"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR"
An International Newsletter
The Latest, Up-To-Date
In-Depth Ukrainian News, Analysis, and Commentary
"Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion,
Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World"
"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR" - Number 578
Mr. E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor
Washington, D.C., Kyiv, Ukraine, THURSDAY, October 6, 2005
--------INDEX OF ARTICLES--------
"Major International News Headlines and Articles"
1. UKRAINE RETOOLS AGENDA ON TRADE, ECONOMY
Focus on Steps To Revive Growth, Improve Ties With Russia and West
By Alan Cullison, Staff Reporter, The Wall Street Journal,
New York, NY, Wed, October 5, 2005; Page A19
2. UKRAINE PURSUES CLOSER TIES WITH EUROPEAN UNION
By Judy Dempsey, International Herald Tribune (IHT)
Europe, Thursday, October 6, 2005
3. UKRAINE'S LEADERS URGED TO MAINTAIN 'STEADFAST RESOLVE'
IN CARRYING OUT REFORM
NEWS: Monitoring Committee
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Strasbourg, France, Wednesday, October 5, 2005
3. PLASTIC CURTAIN IN EASTERN EUROPE,
WESTERN BANKS FUEL GROWTH FEARS
As Giants Rush In, Bulgaria Tries to Slow Flow of Credit;
Big Gamble for UniCredito, Maria Ilieva's Dream House
By Jason Singer in London, Carrick Mollenkamp in Sofia, Bulgaria and
Alessandra Galloni in Milan, Staff Reporters, The Wall Street Journal,
New York, New York, Wednesday, October 5, 2005; Page One
4. UKRAINE: PRESIDENTIAL CABINET
Online Business Briefing Ukraine
The Oxford Business Group, London, UK, Monday, Oct 3, 2005
5. PRESIDENT VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO APPOINTS YURII MELNYK
AS DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER FOR AGRO-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Wed, October 5, 2005
6. YUSHCHENKO APPOINTS LYKHOVYI AS MINISTER OF CULTURE
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Wed, October 5, 2005
7. YUSHCHENKO INTENDING TO CREATE NATIONAL COUNCIL
ON CULTURE UNDER AUSPICES OF PRESIDENT
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, October 4, 2005
8. FINLAND SUPPORTS UKRAINIAN BID FOR EU MEMBERSHIP
Associated Press (AP), Kiev, Ukraine, Wed, October 5, 2005
9. YUSHCHENKO BELIEVES UKRAINE HAS NOT LOST THE
OPPORTUNITY TO JOIN WTO BEFORE 2006
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Wed, October 5, 2005
9. GETTING DIVORCED IN AN ORANGE WAY
By Victor Bondaryuk for Ukrains'ka Pravda (UP) in Ukrainian
Translated into English by Eugene Ivantsov
Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, October 3, 2005
10. RUSSIA STILL GETS IT WRONG ON UKRAINE
Kremlin hopes Yekhanurov will tilt Ukraine eastward
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS: By Taras Kuzio
Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume 2, Issue 185
The Jamestown Foundation, Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
10. PRIME MINISTER RETURNS EMPTY-HANDED FROM MOSCOW
ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY: By Vladimir Socor
Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume 2, Issue 185
The Jamestown Foundation, Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
12. LEONID STADNIK: THE WORLD'S TALLEST MAN
Leonid Stadnik just gets bigger every year. Daniel Utrilla
visits him in the Ukraine and hears why it's tough at the top
By Daniel Utrilla, Independent
London, UK, Sunday, 02 October 2005
13. UKRAINIANS HAVING MORE BABIES AMID AGGRESSIVE
CAMPAIGN TO ENCOURAGE PARENTHOOD
By Anna Melnichuk, AP Worldstream
Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday, Oct 05, 2005
14. LIFE RISES AFTER UKRAINE DISASTER
Forest around Chernobyl is contaminated, vast and beautiful
BOOKREVIEW: by Bernd Franke
"Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl"
By Mary Mycio, John Henry Press, 244 pages, $27.95
National Catholic Reporter, Kansas City, Missouri, Fri, Oct 7, 2005
15. BOLD MOVES IN BELARUS
Democracy advocates challenge Europe's `last dictatorship'
By Tom Hundley, Tribune foreign correspondent
Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois, Tue, October 4, 2005
16. RUSSIA: WHITE ARMY GENERAL REBURIED IN MOSCOW
Anton Denikin, a general who fought against the Bolsheviks
By Claire Bigg, RFE/RL Features
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
Prague, Czech Republic, Monday, 3 October 2005
17. UKRAINE'S ORANGE REVOLUTION CAN STILL SUCCEED
LETTER-TO-THE-EDITOR: by Ethan Burger
RE: Dr. Anders Aslund's article in Financial Times
The Action Ukraine Report (AUR), Number 578, Article 17
Washington, D.C., Thursday, October 6, 2005
18. DR. WYNNYCKYJ: WHAT A BEAUTIFUL AND ELOQUENT ARTICLE
LETTER-TO-THE-EDITOR: By Walter Prochorenko, Ph. D.
RE: Commentary by Dr. Wynnyckyj, "The Day The Music Died"
The Action Ukraine Report (AUR), Number 578, Article 18
Washington, D.C, Thursday, October 6, 2005
=============================================================
1. UKRAINE RETOOLS AGENDA ON TRADE, ECONOMY
Focus on Steps To Revive Growth, Improve Ties With Russia and West
By Alan Cullison, Staff Reporter, The Wall Street Journal,
New York, NY, Wed, October 5, 2005; Page A19
KIEV -- Ukraine's newly appointed prime minister said his government will
focus on reviving the country's sputtering economy, winning entrance to the
World Trade Organization and building closer trade ties with Russia and the
West alike.
Yuri Yekhanurov said in an interview yesterday he's closing the book on
government reviews of past privatizations, a major priority for his
predecessor that backfired by shaking investor confidence.
"It's the job of courts to handle complaints about privatization," Mr.
Yekhanurov said in his first meetings with Western journalists since he was
confirmed by Parliament last month. "It's not a problem of the government."
But Mr. Yekhanurov scoffed at the notion that his appointment signals a
setback for the Orange Revolution, which swept to power a coalition of
forces that promised to break up the country's economic cabals and reverse
fraudulent property sales made under former President Leonid Kuchma.
"People are tired of constant sensations and proclamations," said Mr.
Yekhanurov, who was appointed prime minister in a government shake-up
last month.
Ukraine's integration with Europe was a central slogan of the Orange
Revolution, but with the country's economic growth beginning to flag, Mr.
Yekhanurov's government is hard-pressed to find some short-term stimulus.
Last week, Mr. Yekhanurov traveled to Moscow to talk about easing
cross-border trade restrictions with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We have good trade turnover with Russia and the trends are good as well,"
said Mr. Yekhanurov. "We're working to maintain this."
In a signal that his appointment is neither a victory for Russia nor the
West in the tug of war for influence in Ukraine, Mr. Yekhanurov flies to
Brussels tomorrow for talks with officials from the European Union and NATO.
Mr. Yekhanurov said he hopes incremental progress in Brussels -- like in
Moscow last week -- will help Ukraine's economy. "We need fewer words and
more action," he said.
The prime minister said he hopes the technocratic nature of his government
will entice investors back to Ukraine. Since he became prime minister, he
said, he has been working on a raft of laws for Parliament touching upon
scrap-metal and fur exports that, if passed, will help qualify Ukraine as a
market economy -- an important hurdle for entrance to the WTO. He said he
thinks the laws could be passed by mid-November.
Mr. Yekhanurov gave generally low marks to the previous government of
firebrand Yulia Tymoshenko, who led massive street protests last year that
brought President Viktor Yushchenko to power.
Ms. Tymoshenko is still the most popular politician in Ukraine. But Mr.
Yekhanurov said her government became too embroiled in revolutionary
rhetoric, picked needless fights with business leaders and squandered
valuable goodwill earlier this year at a time when it could have been
implementing vital economic reforms and cutting government red tape.
Ukraine's economic growth, he noted, is expected to slow to 2% this year,
down from 12% last year. While Mr. Yekhanurov said some slowing was
inevitable because of a fall in the price of metals -- a major Ukrainian
export -- a decline in investment was also a factor.
With inflation rising, the rhetoric of last year's revolution is beginning
to wear thin with most Ukrainians, he said.
He said he will discourage talk from his government about any massive review
of privatizations made under Mr. Kuchma. Earlier this year, Ms. Tymoshenko
suggested as many as 3,000 firms could be reprivatized, an assertion that
prompted immediate denials by Mr. Yushchenko and other members of the
government.
The Tymoshenko government tried to review two major property sales, both
of them large steel mills that were bought under the former government by
investment consortiums that included the former president's son-in-law,
Viktor Pinchuk.
The government successfully nationalized Krivorozhstal, the country's
biggest steel mill, and will hold a new sale this month where bids are
expected to exceed $2 billion (Euro 1.68 billion). Mr. Pinchuk's group
paid $800 million.
In August, a court ruled against the 2003 privatization of the Nikopol
Ferroalloy Plant, in which Mr. Pinchuk's consortium bought a 50% stake
for $80 million.
Ms. Tymoshenko said the plant could be auctioned for at least $400 million,
but a takeover of the plant was bungled, leading to accusations that Ms.
Tymoshenko was planning to turn it over to a new set of oligarchs.
Mr. Yushchenko cited the scandal as one reason for the dismissal of Ms.
Tymoshenko's government last month. -30-
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Write to Alan Cullison at alan.cullison@wsj.com.
=============================================================
2. UKRAINE PURSUES CLOSER TIES WITH EUROPEAN UNION
By Judy Dempsey International Herald Tribune (IHT)
Europe, Thursday, October 6, 2005
BERLIN - Prime Minister Yury Yekhanurov of Ukraine is to arrive Thursday in
Brussels to try to persuade the European Union that the Orange Revolution
that toppled the old regime in December lives on.
Appointed last week after President Viktor Yushchenko put an end to months
of bickering and power struggles inside the government by dismissing Prime
Minister Yulia Timoshenko, Yekhanurov must now convince the EU that Ukraine
is still pursuing the path of reform. In return, Ukraine wants reassurances
that it can establish closer political and economic ties with the EU, even
the prospect of eventual membership.
In particular, Yekhanurov wants the EU to support Ukraine's application to
join the World Trade Organization, which Ukrainian officials said could help
push forward economic reforms. Yekhanurov, however, has said these talks
should not jeopardize Ukraine's ties with Russia in what seems a shift in
policy from his predecessor, Timoshenko, who adopted a strongly anti-
Russian stance when she was prime minister.
Closer to home, Ukraine's other neighbors have invested much hope in a
successful outcome of the Orange Revolution and are looking at the recent
developments in Kiev with both fear and fascination. One of their big
concerns is that Ukraine will become so absorbed by internal strife that it
will put regional affairs on hold until after parliamentary elections in
March.
