[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: NYT; WP; WSJ(E); EDM; CSCE link

[Deychak, Orest]

New York Times

 

Ukraine Reaches for I.M.F. Rescue Loan 

By SABRINA TAVERNISE; Sabrina Tavernise reported from Kiev, Ukraine, and
Nicholas Kulish from Berlin. Graham Bowley contributed reporting from
New York and Andrew Kramer from Moscow. 

30 October 2008

Late Edition - Final

12

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's Parliament put aside weeks of political
infighting on Wednesday to give initial approval for legislation that
would secure an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund to
help ease the country's ailing finances.

The global financial crisis has battered Ukraine, and the country badly
needs the $16.5 billion loan that was promised by the fund last week.
But the money was offered on the condition that Ukraine take steps to
tighten its budget.

Lawmakers agreed in a vote of 248 to 2 to pass those measures. Two more
votes are required for final approval, and while the package is expected
to pass, a deepening political crisis raised broader questions about
Ukraine's stability.

''We are giving a signal to the U.S. government and the I.M.F. that the
government, president and most of the Parliament intend to deal with the
economy,'' said Ivan Kirilenko, a deputy in Parliament.

But the market seemed skeptical. Ukraine's currency, the hryvnia, lost
about 14 percent of its value on Wednesday alone, and the cost to insure
Ukrainian government debt has spiked, up sixfold since September.

''Until Ukraine can develop and communicate a reasonable anti-crisis
plan to the markets, the hryvnia will be under pressure,'' said Arthur
McCallum, an analyst at Kazimir Partners in Kiev, a fund manager focused
on the states of the former Soviet Union.

The I.M.F.'s representative in Kiev, Balazs Horvath, said, ''It is a
process that will take a few more days, but progress has been made.''

Earlier this month, President Viktor A. Yushchenko issued a decree
dissolving Parliament and the cabinet, and calling for early elections
in December. His ultimate aim, his critics say, is to get rid of his
prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, a powerful politician and a former
ally.

It is a post-Soviet story of grim familiarity. The two stood together
leading the mass demonstrations against a rigged election in 2004 that
became known as the Orange Revolution. But since then, their relations
have deteriorated, with each publicly accusing the other of betraying
their past ideals.

The legislation for the loan, meanwhile, had been held hostage to this
political struggle, which got physical twice over the past week. On
Tuesday, deputies from Ms. Tymoshenko's party stormed the podium in
Parliament trying to prevent a measure on financing the elections to
come to a vote.

On Wednesday, several deputies nearly came to blows, shouting and
grabbing to stop others from voting for the measure. At one point,
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the speaker of Parliament, shouted helplessly, ''The
head of the Parliament is still in charge!''

The scuffle ended in success for Ms. Tymoshenko's bloc, which erupted in
cheers when the measure went down to defeat -- four votes shy of
passage.

But the fight is not over yet. Ksenia Lyapina, a deputy from Mr.
Yushchenko's party, Our Ukraine, dismissed the rowdy opposition deputies
as ''monkeys from the jungle,'' and said her party intended to insert
the legislation into the package intended for the I.M.F., before the
final rounds of voting on Thursday, casting a shadow over the fate of
the package once again.

Ms. Tymoshenko, meanwhile, parried attacks from another big political
player, the Regions Party, which was staunchly opposed to the financial
legislation all along, arguing that its plan to save the country's
finances -- which centered on demanding longer term loans from the
I.M.F. and increasing social payments -- was better.

Ms. Tymoshenko dismissed the plan as ''one and a half pages and three
points'' and chided the party for its leader's absence from the session.
A deputy shot back that he was sick and running a temperature.

Mr. Yushchenko, for his part, continued to press the issue of the
election on Wednesday, declaring that the actions of the opposition bloc
that Ms. Tymoshenko leads had ''destroyed trust and made it impossible
for the coalition to exist.''

''I, as the president, won't take a single step back from a democratic
way of resolving that problem,'' he said.

But his opponents strongly disagree, saying that his decision to force
early elections was simply a classic method of bare-knuckle bullying.

''The president is playing a dark game,'' said Volodymyr Polokhalo, a
member of Ms. Tymoshenko's bloc. ''This election is political
extremism.''

Mr. Yushchenko's critics say he has an oversize sense of his own power,
calling for an election at a time when two Kiev-based polling firms put
his popularity at 4 to 5 percent. Mr. Polokhalo uses a line from ''The
Gambler'' by Dostoyevsky to explain it: ''Poisoning yourself with your
own personal fantasies.''A Section

 

The Washington Post

Ukraine Lawmakers Unite To Pass IMF Loan Measure 

Philip P. Pan 

Washington Post Foreign Service

30 October 2008

FINAL

A18

 

Ukraine's fractured parliament broke a political deadlock Wednesday and
gave initial backing to a legislative package negotiated with the
International Monetary Fund as a condition for a $16.5 billion loan to
bolster the nation's reeling economy.

