100 posts
Ukraine has done everything for successful OSCE chairmanship - Viacheslav Yatsiuk
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The head of the working group on ensuring Ukraine's OSCE chairmanship and the director of the political department of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Viacheslav Yatsiuk, spoke in an interview with UKRINFORM about how Kyiv prepared for its chai...
A purging of the pro-EU Ministers or a significant ideological split?
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Smart readers will recall I wrote this at the beginning of November relating to “Who’s in and who’s out?” – It was aimed specifically at Valery Khoroshkhovsky and Poroshenko. By 16th December, Khoroshkhovsky resigned f...
LRE Launch – Ukraine
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Language Rich Europe launches the results of its research in Kyiv, Ukraine on Friday 9 November at the Institute of Social and Political Psychology of the National Academy of Pedagogic Sciences of Ukraine. Ukraine is one of only three non-EC …...
Ukrainians Rally in Protest Over Vote-Rigging
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Online reports that have been coming in from disputed districts over the past week offer a good insight into the Ukrainian election routine and also help explain the frustration of ordinary voters.
How bad were the Ukrainian elections?
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The Ukrainian authorities expected a relatively clean bill of health for the parliamentary elections held on 28 October. Voting day itself was fairly peaceful; there were 3,800 internationalRead more…...
Ukraine’s post-election crisis
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Opposition supporters in front of the Central Election Committee’s buildings, November 6 (Photo: Nomoreanry from Instagram) A week ago Ukraine held parliamentary elections, and the ruling Party of Regions of President Yanukovych won the...
Political Analyst: Eurasian Project Threats Sovereignty and Integrity of Ukraine
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By Konstantin Ameliushkin Ukraine is the country divided in two, here coexist sympathy to West and East, states Ukrainian political analyst Kost’ Bondarenko. According to him, Ukrainian politicians up till now have observed o...
Ukraine’s double-edged elections
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There aren’t many elections where all sides come out happy, but this arguably just happened in Ukraine last Sunday. The authorities were already happy a month or two before the elections, becauseRead more…...
What does the recent election tell us about Ukraine?
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Ukrainians have just finished counting the ballots after Sunday's parliamentary elections. Here are some thoughts about the election outcome and what it tells us about the future of Ukraine.Read more…...
Far-Right Party Performs Strongly in Ukrainian Vote
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While the results of the Oct. 28 elections in Ukraine are still being finalized, netizens are already discussing the anticipated outcome. Many are paying special attention to VO Svoboda, a far-right party, and its victorious leap over the 5% threshol...
Governing Party Claims Victory in Ukraine Elections
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video By David M. Herszenhorn The governing party of Presi...
Ukraine vote ushers in new constellation of power
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By Markian Ostaptschuk In Ukraine's parliamentary elections, more radical parties saw success while the oppositiona...
Viktor Yanukovych's party claims victory
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UKRAINE’s ruling Party of the Regions looks set for victory in national elections on October 28th. With almost 70% of the vote counted, the party of president Viktor Yanukovych (pictured above) was on 33.51% of the vote, the opposition Fatherland p...
Monday Update: Ukraine, Berlusconi (again!) and interesting reads
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Happy Monday. Yanukovych’s Party of Regions ahead in Ukraine elections With a third of the votes counted, President Yanukovych’s party is ahead in both the proportional lists and the single-mandate ridings. The opposition is denouncing wi...
Music and politics in Western Ukraine
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A man with a rather large bushy grey moustache plonked three glasses of thin brackish coffee down on the fold-away table of our railway carriage and demanded 12 hryvnia (around 1 euro). It wasn't so much the clink and crash of the glasses as they hit...
Ukraine: Election Monitors' Websites Under DDoS Attack
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Ukrainian domestic election monitoring organizations and projects using crowdsourcing for mapping election violations (see GV post) reported [uk] being DDoS-ed on the day of the vote: […] web-sites of election monitoring organizations are exper...
Ukraine: Election Votes for Sale Via Social Network
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Odessablog draws attention [en] to a VKontakte page [ru] used by those who are willing to sell their Oct. 28 election votes. Roma Lexikov, one of the very few users who posted on the page to protest the practice, wrote: Written by Veronica Khokhlova...
Ukraine: Technology for Transparent Elections
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Amidst mounting allegations of the ruling party's use of administrative resource during election campaign, the government has pledged to keep the Oct. 28 free and fair. Local election monitoring groups, however, have been utilizing new technology to...
Don’t Read too Much into Ukraine’s Parliamentary Elections
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This Sunday's parliamentary elections can be expected to reveal little about where Ukraine is headed in the years to come.