An even bigger concern is that Yushchenko's reforms could fail, leaving
Ukraine unable to make the full transition from the old Soviet system to
democracy.
Igor Burakovsky, director of the Institute for Economic Research and Policy
Consulting in Kiev, said that for now the Ukrainian government would be
absorbed in internal affairs. "It is understandable," he said. "But there is
something bigger at stake for the government: its ability to modernize the
political system."
Burakovsky said the Orange Revolution was welcomed by the political elites
in Moldova, Georgia and other countries of the region "because they were
hoping for a post-Soviet space."
"For these countries and for Ukraine, the issue is clear," he said. "Since
the collapse of the Soviet Union, all of them have had some economic
modernization but no political modernization. This is the legacy of the
post-Soviet systems. That is why the success or failure of the Orange
Revolution matters so much."
For several of these countries, Ukraine offered immense hope because
of its size, its potential political clout in the region and the possibility
that it could deal with the legacy of the Soviet era.
When he was sworn in as president in January, Yushchenko moved quickly,
at least on the foreign policy front. He started forging close ties with
President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia, who in 2003 led the forces that
ousted the former Communist regime led by Eduard Shevardnadze.
Yushchenko also started talks with Moldova in order to solve a long-running
dispute in Transdniestria, where a Russia-backed leadership is trying to
break away from Moldova. The talks are continuing, but there has been no
major breakthrough.
Ukraine has also supported the democratic opposition in Belarus, where
President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994 and
who has muzzled the media and tried to quash any independent opposition,
will run again for president next March.
Georgy Meladze, a member of the Kmara opposition movement that led the
Rose Revolution in Georgia, said events in Ukraine affect Georgia, Belarus
and Moldova.
"We are linked by the Committee for Democratic Change, which is about
tackling the legacy of the Soviet system, for instance the entrenched state
structures of power and security and the old communist nomenklatura," said
Meladze.
"It is that system that has made the transition to democracy so difficult.
That is why the follow-up to the revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and
Kyrgyzstan matter. These countries are unique because they have Soviet-type
systems."
Uladzimir Kobets, leader of ZUBR, the independent opposition movement in
Belarus, said that if Ukraine could successfully deal with the legacy of the
Soviet system, it would have immense positive repercussions for the region.
"The Baltic States were able to make the transition from communism to
democracy more easily because they were not fully Sovietized," Kobets said.
Poles, particularly President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who had personally
supported the Orange Revolution, argued that the recent crisis in Ukraine
was about trying to undo the legacy of the old Soviet regime.
Rafal Sadowski, a Ukrainian expert at the Center for Eastern Studies in
Warsaw, said: "Ukraine is going through an unclear period. The process of
democracy in these countries takes a long time because of the Soviet legacy.
The situation does not help the drive for democracy in the region."
Ukraine's neighbors said the recent crisis showed that democracy was
beginning to take root. Kobets said it was fascinating to see how "the
changes were done peacefully and through the democratic process."
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LINK: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/05/news/ukraine.php
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FOOTNOTE: The best way to develop strong, long-run ties with the
European Union is to get the necessary, clearly identified, reforms
made in Ukraine. One-thousand trips to Brussels by top Ukrainian
officials over the next fifteen years or so will never get the job done
if the needed reforms are not made in Ukraine. Officials would be
better off to stay at home and organize the government to ensure the
effective implementation of democratic and economic reforms. All
the roads to Brussels are in Ukraine. EDITOR
==============================================================
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==============================================================
3. UKRAINE'S LEADERS URGED TO MAINTAIN 'STEADFAST RESOLVE'
IN CARRYING OUT REFORM
NEWS: Monitoring Committee
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Strasbourg, France, Wednesday, October 5, 2005
STRASBOURG - The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE) today welcomed the "positive evolution" in Ukraine under President
Yushchenko and the first achievements of the new Ukrainian leadership, but
recognised that it has encountered numerous difficulties in the first nine
post-revolution months, originating from the years of rule of the previous
regime as well as internal conflicts within the new administration.
Adopting a monitoring report during its plenary session in Strasbourg - the
sixth report on Ukraine since it joined the Council of Europe in 1995 and
the first to assess developments since the Orange Revolution - the Assembly
urged the country's new leaders to "preserve their steadfast resolve" in
carrying out the crucial reforms which Ukraine badly needs.
Priorities remain the fight against corruption, strengthening the rule of
law and the organisation of free and fair legislative elections in March
2006, the parliamentarians said.
While welcoming the "broad reform agenda" of the new authorities, PACE
emphasised that neither the post-revolutionary situation nor the up-coming
elections should be an alibi for hasty decisions; infighting and neglect for
democratic and human rights standards.
It deeply regretted the Constitutional amendments of December 2004 which,
while they halted the political turmoil, were incompatible with the rule of
law. It also warned against allowing economic reforms to "simply lead to the
redistribution of power among oligarchs".
Among other things, the Assembly called on the Ukrainian authorities to:
[1] bring to justice the masterminds behind the 2004 election fraud
[2] adopt the necessary laws on the functioning of the branches of power
and establish legislative guarantees and conditions for the functioning of
the parliamentary opposition
[3] transform state broadcasters into public service channels
[4] reform the public prosecutor's office in line with Council of Europe
recommendations
[5] bring to justice those who ordered, organised and executed the
Gongadze murder
[6] investigate other high-profile cases allegedly documented on the
Melnychenko tapes
The Assembly decided to continue monitoring Ukraine and to make a
further assessment of progress after the March 2006 parliamentary and local
elections.
The full report may be found on the PACE website:
http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc05/EDOC10676.htm
==============================================================
3. PLASTIC CURTAIN IN EASTERN EUROPE,
WESTERN BANKS FUEL GROWTH FEARS
As Giants Rush In, Bulgaria Tries to Slow Flow of Credit;
Big Gamble for UniCredito, Maria Ilieva's Dream House
By Jason Singer in London, Carrick Mollenkamp in Sofia, Bulgaria and
Alessandra Galloni in Milan, Staff Reporters, The Wall Street Journal,
New York, New York, Wednesday, October 5, 2005; Page One
Western banks are pouring into Eastern Europe, a crucial engine of growth
for the expanding European Union. The rush of capital is adding further fuel
to the region's economic boom but also raising concerns that consumers are
loading up on credit too fast.
Foreign banks including Citigroup Inc., General Electric Co.'s GE Capital
and Germany's Commerzbank AG are moving to set up or expand in the
fast-growing region, which includes eight countries that recently joined the
EU. Foreign banks now control 83% of assets of Bulgaria's banking system
and 70% of Poland's.
Expansion behind the former Iron Curtain was one of the chief motivations
for Europe's biggest cross-border banking deal ever: UniCredito Italiano
SpA's $21 billion acquisition of HVB Group of Germany.
Both banks have substantial operations in the former communist bloc. The
combined bank will account for 24% of Bulgaria's banking assets when
UniCredito's tender offer for HVB shares closes this month.
The expansion has benefited consumers like 33-year-old bookstore manager
Maria Ilieva and her husband, who is in book publishing. The couple wanted
to buy a small country house on Vitosha Mountain on the outskirts of Sofia,
Bulgaria.
They scraped together their savings and contributions from friends and
family for most of the $21,000 cost, but they needed a bank loan for the
rest. It took the couple four days last December to secure approval for the
$2,440 loan with an interest rate of about 6%.
Just a few years ago, with local banks short of capital and middle-class
consumers holding on to socialist fears of going into debt, the purchase
likely wouldn't have happened. "It is easy to take a loan but it is hard to
return it afterwards," Ms. Ilieva says.
In Bulgaria, consumer loans, excluding mortgages, increased by 46% in the
past year to $2.1 billion. Mortgage lending also has soared.
Bulgaria's central bank and its adviser, the International Monetary Fund,
are worried that the lending spree has been too dramatic.
The central bank has clamped down on easy credit, concerned that the
expansion of lending, if left unchecked, could undermine the economic growth
that made the country so attractive to the financial industry in the first
place.
How the banks navigate the credit boom in Bulgaria and elsewhere not only
will determine just how their investments pan out but could also help shape
the fate of these formerly communist economies and perhaps the EU as a
whole.
These nations are expected to be an important contributor to the EU's
economic strength in years to come. The eight formerly communist nations
that entered the EU in 2004 are growing at an annual rate of more than 5%,
compared with 1% to 2% in most of Western Europe.
And Central and Eastern Europe, with 385 million people -- five million more
than Western Europe -- has a young, well-educated populace that is
attractive for companies looking for cheap labor and access to rapidly
developing markets. Auto makers such as Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. and
France's PSA Peugeot Citron both are ramping up plant production in the
region.
Many borrowers are racking up credit for the first time as credit cards,
personal loans and mortgages have become widely available only in the past
few years. The value of overdue consumer credit accounts in Bulgaria rose
73% in the past year, though they remain just slightly more than 1% of
consumer loans outstanding. And the construction boom and glut of office
space has prompted fears of a speculative bubble.
"Credit has been an issue ever since it started rising strongly in 2003,"
says James Roaf, the IMF adviser working with the Bulgarian National Bank in
Sofia. Bulgaria's central bank twice in the past year has sought, with only
some success, to curtail the credit explosion. "It's good that banks are
lending. It's just the very fast pace of lending that has raised
macroeconomic and prudential concerns."
EDUCATING CONSUMERS
UniCredito and other banks say they are taking pains not to overheat the
lending market. Many have introduced risk-measurement systems that they use
in Western Europe to monitor the performance of their loan portfolios.
Experian, a unit of Britain-based GUS PLC, which provides customer data to
banks so they can rate a consumer's creditworthiness, recently set up
operations in Bulgaria. And banks are taking steps to educate consumers on
how to handle credit.
"A lot of our clients did not always understand the concept of a credit
card," forcing the bank to slow down its rollout of the product, says Andrea
Moneta, a senior UniCredito executive who used to run UniCredito's
operations in Central and Eastern Europe and will oversee the integration of
UniCredito and HVB. UniCredito grants credit cards according to a new
grading system that rates consumers' creditworthiness. It has installed a
system that zaps a text message to customers' mobile phones as soon as they
make a credit-card transaction so they can better track spending.
By Western standards, these countries have been relatively starved of
lending and other banking services -- providing a huge new market for
international players. Banking assets at the 400 lenders across the region
totaled $523 billion as of the end of 2004, or just 74% of the combined
gross domestic product of these countries, according to Bank Austria
Creditanstalt. The same figure for the whole of the EU is 206%.
Only one in three Poles has a personal bank account. Credit cards were used
for only 2% of total Polish consumer payments as of the end of 2003, the
most recent data available, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. U.S.
consumers use plastic for 20% of their purchases, while shoppers in the
United Kingdom do so for 13% of theirs, according to industry analysts.
