Holodomor was NO SECRET IN WINNIPEG

Instead of building on everything that's already been done on this issue in Ukraine and encouraging Russia to come to terms with the genocide it claims happened there, too, he has trivialized the memories of millions of his fellow countrymen.

Yanukovych is either being cynically and purposefully deceitful or somebody else's "useful idiot" when it comes to this tragic page in Ukraine's history.

As was the case with the Winnipeg communists who denied the Holodomor in 1933, only time will tell.

Click here to read complete article by Stephen Bandera

Source: Winnipeg Free Press

Visit UKEMONDE site for more information about Ukrainian Holodomor. A schedule of events to be held in Montreal commemorating this tragic page of Ukrainian history HERE. You can also view events being held across Canada by visiting UCC website.

Will Ukraine survive?

Moscow is on the march. Vladimir Putin's Russia is the most destabilizing - and reckless - great power on the world stage. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia could have become a stable democracy at peace with its neighbors.

Instead, Mr. Putin is erecting a Great Russian empire. He has imposed a brutal police state at home. Journalists routinely are killed. Critics and dissidents are jailed. Media freedoms and opposition parties are under assault. A gangster elite runs the Kremlin, plundering the country's vast wealth.

Mr. Yanukovych's base is in the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine - the Sovietized industrial east. His Party of Regions seeks to make Russian an official language; in fact, its website refuses to use Ukrainian. He has put joining NATO and the European Union on the back burner - bowing to Moscow's demands. Slowly, but surely, he is splitting Kiev from the West. In short, he is Mr. Putin's poodle.

Read complete article here.

Source: Washington Times

Ukraine's topless protesters gain fame

They have shed their shirts to promote women's rights, to support an Iranian woman sentenced to death for adultery and murder, and, most brazenly, to protest a visit by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Femen's initial targets were prostitution and discrimination against women. It has branched out to tax policy, freedom of speech and, as seen with Putin's visit last month, foreign affairs. "We won't sleep with Kremlin midgets" read one of the placards.

Click here to read complete story.

Source: USA Today

Local elections in Ukraine did not meet standards of previous presidential elections

Canada expects Ukraine to improve its electoral legislation, Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine Daniel Caron has said.

"We were a little disappointed that these local elections did not meet the standards of the previous presidential elections, although we are pleased that [Ukrainian] President [Viktor] Yanukovych is open to the adoption of new electoral legislation that would correspond to international standards," he said at events to mark the 15th anniversary of the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU) in Kyiv on Wednesday.

He also said that Canada was firmly committed to its commitments with respect to Ukraine, where the relations between the two countries are based on democracy, access to information, economic freedom, and the observance of human rights.

Source: Kyiv Post

Their own words

No amount of PR support or spin doctoring can fully cover up what people really think, especially those who hold powerful or influential positions. From the top down, some of Ukraine’s elite routinely reveal their true thoughts in unguarded moments – and they aren’t pretty.

“I will pull off their heads if they don’t deal with the sewage system, water and gas supplies,” President Viktor Yanukovych said on Nov. 11 in Kalush of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, referring to recalcitrant opposition mayors. His choice of words is more befitting that of a twice-imprisoned offender, which he is, rather than the leader of a democratic nation. No wonder many people fear the return of a 1990s mafia-like nation that existed under authoritarian ex-President Leonid Kuchma.

Only last week, in response to allegations that police are conducting a racist and illegal crackdown on merchants at Troyeshchyna market, Kyiv police spokesman Volodymyr Dmytrenko said: “Even if they are citizens of Ukraine, what positive contribution are they making to this country? None. They stand on their market, and sell goods of bad quality.” Such statements basically confirm the accusations.

Also last week, 12 journalism students at Taras Shevchenko National University were betrayed by their own instructor for having the bravery to create a calendar posing tough questions to Yanukovych. For instance, one asked: “When will authorities be held accountable for taking bribes?” “These kids are only 18 to 19 years old; they are too young and too inexperienced to ask such questions,” scoffed Volodymyr Shevchenko, deputy rector of the Journalism Institute.

It’s clear that, from the president to police to the universities, the nation's leaders are failing Ukrainians, young and old.

Source: Kyiv Post

Westerners, local observers rip Oct. 31 elections as undemocratic

If the fix wasn’t in during Ukraine’s Oct. 31 local government elections, the contests sure didn’t pass the smell test to a host of reputable domestic and international observers.

As much as Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych tried to put the elections behind him and say all was fine, an international consensus is taking shape that he failed his first big democratic test since taking power on Feb. 25.

The judgment could derail Yanukovych’s stated goal of integrating Ukraine into the European family of democratic nations.

Click here to read complete article.

Source: Kyiv Post