Friday Update: Berlusconi, Ukraine and Golden Dawn
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Happy Friday. Vox Europa is undergoing a slight change, with new updates on Mondays and Fridays dedicated to a few key stories, while Wednesdays will be dedicated to longer analyses. Ciao Silvio Two days after officially announcing that he would R...
Truth serum for lunch
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THE office of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in Kiev takes up part of the first floor of a brick building on Dashavska Street, in a quiet neighborhood in the outskirts of the city. On October 19th, in the morning, Leonid Razvozzhayev arrived...
Ukraine: Pre-Election Roundup
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In the run-up to the Oct. 28 general election in Ukraine, here's a selection of relevant texts published on OpenDemocracy.net: by Ukrainska Pravda's Serhiy Leshchenko - here and here; Roman Kabachiy's profiles of the “young hopefuls...
Pre-judging the Ukrainian elections – The Tymoshenko lens
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It is no secret to those who read this blog that I have on several occasions during this parliamentary election period, been asked to speak with LTOs (long term observers) from several international monitoring organisations with people in Odessa. Whi...
Freedom House partners new Ukrainian anti-corruption blog
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Bloggers against Corruption – That seems fairly straight to the point as far as website titles go. It is the latest civil society platform for bloggers to bring to the attention of others, corruption great and small – be it local, regio...
What to expect from the Ukrainian elections
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Article by Wojciech Konończuk published on October 23, 2012, on EurActiv Public dissatisfaction in Ukraine is rising but – paradoxically – it is “non-political”. Public willingness to join protests grow not because of the political situation...
Combined Heating and Power plant privitisation – Ukraine
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This year, the combined heating and power plants (CHP’s) for Odessa, Kharkiv, Dnepropetrovsk and Kherson are all due to be privatised. None of which seems likely between now and the end of the year due to the tender process and the clauses with...
Ukraine: Homophobic Bill Considered Ahead of Election
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Shortly after scrapping the infamous defamation bill in early October, Ukrainian MPs passed another scandalous proposal in the first reading, aimed at “defending children from the propaganda of homosexual lifestyle and the HIV/AIDS infection associ...
Commission for Strengthening Democracy and the Rule of Law – Venice Commission
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The Venice Commission, when looking at the proposed new law on the Public Prosecutors Office of Ukraine, has in summary, made it clear that whilst the new law goes a long way to improving matters and generally brings Ukraine into EU norms (with the n...
Unraleviling before it’s begun? UDAR shuns United Oppositition again
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Unraveling before it’s begun? The United Opposition has been trying desperately to get UDAR, as of 18th October polling ahead of them, to sign a coalition agreement of opposition forces prior to the elections. It has now officially failed to...
Pouring oil on troubled waters – EU Ambassador to Ukraine
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The new head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, (Ambassador for want of a better analogy), Jan Tombinski, seems to be doing his very best to pour oil on the somewhat choppy waters between Ukraine and the EU in efforts to smooth matters between the two...
Ten days before polling day
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THE ruling Party of Regions and its allies look set to win Ukraine’s parliamentary election on October 28th. They may even gain a constitutional majority with control of two-thirds of the parliament. This will likely happen de...
Fighting dirty – Constituency parliamentary seats and electioneering violations
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As almost everybody knows by now, the Ukrainian parliamentary elections are split between 225 proportional representation seats (the party list vote), and 225 constituency seats which are run head to head by candidates in a first past the post vote.
OVIR bureaucracy – For those who already have Permanent Residency
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The biggest bureaucratic nightmare for any foreigner in Ukraine is the bureaucracy involved in trying to stay in the country legally for longer than 90 days in a 180 day period without bending the rules to breaking point. For those who eventually get...
Biometric Passports and ID Cards – Ukraine
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Having finally got around to the core issue of Stage 1 relating to the road map on Visa-free travel as per the document from the EU, the RADA has passed the necessary laws for biometric passports and identified the company that will produce them. Jus...
Statue to Steve Jobs in Odessa – Update
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Way back in August, you may remember I wrote this relating to a proposed statue to commemorate Steve Jobs. Well, here it is: Not bad for a man who refused to license Apple in Ukraine during his lifetime.
When a “political prisoner” is not a “political prisoner”
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Only a few days ago I wrote a short entry stating PACE/Council of Europe had eventually defined “political prisoner“. The definition is thus: “A person deprived of his or her personal liberty is to be regarded as a “political pris...
After the elections – Is what happens to Ukraine that important to its neighbours?