The vote came as the IMF announced a $25.1 billion bailout for Hungary
with the support of the European Union and the World Bank in an attempt
to contain a mounting currency crisis across Central and Eastern Europe
that analysts fear could spark a wave of defaults on debts held by
Western Europe.

Ukraine's currency, the hryvnia, tumbled another 12 percent against the
dollar Wednesday, hitting a new low as banks and companies sold the
local currency to gather funds to pay an estimated $1.5 billion in
foreign loans due at the end of the month.

The chairman of Ukraine's central bank, Volodymyr Stelmakh, said at a
news conference that failure to obtain the IMF loan would accelerate
inflation and push the country to the brink of default. Without the IMF
package, he said, "we will not be able to show our creditors that we
have a reliable mechanism to repay our debts."

The prospects for the bailout appeared to improve as the nation's
feuding president and prime minister set aside a dispute over early
elections that had paralyzed the political system for weeks. They then
cobbled together a 248-vote majority in the 450-seat parliament in favor
of the bills requested by the IMF.

The legislation, which includes cuts in welfare spending, a freeze on
the minimum wage and measures intended to strengthen Ukraine's shaky
banks, was due for a final vote Thursday after changes in committee.

The action came after supporters of President Viktor Yushchenko backed
off demands that the legislature first approve funding for parliamentary
elections that he has called in December. His rival, Prime Minister
Yulia Tymoshenko, who opposes the elections, then withdrew her version
of the economic package and endorsed the president's.

In a statement, Tymoshenko expressed confidence the parliament would
approve the package Thursday and raised the possibility of
reestablishing the ruling coalition with Yushchenko that collapsed last
month.

"Today, we reached a compromise and did what our country needs," she
said.

But it was unclear whether the president and prime minister, former
allies in the Orange Revolution demonstrations that brought Yushchenko
to power in 2004, had resolved their stalemate over early elections and
whether it might still derail the IMF loan.

After resisting for weeks, arguing it would be irresponsible to hold
elections during the financial crisis, Tymoshenko allowed parliament on
Wednesday to consider a bill put forward by Yushchenko's party to
allocate about $70 million to fund the elections. With her party
withholding support, however, the proposal fell four votes short of
passing.

Afterward, leaders of the president's parliamentary faction told
reporters they would try to attach the election funding as an amendment
to the economic package on Thursday.

"If that happens, it will undermine and put at risk the whole
anti-crisis package," Hryhoriy Nemyria, deputy prime minister for
European integration and an ally of Tymoshenko's, said by telephone from
Kiev. "If this materializes, there's no chance the package will pass. We
will not support it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com <javascript:void(0)> 

 

Wall  Wall Street Journal Europe

OPI
<http://online.wsj.com/public/search?article-doc-type=%7BCommentary+%28U
.S.%29%7D&HEADER_TEXT=commentary+%28u.s.> 

            OCTOBER 29, 2008

Kiev's Crackup

Personality politics means a repeat of Ukraine's troubles.

By ADRIAN KARATNYCKY
<http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=ADRIAN+KARATNY
CKY&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND>  | From today's Wall Street
Journal Europe

 

Once again, Ukraine's fractious and confusing politics are on display.
Early elections have been called -- but one major party has been
blocking the parliamentary tribunal, stuffing paper and chewing gum
wrappers into voting machines, and using the courts to keep the poll
from going forward. The IMF may be stepping into the financial breach
with a $16.5 billion loan -- but not as long as the aid package and
comprehensive legislation to deal with the crisis remain hostage to the
personal ambitions of Ukraine's leading politicians.

 

This is nothing new. Partisan bickering and electoral rivalries have
long trumped political compromise and stalled reforms, earning Ukraine
an image as a country beset by crisis and instability.

Ukraine's politics shattered anew on Oct. 8, as the year-old government
headed by Yulia Tymoshenko fell after being abandoned by President
Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine coalition. Rather than reconfigure a
fragile pro-Western coalition stymied by endless rivalries, President
Yushchenko instead called new elections in the hope they will strengthen
his hand in shaping the country's domestic and international policy and
improve his chances for re-election.

