NEWSBRIEFS (11/11/01)

NEWSBRIEFS

Crimea's Russians seek ethnic enclave

SYMFEROPOL - The Russian Bloc of Crimea, established by regional branches of Ukraine's Slavic Party and the Party of Slavic Unity, is calling for the transformation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea into a Russian autonomous entity and the reinstatement of Russian as the state language, ITAR-TASS reported on November 6. According to the bloc's coordinator, Sergei Shuvainikov, "national-patriotic forces" on the peninsula intend to lead a campaign for the rights of Russians and their recognition as the indigenous people of Crimea and Ukraine as a whole. The bloc opposes the Ukrainian leadership's plans to grant the Crimean Tatars membership quotas on official bodies of the autonomous republic or to give them the right to elect their own deputies in constituencies where they constitute a majority. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Romanian, Ukrainian presidents confer

WARSAW - Meeting at the Warsaw summit on international terrorism on November 6, President Ion Iliescu of Romania and his Ukrainian counterpart, Leonid Kuchma, agreed to direct experts to find "within one month" a mutually acceptable solution to the dispute involving their border on the Black Sea's continental shelf, Romanian radio reported. The solution should make it possible "to avoid appealing to international arbitration." They also agreed that their joint commission on economic relations should meet "within two months" to examine ways of improving trade. The presidents also agreed on the need to find mutually acceptable solutions to the problem of minorities living in each other's countries. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Russian official: Belarus election flawed

MOSCOW - Aleksandr Veshniakov, the chairman of Russia's Central Election Commission, told strana.ru on November 5 that Belarus's presidential election in September was "far from being an example to Russia and other countries that have embarked on the path toward democracy." Mr. Veshniakov said the election "in some measure" complied with international election standards. "However, we have some very serious advice for our Belarusian colleagues on how to make their future elections meet the election standards in full rather than in some measure," he added. In particular, Mr. Veshniakov recommended that each cast ballot be demonstrated to all those present at the polling station and every observer be entitled to a copy of the official election results at his/her station in order to make parallel vote count possible. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Russian official briefs Kuchma on crash

MOSCOW - Russia's Security Council Secretary Vladimir Rushailo on November 3 reported official findings regarding the October 4 crash of a Russian airliner to Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, Interfax reported. Mr. Rushailo said a Russian investigative commission had completed its work and confirmed that a Ukrainian S-200 missile was responsible for the accident. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Experts view simulation of plane disaster

KYIV - Ukrainian and Russian officials and experts on November 1 traveled to a military training ground in Crimea to view a computer simulation to determine how a Ukrainian missile could have shot down a Russian airliner with 78 people aboard on October 4, Interfax reported. Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council Secretary Yevhen Marchuk suggested that "reflections from the water surface" of the Black Sea could have disrupted signals to a Ukrainian missile that deviated from its course and downed the plane. Russian Security Council Secretary Vladimir Rushailo agreed with preliminary conclusions that the tragedy was the result of a combination of unusual circumstances and technical reasons. "Final conclusions will be made by the Ukrainian side," the agency quoted Mr. Rushailo as saying. (RFE/RL Newsline)

TV reports amount of compensation

KYIV - ICTV television on November 5 reported that Ukraine will pay $1,500 per victim to the families of Israeli victims of the October 4 downing of a Russian TU-154 airliner by a stray Ukrainian missile. The network added that the families of each Russian victim of the air tragedy will get $2,000 from an insurance company plus an unspecified compensation sum from Ukraine. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma cites Rada's inaction

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma on November 2 criticized the legislature for the failure to implement the results of the constitutional referendum of April 16, 2000, Ukrainian television reported. In particular, those results provided for introducing a bicameral legislature and abolishing the immunity of deputies. Mr. Kuchma called on the Verkhovna Rada to approve relevant constitutional amendments next year. Addressing journalists in Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast, Mr. Kuchma accused lawmakers of pursuing their own interests, rather than thinking about the people. "The deputies are afraid and they were afraid of one question most of all - the immunity of deputies. Let us see now how many people will run to secure a deputy's mandate in the constituencies. Why? ... Everybody is actually going there to become immune," Mr. Kuchma said. (RFE/RL Newsline)

EU completes Chornobyl project

KYIV - Officials of the EU's TACIS program on November 5 said they have completed a $1.2 million project aimed at informing the public in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia about the consequences of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster, the Associated Press reported. The TACIS project included a collection of scientific information about the catastrophe's aftermath, which was then distributed with the inclusion of new statistics and recommendations on how to survive in affected areas. The information is published in books, booklets, videotapes and compact discs distributed to government institutions, lawmakers and various regional organizations. "We cannot clean food products from radiation with CDs, but we can learn from them that 90 percent of all products in Ukraine are clean and that people don't need to do something special about them," one of the program's participants said. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Driver's, bodyguard's deaths to be probed

KYIV - Prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation on suspicion of murder into the deaths of a driver and a bodyguard of Verkhovna Rada Chairman Ivan Pliusch, UNIAN reported on October 25. The Internal Affairs Ministry said on October 24 that both deaths were caused by "an acute coronary deficiency and ischemic heart disease." However, the driver's sister told the New Channel television that the bodies of the two dead men revealed signs that they had been beaten. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Shipment of spent N-fuel is protested