Banks are using Western lending and sales practices in the race to win new
customers. Erste Bank of Austria in 2000 purchased Ceska Sporitelna, a
formerly government-owned savings bank in Prague. Erste turned to Jack
Stack, a former retail executive at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., to be Ceska's
CEO even though he'd never lived outside New York, hoping his experience in
consumer banking would come in handy in the Czech Republic.
Mr. Stack taught his employees basic sales techniques, from making eye
contact with customers to selling a variety of financial products. "The
government had used the bank to lend money to support inefficient companies
and it didn't have a service culture," Mr. Stack says.
Erste Bank's businesses in the region have so far escaped the credit
problems seen in countries such as Bulgaria, says Michael Mauritz, an Erste
official. The Austrian bank has made nine acquisitions in Eastern Europe
since 2000. Each one included a provision that ensured Erste wouldn't be
responsible for any loans made before the purchase, Mr. Mauritz says.
Erste plans to continue its aggressive buying spree in the region, with its
sights already trained on buying banks in Ukraine and Romania. "We see
tremendous potential in this region for the next two to three decades," says
Mr. Mauritz from the back seat of a car driving through Bratislava,
Slovakia, while en route to the Czech Republic. "It's the only booming
market in Europe."
Citigroup, in addition to having bank branches throughout Central and
Eastern Europe, is boosting its CitiFinancial businesses, replicating a
model used in the U.S. to lend to low-income customers who often have
spotty credit histories.
The banking giant plans to add five branches in Poland this year for a total
of 60. It plans to open 40 more branches in Poland next year.
In the mid-1990s, Bulgaria's state-owned banks, which had provided massive
loans to state-run companies, were forced into bankruptcy. The Bulgarian
currency, the lev, dropped against the dollar and consumers withdrew their
deposits fearing a run on the banks.
But a gradual privatization beginning in the late 1990s opened the door to
acquisitive Western banks.
UniCredito Chief Executive Alessandro Profumo, eager to expand his
Italian-based bank to the East, began charging into the region seven years
ago. "It was clear by 1998-1999 that growth in [Western] Europe was going to
slow down and in Italy we were already big," he says. "We had to go
somewhere else for growth."
It was a bold move in a region still suffering the fallout of Russia's
default on its government debt in 1998, an event that rocked global
financial markets.
But in 1999, UniCredito won a bid to acquire 52% of Poland's formerly
state-owned Bank Pekao, and took the first step in a fast expansion trail
across the region. Soon, Poles started to notice the new ease with which
they could get credit and access to their funds.
MANY CHANGES
In 2001, Roman Wurster, a 36-year-old policeman in Warsaw switched his
account to Bank Pekao from the huge, lumbering state-run PKO Bank Polski.
"A lot's changed since the mid-1990s," he said, stepping away from one of
Pekao's automated-teller machines emblazoned with its blue bison logo. "You
couldn't find an ATM then. You had to spend two days opening an account and
supply a signed letter from your employer. Getting a credit card meant at
least a month's wait."
Within two years, UniCredito snapped up bank stakes in seven Eastern
European countries, including Bulgaria's Bulbank. By the end of last year,
19% of Unicredito's $2.5 billion profit came from its New Europe division
which comprises its operations in Central and Eastern Europe.
From the beginning, UniCredito officials say, keeping track of its loans was
a big issue. Starting in 2000, the bank built a uniform credit-risk system
across its units in Central and Eastern Europe, replacing a hodgepodge of
systems. That allowed the bank to quickly get a handle on how each of its
units was performing and the risks each faced.
UniCredito was one of the first banks in Bulgaria to introduce revolving
credit cards and mutual funds. It also set up credit-monitoring operations
for corporate customers and consumers.
Customers like the flexibility of the new bank offerings. After years of
paying cash, accountant Ivo Manchev recently got his first credit card and
has used it to buy food, clothes and home appliances. Having the card, says
the 38-year-old, "makes life better."
Mr. Manchev says the card means he doesn't have to carry as much cash with
him. So far, he is paying the debt off every 45 days; the interest rate is
15% after 45 days.
Still, the rise in credit was so steep that the central bank last year took
steps to rein in lending by increasing provision rules for banks, among
other measures.
Despite the moves, loans continued to soar as more banks, facing a slowdown
in Western Europe, scrambled to gain market share. Credit outstanding rose
by 49% in 2004 over the year before after a 48% rise in 2003.
In February, the central bank ordered that if bank credit exceeded a certain
ceiling, the banks would have to increase their reserves to slow credit
growth to about 30% by the end of the year.
The central bank was concerned that the rise in credit growth would add to
bank risk and that the increase in loans would destabilize Bulgaria's
fast-growing economy by fueling the purchase of imports and hurting its
trade balance.
The central bank's announcement prompted Bulgarians to flock to bank
branches in fear that they wouldn't be able to secure a loan in the future.
Some say central bank governor Ivan Iskrov has overreacted. The central bank
was "shooting with a cannon at a mouse," says Jan Willem Overwater, ING
Group's country manager in Bulgaria.
A spokesman for the Bulgarian National Bank said that the bank maintains a
supervisory watch on specific banks on a regular basis and that these
measures were part of a broader, macroeconomic strategy. The clampdown
has slowed credit expansion. Total credit outstanding rose 38% in the 12
months ended in August, down from the 49% increase for 2004. -30-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edward Taylor in Frankfurt, Gabriel Kahn in Rome and David McQuaid in
Warsaw contributed to this article. Write to Jason Singer at
jason.singer@wsj.com, Carrick Mollenkamp, carrick.mollenkamp@wsj.com
and Alessandra Galloni, alessandra.galloni@wsj.com.
=============================================================
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==============================================================
4. UKRAINE: PRESIDENTIAL CABINET
Online Business Briefing Ukraine
The Oxford Business Group, London, UK, Oct 3, 2005
The announcement of Ukraine's new ministerial line-up has revealed an
anticipated shift in the balance of power towards the president - and away
from the controversial re-privatisation process.
Many see the events of late September as therefore raising the curtain on a
new, post-Orange revolution stabilisation stage in Ukrainian politics.
Certainly, Prime Minister Yuri Yekhanurov has vowed to re-establish economic
stability, saying during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin
on September 30 that, I would like to confirm my wish to end all the
re-privatisation processes and to solve all the future disputes through
negotiations.
In such circumstances, local observers are now watching with great interest
the re-privatisation of Ukraine's largest steel mill, Kryvoriszhstal,
scheduled for October 24.
The state property fund intends to resell a 98.02% stake in the steel
producer with a starting price of UAH10bn ($2bn). The steel producer, with
an output of 6m tonnes annually, was sold for just $800m in June last year
to businessmen close to former president Leonid Kuchma.
Few analysts believe that the re-privatisation of Kryvoriszhstal can be
called off, given its prominence in Yushchenko's political campaign last
year. Moreover, the property fund has already signed a confidentiality
agreement with seven potential bidders, who are rumoured to be Arcelor,
Mittal Steel, Privatbank group, Germany's RSJ Erste, Russia's Severstal
and EvrazHolding.
Meanwhile, with the re-appointment of the deputy prime minister, minister of
foreign affairs, minister of internal affairs and minister of defence, the
actual composition of the new government retains some shades of orange.
Its revolutionary zeal, however, analysts say, has undeniably been dimmed by
the purge of such firebrands as former deputy prime minister Mykola Tomenko,
former minister of economy Serhiy Teriokhin and most importantly, the number
one revolutionary and now one of the president's potential arch rivals,
former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
With the departure of these key figures, most of those retained on the new
executive team are said to be loyal to President Viktor Yushchenko.
According to the president's supporters, the Cabinet of Ministers will be
under the effective guidance of an experienced administrator in Yekhanurov,
who, despite his unquestionable allegiance to Yushechenko, appears to be a
consensus figure enjoying broad political support.
However, the manner in which the votes were secured for him in parliament on
September 22 has left a sour taste among many supporters.
President Yushchenko felt compelled to sign a co-operation pact with the
opposition party leader and his former arch rival in last year's
presidential election, Viktor Yanukovych, in exchange for some 50 votes for
Yekhanurov, after the first failure to get Yekhanurov approved by the
assembly.
Yet despite this controversial political compromise, local commentators
remain largely positive towards Yekhanurov. One local analyst described him
for OBG as an enlightened official who is very familiar with the nuances of
bureaucratic manoeuvring and does not often get into conflicts.
His detractors, however, argue that he will be a weak prime minister,
enjoying little independence from the president. Some suggest that unlike
Tymoshenko, Yekhanurov will be a cabinet prime minister, with all decisions
made by the presidency from now on.
But at the same time, Yekhanurov is an experienced politician with a long
economic background, having carried out an earlier programme of mass
privatisation and served as then prime minister Yushchenko's first deputy
from 1999 to 2001.
Analysts hope that during his less than six months in office before the
elections scheduled for March 2006, Yekhanurov will help to bring an end to
revolutionary excesses and political turbulence.
When appointing Arsenii Yatseniuk as the new minister for economy,
Yekhanurov said he would like this ministry to boost Ukraine's chances of
achieving the coveted market economy status by the end of this year and
concluding membership talks with the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Meanwhile, in contrast to the previous government, Yekhanurov has also
singled out improvement of economic relations with Russia as another top
priority.
On September 30, he flew to Moscow to meet Russian Prime Minister
Mikhail Fradkov and President Putin.
The Russian president, who enjoyed a notoriously frosty relationship with
ex-Ukrainian premier Tymoshenko, spoke highly of the new Ukrainian prime
minister, whom he called a very professional man capable of uniting his
country during this difficult period for Ukraine's economy.
Yet although financial analysts welcome an improvement of trade relations
with Russia, which is the main energy supplier to Ukraine, others fear a
reversal in Ukraine's geopolitical posture.
With the EU having demonstrated a limited appetite for giving Ukraine any
definite accession prospects, analysts argue, there is a risk of Moscow
regaining its influence over the country.
President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso sent another
disappointing message on September 21, when he announced that the EU
had no intention of assuming any additional obligations vis-a-vis Ukraine,
limiting its co-operation to European Neighbourhood Policy programmes.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili deplored the EU's lacklustre approach
towards Ukraine, criticising Brussels for having failed to come up with a
clear and consistent policy. Saakashvili argued that Ukraine needed some
clear guarantees from Europe ahead of the March elections to help those in
the country advocating the European policy agenda and reforms.
Unfortunately, analysts argue, Ukraine's European ambitions are faced with a
difficult external environment. Just like Ukraine, the EU is experiencing
its own identity crisis demonstrated by the recent German election debacle
and the ongoing dispute over Turkey's accession talks.
Even with all the benefit of the doubt, salvaging the haughty ideals of the
Orange revolution, under these circumstances, seems like an aspiration
beyond the reach of the new caretaker government. Yet, in accepting the job,
Prime Minister Yekhanurov did not appear to be accepting a poisoned chalice.