 

This was the second collapse of a governing coalition headed by parties
and leaders that worked together in the democratic Orange Revolution of
2004. In 2005, the first collapse of an "Orange" government led to
elections in which the pro-Russia Party of the Regions gained power.
That President Yushchenko has now opted to risk a similar outcome amid a
global economic crisis, at a time when Russia is behaving belligerently,
and as Ukraine is under review for a closer relationship with NATO,
shows just how toxic are relations between the president and prime
minister. It also shows how little trust Mr. Yushchenko and sections of
Ukraine's elite have in Ms. Tymoshenko's stewardship of Ukraine's
government and economy.

 

So bitter are relations among the country's political elite, in fact,
that they cannot set a date for elections. The poll originally was
slated for Dec. 7, but that date has been put in doubt by a combination
of court challenges by the Tymoshenko bloc, the necessary "freezing" of
the decree dismissing parliament so that lawmakers can tackle emergency
financial legislation, and growing anxiety in the president's camp over
very poor showings in recent public opinion polls.

 

But the collapse of the Tymoshenko government is more than a parting of
ways among intense rivals for the presidential election of 2010. The
Tymoshenko government was the victim of aftershocks from two
international crises: Russia's invasion of Georgia and the global
financial crisis. These crises have further fragmented an already messy
political scene, creating new cleavages among Ukraine's "Orange"
politicians and within the major opposition Party of the Regions.

 

The war in Georgia split the Orange coalition. The hawks, represented by
President Yushchenko and Our Ukraine, sought to speed up Ukraine's entry
into NATO and forthrightly condemned Russia's aggression. The doves,
meaning Ms. Tymoshenko and her bloc, gingerly skirt the issue of NATO
membership, which only three in 10 Ukrainians support, and have
criticized both Russia (mildly) and Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili (severely).

 

The war also fragmented the opposition Party of the Regions into a
firmly pro-Russia camp headed by former Prime Minister Viktor
Yanukovych, who endorsed Russia's invasion of Georgia, and the business
wing, which made clear that Russia violated international law.

 

The global financial crisis, too, exacerbated internal differences among
the major political players. President Yushchenko's interest in removing
Ms. Tymoshenko as prime minister was reinforced by nervous business
interests who mistrust her populist inclinations, and thus her
stewardship of the economy at a time of crisis. But business groups also
appear to mistrust Mr. Yanukovych, who as prime minister from August
2006 to December 2007 showed a predisposition to accumulate unchecked
power and used the state's power to advance the economic interests of
his closest backers.

 

As a result, business would prefer to see a solution that leads to a
depoliticized government of competent technocrats who can steer the
country in economically challenging times.

Ideally, in a time of crisis, such a government would be based on an
agreement among the three major political forces. But given the bitter
relations between Ms. Tymoshenko -- whose competent economic team has
restrained her innate populism and has been saying and doing the right
things in recent days -- and President Yushchenko, such a government is
more likely to be built around a tacit "national unity" coalition
between Mr. Yushchenko's political forces and the Party of the Regions.
But such a coalition would be possible only after new elections and
could be headed by an economically competent leader such as the current
parliamentary speaker, Arseniy Yatseniuk, or the former prime minister
and current Defense Minister Yuri Yekhanurov.

For Ukraine, whose state independence was one of the most important
geopolitical outcomes of the collapse of communism in 1989-91, this
means further uncertainty. Uncertainty means no progress on NATO
integration, and little predictability for global investors.

 

At the same time, the current political turmoil masks the realities of
the country: dramatic improvements in living standards over the last
five years; an electorate that rejects the far left and far right;
growing national pride; deepening democratic pluralism; and significant
influence of entrepreneurs and business leaders on the major political
parties.

 

Given the toxic personal relations and climate of mistrust among
Ukraine's key leaders, political stability will come only with the
emergence of new voices and new parties. And given the fact that polls
indicate that the majority of Ukraine's citizens are unhappy with the
political choices on offer, this perhaps is Ukraine's best hope for
long-term success. In the meantime, we can count on more of the same
Ukraine: radical rhetoric and Byzantine political jockeying that
concludes in a centrist compromise and just averts the country's
collapse.

 

Mr. Karatnycky is senior scholar at the Atlantic Council of the U.S. 

 

 

Eurasia Daily Monitor

October 29, 2008

UKRAINIAN CABLE TV NETWORKS ORDERED TO DROP RUSSIAN CHANNELS

Moscow has claimed that Kyiv's recent decision to banish several Russian
TV channels from Ukrainian cable TV networks was a violation of
bilateral accords and of the rights of Russian speakers. Kyiv, on the
other hand, says that the Russian channels in question violated
Ukrainian laws. Ukrainian cable TV operators, backed by pro-Russian
politicians, may ignore the ban.