KYIV - Five Russian environmental groups on October 25 appealed to the Ukrainian Parliament and President Leonid Kuchma to halt plans to transport some 40 tons of spent nuclear fuel in a train from Bulgaria's Kozlodui power plant to Russia through Ukraine, the Associated Press reported. The environmental organizations said in an open letter that half of all nuclear fuel accidents occur during transportation. "At present, the movement of nuclear materials outside nuclear power plants creates the possibility for terrorist attacks," they noted. The shipment was authorized by a 1997 agreement among Ukraine, Russia, Moldova and Bulgaria. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Hungary marks 1956 revolution

BUDAPEST - Political parties and state officials throughout Hungary on October 22-23 commemorated the 45th anniversary of the 1956 revolution and the struggle for freedom. "The revolution that broke out on October 23 teaches us to live and act in a way making us worthy of the respect of coming generations, since history will also assess our own deeds," Justice Minister Ibolya David said at the central ceremony commemorating the event in Budapest. Zoltan Pokorni, the chairman of the major coalition FIDESZ party, said Hungary "has never been so close to the fulfillment of the revolution's ideas as it is today." The speech by Peter Medgyessy, the opposition Hungarian Socialist Party's candidate for prime minister, was interrupted in Budapest by people protesting against the Socialists' participation in the commemorations. (RFE/RL Newsline)

New group to monitor flight security

KYIV - Transport Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko on October 23 said the government will create an agency, subordinate to the Transport Ministry and coordinated with the International Civil Aviation Organization, to improve civilian air-flight security and investigate air crashes, the Associated Press reported. The decision came after Ukrainian air-defense forces were blamed for the October 4 accidental downing of a Russian TU-154 plane by an S-200 missile. Meanwhile, a representative of the Ukrainian airline Aerosvit told journalists in Kyiv the same day that Ukraine's air-defense troops have always used passenger plane flights for practicing radar targeting, New Channel television reported. The network added that the S-200 is designed in a way that enables it to hit an aircraft only if the aircraft has been targeted by military radar. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Romania considers appealing to Hague

BUCHAREST - Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase said on October 17 that he has asked the Foreign Affairs Ministry to examine the possibility of appealing to the International Court of Justice in The Hague over Ukraine's drilling for oil in the Black Sea near Serpents Island, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. Mr. Nastase told a forum of Romanian-language journalists from around the world that the 1997 basic treaty with Ukraine was negotiated "in haste" because Romania's then-governing coalition believed it would advance the country's chances to be admitted to NATO at the Madrid summit. Not enough attention has been paid to the vague stipulations in the treaty on the demarcation of the border between the two countries on the Black Sea's continental shelf, Mr. Nastase added. He said this has made it possible for Ukraine to start drilling in 2000, despite the fact that negotiations on the continental shelf have yet to be concluded. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Threat of non-Russian languages cited

MOSCOW - Irina Khaleeva, the head of the Moscow Language University and the Russian rapporteur on language problems at the Council of Europe, said in an interview published on October 16 in Rossiiskaya Gazeta that the increased status of non-Russian languages within the Russian Federation in general, and especially of the Tatar and Bashkir languages in their titular republics, threaten to destroy Russia just as nationalism earlier destroyed the Soviet Union. She said that Russia must protect itself by making the Russian language the state language of the country. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Zhirinovsky says U.S. will disintegrate

MOSCOW - Russian Duma Vice-Chairman and Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky said on October 17 that in 10 to 15 years, the United States will disintegrate, Interfax reported. Mr. Zhirinovsky also said that Washington's operations in Afghanistan are a last-ditch effort to save the American economy. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Russian patriarch may visit Ukraine

MOSCOW - Patriarch Aleksei II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, told journalists on October 5 that he would "with pleasure" travel to Ukraine to meet those who maintain union with the mother Church, reported the Russian-language website at www.pravoslavie.ru. The patriarch is sure that such a trip must happen, "though the opposition and schisms which have their place in Ukraine do not always favor a visit of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church." Patriarch Aleksei said the president of Ukraine has more than once invited him to visit Ukraine, though he mentioned that winter is not the best time for this. He also expressed his hope that "the awareness of the need for peace-making will come and help to bring about reconciliation in Ukrainian Church life." (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

Crimea returns Jews', Muslims' buildings

SYMFEROPOL - According to the press service of the Crimean government, the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea has responded positively to the requests of Jewish and Muslim communities to return their property. The council decided to give back a former synagogue on Karaeva Street in Yevpatoria to the Orthodox Jewish congregation Yaakov. The former Orta Dzhami mosque in Bakhchysarai has also found a new owner. By order of the council it has been given to the Muslim community Mustafa Dzhami. (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

Moldovan president interviewed in Kyiv

KYIV - President Vladimir Voronin, in an interview with the Kyiv daily Fakty on October 10, said that "for now" he can see no point in joining the Russia-Belarus Union, Infotag reported. Mr. Voronin said the union is "more words than deeds." He added that Moldova "will be where it is to its advantage to be" and said Chisinau is willing to join the CIS Customs Union provided Ukraine also does so. President Voronin said Moldova has "historically always looked East." He also said that his main aim since his election as president has been to dispel fears that his Party of Moldovan Communists intends to restore the previous political system. "I have met with the presidents of 24 European and Asian countries [since my election], and everybody saw that Voronin has neither a tail, nor hooves," he commented. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma: Kyiv unable to stop migrants

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma on October 11 said Ukraine is not able to efficiently stop an inflow of illegal migrants through the country's insufficiently protected eastern borders, Interfax reported. "We are now unable to seal our borders. Only our western borders are sealed. Migrants from all over the world gather here, which is a huge burden on the Ukrainian budget," Mr. Kuchma said, adding that illegal migrants penetrate into Ukraine "along guerrilla paths from Moldova, Transdniestria and Russia." (RFE/RL Newsline)

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