[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: FT; NYT; CT; LAT; WoE; EDM

[Deychak, Orest]

Financial Times

Kiev bypasses MPs over IMF

By Roman Olearchyk 

Published: April 15 2009 

Yulia Tymoshenko, the Ukrainian prime minister, said yesterday her government had adopted initiatives needed to unlock an International Monetary Fund loan for her recession-battered country after MPs failed to adopt conditions. Kiev's feuding lawmakers have failed to adopt legislation needed to unfreeze a $16.4bn (€12.3bn, £11bn) IMF loan granted last autumn.

The first IMF tranche of $4.5bn granted last year helped to stabilise Ukraine. But the fund has delayed further disbursements amid concerns over Kiev's fiscal prudence. Ms Tymoshenko said her government had adopted the measures, after parliament had failed to do so. Ukrainian legal experts said it was unclear if it had such authority.

The New York Times

Ukraine Says 3 Tried to Sell Bomb Material 

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY 

15 April 2009

Late Edition - Final

6

MOSCOW -- The metal cylinder supposedly contained eight pounds of plutonium 239, a highly dangerous radioactive material that could be used in a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb. The price: $10 million, sought by three Ukrainian men, officials said Tuesday.

The men did not make a sale, the officials said, but were arrested in an undercover operation in Ukraine last week that was conducted by the Ukrainian Security Service. Still, while the plot was foiled, it underscored longstanding concerns that unsecured radioactive material in the former Soviet Union might fall into the wrong hands.

Marina Ostapenko, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian Security Service, said it had turned out that the radioactive material was not plutonium 239. A preliminary analysis indicated that the material was most likely americium, a much more common and less potent radioactive material, Ms. Ostapenko said in a telephone interview from Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.

She said americium could be deployed in a dirty bomb but not in a nuclear weapon.

''They wanted to sell it as plutonium,'' she said. ''They were asking for $10 million for it because they thought that it was plutonium.''

Ms. Ostapenko declined to disclose further details and she would not identify the three men who were arrested, other than to say that one was a lawmaker in the western region of Ternopol, and the other two were local businessmen.

The men were arrested last Thursday and charged with illegally handling radioactive materials. If convicted, they could face up to 15 years in prison, officials said.

In a statement, the Ukrainian Security Service said it had determined that the radioactive material was produced in Russia before the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 and might have been smuggled into Ukraine from a nearby country.

Ukraine has no nuclear weapons, though it does have nuclear reactors and was the site of the Chernobyl accident. All of the former Soviet republics have repudiated nuclear weapons, with the exception of Russia, which inherited the Soviet arsenal.

Experts have repeatedly warned that poor safeguards, political instability and widespread corruption in the former Soviet republics could make it possible for people to obtain nuclear materials and sell them.

The American government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to try to help governments in Russia, Ukraine and other former republics protect nuclear materials.

In 2006, officials in the former Soviet republic of Georgia arrested a Russian man who was offering to sell 100 grams of highly refined uranium, about 3.5 ounces, for $1 million. The Russian was made to believe by undercover agents that the radioactive material was to be delivered to a Muslim organization.

Chicago Tribune

Accused Nazi guard wins deportation delay; Demjanjuk carried away in wheelchair before court ruling 

By Michael Muskal, Tribune Newspapers\ The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

15 April 2009

Chicagoland Final

12

A federal court on Tuesday delayed the deportation of accused Nazi guard John Demjanjuk, shortly after the 89-year-old Ohio man had been removed from his home by immigration agents.

Demjanjuk was taken from his suburban Cleveland house in a wheelchair. Relatives and medical personnel surrounded him as he was placed in a white van by federal agents.

Then he was driven to a federal facility to await an airplane to Germany, where he would have faced charges in connection with the deaths of 29,000 people in a Nazi-run death camp in occupied Poland during World War II.

But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati granted a stay of the deportation order, the latest development in a case that has stretched for decades.

Demjanjuk was driven to his home in Seven Hills after his release, former son-in-law and family spokesman Ed Nishnic said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency will supervise him through electronic monitoring.

In granting the stay, the three-judge appeals panel said it would further consider Demjanjuk's motion to reopen the U.S. case that ordered the deportation.

Nishnic said his former father-in-law moaned in pain as he was placed in the wheelchair. "It was horrendous. He was in such pain. I wouldn't want to see anyone go through something like that," said granddaughter Olivia Nishnic, 20.

Demjanjuk's family has argued that he is too old and frail to be deported and has maintained that he was not a Nazi guard. But critics and the U.S. government have dismissed those claims.

"Every day they [prison guards] helped murder innocent civilians and cut off their possibility of life," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

Demjanjuk, a retired autoworker, has repeatedly denied that he was a prison guard for the Nazis, rejecting accusations that he was known as "Ivan the Terrible" in Treblinka during World War II. An Israeli court convicted him in 1988 of war crimes, but that conviction was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court. He then was returned to the U.S.

