice-chairman of the tribunal, Arturas Filikaitis, said that communism "resorted to terror, violence and the search for enemies, the alleged culprits of their failures, who were tortured and destroyed," the ELTA news agency reported. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Yuschenko predicts pension increase

KYIV - Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko said that some 800 million hrv ($147 million U.S.) will be allocated to increase pensions in 2001, the Eastern Economist Daily reported on September 28. Mr. Yuschenko explained that "the government plans to eliminate all current social debts to the population." He added that Ukraine will experience substantial economic growth next year and that the government's goal is to increase the percentage of the budget spent on social services from 41 to 46 percent. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Putin impresses Solzhenitsyn

MOSCOW - In an interview with Russian Television on September 21, writer and Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn sang the praises of President Vladimir Putin. Mr. Putin had met with Mr. Solzhenitsyn at the author's home outside of Moscow the previous day. According to Mr. Solzhenitsyn, the Russian president has a lively mind, is "quick to catch on" and "has no personal thirst for power." He is "genuinely and wholly involved in the interests of public affairs" and "fully understands all the colossal domestic and foreign problems that he inherited and must put right." Some of Mr. Solzhenitsyn's fellow former dissidents found it hard to accept the writer's warm praise of Mr. Putin. Aleksandr Podrabinek, a leading dissident in the 1970s, said "Having the greatest respect for Solzhenitsyn and the worst opinion possible of Putin, I find it really difficult to explain this," Agence France-Presse reported. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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