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Naturally there is a lot of interest in the forthcoming elections in Ukraine – particularly so by its immediate neighbours. To be frank, there always has been since independence was dumped in the lap of Ukraine. In fact the degree of meddling...
United Opposition in negotiations with UDAR
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No, no, no. UDAR are not about to join the United Opposition. They are very much enjoying the 3rd choice position and have now overtaken the United Opposition in the opinion polls just as I suggested they would. Simply they have much more to lose...
Council of Europe defines “Political Prisoner”
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Very quietly and without much fanfare, on Thursday the Council of Europe (PACE) eventually committed itself to a legal definition of who can be classified as a “political prisoner”. Needless to say it will have some ramifications for all...
Free Trade Agreements – Ukraine
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Turkey looks set to be the next Free Trade Agreement negotiated and signed by the current Ukrainian government – quite possibly by the end of 2012. Quite rightly too. If there is a star economic performer in the Black Sea region over the past...
Currency wars over Ukraine?
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Well, I was hoping to write something truly interesting from the meeting between the CIS Prime Ministers that has been held over the past few days in Yalta. Unfortunately, not much worthy of real comment has been said or done – unless you want...
UDAR Rally – Odessa
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A very short post today relating to the UDAR/Klitschko rally in Odessa two days ago. Quite simply a lesson for the United Opposition when it came to engagement with the crowd, which was far bigger than that which the Yatseniuk/United Opposition manag...
Ukraine: Protesting the Controversial Defamation Bill
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A bill that calls for penalties of up to five years in jail for defamation passed a first reading in the Ukrainian Parliament on Sep. 18. Following the online campaign against the adoption of the bill, its author submitted a request to recall it. The...
Mass privatisation ahead for Ukraine?
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For those of you who follow me on twitter and in particular followed a conversation between Alex Nice (@AlexNicest) and myself (@OdessaBlogger) a few days ago, then the start of this blog entry is more of a summary of what was said – but don...
Failing to wait for the fat lady to sing? Ukrainian elections
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There have been some rather presumptuous remarks about the Ukrainian elections by people who should probably know better. Firstly, the ICES observers have already stated that thus far, the Ukrainian election campaigns have been acceptable and general...
What weight to give the on-line debate? Freedom of Speech – Freedom House “Freedom of the Net report” and Ukrainian elections
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For the first time, Ukraine has been included in the Freedom House, Freedom of the Net report. Ukraine was ranked as being “Free”. And, well why wouldn’t it be? No bloggers have been arrested, there is no political interference...
Highlighting Ukraine’s contributions to computing
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Computer history is full of stories of intellectual feats and technological leaps. Yet many of Europe’s most fascinating chapters are little known. To help remedy this, Google has been working to highlight and celebrate these forgotten...
Migration, Immigration, Asylum, trafficking, readmissions and all those frameworks to deal with unwanted movement of people in and through Ukraine
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This post has the potential to be something of a mish-mash. In fact it could appear to be bolted together with the crudeness of a 1970′s Lada compared to a smooth finish of a modern day Bentley. That is the way of things sometimes. As it happ...
More embarrassment? Barroso, Moldova and Ukraine
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Only a few days ago I wrote this and suggested that the national embarrassment of coming in second behind Moldova, a nation that is the butt of all Ukrainian jokes when it comes to stupidity, may be a useful lever in EU/Ukrainian relations. It seems...
Interview avec Olivier Védrine, recteur de l’Université Continentale à Kiev
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Olivier VÉDRINE est membre du Team Europe, un réseau de conférenciers composé d’universitaires, de juristes, de consultants et d’autres professionnels qualifiés et expérimentés, qui sont choisis par les Représentations de la Commi...
Ukraine: “Ashes of the Freedom of Speech”
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A few hundred people gathered at Kyiv's Independence Square on Sept. 16 to honor the memory of Georgiy Gongadze, a Ukrainian journalist who disappeared on this day 12 years ago, and of more than 60 other journalists who lost their lives in the years...
On the fringes – Yalta Annual Meeting
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Today is the last day of the 9th Yalta Annual Meeting where the great and the good, well a good many politicians and ex-politicians who used to hold high office, attended to talk about global issues, Europe and Ukraine. Some of them seemingly in th...
E-justice or a data protection disaster waiting to happen?
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E-justice or a data protection disaster waiting to happen? A pilot project allowing the electronic transfer of documents between third parties and the Ukrainian courts is likely to begin on 15 October. Those very capable Ukrainian hackers seem quite...