His hope, it seems, is that the nation will judge him on the not necessarily
immodest goal of simply getting Ukraine's slowing economy back on track.
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LINK: http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/weekly01.asp?id=1587
==============================================================
5. PRESIDENT VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO APPOINTS YURII MELNYK
AS DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER FOR AGRO-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Wed, October 5, 2005
KYIV - President Viktor Yuschenko has appointed Yurii Melnyk as Deputy
Prime Minister.
This was disclosed by the Cabinet of Minister's press service, which noted
that on the Cabinet's meeting that is taking place right now, with the
participation of the President, Prime Minister Yurii Yekhanurov presented
Melnyk to the Cabinet's members.
Earlier Melnyk was Deputy Minister of Agrarian-Industrial Complex in the
Yanukovych's government from July 2003 to July 2005.
It is planned that Melnyk will supervise agrarian-industrial complex
==============================================================
6. YUSHCHENKO APPOINTS LYKHOVYI AS MINISTER OF CULTURE
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Wed, October 5, 2005
KYIV - President Viktor Yuschenko has appointed Ihor Lykhovyi as Minister
of Culture and Tourism. This was disclosed by the Cabinet of Minister's
press service.
According to the press service, Prime Minister Yurii Yekhanurov has
presented Lykhovyi to the Cabinet's members, on their meeting, which is
taking part right now, with the participation of the President. Earlier
Lykhovyi held the post of director of the Shevchenkivskyi national reserve
in Kaniv (Cherkasy region).
Speaking at the meeting, Yekhanurov also noted, that the decree on the
Justice Minister's appointment is most likely to be signed on Monday,
October 10.
The post of the Health Minister remains vacant in the Cabinet of
Ministers.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, on September 8, Yuschenko dismissed
Yulia Tymoshenko-led Cabinet of Ministers, where the post of Minister of
Culture and Tourism was held Oksana Bilozir, who served as Acting Minister
Of Culture And Tourism till September 27. -30-
==============================================================
7. YUSHCHENKO INTENDING TO CREATE NATIONAL COUNCIL
ON CULTURE UNDER AUSPICES OF PRESIDENT
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, October 4, 2005
KYIV - President Viktor Yuschenko intends to create a national council on
culture under the auspices of the president. The presidential press service
disclosed this to Ukrainian News, citing a meeting that Yuschenko convened
on Tuesday, October 4, which focused on the issue of development of
Ukrainian culture.
Prime Minister Yurii Yekhanurov, Deputy Prime Minister Viacheslav Kyrylenko,
film producer Vasyl Vovkun, artists Ivan Havryliuk and Volodymyr Hryshko,
academician Mykola Zhulynskyi, and other cultural activists and government
officials.
During the meeting, Yuschenko proposed setting up the national council and
directed Yekhanurov to determine its composition within 30 days.
According to Yuschenko, the task of the council will be to outline concrete
steps in the area of national culture for the next 1.5 years. Moreover, the
issue of government policy in the area of culture and the main principles of
its formulation were also discussed at the meeting.
In particular, participants in the meeting discussed the state of national
cinematography and theater, museums, and book publishing.
Significant attention was paid to the issue of protection of Ukraine's
information space. The participants in the meeting also stressed the
importance of involving entrepreneurs in the financing of cultural projects,
creating the relevant legislation base for their operations, and introducing
effective methods for stimulating the cultural industry.
They also discussed reorganization of the Ministry of Culture. As Ukrainian
News earlier reported, Yuschenko recently relieved Oksana Bilozir of the
post of minister of culture and tourism. -30-
==============================================================
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==============================================================
8. FINLAND SUPPORTS UKRAINIAN BID FOR EU MEMBERSHIP
Associated Press (AP), Kiev, Ukraine, Wed, October 5, 2005 .
KIEV - Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said Wednesday his country
supports Ukraine's bid to become a member of the European Union and would
help set up a free trade zone with the ex-Soviet republic.
President Viktor Yushchenko has made E.U. membership a top goal, and signs
that the E.U. was becoming reluctant to consider new members have caused
concern in this former Soviet republic.
Ukraine was encouraged by the E.U.'s decision Tuesday to go ahead with
membership talks with Turkey and Croatia, which suggested the bloc has
overcome objections to welcoming new members.
During a meeting with Ukrainian parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn,
Vanhanen said his country supports Ukraine's European aspirations.
"The upgrade of living standards in Ukraine to European standards should be
an aim for its European choice," Vanhanen was quoted as saying by Lytvyn's
office.
Lytvyn and Vanhanen also discussed the social and political situation in
Ukraine ahead of the 2006 parliamentary election, the statement from Lytvyn
said.
During a later meeting with Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov, Vanhanen said
that they didn't discuss Ukraine's membership efforts, but he pledged to
promote relations with Ukraine when his country takes over the E.U.'s
presidency in July.
"We will do our utmost to set up a free trade zone between Ukraine and the
E.U. and to ease the E.U.'s visa requirements for Ukrainians," Vanhanen
said.
Ukraine is hoping to join the World Trade Organization later this year.
Yekhanurov and Vanhanen also said they discussed business contacts between
the countries. Vanhanen said Finnish businessmen expect the "investment
climate in Ukraine to improve."
Vanhanen was expected to hold talks with Yushchenko before heading back to
Finland later Wednesday.
Last week, a senior Finnish lawmaker said in Kiev that Finland hoped to lead
discussions on Ukraine's membership prospects during its six-month E.U.
presidency next year.
For Ukraine's Western-leaning leadership, closer links with the E.U. are
seen as a way to offset the still-considerable influence that Moscow has
over its neighbor. While most younger Ukrainians support E.U. membership,
many in the country's Russian-speaking east are hostile to the idea.
A poll released this week found only a third of Ukrainians consider the
country to be a European state. Most cited lagging economic and social
conditions, which remain far below E.U. standards. The poll of 2,011 people
had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. -30-
==============================================================
9. YUSHCHENKO BELIEVES UKRAINE HAS NOT LOST THE
OPPORTUNITY TO JOIN WTO BEFORE 2006
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Wed, October 5, 2005
KYIV - President Viktor Yuschenko believes that Ukraine has not lost the
opportunity to join the World Trade Organization this year. Yuschenko
expressed this belief at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers.
"Ukraine has un-lost prospects to become a member of the WTO this year,"
Yuschenko said.
At the same time, he stated the need to improve cooperation between the
Cabinet of Ministers and the parliament in adopting the draft laws necessary
for Ukraine's admission into the WTO.
In particular, according to him, it is necessary for the parliament to adopt
14 amendments to Ukrainian laws.
Yuschenko also said that the Cabinet of Ministers should be designated
as the organ responsible for adoption of these amendments.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the parliament adopted some of the
laws required for Ukraine's admission into the WTO in July.
In July, the former secretary of the National Security and Defense Council,
Petro Poroshenko, accused then-Economy Minister Serhii Teriokhin of
disrupting the action plan on Ukraine's admission into the WTO.
Teriokhin said in late September that he doubted whether Ukraine would join
the WTO before 2006. Ukraine is aiming to join the WTO before 2006.
==============================================================
9. GETTING DIVORCED IN AN ORANGE WAY
By Victor Bondaryuk for Ukrains'ka Pravda (UP) in Ukrainian
Translated into English by Eugene Ivantsov
Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, October 3, 2005
The shock that overwhelmed the entire Ukrainian society after scandal in
Yushchenko's team seems to subside. The avalanche of rubbish, evoked by
the scandal, was so muddy that Ukrainian people, as a rule, didn't give a
damn about competent thoughts and analyses and made their own
conclusions.
Spin doctors' attempts to show their exceptional intellect can't stand
competition with common sense of ordinary people. Old grandmas with three
successful marriages turned out to make deeper analysis than those so called
experts and corrupt political scientists do.
That's how specialists in family relations commented on Orange Union: "These
so different people won't stay together for long". It turned out like that.
As an honest husband, Yushchenko, having become the president, did what
he had to do - he entrusted budget to the wife. Their agreements were
"nourished" by the emotion, similar to that, the newly-weds have: to break
the wife's habit of hysterias and wasting money, and the husband's - of
getting drunk with friends and constant reading of newspapers.
Unfortunately it's impossible to change an adult person. As most of fine and
ambitious women, Mrs. Tymoshenko took care of her clothes, defile and
showing the door to husband's friends.
Classics of registry office: when romanticism is followed by routine and
washing up - the wife brawl because she wants flowers, attention and salutes
but not daily routine. In addition purely feminine talks: "just you and me,
all your friends are sops and pigs. Either they go or I do.
When egoism dominates it's better to get divorced so that kids won't suffer.
In our case kids are millions of people. The president's partner was thrown
out in the street to realize her talent of provincial actress. They had a
chance to live happily. No fate! But that's nothing extraordinary.
Tymoshenko's interview, given to Inter channel, which was actually a kind of
a soap opera for housewives, justified the numerous claims to her.
Futility in behavior and premature judgments may be forgiven to a politician
who yields a result. Tymoshenko failed to do that. One can't hide price
increase and drop of GDP behind bold statements and perfect make up.
Now we have to sigh, listening to the "female face of the revolution". The
shock of her resignation (she has never thought Yushchenko would ever fire
his bright companion-in-arm) provokes weird behavior from Mrs. Tymoshenko.
Jingoes triumph: we told you that a woman in Ukrainian politics is worth
something only after climax. That's brutal, but what do you expect from
those males?
People feel sorry for her, when she tells about fantastic results obtained
by her government, her belief that it was she who brought the revolution to
success, about her assurance of people's infinite love. Sure, everyone wants
not just to love himself but to respect as well.
But it's so evident that Tymoshenko's political career has been always
backed up and lobbied. Lazarenko (as a jump-off) and Yushchenko (as an
example and political donor) made her a prominent politician.
One needs more than just pretty face and good articulation to be an
independent and influential politician. And sure a far more serious team
than that one with unproductive Zinchenko, Tomenko and Turchynov, whose
activity in SSU gave pretexts for a dozen of anecdotes.
Tymoshenko had a tough choice: to join Vitrenko club or to try to soberly
estimate her strength. Doing that she'd better not listen to "competent
analyses" made by Volkov and Shufrych, whose career has come to its
logical disgraceful end.
She'd better not surrender to the compliments of the first president who
turned into an old crazy grandpa who's babbling what he wants to and who
doesn't understand what he's actually doing.
We can refer to football fans for an objective analysis. It's so easy to
find analogues in this extremely popular in our country game. Even the most
talented and bright players are expelled from the team if they don't stick
to team rules and team spirit.
It's impossible to win if everyone's playing for himself, that's why
mediocre but effective are better than striking but inefficient ones. As to
the government effectiveness, for the time being Tymoshenko's term
"outstanding result obtained by the government" might be applied to the
triumph of our national football team. But authorities have nothing to do
with it.
