News as of September 29, 2006

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Naftogaz, railways near bankruptcy: Ukraine PM

KIEV, SEPT 28 : Two of Ukraine's largest state monopolies≈oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy and railways Ukrzaliznytsia≈are on the verge of bankruptcy, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich said on Thursday.
Yanukovich told a government meeting that Naftogaz losses might reach $1.5 billion this year while the railway company had over 7 billion hryvnias ($1.39 billion) in debt.

"These companies turned out to be practically on the verge of bankruptcy due to excessive financial burden and I am not afraid to use these words≈criminal management for a year and half," he said.

Yanukovich was appointed prime minister at the start of August. But his predecessor Yuri Yekhanurov has also said the financial situation at Naftogaz was deteriorating due to changes in a system on supplying natural gas to Ukraine.

Naftogaz used to have a monopoly in supplying gas to Ukraine's industry and households. But following a gas deal with Russia struck in January Naftogaz ceded this right to an intermediary.

Ukraine and Russia signed a deal in January, increasing gas prices for Kiev to $95 per 1,000 cubic meters from $50 previously. The right to supply gas was given to RosUkrEnergo≈a joint venture set up by Russia's gas giant Gazprom and two Ukrainian businessmen.

Naftogaz now supplies gas only to households but gas tariffs for that sector have been unchanged since 1999.

Ukraine memorial of Holocaust: Remember Babi Yar!

Over 1,000 religious and political leaders, in addition to members of the public, marked the massacre of more than 34,000 Jews murdered by National Socialist forces in 1941 in just two days. The memorial took place on September 27 at a ravine near Babi Yar Ukraine where Jews were systematically shot to death by Nazi forces from September 29-30, 1941. In addition, a conference on the Holocaust was organized jointly by the Government of Ukraine, the Yad Vashem Memorial of Israel, and the World Holocaust Forum.

Survivors recall that Jews in Ukraine were told 65 years ago to gather warms clothes and belongings as if they were going on a journey in the custody of their Nazi captors. They were instead ordered to strip naked and then were machine-gunned in their thousands by Nazi guards and their bodies left in a pit prepared for them. Witnesses recall that Nazi soldiers laughed and taunted their victims before murdering them. Some observers claim that the world's silence in the wake of Babi Yar served to embolden the Nazi's "Final Solution" and carry out further massacres, atrocities, and mechanized death-camps.

At the memorial service, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, and Israeli President Moshe Katsav, solemnly processed behind an honour guard of Ukrainian soldiers bearing flowers to mark the place where the victims fell. Both of the dignitaries spoke to the assembly, while witnesses, liberators, and survivors √ as well as some now recognized as Righteous Gentiles by the Israeli Government √ were also on hand. Representatives from other countries were also present. The memorial was the brainchild of Russian Jewish businessman and founder of the World Holocaust Forum Vyacheslav Moshe Kantor. "Most people today simply don't know what happened here", said Kantor who added that the idea for the memorial came to him some years ago when he noticed children playing soccer at the site of the massacre. Some observers express misgivings that the site is now used as a park for picnickers and children's sports. The September 27th memorial was held at a Soviet era monument, while a more private memorial service was held by Jews at another nearby monument in the form of a menorah.

Sixty-five years ago, Nazis murdered some 33,771 persons at the Babi Yar site, while during the balance of the Second World War, a total of perhaps 100,000 including many non-Jews were annihilated there. Before invading Russian liberators reached the Ukraine in 1943, Nazi captors ordered survivors to unearth and burn the remains of all those buried at the site. The total count of the murdered remains a mystery. The Soviets did not mark the site afterwards and were long apprehensive about marking the sites of murdered Jews, just as they were loathe to mark the burial site of Polish army officers the Soviet Union murdered at the Katyn Forest in Poland during the Second World War. It was not until 1961, after Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko published his poem "Babi Yar", that the Soviet regime decides to erect a monument at the massacre site. Officials in Israel calculate that only 20 percent of the former Soviet Union's victims during the Holocaust have been accounted for, while in Western Europe the figure stands at 90 percent. Soviet leader Josef Stalin, who died in the mid-1950s, was himself an anti-Semite.

In August 2006, a secret mission to find Jewish graves in Eastern Europe discovered a site near Lvov Ukraine where the remains of 1,800 Jews were found in a mass grave. The search for the graves was initiated by the Roman Catholic liaison to the Jewish community in France. It is now believed that there are some 500 mass murder sites in Ukraine yet to be discovered. Pope John Paul II visited the site in 2001.

Lvov had a Jewish population exceeding 110,000 before the outbreak of the Second World War. During the war, the Jewish community there was bolstered by some 100,000 Jewish refugees. Ukrainian nationalists, in cooperation with the German National Socialists, began the series of mass murders in July 1941. In 1943, the Jewish ghetto in Lvov was leveled by the Nazis and its remaining Jewish population of 65,000 deported and murdered.

Russia-Ukraine gas agreement meets interests of both - view

MOSCOW, September 28 (Itar-Tass) - An agreement on gas price reached between Russia and Ukraine meets the interests of both states, the chairman of the State Duma committee for CIS affairs told Itar-Tass on Thursday.

Russia is interested in seeing no economic decline in Ukraine and an improvement in the situation in its budget and finance sphere, Andrei Kokoshin said.

"Ukraine is our very important economic partner and neighbor, and we are interested in the stability of our relations, their transparency and predictability," the parliamentarian said.

"This agreement was welcomed by EU states, particularly Germany, and was considered as a very important signal concerning energy security in a short and middle-term prospective," he stressed.

"The agreement has demonstrated that we are normalizing our relations after a new government and new parliament came to power in Ukraine," Kokoshin added.

Under an agreement between the company Rosukrenergo and Russia's gas giant Gazprom, gas price for Ukrainian consumers will not change this year, and will make up 95 dollars per 1,000 cubic meters. Gas price for 2007-2009 will be finalized in the contracts before the end of the year.

Ukraine calls Russia's language discrimination rhetoric "unconstructive"

On Thursday the foreign ministry reacted to a diplomatic note sent by Russia charging that Ukraine is discriminating against the Russian language.
The foreign ministry did not respond with a note in kind, but Foreign minister Borys Tarasiuk did refer to Russia's claim as interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. He said that Russia's rhetoric is nothing new and that Kyiv has in the past told Moscow that similar declarations are not constructive.

Ukraine's PM talks about political reform

The next stage of the political reform is the reform of local government, as Ukraine's Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych declared speaking on the extended session of the Cabinet of Ministers.
According to him, this reform, first of all, provides for redistribution of obligations and commissions between central and local power. "We will follow the way of decentralization of the power. Local councils must receive real economic and legislative instruments to solve regional problems. It is the only way to a break in development of the regions," the Head of the government stated.

According to him, every step made jointly by all branches of the power leads to democratization. "As Churchill said, democracy is a process. Hence, the law on Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is a starting device of democratic executive power. I am sure, that the President and the parliament understand this now," Yanukovych said.

He is convinced that all branches of the power would not let anybody "to ruin the democratic process."

Please Answer These Questions

• How do you think the two Largest monopolies lost money?
• Since they are monopolies, dont you think money was just taken by owner(s)?
• There is an explanation about the Gas company, but what is the excuse for the railroad company?
• Do you think the memorial article speak good or bad of Ukraine
• Do you think both parties will agree on a contract by the end of this year?
• Do you think that Russia's so called "discrimination" declaration will carry on any farther?
• Does Yanukovich speak in Ukrainian when he is working?
• Any comments of reform article?