Breaking News The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION Harper begins trip to Ukraine with message on rights, democracy

KYIV, Ukraine - Prime Minister Stephen Harper will tug on the deep familial ties that bind Canada and Ukraine, in an attempt to pull that struggling republic's attention back toward the friendly West and away from a less-democratically minded Russia.

Harper's first visit to the former Soviet republic, which kicked off Sunday, will touch bluntly on some of the darkest points of Ukrainian history and the most sensitive subjects of its contemporary political landscape — a charged itinerary likely to resonate with the more than one million Canadians of Ukrainian descent.

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Source: Winnipeg Free Press

Politician set the bar high - Vera Danyluk

Vera Mystic grew up in Rosemont and took the Danyluk name upon marriage to Victor Danyluk of T.M.R. Like Victor, she was of Ukrainian origin. She declined an offer to run for the Quebec Liberal Party as a candidate in the 1998 general election because Victor didn't want her to be away in Quebec City so much.

We will miss you Vera, your smile and charming personality. You were too young to leave us. Vichnaya Pamyat

Click here to read more and see video clip of Vera Danyluk

Source: Montreal Gazette

Yanukovych in Wonderland

Very intersting article by Alexander J. Motyl.

Claim: “for the first time in the modern history of Ukraine – the President, the Government and the Parliament (to be exact the coalition majority that has been formed) are moving in the same strategic direction, not in the three different ones as was the case earlier.”

Reality: Yanukovych fails to mention that this unprecedented unanimity is the product of crude constitutional shenanigans that enabled his Party of Regions to form a majority in the Parliament and thus a government.

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Source: Atlantic Council

Thugs attack pro-Ukrainian rock festival

Eyewitnesses said about two dozen men carrying baseball bats attacked a rock festival at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 26 in Irpen, a town outside Kyiv.

Several security guards at the festival received injuries during the melee. Several well-known Ukrainian rock groups, such as Sun Shadow, TNMK, Dead Rooster and Tartak, from performing at the venue, named "Gaidamaka.ua." Police made no arrests.

The 2-day festival was sponsored by Last Barricade, a non-profit organization co-founded by Oles Doniy, an opposition parliament deputy from the Our Ukraine - Self Defense faction.

"No one was drinking alcoholic beverages at the concert and none of the bands performed controversial ultra-nationalist songs," Doniy said, adding that several security gaurds received injuries requiring hospitalization. "We have filed compaints with the police and are waiting for their response," he told the Kyiv Post on Sept. 27.

Pro-presidential deputy Vadym Kolesnychenko had asked the State Security Service to check whether organizers of the venue obtained necessary permits for staging the concerts, noting that several of the songs of the bands promoted fascism and xenophobia, a charge Doniy denied.

Source: Kyiv Post

The First And Second Murders Of Heorhiy Gongadze

Gongadze stood out from the journalistic crowd by daring to ask the unpleasant questions. I remember a television program during which Kuchma was taking questions from journalists. All but one posed polite questions that would not upset the president. The one who did not was Georgiy Gongadze. It is highly unlikely that Kuchma could forget this episode. When he later claimed that he didn’t even know who Gongadze was, the Ukrainian president was patently not telling the truth.

Gongadze created the first popular and influential Internet site in Ukraine, “Ukrainska Pravda.” There are many rumors as to who financed the initial project, but those rumors are meaningless. What is important is that these were not criminal funds. Had this been the case, it would have become eminently clear during the first days following Gongadze’s disappearance.

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Source: RFE/RL

Press Freedom Under Threat In Ukraine

Last month, the International Press Institute wrote Yanukovych to "express its concern at the significant deterioration” in press freedom. Reporters Without Borders warns of disturbing recent trends in censorship, political pressure, and physical attacks on journalists, and criticizes "the government's desire to control journalists" in its latest fact-finding report.

Press freedoms are under attack in many ways. In May, journalists from Channel 1+1 television released an open letter complaining of censorship. In July, after a Ukrainian blogger criticized Yanukovych, the State Security Service interrogated him for allegedly threatening the president’s life and insulting him.

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Source: RFE/RL

Mountain hideouts sheltered Ukrainian freedom fighters

Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast was the site of heated battles in 1944-5, as Ukrainian freedom fighters descended from the mountainous terrain to launch attacks on Soviet-occupied towns. Fighting continued well into the 1950s, pitching fighters from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, against the Soviet NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB.

Located in the Black Forest, 63 kilometers southwest of Ivano-Frankivsk on the edge of the village of Maksymets is a typical example of a bunker where partisans hid out.