On September 23 the National TV and Radio Broadcasting Council (NRTR),
Ukraine's media regulating body, ordered cable networks to stop
re-broadcasting the state-controlled Russian channels ORT and RTR and
the private Ren TV beginning November 1. The NRTR explained that RTR and
Ren TV had unfairly competed with Ukrainian TV channels by broadcasting
the same programs simultaneously, while ORT broadcast "untrue
information," such as a report in March 2006 alleging that secret CIA
prisons existed in Ukraine and a report in April 2008 saying that Hitler
dolls were on sale in Kyiv shops (www.telekritika.ua, October 3).

"We demand adherence to the requirements of the laws on copyrights,
advertisement, consumer rights protection, broadcasting, and several
other laws," said NRTR Chairman Vitaly Shevchenko. He recalled that
Ukraine's state television (UT1) reported "heavy losses" when Ukrainian
cable TV networks re-broadcast RTR reports from Eurovision, the European
popular music contest, for two years simultaneously with UT1, resulting
in UT1 collecting less money from advertisers (Ukrainska Pravda, October
6). Many Russian-speaking Ukrainians preferred RTR to UT1 because of the
language.

The Party of Regions of Ukraine (PRU), the main opposition party,
accused the NRTR of discriminating against Russian channels. It noted
that the NRTR did not ban the Russian-language programs of the RTVi and
EuroNews channels, which are based outside Russia. "The powers-that-be
want to cut off Ukrainian society from the Russian information space,"
the PRU said in a statement, "thereby violating freedom of speech in
Ukraine and the right of citizens to receive full and true information."
The PRU, which is apparently going to play the Russian language card in
the forthcoming parliamentary election campaign, also accused the NRTR
of violating the right of Russian speakers to receive information in
their native language (Ukrainska Pravda, October 7).

Moscow's reaction has been predictably stormy. The Russian Foreign
Ministry warned that the ban on the Russian channels would badly affect
bilateral relations, as "it is in violation of the relevant provisions
of the Russian-Ukrainian agreements on cooperation between the two
countries' mass media." Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei
Nesterenko said that "it will be impossible for millions of Russians and
Ukrainians residing in Ukraine to receive information in their native
language" (UNIAN, October 9). Russian Communications Minister Igor
Schegolev urged Kyiv to "stop discriminating against Russian channels."
He said that the ban violated the October 2000 agreement between the
Russian and Ukrainian governments on cooperating in TV and radio
broadcasting (Interfax, October 24).

The NRTR said that it would invite RTR, ORT, and Ren TV back to Ukraine
if the three channels committed themselves to adhering to Ukrainian and
European broadcasting laws. The NRTR denied violating the rights of
Russian speakers, saying that several TV companies based in Ukraine were
licensed to broadcast Russian-language programs (Ukrainska Pravda,
October 10). The NRTR recalled that it had warned Russian TV channels
three years ago about the irregularities, but they did not react. NRTR
deputy chairman Ihor Kurus hailed the Russian Foreign Ministry's
proposal to send a group of experts to Kyiv for talks on the issue
(Interfax-Ukraine, October 15).

Writing in an influential Ukrainian weekly, Kurus brushed away the
accusations of language chauvinism. He said that 65 of the 83 foreign
channels approved by the NRTR for re-broadcasting in the cable networks
were broadcasting in the Russian language. He also noted that apart from
RTR, ORT, and Ren TV, the NRTR forbade re-broadcasting 45 Russian
channels, as well as several Chinese, Belarusian, and British channels.
According to Kurus, they were banned in line with the Ukrainian law on
TV and radio broadcasts for a variety of reasons, mostly for violating
copyrights and advertisement rules (Zerkalo Nedeli, October 25).

The NRTR will probably be disobeyed, especially in eastern and southern
Ukraine, where the Russian language and the PRU dominate. Two members of
the Ukrainian Cable TV Union, interviewed by a Ukrainian business daily,
said the NRTR's decision was not legally flawless so it would be
appealed in the courts and ignored (Ekonomicheskie Izvestia, October 6).
The Zaporizhya Region council defied the NRTR by calling on the local
cable networks to continue re-broadcasting the channels banned by the
NRTR. "Nearly 85 percent of the Zaporizhya population is
Russian-speaking," the head of the local PRU organization, Andry Ivanov,
explained (Interfax-Ukraine, October 9). The parliament of Crimea said
that it would appeal against the NRTR to the Constitutional Court in
Kyiv (UNIAN, October 23).


-Pavel Korduban

 

Link to Helsinki Commission Chairman Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and
Ranking Minority member Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) regarding VOA Russia,
Ukraine and Georgia radio broadcasting:

 

http://www.csce.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blogs.List&ContentType=L

 

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