In 2002 his U.S. citizenship was revoked by a court on the grounds that he had lied to immigration officials. The Justice Department maintained that Demjanjuk had hid his service at Sobibor and other death and forced-labor camps run by the Nazis. An immigration judge ruled in 2005 that he could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine. 

Los Angeles Times

Ukraine ex-premier's conviction is upheld; A U.S. court lets stand eight of 14 charges against Lazarenko. 

Carol J. Williams 

11 April 2009

Home Edition

A-15

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko's conviction on money-laundering and conspiracy charges was upheld by a federal appeals court Friday, a judgment that will keep the long-incarcerated politician in U.S. prisons for at least several more years.

Lazarenko, 56, was head of the Ukrainian government from May 1996 to June 1997, during which, prosecutors said, he siphoned at least $200 million from the nation's coffers through elaborate schemes of extortion, cronyism and kickbacks. Ukrainian authorities have also sought his extradition to face charges of complicity in the killings of several political opponents in the 1990s.

In U.S. custody since February 1999, when he fled a pending indictment in his homeland and arrived in New York with an outdated visa and an invalid diplomatic passport, Lazarenko was prosecuted in America because much of his ill-gotten money was funneled through U.S. banks. He was initially charged with 53 counts stemming from schemes involving monopoly natural gas sales, inflated government purchases of foreign property and unauthorized transfers to his personal bank accounts in Switzerland, Hungary, Panama and the Caribbean island of Antigua.

In May 2004, a federal jury found Lazarenko guilty on 14 of the counts, and the rest were dismissed by the trial judge, mostly because of lack of documentation that money shuffled among his bank accounts was directly traceable to criminal activity. He was later sentenced to nine years in prison.

On Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned the conviction on six counts but upheld the remaining eight. The opinion also noted that the defendant's request for rehearing of his case by an 11-judge panel had been denied, and Friday's ruling was therefore the final judgment of the appeals court.

Lazarenko was also tried in absentia in Switzerland in 2000 and convicted of money laundering. The Swiss government seized $6.6 million from his account there in addition to imposing an 18-month sentence, which was suspended because the defendant was already incarcerated at the federal prison in Dublin, Calif. Lazarenko is also sought by Antigua for suspicious activity in Euro Fed Bank there, in which he had $104 million deposited.

The appeals court sent Lazarenko's case back to the trial court in San Francisco to recalculate his sentence in view of the overturned counts of fraud and interstate transport of stolen property.

Lazarenko has been at the minimum-security facility in Dublin for a decade. It is primarily a women's prison but has an administrative detention area for pretrial prisoners. He probably will be moved to another federal prison after sentencing.

Window on Eurasia: Will Moscow Expand Assistance to Russian-Language Schools in Ukraine?

 

Paul Goble

 

            Vienna, April 14 – A Russian activist has written President Dmitry Medvedev asking that the Kremlin help Russian regions provide assistance to Russian-language schools in Ukraine, an effort that recalls Soviet-era projects, threatens Kyiv’s control of its schools, and unintentionally calls attention to the absence of Ukrainian-language schools in the Russian Federation.

            Anatoly Lisitsyn, who heads a charity foundation, wrote Medvedev to say that he had been asked by students at one Russian-language school in Ivano-Frankivsk to provide assistance, given the difficulties that school has had in obtaining Russian-language instructional materials (www.rupor.info/glavnoe/2009/04/14/ukrainskie-shkoli-perehodjat-pod-kontrol-rossijan/).

            In his letter, which was reported today by Novosti and other Moscow news outlets, Lisitsyn said that the request which arrived by email on his foundation’s website had convinced him that Russia’s regions should take responsibility for providing such help to Russian-language schools in Ukraine more generally.  

            The students said in their message, Lisitsyn continued, that they “would like Russia to devote more attention” to their desire to study in Russian, especially since “the Poles are making massive efforts to introduce Polish language in [Ukrainian] schools,” even to the point of paying for computerization and trips to Poland.

            If Poland can do that, the students said and Lisitsyn agreed, then Russia should be able to do at least as much.  Lisitsyn told journalists that he would like to see Medvedev back a program in which “all regions of Russia through various charitable foundations and organizations” would “support Russian-language schools in Ukraine.”

            According to Lisitsyn, he has already met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who supports the idea as do the pro-government United Russia Party in the Duma, especially since many of Russia’s regions have already “assumed responsibility for providing schools and other institutions in Ukraine with some aid.

            Such aid, RUpor.ru noted, “frequently can assume a political character,” and the news agency noted that last year, Russian special services had promoted the activities of Ruthenian separatists in the Transcarpathian districts of Ukraine “under the aegis of the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.”

            And Ukrainian officials are clearly concerned that Lisitsyn’s proposal represents another attempt by Moscow to increase Russian influence in Ukraine and undermine the authority of Kyiv.  Ukraine’s education minister, Ivan Vakarchuk, for example, said that there currently are “no especial problems” with Russian-language schools in his country.