Colonel Mykola Tverdokhlib, a regional UPA commander whose nom de guerre was Hrim, or Thunder, spent the winter of 1953-4 here with five other fighters before they were discovered by the NKVD.

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Source: Kyiv Post

Education Minister Tabachnyk out to censor Ukrainian history

There is no Ukrainian history program on education ministry’s site. Instead, we can see only a blank space where the program should be. And there are no ministry’s regulations obliging authors to rewrite history textbooks, says historian Volodymyr Vyatrovych in his article “Back to USSR, or the art of editing out history textbooks.”

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Source: ZIK

Protesters arrested outside Russian embassy in Kyiv

Here is what one would call freedom of speach and expression, isn't it a sad case? Yanuk and his cronies are trying to copy their BIG BROTHER PUTIN in freedom loving traditions just like it is in RUSSIA!!! RG

Police in Kyiv on Aug. 31 arrested several demonstrators protesting freedom of assembly restrictions outside the Russian embassy.

The demostrators, organized by Coalition of Participants of the Orange Revolution (COPOR), a non-governmental organization, surrounded the Russian embasy to show support for Russian civil activists, who traditionally gather on Victory Square in Moscow on the 31st day of every month to defend their right to freedom of assembly.


Source: Kyiv Post

Germany's Merkel voices concerns over media freedom in Ukraine at president Yanukovych's visit

Germany's chancellor urged Ukraine's president Monday to strengthen media freedoms in his country, while stressing the potential for further co-operation between the two nations on energy issues.

Germany sees unanswered questions regarding some democratic processes in Ukraine, "in particular in the area of press freedom and the freedom of expression," Chancellor Angela Merkel told visiting President Viktor Yanukovych.

Merkel said both sides agreed to openly and frankly discuss those issues in the future, if critical questions arise.

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Source: CP

Ukrainian Journalists, Artists In Censorship Protest

More than 100 Ukrainian journalists and artists have taken to the streets of Kyiv in a protest over perceived censorship on the country's television networks.

Protesters rallied outside a courthouse as judges discussed the attribution of frequencies to two Ukrainian television channels, TVi and Channel 5, which are seen as independent of state control.

"Freedom of speech and justice should exist everywhere on Earth, without exception, and if every person starts with freedom of speech on a personal level with himself and those around him, then everything else will be fine," writer Dmitry Kapranovy said at the rally.

Private channels TVi and Channel 5 are at loggerheads with one of the main national networks, Inter TV Channel, whose owner, Valery Khoroshkovsky, is one of the country's richest businessmen and also head of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU).

The court today delayed its decision on the case.

Source: RFE/RL

Going Down

Yanukovych’s popularity suffered a double-digit plunge, according to an August opinion poll, as voters balked at tough austerity measures adopted by his ruling coalition in return for badly needed loans from the International Monetary Fund.

The nationwide poll, conducted by the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center Aug. 10-14, found that 22.5 percent of Ukrainians completely supported Yanukovych in August, down from 39.7 percent in May and 40.9 percent in April. According to the poll, 38.7 percent of those surveyed support some of his actions, while 33.3 percent don’t support him.

Regarding the upcoming elections, the president can be expected to use so-called administrative resources to help candidates whom he supports while hampering his opponents' chances, Fesenko said. Similar tactics were initially used by Russia’s Vladimir Putin in his building a managed democracy, Fesenko recalled.

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Source: Kyiv Post

Independence Day of Ukraine

Traditionally on August 24, the Independence Day of Ukraine started a day earlier three years ago. A new holiday, Day of National Flag, was introduced by a presidential decree in 2006.

After facing two World Wars and several political upheavals, Ukraine achieved independence from the Soviet Unions on August 24, 1991. The constitution was adopted nearly five years later.

Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe after Russia. It is bordered on the west by Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary; on the southwest by Romania and Moldova; on the south by the Black Sea and Sea of Azov; on the east and northeast by Russia; and on the north by Belarus. The capital and largest city of Ukraine is Kyiv.
Picture courtesy Kiyv Post. You can view other pictures by clicking here.

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Source: Manila Bulletin

Ukrainian police search for missing newspaper editor

Ukrainian police are searching for a missing editor whose newspaper was known for its criticism of law enforcement agencies, Interior Minister Anatoly Mogylyov was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Ukrainian media freedom groups have complained about growing censorship and attacks, including physical ones, on the media, since President Viktor Yanukovich replaced liberal pro-Western politician Viktor Yushchenko in February.