One football fan explained political situation this way: "You see,
Tymoshenko is like Leonid Buryak (ex-coach of the national football team).
He's smart, elegant like an English lord, a good public speaker but
still..he's not a coach. Yushchenko is like Blokhin - he talks not so good,
maybe he looks not so good, but he makes a team. He yields results.
Yushchenko and Blokhin have one thing in common (notwithstanding their
political preferences) - they both are highly reputed in their realms.
Reputation, as they say, is "not a small beer". Reputation is lost once in a
life. Reputation is what really maters. But not everybody seems to
understand that.
A year ago Donetsk magnates didn't understand why Polish partners refused
to sign a contract with them; the contract which was profitable for the
Polish side. They didn't want to make business with corrupt people with
shady past. The contract was sealed after the company was chaired by a
man with a perfect reputation.
It's a pity that Tymoshenko went down the history as a woman who ruined the
unity of the Orange Revolution. Circumstances are not important, like soccer
players use to say - the game is forgotten but result remains.
And results are, in general, not striking, and even jeasly in humanitarian
sphere: Russian bubblegum music on the radio, dead cinematography,
thousand of slackers in the system of National TV. Nothing has changed:
the same bribes, queues, dying villages, bureaucratic stupidity in the
spheres of education and medicine.
Well, we can consider premier's sex and age. Unfortunately prices for meat
and benzene never did that. To sum it up we can say: the wars against
poverty and our past are lost.
Now the wind of changes smells like the old one. Yesterday's heroes don't
want to be part of Ukrainian history. Echelons of politicians and
journalists who rather do harm to the beloved Ukraine, than contribute to
its wealth.
We may like old ideas (like old houses and cars), keeping in mind that they
are no more effective and functional. The proverb "An old horse makes a
straight furrow" was invented either by people, who doesn't know a thing in
agriculture, or by old horses. Because they can't drag the plow. We need
strong ones. However, exceptions are quite possible.
Lithuanian first secretary of the Communist Party once said he'd give his
post to a person who had nothing to do with communists. In a couple of years
they nominated an experienced manager, not giving a damn about
conventionalities. And they don not regret it ever since.
If Yekhanurov's team proves that the wine becomes only better in the course
of time, if they clear up for themselves what's more important: price growth
or pensions increase, if they're able to explain why meat is twice cheaper
in Poland, that will be enormous progress as compared with their
predecessors.
A thesis "kuchmists coming back to power" is hypocritical, because
Tymoshenko turned out to be a living example of a typical official of
Kuchma's regime, mainly preoccupied with intrigues.
However, Kuchma does have some virtues: he's one of those few politicians
who left the country in a better state he took it over from predecessors.
Tymoshenko failed to do that, and the country has just one leader now.
The moral side of this divorce process is rather dubious. Most moralists do
not look for justice, it's just envy and a bad habit of counting smb else's
money.
Why should Poroshenko, who had legally been a successful businessman (until
the contrary is proved by the court), pretend he's ashamed of having money?
Why shouldn't Tymoshenko, whose daughter's going to celebrate her wedding
in a medieval castle, do that?
Zinchenko identified gossips and rumors as moral categories. Why's that?
Pretexts and hint lead to denunciations. It's pretty strange. But they are
just people, like the negative character from "The Matrix" suggested.
Unbelievable, but this war is just accusations without proof and evidence,
like back in good Kuchma's times. But Tymoshenko knows out of her own
experience that such tactics can't bring to the victory. Besides, it's
pretty dangerous because this weapon might be used against its holders.
I wonder how Tymoshenko would react to gossips that she finances the most
sickening character in Ukrainian politics, Bohdan Boyko, who got air on TV
again. The gossips that her closest companion-in-arm, Olexandr Turchynov,
did nothing to reform SSU since he wanted to have goods on his yesterday's
friends.
The gossips that Tymoshenko's fighting Pinchuk is an exceptionally personal
matter. Does it differ much from "Poroshenko - is a corrupt official"?
As usual, mass media played a prominent role in this scandal. Journalists go
too far, bringing news to people. So, no wonder that the popular term "fifth
power" (meaning criminal power) is associated with "the fourth power", i.e.
mass media. Some people want money, even dirty one, some people are
proud of their clownery.
The whole story looks like an old anecdote about the scorpion, who stung
everyone until he appeared on a deserted island. He asked a turtle to bring
him to the land, having promised he wouldn't sting it. He couldn't stand the
temptation and finally stung the turtle. The sinking turtle asked: "why the
hell you did that?". The scorpion murmured: "Well, such an as***le I am".
The tone, mass media suggest, doesn't correspond the contents. People
would rather listen to political intrigues and accusations than fighting
terrorism or hurricane alert.
Disappointed Orange fans find their consolation believing it's all fake,
it's just pre-election campaign. There was no opposition, so they had to
breed it themselves. Unfortunately that's not true. -30-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www2.pravda.com.ua/en/news/2005/10/3/4801.htm
==============================================================
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==============================================================
10. RUSSIA STILL GETS IT WRONG ON UKRAINE
Kremlin hopes Yekhanurov will tilt Ukraine eastward
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS: By Taras Kuzio
Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume 2, Issue 185
The Jamestown Foundation, Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
Russian leaders were delighted, even gleeful, when Ukrainian Prime Minister
Yulia Tymoshenko was fired in early September. Their unabashed gloating
confirms that Moscow still does not realize why its interference in the 2004
Ukrainian presidential elections failed so miserably (see EDM, September
23). Instead, Russian officials have continued to look wistfully toward
Ukraine.
Russian leaders believe that the ongoing political crisis could lead to
Ukraine's disintegration or civil war between eastern and western Ukraine.
If the country divides, Ukraine might return to Russia and end President
Viktor Yushchenko's pro-Western foreign policy. These scenarios are
decidedly wrong.
The 2004 presidential elections proved that Ukraine has changed since Leonid
Kuchma was first elected president in July 1994. The 1994 vote followed a
far deeper crisis, when hyperinflation and strikes by miners forced then
president Leonid Kravchuk to call early presidential elections.
Throughout the 1990s the central issue of Ukrainian politics was statehood;
that is, would Ukraine survive as an independent state. This issue was
resolved in the 1999 presidential elections when Kuchma defeated the
Ukrainian Communist Party leader.
The defeat of the main domestic threat to independence (the Communists) and
the end to an external threat from Russia (after it recognized Ukraine's
borders) changed the central issue of Ukrainian politics to what kind of
state would be built. This would, in turn, directly influence Ukraine's
integration either with the Commonwealth of Independent States (as a
corrupt, oligarchic, authoritarian state) or with "Europe" (as a
democratizing state).
During Kuchma's second term in office Regions of Ukraine (RU) replaced the
Communists (KPU) as the leading pro-Russian party. Although both the KPU
and RU are pro-Russian, they differ in that only Regions of Ukraine favors
Ukrainian statehood. Thus the party shift was a positive development for
Ukrainian stability.
Russia strongly backed then prime minister Viktor Yanukovych to succeed
Kuchma in 2004. Yanukovych, however, denied that Russian President Vladimir
Putin "came to visit me personally, it was not a strategy of my election
campaign" (Washington Post, December 17, 2004). After Yanukovych's defeat,
the Unified Russia party signed a cooperation agreement with Regions of
Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Communists have rapidly declined since the 1999 elections.
Eastern Ukrainian voters have since shifted from the Communist Party, which
now has only 11% support in this region, to Regions, which has 51.7% (Kyiv
International Institute Sociology, September 2005).
Russian political commentators earnestly – but wrongly – believe that the
current government crisis will re-orient Ukraine eastwards. The selection of
Yuriy Yekhanurov as prime minister and Anatoly Kinakh as secretary of the
National Security and Defense Council (NRBO) are cited as "evidence" for
this argument.
A political expert with the Moscow INDEM think tank believes that Ukraine's
foreign "re-orientation" was inevitable. "Russia is the country from which
money, and lots of it, comes to Ukraine. There is no way around this.
Ukraine's economy depends heavily on Russia. All the talk about ‘turning
West' was euphoric. The fact is Russia and Ukraine have long and close ties
that neither can do without" (Agence France Presse, September 27).
Russian political commentators have reached the wrong conclusions about
Ukraine's crisis for three reasons.
First, their reliance upon Regions of Ukraine as their domestic ally gives
them a regional, rather than national, view of domestic developments inside
Ukraine. The Donetsk region, where RU has its main base of support, is
different from the remainder of eastern Ukraine, let alone other regions of
Ukraine.
Second, neither Kinakh nor Yekhanurov will re-orientate Ukraine's foreign
policy towards Russia and the CIS. Nevertheless, Russian media claimed that
Yekhanurov's September 30 visit to Moscow was tantamount to a "surrender"
to Russia (Agence France Presse, September 30).
The Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya gazeta (September 30) wrongly concluded
that Yushchenko was doing an about-face and returning to Russia. "This means
de facto that the leaders of the ‘orange revolution' have abandoned their
earlier ideals. The Yushchenko team has turned back to the principles and
methods for conducting foreign policy that characterized the Kuchma regime."
Another Russian newspaper, Kommersant (September 30), believes that the
Yekhanurov government will be "pro-Russian" because it "is closely linked to
Russian capital."
Yekhanurov's ascent does not indicate a policy shift. He has been an ally of
Yushchenko's since the latter was prime minister in 1999-2001. Moreover, the
president, not the prime minister, formulates foreign policy. Two-thirds of
the ministers in the Yekhanurov government are holdovers from the Tymoshenko
government, including pro-Western foreign and defense ministers.
Interviewed on ICTV (October 2), NRBO secretary Kinakh continued to outline
Ukraine's interest in only taking part in step one of the CIS Single
Economic Space; that is, a free-trade zone. Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk
reiterated this view during his September visit to the United States. While
Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan support steps two (customs union) and three
(monetary union), Ukraine continues to oppose both.
Third, Russia continues to get it wrong about Ukraine because it still sees
the region as "Little Russia." According to new a poll by the Moscow-based
Levada Center, 71% of Russians favor a unified state with Ukraine. Only 24%
are against (UPI, September 28).
At the same time, the Russian population is more realistic than the ruling
elites. Only 18% believe a union with Ukraine is realistic, with another 35%
thinking it could take place in the distant future. Whereas 48% believed
that a union was likely with Belarus, only 15% thought this was the case
with Ukraine.
Many analysts suggest that Moscow might apply pressure to Kyiv using the
threat of higher energy imports. But energy-supply discussions ahead of
winter are a perennial problem that even pro-Russian states, such as
Belarus, find difficult when dealing with Moscow. The same is true of
Ukraine.
The September political crisis in Ukraine and change in government will not
alter Ukraine's declared foreign policy goals of Euro-Atlantic integration.
