Recommended reading from:

Economist.com

Ukraine's government

A political soap-opera, continued

May 29th 2008 | KIEV
From The Economist print edition

“The politicians fight among themselves, and liberalizing reforms cease”

“WELCOME to the latest episode of Ukraine's political soap-opera, starring Yulia Tymoshenko as prime minister and Viktor Yushchenko as president.

“Here is the plot so far. Ms Tymoshenko, the white-clad heroine of the ‘orange revolution’, reunites with Mr Yushchenko and scores a famous victory in a parliamentary election last October.

“The ‘villain’ (and former prime minister), Viktor Yanukovich, is defeated and recedes into the background. After three months of bargaining Ms Tymoshenko becomes prime minister and forms a coalition government.

“Then Mr Yushchenko gets jealous of his more popular partner. Instead of letting her run the government as he promised, he starts interfering in almost every decision and publicly scolding Ms Tymoshenko.

“She tolerates this humiliation for several months, then explodes.”

A point of personal privilege and opinion:

There is a new link on the opening page, just posted along with this comment in the blog. This is my personal observation about the story linked there.

One might have to follow the news here in the US to understand my feelings about this. It is a pleasure that I can listen to a large group of children brought together from parts of Eastern Europe.

Not long ago the histories of Romania and Ukraine were such that one could easily lose ones freedom and even life by speaking out. Today I listen to large groups of children lifting their voices to the heavens in praise and joy.

Here in the US one would expect some individual backed by a misguided “Civil” society of one kind or another to protest in court. They would be demanding that Music Camp International cease and desist from presenting religious music in public venues.

This might be hard for people around the world to understand. But it is true. I can listen to the children’s joy in Eastern Europe and be happy for them regardless of my own beliefs.

David

I believe these to be the harshest words yet coming from the Ukrainian Government. D

Kiev Ukraine News Blog

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

KIEV, Ukraine -- The so-called "democratic coalition" in Ukraine in fact exists only on paper, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said.

"It is a big question whether a democratic coalition exists in Ukraine today. In legal terms, it does exist and is functioning in the parliament.

“But in fact there is another coalition comprising all oligarchic groups, the Party of Regions, and part of our democratic sector," Tymoshenko said speaking to residents of the Minsk district of Kyiv on Tuesday.

"We will not surrender and will go until the president, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Verkhovna Rada and courts serve you [the Ukrainian public] rather than each other," Tymoshenko said.

Source: Interfax

posted by Nicholas @ 11:42am 

UNIAN

[19.05.2008 10:48]  

Ukraine to eliminate totalitarian, communist symbols – Yushchenko

Ukraine is drafting a bill, which will start the elimination of ‘totalitarian and communist symbols’, President Viktor Yushchenko said on Sunday, according to Itar-Tass.

He visited the Bykovnya Grave memorial on the occasion of the Day of Political Repression Victims.

“This bill is bound for immediate approval,” the president said, adding that it was also necessary to hear his bills on the legal status of Ukrainian freedom fighters and the prosecution of individuals and legal entities that refuse to recognize the Great Famine of the 1930s. “The society must resist to totalitarianism,” Yushchenko said.

More than 100,000 political repression victims are buried in the Bykovnya forest. They were executed in the 1930s-1940s. “Time has come to name and publicly condemn the culprits of these repressions,” the president said. “There are still thousands of monuments to the repression organizers and other symbols of totalitarianism across the country.”
 

Sevastopol: It might almost be comical if the issue were not so militarily important to Russia verses Ukraine.

“Moscow mayor barred entry to Ukraine”

USAToday dot com

“KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine on Monday barred the powerful Moscow mayor from entering the country in the future for reportedly suggesting that it should cede a key city to Russia.

“The move further strains already tense relations between the two ex-Soviet neighbors, as Moscow bitterly opposes Kiev's push to join NATO.”

International Herald Tribune Europe

Seeking more freedom, Russians and others in region flock to Ukraine

By Maria Danilova the Associated Press

Published: May 9, 2008

“Kyiv: A gloomy Vladimir Putin wears a Czarist crown, clutching a bag full of dollars and a miniature television tower.

“Filipp Pishchik says this and similar cartoons, depicting the former president as a corrupt leader who stifles free speech, got him in trouble with authorities and forced him to leave Moscow last year for neighboring Ukraine.

" ‘Ukraine is just great,’ said Pishchik, 37, a designer and architect. ‘Here there is hope.’

“Since the 2004 Orange Revolution ushered in a vigorous, sometimes chaotic democracy, Ukraine has become an island of freedom and tolerance in an ex-Soviet bloc still dominated by authoritarian regimes, and journalists, political activists, artists, and business professionals have flocked here.”

The Earth Times

May 7, 2008

Ukrainian inflation rockets to 30 percent

Author DPA

“Kiev - Annual inflation in the former Soviet republic Ukraine is in excess of a blistering 30 per cent - bad news indeed for what had been one of Europe's biggest economic success stories of the last decade.”