9th Yalta Annual Meeting (YES)
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Well the 9th Yalta Annual Meeting as sponsored by one of Ukraine’s most famous Oligarchy, Viktor Pinchuk, son-in-law of ex-President Kuchma, has begun. Amongst those attending are EU Commissioner Stefan Fule, Swedish FM Carl Bildt, Condi Rice e...
European Charter of Local Self-Government and Ukraine
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Whilst doing a bit of research, I had occasion to re-read the European Charter of Local Self-Government, to which I should add, Ukraine is a ratified signatory. In respect of Ukraine, from an empirical perspective, it would certainly seem to be faili...
Embarrassment as a motivational lever? EU Visa-free and Ukraine
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Last week the EU appraised Moldova against the Visa-free road-map it was given, pretty much at the same time as Ukraine was given the same road-map. The up-shot of that appraisal? Moldova has overtaken Ukraine and can now move from Stage 1 to Stage...
Russian Defence Ministry formally complains to Ukraine of UESU debt
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Well it was bound to happen eventually and really there is no surprise it is happening now. Ms Tymoshenko’s activities and those of her former company, United Energy Systems of Ukraine, will now come under further scrutiny as the Russian Defenc...
Temporary changes – Odessa Airport – Rosh Hashanah
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For regular fliers to and from Odessa airport, be aware of a few temporary changes between 12 – 21 September at the terminal building. Odessa will be handling 40 flights relating to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and as always there will b...
How much meeting time can Euro 22 million buy?
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On Monday 17th September, Thorbjorn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe meets with President Yanukovych and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Konstyantyn Gryshchenko. The meeting is to discuss the Euro 22 million donated/invested/give...
Measuring results – Ukrainian civil society, the public and local government
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Amongst the NGOs and civil society I follow most closely are those engaged with attempting to influence local government and local populous. Given the prevailing desire of the majority of the Ukrainian voting public to still seek out the “stron...
An open letter to the Foreign Office – Chernobyl Children’s Visas
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To the very clever people in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London UK. I write that opening sentence with some sincerity, despite the sarcastic tone it may convey. I have in my many years living in Russia and latterly Ukraine met a good n...
Securities as instuments of tax evasion – Ukraine
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Well who would have thought it? Banks and financial instruments being used to avoid tax! Well yes, we all would have thought it. We’ve all got fairly used to the idea that banks, financial markets and financial instruments are not the bastion...
New UK Ambassador to Ukraine takes up post tomorrow
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A very quick post today, to welcome on board the good/sinking ship (delete as appropriate) Ukraine, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Ukraine, Mr Simon Smith who officially starts tomorrow, Wednesday 5th September. Now don’t claim to be surpris...
Selfish? Moi? Teaching English in Ukraine
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Well dear readers. I have been accused of being selfish! Moi? I have been approached, not for the first time, with a request to teach English to some of the local rich folks on a one-to-one basis. It seems some wish to be free from classrooms a...
Tax Service statements are as unclear as the tax laws it seem
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The Ukrainian tax laws, whilst recently revamped and somewhat easier to follow than they once were, are still a labyrinth set with multiple traps for the unwary. That said, there is a very large proportion of Ukrainian society that simply ignore the...
Ukraine: Taras Polataiko's ‘Sleeping Beauty' Project
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Katherine Brooks of The Huffington Post and Natalia Antonova at the Guardian's Comment is Free write about Taras Polataiko's Sleeping Beauty project, which did open on Aug. 22 at the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv, despite some initia...
The Ukrainian Language: Losing its Voice
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A new law may ultimately bring about the demise of the Ukrainian language and strengthen the split between western and eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine: Humorous Political Ad Sparks Online “Pussy Cat Riot”
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After weeks of tensions caused by the adoption of the controversial Language Law and in the midst of an intense pre-election mudslinging period, Ukrainians are finally rewarded with the much-needed comic relief - which they have promptly transformed...
Yulia Tymoshenko's fate depends on electoral politics | Adam Swain
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The case of the former Ukrainian PM – who has lost her court appeal – has reunited and reinvigorated the oppositionThe rejection of Yulia Tymoshenko's appeal against a conviction for abuse of office by a three-judge panel of the Ukrainian high sp...
Has Ukraine changed since Independence? – Fundamentally No (Contains an essential read if you want to understand Ukraine)
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Yesterday I was interviewed by one of the EU’s many Brussels based (and funded) media outlets. I am a regular contributer and am often asked to offer up difficult and thought-provoking questions which are then in turn put to members of the Eu...
Ukraine: Striving for Unguarded EU Borders
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“We are Europeans” grassroots initiative (whose launch GV covered in Oct. 2011) re-posted on its Facebook page a photo collage [en] comparing the Iraq-Syria and the Netherlands-Belgium borders: the former is heavily guarded, the latter is...