The success of this goal will be decided by the outcome of the March 2006
parliamentary elections. If pro-reform forces are able to overcome their
personal divisions and create a parliamentary majority for Yushchenko, the
country will support Euro-Atlantic integration.
For now, the U.S. administration supports Ukraine's movement from
Intensified Dialogue on Membership to a Membership Action Plan for
NATO. What parliament does from 2006 to 2011 remains to be seen. -30-
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LINK: http://jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2370304
==============================================================
11. NEW PRIME MINISTER RETURNS EMPTY-HANDED FROM MOSCOW
ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY: By Vladimir Socor
Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume 2, Issue 185
The Jamestown Foundation, Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
Yuriy Yekhanurov paid his first visit abroad as Ukrainian prime minister to
Moscow on September 30, barely eight days after his confirmation by
parliament and only two days after the appointment of most of his
ministerial team.
The alacrity of the visit reflected -- as had President Viktor Yushchenko's
choice of Yekhanurov in the first place -- the president's ongoing
rapprochement with groups from the former regime and his decision to bid
for Moscow's support to a Ukrainian presidency in crisis.
Yushchenko and his new government urgently seek two major favors from the
Kremlin: First, guaranteed gas deliveries on the traditional barter scheme
this coming winter, which coincides with the parliamentary election campaign
in Ukraine; and, second, a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin with
Yushchenko in Ukraine before the official start of the electoral campaign.
On both counts, Yekhanurov returned empty-handed.
The gas supply situation can crucially affect the parliamentary election's
outcome. Pro-presidential parties are especially vulnerable to this factor:
gas shortages could cost these parties heavily in terms of votes lost, while
normal supplies would hardly earn them any additional votes.
By the same token, the major opposition parties (despite and above their
current differences) stand to gain politically from any gas shortages. Thus,
Gazprom could potentially sway Ukraine's parliamentary elections either way,
depending on Kremlin political decisions.
At least since June, the Ukrainian government (under Yulia Tymoshenko as
prime minister until September 8) had insistently sought to negotiate and
sign the agreement with Gazprom for 2006 on the same non-market terms as
in the previous annual agreements.
Under these arrangements, Gazprom does not sell gas to Ukraine, but pays
Ukraine in gas -- some 25 billion cubic meters annually -- in lieu of cash
for pumping Russian gas to Europe through Ukraine's transit pipelines. In
this gas-for-service barter deal, both the Russian gas and Ukraine's transit
services are valued far below European market rates.
Given the international price dynamics for energy, Gazprom is missing out on
a windfall of profits by delivering that amount of gas to Ukraine on
price-controlled and barter terms, instead of selling that gas for cash at
European market rates to Ukraine or elsewhere in Europe. Thus, Gazprom
wants to switch its arrangements with Ukraine to commercial terms as early
as January 1, 2006.
It proposes to pay for Ukrainian transit services in cash and sell Russian
gas to Ukraine at European market prices. Ukraine, unable to afford those
prices, is asking Moscow to postpone any changes until 2007 and to move only
gradually afterward toward market-based arrangements.
Yekhanurov and the accompanying team of ministers were eager and anxious
for a start to discussions on gas deliveries, transit, and payments during
their Moscow visit. Putin, however, seemed to circumvent the gas issue
altogether when receiving the Ukrainian delegation at his Novo-Ogarevo
residence.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov prevented any meaningful discussion
on gas in the intergovernmental meeting by informing the startled Ukrainians
that the relevant Russian ministers -- Viktor Khristenko, German Gref, and
Alexei Kudrin -- could not attend because they were otherwise engaged.
The excuse seemed particularly lame considering that this was the first
visit by a Ukrainian prime minister to Russia since the December 2004
regime change in Ukraine, as well as a major fence-mending visit from Kyiv's
perspective.
At the concluding briefing, Fradkov announced that the gas issue is being
referred back to ministers for discussion, as "there will be enough time for
exchanging views on this … Naturally, these complex issues require more
thorough discussions." (Russian Television Channel One, UNIAN, Inter TV,
September 30).
Apparently, the Russian side intends to drag out the talks into the cold
season, and as close to January 1 as possible, in order to raise the anxiety
level in Kyiv. At the same time, Moscow seeks to inject the issue of joint
ownership of Ukraine's transit pipelines into the discussions on Russian
annual gas supplies to Ukraine. By raising the prospect of cuts in supplies,
Moscow aims to pressure Kyiv into turning Ukraine's gas transit system into
a Ukrainian-Russian consortium.
Further complicating Kyiv's situation, Turkmenistan -- the leading gas
supplier to Ukraine -- demands reimbursement of Ukrainian debts worth $500
million in barter goods, before negotiating the gas supply agreement for
2006. Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov has for that reason postponed
a scheduled visit to Kyiv.
The possibility of a Putin visit to Ukraine was not publicly mentioned
during Yekhanurov's Moscow visit, although it must have been part of his
mandate. Yushchenko has publicly as well as privately invited Putin to visit
Ukraine with growing insistence since August, against the backdrop of a
deteriorating political and economic situation in the country and with an
eye to the twin problems of fuel supply and the parliamentary election
campaign this coming winter.
In recent weeks, Yushchenko has publicly invited Putin variously to join the
Ukrainian, Georgian, and Lithuanian presidents for the 80th anniversary of
the Soviet pioneers' camp in Artek, Crimea (an embarrassing rationale that
the other presidents had the common sense of rephrasing as a visit with
Artek children); or to attend a vaguely defined summit in Yalta of the
Community of Democratic Choice (thus altering the CdC's agenda and its
brand); or a summit of Black Sea countries' presidents (instead of the
"Yalta-2" summit proposed by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to
mark the demise of the 1945 Yalta system); or finally a bilateral visit with
Yushchenko in Ukraine.
Yushchenko is evidently weakening his own position by casting himself as a
persistent petitioner. For his part, Putin is playing hard to get by
ignoring almost demonstratively the Ukrainian president's entreaties.
Once Ukraine's electoral campaign begins officially (it is already underway
unofficially), Yushchenko's entreaties to Putin will inevitably provoke
comparisons with former President Leonid Kuchma's orchestration of
supportive visits by Putin during Ukraine's 2004 campaign season.
However, Moscow has yet to decide who and in what forms to support in
Ukraine in the upcoming elections and beyond, and at what price. -30-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Interfax-Ukraine, Russian Television Channel One, UNIAN, Inter TV,
September 30, October 1)
==============================================================
12. LEONID STADNIK: THE WORLD'S TALLEST MAN
Leonid Stadnik just gets bigger every year. Daniel Utrilla
visits him in the Ukraine and hears why it's tough at the top
By Daniel Utrilla, Independent
London, UK, Sunday, 02 October 2005
In a brown corduroy cap, the outsize man with the long, mournful face
occupies the driving seat of an old horsedrawn cart. An elderly lady with an
orange headscarf rests placidly on a heap of hay in the cart, her legs
dangling.
By her side, a bald man with gold teeth, and a young girl with a distracted
gaze complete a trio of passengers. Dwarfed by the unusual driver, these
three villagers look like hobbits from a Tolkein fantasy world.
The cart enters Podoliantsi - a tiny hamlet lost in the vast Ukrainian
flatlands, 200km south-west of Kiev - and a plump woman ushers me out
of one of the modest cottages by the roadside to meet her son.
Leonid Stadnik parks the cart by a shed and strides over, his remarkable
stature making the gnarled apple tree in the courtyard look no bigger than a
small bush. For a few of seconds, my hand remains trapped in his, like a
ball in a baseball glove, enclosed by an ungraspable palm, some 31cm in
diameter.
Stadnik takes off his size 27 shoes, then bows his head and tilts his chest
in a synchronised movement that allows him to pass through the front door.
We follow inside, to a gaudily carpeted living room, where he sits, hunched,
on the edge of the bed which serves as his sofa.
"I'm just an average Ukrainian farmhand," he says, in a voice like a
slowed-down cassette tape. "I get up at 5.30 in the morning to work my plot
of land. At around 9.30 at night, we milk the cows for the third time, feed
the animals and then go to bed. The work's very hard.
We only take a day off on religious holidays. Often we'll work until we
drop, but we're used to it from childhood. When I went to school I already
worked in the kolkhoz (Soviet collective farm)."
For Stadnik, though, his daily chores present their own unique challenges.
The last time * he allowed anyone to measure him, in 2004, he reached 8ft
4in, making him by some distance the tallest man in the world, 7in taller
than the official Guinness World Record holder, the Mongolian Xi Shun.
Stadnik suffers from a condition known as gigantism, triggered by an
operation he underwent at 14 to remove a cerebral tumour. That operation
damaged his pituitary gland (which generates the hormones that influence
growth), and since then he hasn't stopped growing.
His vision and his legs are both weakened by the condition and carrying his
giant frame around the fields can be difficult and exhausting. Particularly
as he is still recovering from a fractured foot.
Unlike Xi Shun, who visited Britain last month for a promotional event,
Stadnik shuns the limelight and is dismayed by his physique. "I don't even
know myself how tall I am or how much I weigh anymore," he says. He has
spurned requests by Guinness officials to measure him, and even avoids
looking at his own reflection in mirrors.
In the past three years, though, he has grown by more than a foot and is
likely to become the tallest man in recorded history, beating the American
Robert Pershing Wadlow, who reached 8ft 11in before his death in 1940.
"It's difficult to live with my height, it's a curse," he says. "Not long
ago I fell and hurt my lip... To fall from such a height is... Ufff!" With a
great sigh, he expels several litres of air.
A qualified veterinarian, he never imagined he would be reduced to farm
work. He spent 10 years as the in-house vet for a nearby cattle farm, but
had to quit in 2002 after suffering frostbite on his feet because he was
unable to afford properly fitted shoes.
Now the government pays him a monthly pension of £19 and he has better
footwear - a pair of oversized boots made by a local firm. "A Belgian
company has promised to send me winter shoes too," he says wistfully.
What is not covered is his colossal back. "I've a smart suit, and shirts,
but no working clothes and winter wear," he says. At home, a coal-fired
stove is his only protection against temperatures that, between December and
February, plunge to 30 degrees below zero. "I don't know if it's my height
or my large skin surface, but I love the heat," he confesses.
Despite his size, Stadnik is moderate, even frugal at mealtimes. "Mostly I
eat dairy products and potatoes. We make borscht and shchi [cabbage soup]",
he says. His widowed mother, Galina, sitting beside us, nods in agreement.
"He doesn't drink or smoke. He's so good..." she murmurs. Such a devoted a
son, in fact, that he won't leave her to seek medical help. Doctors in
Britain say that his condition will deteriorate rapidly without surgery.
Stadnik says that he's too busy running the family's 1.8-hectare estate. "We
grow onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, maize... Not long ago one of the cows
produced a sweet little calf."
At least this rooted, pastoral existence affords him a degree of normality
that he couldn't hope to achieve elsewhere. A year ago, a Ukrainian friend
living in Germany invited him to visit his house and rented a minibus to
take him there. The return journey was terrible. "It took 38 hours.