            “Today more than 17 percent of Ukrainian pupils and the same percentage of university students study in Russian,” he pointed out. And he noted that in Ukraine there are also schools “in the languages of other national minorities,” including Hungarian, Polish, Moldovan, Crimean Tatar, and Romanian. 

            And Vakarchuk observed that while Russians and others the opportunity to study in their native languages in Ukraine’s educational system, “in Russia there is not a single Ukrainian school financed by municipal governments.” As a result, “children of ethnic Ukrainians” in Russia – and there are several million Ukrainians there – have access only to “Sunday schools.”

            “I have raised this question at bilateral meetings” Vakarchuk added, “but the Russian side still has not been willing even to bring it up for discussion.”  He implied but did not say that once the economic crisis in Ukraine passes, perhaps Kyiv will follow Moscow’s example and offer to provide outside assistance to Ukrainian-language programs in the Russian Federation. 

  

Eurasia Daily Monitor

April 15, 2009

Ukraine Planning Early Presidential Elections

Ukraine's parliament has scheduled the next presidential election for October 25, 2009, three months earlier than expected. President Viktor Yushchenko went further, signaling his readiness to step down sooner if an early parliamentary election were held simultaneously. He sided with the opposition Party of Regions (PRU) which has been calling for early elections for several months in order to free the Prime Minister's post for its leader Viktor Yanukovych. Naturally this is opposed by the current Premier, Yulia Tymoshenko.

In his annual state-of-the-nation address on March 31,Yushchenko presented his constitutional reform plan to parliament, which proved unpopular. The main aim was to end the incessant conflicts between the presidency and the parliament by removing the overlaps in their respective remits. In particular, Yushchenko proposed the ministers of defense and foreign affairs must not be presidentially appointed, nor should he interfere in the cabinet's economic policies. He would however, retain control over national security and increase his influence on parliament by securing the right to disband it at his discretion. 

The main change Yushchenko proposed was the introduction of a bicameral parliament to replace the current unicameral chamber. The upper chamber would serve as both the body representing the regions -as each region would elect three senators- and mitigate conflict between the president and the lower chamber. However, Yushchenko is too politically weakened, and his draft constitution has been rejected by his rivals. Several of them claimed that Yushchenko was not driven by concerns over political stability, but his desire to retain power in some form after the forthcoming presidential election -which he is widely expected to lose- prompting an attempt to change the constitution, and make former presidents life-time senators.

Tymoshenko is his most outspoken critic, saying that the draft constitution is designed "to employ one person," the incumbent president (Ukraina TV, April 3). The Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, an ally of Tymoshenko's, warned that the senate would be full of "oligarchs." Former Speaker Arseny Yatsenyuk, currently one of the most popular presidential hopefuls, predicted that an upper chamber would complicate the legislative process. Even the PRU, which has always favored strengthening the regional element within the government, has not been enthusiastic, saying that Yushchenko's idea is too late (Ukrainska Pravda, March 31). 

Yushchenko has no popular support and few allies, leaving his reform plan weak from the outset. However, his announcement had one rather unexpected consequence. Parliament viewed it as an indication of Yushchenko's readiness to disband it (which has been facing this threat since last June when the majority coalition ceased to exist), and consequently it voted to remove the threat. By an overwhelming majority -401 votes in the 450-seat body- parliament scheduled the next presidential election for October 25, 2009; although the constitution that came into effect in 2006 clearly points to the last Sunday at the end of the fifth year of the incumbent's term -January 17, 2010 in Yushchenko's case (Channel 5, April 1). 

Parliamentarians did not conceal that this was delayed to prevent any premature dissolution of parliament, since the president cannot currently dissolve it within six months of the end of his term. However, the legal argument presented by Tymoshenko's allies who had drafted the motion to support an early election, appears suspect. They suggested that since the president was first elected on the basis of the previous constitution -which stipulated that the presidential election should be held in October- this should be carried out in accordance with the pre-2006 constitution. 

Yushchenko disputed parliament's decision in the Constitutional Court, but it is unclear how much time the court might take to deliver a verdict; meanwhile, the electoral body has started preparations for a presidential election on October 25 (ICTV, April 8). This prompted Yushchenko to seek support from the PRU. He surrendered to their demand to hold simultaneous early presidential and parliamentary elections, saying he would agree to a presidential election even earlier than October 25 if it were held alongside an early parliamentary poll (UNIAN, April 3). Yanukovych and Yatsenyuk supported Yushchenko (Inter TV, April 5), but Tymoshenko rejected his initiative, warning that early elections would destabilize Ukraine and exacerbate the economic crisis (Ukraina TV, April 3). 

Tymoshenko might lose early elections, partly as an electoral protest over her handling of the current economic crisis. However, she will probably be spared the need of campaigning in early parliamentary elections, despite the support that her main rivals voiced for them. In order to call new elections the current parliament should first be disbanded, but Yushchenko's position is too vulnerable and parliament appears unlikely to accept any compromise. The March 31 vote in favor of an early presidential election showed that its instinct for self-preservation is very strong. 

--Pavel Korduban

 

 

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