Ukrainian Cypriot relations
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The EU’s very naughty boy, the offshore tax haven of Cyprus, and Ukraine are getting ever more friendly. Last week, the Cypriot President paid his first ever visit to Ukraine, and this whilst Cyprus is also holding the EU Presidency. Amongst th...
Tigipko – Stating the obvious!
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There are a few things that all good politicians can do in any nation on earth. The first is deftly avoid answering a question, the second is manipulating statistics in an attempt to add credence to their position, and the third is to make an addre...
Photographs of Odessa
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As some readers have rightly pointed out, there are few photographs from Odessa in this blog to date. In an effort to change that there is a new category on the right of your screen, aptly entitled “Photographs of Odessa – Irisha Onischuk...
Devaluation pressure on the hryvnia continues
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I am not an economist, nor am I a banker, financial analyst, Forex trader, or a particularly interested fiscal and monetary watcher. However, I have mentioned the devaluation of the Hryvnia several times in the past 12 months, most recently here, and...
A sculpture dedicated to Steve Jobs to be erected in Odessa
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Odessa has many statues and sculptures. Hundreds of them to be honest. Then it is quite an old city. It seems the next sculpture to be erected is to be dedicated to Steve Jobs (of Apple fame) because of his obvious links to Odessa. The motivatio...
Clean Cities Project – Ukraine
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Approximately 46 million people generate a lot of rubbish in Ukraine. If global trends are simulated in Ukraine then almost 75% of the population will be living in cities by 2035. That will, needless to say, put a severe strain on the infrastructur...
A Few Hours With United Opposition – Doing the math
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Yesterday I had occasion to be in a regional party office of one of the smaller contending parties for the Ukrainian parliamentary elections 2012. It is probably better not to say which one in case there is some obscure and antiquated law dating ba...
They Are Calling It Babussy Riot
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As three members of Russian punk group Pussy Riot were jailed for two years Friday for singing a song against Russian President Vladimir Putin in a cathedral, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is facing two rather different political foes--a babu...
ODIHR/OSCE election monitoring vacancies – Ukraine elections 2012
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Short and sweet today. ODIHR/OSCE has these vacancies for the monitoring team related to the October 2012 parliamentary elections in Ukraine. All are based in Kyiv. Obviously from the point of view of both ODIHR/OSCE and Ukraine it is important they...
Russians seeking asylum in Ukraine
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To be quite honest, Ukraine it not one of the nations that most would consider seeking asylum in. Those that do are normally en route to the EU via Ukraine and caught, or returned to Ukraine under the EU/Ukraine readmission agreement and thus force...
Ukraine’s Morality Police Probe ‘Gay’ SpongeBob
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The dangerous perversions of Disney and SpongeBob SquarePants may soon no longer afflict Ukraine’s impressionable children.
Video evidence – Tymoshenko camera shy?
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As Ms Tymoshenko’s latest case stalls with her refusal to attend court over tax evasion and various other things related to her time owning and running United Energy Systems Ukraine, the Ukrainian Prosecutors have suggested her having a video l...
Ukraine: Authorities Shut Down BitTorrent Tracker Demonoid
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In what is believed to be an attempt to please the United States without angering local voters, the Ukrainian authorities have shut down Demonoid, one of the world's largest BitTorrent tracker sites, whose servers were hosted by a data center in Kyiv...
EU and UNDP pledge another Euro 23 Million for Ukrainian Civil Society
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As most regular readers of this blog will have noticed by now, I am something of a policy and governance watcher. Invariably this means I also take note of civil society/NGOs/NFPs and their interaction with the authorities and individuals of influe...
The language law – Extraordinary session of Odessa City Council
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Not so very long ago I wrote about the then pending language law in the RADA, the implications of it and the effects it would have on the people of Odessa. Well, as of a few days ago, that law is no longer pending and has been signed by the President...
Immediate benefits? Ukraine and CIS FTA ratification
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Regular readers of this blog will recall a post I wrote not so long ago relating to the Russian led Customs Union and the Vietnamese accession talks due to begin as early as September this year. Well, a week or so ago, Ukraine did indeed ratify a fre...
Just when you thought Ukraine’s elections couldn’t get any more farcical, another convicted criminal joins the race
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Probably within the next few hours, and certainly withing the next few days, the Ukrainian Central Election Commission must decide whether Yulia Tymoshenko, nominated number 1 on the United Opposition ticket, and Yuri Lutsenko, nominated number 5 of...