For me, travelling in a bus was the same as an ordinary person travelling in
a car boot... I got so tired that I vowed I would never go anywhere ever
again."
A few months ago, though, he was persuaded by a group of villagers to visit
the Carpathian mountains. "We wanted to show him something taller than
him," explains a neighbour.
Stadnik couldn't wait to get back. "You know, there's a real world and
there's my world," he says. "On television I see the news about the war in
Iraq, drug addiction, alcoholism, crime... It's all horrible, but it doesn't
affect me. I live in a very closed space."
As I prepare to take my leave, he tells me about one recent occasion when
the outside world did impinge for a moment at least. Last December, along
with the rest of the village, he was swept up by the excitement of the
Orange Revolution, which brought the pro-European Viktor Yushchenko to the
Ukrainian presidency.
Stadnik was even given a mobile phone by local members of Yushchenko's
party. Unfortunately, he found it impossible to use: his fingers were simply
too large to operate the keypad.
"I've got great expectations of the party - we all want to live better," he
says, and then pauses, casting his eyes downwards, as if contemplating his
monumental frame. "But of course we can't change everything."
WHAT IS GIGANTISM?
Gigantism is a rare disease, affecting one in three million people. It is
caused by the excessive secretion of growth hormone, which leads to abnormal
bone growth and elevated height. Other adverse effects can include facial
swelling, weakness, migraine, cardiac illness and diabetes.
Sometimes the hormonal imbalance is caused by a benign tumour in the
pituitary gland, but other pathologies can be responsible, too. There is no
cure for the condition, but if the cause is a tumour, surgery can help.
Drugs that reduce the quantity of growth hormone are another possible
treatment. -30- [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article315630.ece
==============================================================
13. UKRAINIANS HAVING MORE BABIES AMID AGGRESSIVE
CAMPAIGN TO ENCOURAGE PARENTHOOD
By Anna Melnichuk, AP Worldstream
Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday, Oct 05, 2005
The huge billboard's appeal is blunt: "We don't have enough Nobel winners -
make love to one another!" Other signs scattered along the capital's
roadways say this nation of 47 million needs more Oscar winners,
cosmonauts, and soccer players. "There should be 52 million of us," the
billboard insists.
In an effort to reverse a prolonged downward spiral in Ukraine's population,
President Viktor Yushchenko's government has launched an aggressive
campaign to encourage families to have babies. It includes giving new
mothers US$1,500 (8,460 Ukrainian hryvna or A1,246) and slick advertising
campaigns extolling the joys of parenthood.
Early figures suggest it's working.
The health ministry expects 440,000 newborns this year, 30,000 more than
last year. Former Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko predicted an even
bigger increase by year-end - nine months after the one-off payments to new
mothers began.
Several factors contributed to the sharp downturn in Ukraine's population,
which stood at 53 million in 1991. The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident
generated widespread fears among women about having babies.
The poverty and deterioration of the public health system that followed the
breakup of the Soviet Union also hurt birth rates. And there has been a
sharp increase in emigration by people hoping for a better life abroad.
Ukraine has a birth rate of 1.2 per woman, compared to a European
average of 1.4.
"Finally, the government has realized that we are rearing tax payers - who
should be paid for," said Tetiana Korsunovska, a doctor at a Kiev maternity
welfare center.
Anna Antsulevich said she was pleasantly surprised with what she called the
"state gift," noting that it was offered by a president who has a large
family himself. Yushchenko is a father of five and a grandfather of two.
"People have traditionally been disappointed with state authorities for
doing too little to help young families, and the new leaders definitely have
won people's favor," said Antsulevich as she pushed a baby carriage with her
four-old month old twins, Lera and Lida, through a city park. A librarian
with a monthly salary of only 518 hryvna (US$100, A83), Antsulevich said the
extra money came "just at the right time."
Tetiana Zakharova, chairwoman of the Kharkiv-based Federation of Families,
however, said the payments - a huge increase from the roughly 100 hryvna
(US$20, A16) that new mothers received before - had just been a good
election ploy.
She complained that women in remote regions often are not benefiting
because local officials pocket the payments. The government insists that
the payments are going where they are intended.
Oksana Rozhnova, mother of a 17-year old boy in Kiev, said the state
donation was the push she needed to fulfill her long dream to have another
child. "My husband and I, we both don't belong to well-to-do families, and
Yushchenko's money is definitely a serious support," said Rozhnova, who is
four months pregnant.
Pregnant woman are increasingly visible on the streets of the capital. A
Ukrainian version of Elle magazine recently splashed a pregnant model on
its cover and filled the issue with stories for mothers-to-be.
Dmytro Govseyev, head of a Kiev maternity hospital, said he wouldn't yet
call it a baby boom, but acknowledged that women now "feel themselves
more socially protected."
Govseyev said the Chernobyl disaster took a deep psychological toll. "In
1986, those women who could have an abortion had it done," he said.
"Women, especially in the big cities, were simply afraid of being pregnant
because nobody knew the consequences of what had happened."
These days, Ukrainian mothers-to-be are winning new respect - from the
president down to the average Ukrainian man. "You ladies do the most
important job ever," said Antsulevich's husband, Dmytro. -30-
==============================================================
14. LIFE RISES AFTER UKRAINE DISASTER
Forest around Chernobyl is contaminated, vast and beautiful
BOOKREVIEW: by Bernd Franke
"Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl"
By Mary Mycio, John Henry Press, 244 pages, $27.95
National Catholic Reporter, Kansas City, Missouri, Fri, Oct 7, 2005
The word "wormwood" stands for the biblical prophecy of Armageddon. It is
also the name of a common herb in Chernobyl, Ukraine, where in 1986 a
nuclear reactor melted down and caused widespread contamination with
radioactive materials.
Mary Mycio's book Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl explains
that the botanical name of the plant is actually more complex, and that
typifies her style: She describes and analyzes myths and scientific facts
alike, with an open eye to the human side.
Ms. Mycio, an American reporter with a solid science background, became
the Kiev correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.
Her book takes you right into today's forest around Chernobyl; it describes
the trips and research she conducted, touring a vast area that today is
simultaneously a no-man's-land, a wilderness park, a research laboratory and
the site of many human tragedies. Ms. Mycio's writing style gets the reader
hooked easily, in part owing to the way she describes the characters.
In the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown, about 350,000
people were resettled and more than 4.5 million still lived in contaminated
areas. Almost 20 years later, the radiation in the area is too intense for
people to live there safely, although quite a few live there anyway. Ms.
Mycio's intent is not to provide a harrowing account of the past.
She presents a carefully researched and well-written travelogue that allows
the reader to feel the atmosphere in what has become Europe's largest
wildlife sanctuary, with wild boars and other endangered species living in
the forests, fields and swamps, despite the contamination with cesium-137,
strontium-90 and plutonium-239.
It is indeed ironic and logical at the same time that some of the most
contaminated areas in the world are among the most beautiful; another
example is the nuclear test areas in the Marshall Islands.
Wormwood Forest describes the effect of radioactive contamination on
plants, animals, groundwater, the ecosystem and on the homo chernobylus.
Ms. Mycio takes the reader on a plutonium safari, visits several of the
800-plus nuclear waste dumps, goes bird watching, trespasses over
borders and learns about the nightlife in Chernobyl.
Ms. Mycio describes the simply unfeasible problem of trying to decontaminate
the thousands of square miles of land. In order to prevent fires that would
spread radioactive material, peat areas were flooded, creating a paradise
for black storks and other birds. White storks, on the other hand, got
rarer, probably because of the lack of human cultivation. It's so
beautiful -- and radioactive.
The book is captivatingly and passionately written and gives great attention
to human emotion. One example is Ms. Mycio's detailed description of the
annual visit of former residents to the gravesides of their loved ones in
the contaminated zone. Ms. Mycio reports many scientific findings, often in
great detail.
But rather than writing a scientific report, she focuses on the difficulties
that scientists face to determine the truth. Anomalously high radioactivity
levels were measured in groundwater not far from the Pripyat River that
scientists could not explain. A local guide pointed out an old sewage pipe
that is probably leaking.
Ms. Mycio uses this example to show that "much of Chernobyl remains
unknown and disputed." She takes on many such stories and rumors with
respect to Chernobyl, though the reality is interesting enough.
She also contrasts the difficulty in assessing the consequences on human
health with the obviously unfair compensation schemes in what are today
three independent countries: Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. How to do justice
under the circumstances?
In a few isolated cases, Ms. Mycio's attempt to provide simple explanations
comes close to a distortion of the facts that may be attributed to the
sources she selected. For example, she claims that in the mainstream view,
the effect of radiation doses of less than 100 rem over a lifetime will be
impossible to detect. However, there are many studies that indicate effects
at smaller doses.
She did not attempt to write a textbook on radioecology, although the reader
may get that impression when she goes into great detail with respect to the
numbers for radionuclide concentrations in groundwater, plants and
sediments. A simple chart of units and their meaning with respect to
radiation dose would have been helpful, and would have provided more
clarity.
Also, given Ms. Mycio's detailed travelogue, her book could benefit from a
better map identifying the degree of contamination in the region. Maybe that
could be done in a reprint. -30- [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bernd Franke, a biologist, is scientific director of the Institute for
Energy and Environmental Research in Heidelberg, Germany.
http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2005d/100705/100705ssi.htm
==============================================================
15. BOLD MOVES IN BELARUS
Democracy advocates challenge Europe's `last dictatorship'
By Tom Hundley, Tribune foreign correspondent
Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois, Tue, October 4, 2005
WARSAW -- Ukraine's was orange; neighboring Georgia's was rose. But
Belarus hasn't yet picked a color for its revolution.
Back in 1989, when the first winds of change toppled the Soviet empire like
a house of cards, Czechoslovakia had a "velvet" revolution. Lucky Czechs,
lucky Slovaks. Belarusians are not expecting a similarly smooth ride.
"More like Romania maybe," said Anton Cialezhnikau, 23, a pro-democracy
activist from Belarus. "Lukashenko is a pretty brutal leader and he has
powerful instruments of repression at his disposal."
President Alexander Lukashenko is the big dog in what President Bush has
described as the "last dictatorship in Europe."
But after "people power" managed to topple corrupt and undemocratic regimes
in Ukraine last year and in Georgia the year before, there is a sense that
Lukashenko's days might be numbered. An opposition movement is quietly
building strength inside and outside the former Soviet republic wedged
between Russia and Poland.
SUPPORT FROM POLAND
Poland has become a critical support base for the opposition movement. Last
month, when Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and other heroes of '89 gathered at
the gates of the Gdansk shipyard for the 25th anniversary of the Solidarity
movement, they reminded the world that revolution is not yet complete.
Later, at a rock concert in Warsaw, a band from Belarus called N.R.M.
ignited a youthful audience, which began chanting, "Freedom for our
neighbors."