Vasyl Klymentyev, the editor-in-chief of the "Noviy Stil" newspaper, which focuses on corruption issues in the eastern Kharkiv region, went missing on Aug. 11 after leaving home with an unidentified man, according to police reports.

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Source Montreal Gazette

Disappearance Raises Fresh Questions About Media Climate In Ukraine

Vasyl Klymentyev was last seen last week, when he met a colleague to discuss an article he was writing about a local prosecutor and a tax official.

The editor of "Novyy Styl," a weekly newspaper in the eastern city of Kharkiv, Klymentyev is a well-known critic of the authorities. Police say they suspect he may have been killed.

Klymentyev's deputy, Petro Matviyenko, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that he and Klymentyev had met on August 11 to discuss photographs they'd taken of mansions belonging to regional tax chief Stanislav Denisyuk and other officials.

The authorities say Klymentyev was last seen later that day getting into a BMW with an unknown man. A manhunt is under way and officials are investigating on charges of "possible premeditated murder."

Klymentyev's case is raising new questions about the state of press freedom in Ukraine after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych came to power earlier this year in an election that repudiated the Orange Revolution and its pro-Western leaders.

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Source: RFE/RL

Ukraine journalists threaten strike over press freedom

Ukraine journalists warned Sunday of strike action over work conditions, complaining of a deterioration in press freedom in the past six months under President Viktor Yanukovych. Click here to read the story here.

SOurce: China Post

Ukrainian Nationalist Groups Protest Russian Patriarch's Visit

Nationalist groups gathered near the "Ukrainian House" in Kyiv to protest Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill's visit to Ukraine, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.

The some 80 protesters gathered representing the nationalist Svoboda (Liberty) party, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Self Defense, and the Ukrainian People's Party.

They staged a performance called "Glamorous Tour of a Moscow KGB Agent" that was officially banned by the Kyiv authorities on July 26.

The protesters also displayed Ukrainian flags, their party banners, and placards saying "Reverend Kirill muddies the waters for the Ukrainian nation" and "No to the Moscow priest-colonizer!"

About 30 policemen watched the protest but did not intervene. No violence was reported.

Other protests during Kirill's eight-day trip had been disrupted or otherwise disallowed.

Kirill, who started his visit to Ukraine on July 20, attended a religious service on Kyiv's Volodymyr Hill on July 27 to celebrate the day of Russia's conversion to Christianity.

Source RFE/RL

Communist Ukrainian Institute Head Denies Famine Was Deliberate

KYIV -- The new director of Ukraine's National Memory Institute says that while the 1932-1933 famine in Ukraine was "the result of difficult circumstances," it was not artificially provoked, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.

Millions of Ukrainians died in the famine, which was at least partly the result of restrictions imposed by Soviet leader Josef Stalin on farmers across the Soviet Union.

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Source: RFE/RL

Patriarch Kiril must be declared persona non grata, Ukrainian party demands

While on a visit to Ukraine, Moscow Patriarch Kiril continues to fan interconfessional feud and violate the laws of Ukraine, first deputy head of the Ukrainian Party Oleh Olijnyk says. This time, however, Kiril has embarked on a different tactics regarding his provocative declarations as they are publicized not by Kiril himself but by his aides, the UP July 23 website release runs.

To illustrate, UP refers to one of the declarations made by Moscow patriarchate spokesperson to the effect that the cancellation of registration of Kyiv patriarchate property will heal the rift in Ukraine Orthodoxy [and the unraveling of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church independent from Moscow – Ed.].
“The UP persistently advises Moscow patriarchate leaders to curb their appetite and not to infringe on the property and assets not belonging to them. Similarly, Patriarch Kiril must stop driving a wedge among Orthodox believers in Ukraine and provoke conflict,” the UP statement continues.
“Otherwise, we will be forced to appeal to Pres Yanukovych and prosecution to interfere to stop the religious feud from getting into the open. We will also demand that Patriarch Kiril be banned to visit Ukraine,” the statement concludes.

Source: ZIK

Reporters Without Borders gives gloomy assessment of prospects for media freedom in Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine — The head of the global media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders is giving a gloomy assessment of the prospects for improved media freedom in Ukraine.

Jean-Francois Julliard said after meeting Ukrainian parliament members Tuesday that the "opposition lawmakers will make strong statements, while the pro-governmental party will say there is no problem with freedom of expression in Ukraine."

Julliard is in Kyiv for three days of talks with journalists and officials. He said the trip was prompted by alarming signs on censorship, political pressure and physical attacks against reporters since Viktor Yanukovych became president this year.

Source: The Associated Press (CP)