Polish political leaders, meanwhile, have been banging the drum for the
Belarus opposition in the European Union's corridors of power, urging the
European powers to become more involved.
"The EU can't have a country like Belarus on its doorstep," said Janusz
Onyszkiewicz, the former Polish defense minister who now is vice president
of the European parliament.
All of this has infuriated Lukashenko, a former state farm boss and Soviet
apparatchik who enjoys the political backing of Russian President Vladimir
Putin. Lukashenko has retaliated against Warsaw with a harsh crackdown on
ethnic Poles living in Belarus. Poland responded by recalling its ambassador
in Minsk, and suddenly the Polish-Belarus border is one of the chilliest in
Europe.
"Our view is that Europe is larger than the EU, and the EU should feel some
responsibility for all of Europe," said Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski, an analyst at
the Collegium Civitas in Warsaw. "But ask any Western European politician,
`What's going on in Belarus?' and he'll think, `Well, how would Putin react
to what I'm going to say,'" Wnuk-Lipinski said. "Most Europeans are stuck in
this Cold War sensibility that Belarus somehow belongs to Russia."
Or as Cialezhnikau, the democracy activist, put it: "As long as the EU and
the U.S. keep trying to humor Putin, our situation will stay the same."
Cialezhnikau is typical of the new breed of young activists who have sparked
peaceful regime-change in Ukraine, Georgia and Serbia. A fourth-year
university student, he is working on a degree in marketing and management.
He and fellow activists eschew revolutionary rhetoric for business plans;
beards for BlackBerries. The Internet is their weapon of choice.
"What we have is a business plan for beginning a revolution," said Vitali
Locmanau, 28, an activist with the Union for Democracy Support in Belarus,
an umbrella group based in Warsaw.
"Right now, we are networking private companies, NGO's [non-governmental
organizations] and other people with financial resources to support the
opposition. Then we need to do the political marketing," said Locmanau, who
has a degree in economics and a day job as a marketing representative for a
Polish company.
The main Belarus opposition group is Zubr, named for the bison still found
in the country's primeval forests. Modeled on Otpor in Serbia, Kmara in
Georgia and Pora in Ukraine, Zubr is an organization dominated by
twentysomethings specializing in non-violent protest. But their efforts are
frequently met with violent suppression by the Lukashenko regime.
In many ways, Belarus exists as a kind of Cold War-era Soviet republic
preserved in aspic. The media are strictly controlled. State television
broadcasts reports on agriculture, paeans to Lukashenko and little else.
The KGB is alive and well here. Even after the collapse of the USSR, the
local branch in Belarus didn't bother to change its name. "Why would they?"
Locmanau asked. "It's a very strong brand name."
Facing elections next year, Lukashenko recently appointed Viktor Sheiman
as his chief of staff. According to prosecutors who have since fled the
country, Sheiman's previous assignment was organizing the death squads
that murdered four of Lukashenko's most bothersome political rivals.
A month ago, Lukashenko banned foreign assistance for all political
activity, clamped down on the ability of NGOs to operate freely in Belarus
and made it much more difficult for young people to travel in and out of the
country. He also imposed strict limits on foreign music on the airwaves.
With an eye on the election, the Belarus opposition chose a former
U.S.-educated physicist Sunday to challenge Lukashenko. About 800
representatives of Belarus' opposition parties and movements named
Alexander Milinkevich as their candidate at a congress in Minsk.
'BELARUS WILL BE NEXT'
"We believe that Belarus will be next after Georgia and Ukraine,"
Milinkevich told The Associated Press.
But the democracy movement also understands the difficulty of the task
ahead. "Belarus was handed its independence on a silver platter," said
Cialezhnikau, referring to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
"Freedom came too easily. Now we understand that you have to earn it."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: thundley@tribune.com
==============================================================
16. RUSSIA: WHITE ARMY GENERAL REBURIED IN MOSCOW
Anton Denikin, a general who fought against the Bolsheviks
By Claire Bigg, RFE/RL Features
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
Prague, Czech Republic, Monday, 3 October 2005
Anton Denikin, a general who fought against the Bolsheviks in Russia's civil
war following the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, was reburied today in Moscow.
The remains of Denikin, who died in exile in the United States in 1947, were
brought to Moscow yesterday.
A hero of the Russo-Japanese War at the beginning of last century and World
War I, Denikin led forces opposing the Bolsheviks in southern Russia during
the civil war.
Moscow, 3 October 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Eighty-five years after fleeing into
exile, General Anton Denikin was reburied with full honors at Moscow's
Donskoy Monastery in a grand ceremony attended by some 2,500 people.
A number of high-ranking officials attended the ceremony, which featured
both religious and military traditions.
Denikin's remains were reburied along with those of emigre philosopher Ivan
Ilyin, often considered the White Army's ideologist, and their wives. Their
remains were repatriated to Russia yesterday.
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Aleksii II hailed the reburials as a
vital step toward healing rifts left by the 1917 revolution:
"Today's event proves that we are concluding the process of restoring the
unity of our people who were divided by the tragic history of the last
century," Aleksii said.
Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov, who actively supported the reburial
process, described the event this way: "This is not just a physical transfer
of the remains of two great people into our soil," MikhaIkov said. "I hope
this is the beginning of the end of the terrible civil war."
Following his defeat by communist forces, Denikin fled to France in 1920
before emigrating to the United States, where he died in Ann Arbor,
Michigan.
The reburial of Denikin in Russia, especially with such pomp, would have
been unthinkable during the Soviet era, when the general was considered
one of the worst enemies of the people.
Today, however, the bulk of Russians largely welcomed the return of
Denikin's and Ilyin's remains to their native country. For many, it was an
emotional event.
During the Soviet era, General Denikin was considered one of the worst
enemies of the people.
Pensioner Valentina Ivanova was among those who crowded outside the
monastery today in the hope of catching a glimpse of the ceremony.
She said her strong nostalgia for the Soviet Union does not prevent her from
considering Denikin a hero.
"He was a White officer, but the simple people nonetheless respect him,"
Ivanova said. "I loved the Soviet Union very much and regret its breakup,
but all the same I greatly admire those who struggled. They all left their
idea."
For Valerii Perkov, a 67-year-old pensioner, Denikin's reburial is a highly
symbolic event. He said it is an act of repentance for all the wrongs
committed after the 1917 revolution and for the long rift between the
Russian state and the White emigres.
"I consider it part of our people's repentance, because I think we haven't
fully repented for all the outrages the Russian people committed starting
from 1917," Perkov said. "Being in a state of hatred, of war with each
other, is amoral. This is why we fail in everything, why we are the way we
are."
The lavish reburials are the latest sign of rapprochement between the
Kremlin and descendents of the White Russians living abroad.
Russia has also reburied the bodies of the tsarist family in St. Petersburg
and, earlier this year, Putin cancelled a holiday marking the anniversary of
the Bolshevik revolution, replacing it with the date of a 17th century
victory over Poland.
Denikin's 86-year-old daughter, who lives in France and accompanied her
father's remains to Moscow, was the one who initiated the decision to move
her father's ashes to Russia.
The general's dying wish, she said, was to be buried in Russia after Soviet
rule came to an end. Putin granted Denikin's daughter Russian citizenship
earlier this year. -30- [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
==============================================================
17. UKRAINE'S ORANGE REVOLUTION CAN STILL SUCCEED
LETTER-TO-THE-EDITOR: by Ethan Burger
RE: Dr. Anders Aslund's article in Financial Times
The Action Ukraine Report (AUR), Number 578, Article 17
Washington, D.C., Thursday, October 6, 2005
Dear Sirs:
Dr. Anders Aslund MAY BE correct that Ukraine's Orange Revolution can
still succeed.
It remains uncertain that the present outcome of the power struggle in Kyiv
is what the individuals who filled Independence Square sought when they
protested the fraudulent election results that appeared to deprive Victor
Yushchenko of the presidency.
Stripping former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of power is certainly a
positive development, but Mr. Yushchenko was only able to get his candidate
approved for prime minister by reaching some sort of compromise with the
very man who would have benefited from last year's election fraud -- Victor
Yanukovich.
Ukraine must be understood in a Ukrainian context -- a contest between
powerful and often corrupt factions with a backdrop of ethnic tensions and
democratic aspirations. It is misleadingly simplistic to use analogies to
the American political scene. In this regard, I hope Dr. Aslund proves not
be correct.
It would be terrible for the Ukrainian people if Mr. Yushchenko were to lead
a Republican-like party, the principal characteristics of which recently
have been incompetence, cronyism, and the further enrichment of the
wealthiest 2-3% of the population, opposed by a Tymoshenko-led equivalent
of the rudderless Democratic like-party, which at least during the Clinton
years was fiscally responsible and evinced a concern for the welfare of the
American public in greatest need.
Sincerely,
Ethan S. Burger, Esq., Scholar-in-Residence
School of International Service,
Adjunct Associate Professor, Washington College of Law
American University, Washington, D.C. 20016
==============================================================
18. DR. WYNNYCKYJ: WHAT A BEAUTIFUL AND ELOQUENT ARTICLE
LETTER-TO-THE-EDITOR: By Walter Prochorenko, Ph. D.
RE:Commentary by Dr. Wynnyckyj, "The Day The Music Died"
The Action Ukraine Report (AUR), Number 578, Article 18
Washington, D.C, Thursday, October 6, 2005
Dear Dr. Wynnyckyj,
What a beautiful and eloquent article using the comparisons to a song that
we loved so much in our youth.
I'm sure that many of us in the Diaspora, as well as countless friends and
colleagues in Ukraine, feel exactly the same way. How did it come to
pass that our hopes and aspirations succumbed to such a travesty.
It's a terrible pity and shame that it takes a deal with the proverbial
devil to enable the government to have even a semblance of normal
functioning.
The worst part is that Ukraine cannot seem to be able to develop a strong
and honest political force and President Yushchenko, for all his public
support, skills and talents, somehow cannot surround himself with enough
capable advisors to prevent such "faux pas".
Having lived through a similar political upheaval in the Philippines, I
cannot help but compare Yushchenko's regime (if we can call it that after
only a few months) to that of Corazon Aquino who once enjoyed up to 97%
of the Philippine popular support and yet failed to bring much needed relief
and reform to her country after the Marcos regime which compares so
closely to that of Kuchma's.
It makes us wonder if Ukraine is really ready for democracy. Where is all
that young, bright and energetic talent that helped bring Yushchenko to
power?
Why can't Ukraine rid itself of the pervasive "nomenklatura" and destructive
political machine? How much longer does Ukraine need to wait?
Always more questions than answers.
Thank you again for a wonderful article. Let's hope this is a wake up call
to all your students, associates and general populace.
Warmest regards, Walter Prochorenko, PhD., Paramus, NJ, USA
==============================================================
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