KyivPost / Independence. Community. Trust

Beautiful Amber, Ugly Business
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/beautiful-amber-ugly-business-412053.html

http://www.kyivpost.com/media/images/2016/04/14/p1agb5fk0lu89jvv129k13eduq14/original_new-top.jpg

Two sides regularly clash on a muddy, crater-pocked, ravaged landscape in Ukraine – but this isn’t the war-torn east. It’s the northwestern region of the country, where miners and police are in conflict over the illegal extraction of amber.

In one recent incident, around 1,000 amber miners fought with police near the village of Klesiv in Rivne Oblast on March 30, leaving 10 officers hospitalized. No arrests were reported.

It was the latest in a string of lawless events in the country’s amber-mining areas, including armed attacks on border guards and police, large-scale smuggling of illegally-mined amber and environmental damage affecting huge areas of forest.
[…]
More than 300 tons of the amber gemstone are illegally extracted from deposits in Ukraine every year, bringing $300 million in income, Deputy Ecology Minister Svitlana Kolomiets, said at a news conference at the Ukrinform news agency in February.

The process that the miners use has laid waste to acres of ancient forest land. The miners cut down trees, and pump water into the ground, forming ponds in which the low-density gemstone is released from soil deposits and floats to the surface. The floating amber is skimmed off the surface of the ponds with nets. The miners leave behind them a treeless, muddy, waterlogged wasteland.

Kolomiets said illegal amber mining had destroyed 220 hectares of the forest in Zhytomyr Oblast, four hectares in Volyn Oblast and 1,691 hectares in Rivne Oblast in the past three years.

The amber rush in Ukraine is driven by two factors – widespread impoverishment in the country, exacerbated by the Kremlin’s war in the east, and rising demand for amber.

The price of amber has increased between 800 percent and 1,000 percent over the past five years due to demand from China, Polish amber expert Andrzej Wiszniewski said in an article in the UK newspaper the Guardian published on March 19.

The stone can fetch from $180 to $7,800 per kilogram, according to amber trading company Amber Europe (amber-europe.com).

The lowest price is for small pieces up to two grams in weight, while the top price is paid for large amber chunks from 300 to 400 grams in weight.

Groysman and new ministers take charge of government
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/groysman-and-new-ministers-take-charge-of-government-412052.html

Ukraine’s parliament voted on April 14 to appoint Volodymyr Groysman as the country’s new prime minister, with 257 lawmakers – 31 votes more than needed – supporting his candidacy.

But the new coalition that was formed to back Groysman and his new government proved unstable even on its first day, immediately raising questions about how long it can last.

Twenty-one lawmakers from factions in the new coalition didn’t support Groysman for prime minister. Ten of them were absent, but 11 lawmakers deliberately didn’t vote.

Groysman’s appointment was passed, though, thanks to the support of 11 independent lawmakers, all 23 lawmakers of the Vidrodzhennya (Renaissance) faction, a group that is associated with oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, and 16 lawmakers from the Volya Narodu (People’s Will) faction.

But just hours later, it took the parliament three attempts to scrape together enough votes to pass the program of Groysman’s Cabinet.
[…]
Meet the Cabinet
Groysman’s Cabinet was appointed with 239 votes in favor.

Several ministers from Yatsenyuk’s Cabinet kept their jobs, including Deputy Prime Minister Hennadiy Zubko, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak, and Minister of Sports and Youth Ihor Zhdanov. Ex-Social Policy Minister Pavlo Petrenko was promoted to deputy prime minister.

The position of health minister remains vacant, as the coalition is yet to agree on a candidate.

Former head of National Bank of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv was appointed economy minister. Deputy Head of President’s Administration Oleksandr Danyuliuk, who previously worked in the Yanukovych administration, is the new minister of finance. He replaced Ukrainian-American Jaresko.

As Groysman made his address as the new prime minister, his promises of hard work were barely audible above opposition chants of “Shame!” Opposition lawmakers were still outraged by the all-in-one vote that gave Groysman the premiership.

“I’m going to show you what it means to govern a country,” Groysman said at the end of his speech, looking irritated by the shouting.

#Ukraine

UPDATE : Critical lawmakers to be expelled from parliament after exposing corruption
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/critical-lawmakers-to-be-expelled-from-parliament-after-exposing-corruptio

A congress of the Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko on March 25 voted for stripping two critical ex-members of the bloc – Mykola Tomenko and Egor Firsov - of parliamentary mandates.

If approved by parliament and the Supreme Administrative Court, the expulsion of Tomenko and Firsov will be the first-ever implementation of a constitutional clause allowing parties to expel members who leave their factions.

The decision on stripping them of mandates follows large-scale corruption accusations by Firsov against Oleksandr Hranovsky, a high-ranking Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker, and his key ally Ihor Kononenko.

Some critics even argue that the decision reflects the Poroshenko Bloc’s transformation into something worse than disgraced ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s notoriously corrupt Party of Regions.

Tiens, ça c’est une excellente idée à suggérer à FH pour sa prochaine réforme constitutionnelle.

Rebondissant sur le commentaire de @reka

J’ai arrêté de compter sur Le Monde pour m’informer (il y a maintenant des sources plus variées, plus crédibles, plus riches et infiniment plus intéressantes et mieux renseignées sur le Net et hors le Net).

▻http://seenthis.net/messages/473352#message473436

Vous utilisez quelles sources ou outils pour la veille d’actualité / d’information ? #seenthis

Better to cut one’s ear, than to listen to Russian propaganda - KyivPost

▻http://www.kyivpost.com/photo/?id=407438

http://www.kyivpost.com/media/images/2016/02/05/p1aaoov640dtd1kuaj7kuielk8/original_photo-slider.JPG

Activists stand near a banner featuring Vincent Van Gogh’s self-portrait with the cut off ear which reads: “Don’t listen to Russian propaganda” near the Dutch Embassy in Kyiv on Feb. 5. The activists called upon Netherlands to not trust Russian propaganda against Ukraine ahead of a referendum on an association agreement of the European Union with Ukraine, which will take place on April 6.

The slogans on the posters are:"Better to cut one’s ear, than to listen to Russian propaganda", “Netherlands is a friend of Ukraine”, “Ukraine is Europe”.
Netherlands, EU, Association agreement, Russian propaganda

Billionaire Pinchuk puts Strauss-Kahn, other big names on bank board

▻http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/business/billionaire-pinchuk-puts-strauss-kahn-other-big-names-on-bank-board-407227

Bonjour l’équipage :)

Ukraine’s 23rd biggest bank, owned by billionaire Victor Pinchuk, has appointed high-profile bankers and economists to its supervisory board with the aim of boosting corporate governance.

They include former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Swedish economist Anders Aslund and Jean-Pierre Saltiel, who was the Rothschild Conseil International president, Interfax news agency reported, citing PJSC Kredyt Dnipro’s statement on Feb. 3.

#ukraine #banque #corruption

Poroshenko dismisses three regional and 15 district heads
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/poroshenko-dismisses-three-regional-and-15-district-heads-404641.html

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko has dismissed three regional state administration heads and 15 state district administration heads.

Le reste derrière #paywall.

Ukrainian TV resumes broadcasting on Donbas frontlines
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/ukrainian-tv-resumes-broadcasting-on-donbas-frontlines-404650.html

In a bid to counter Russian media propaganda in the east of Ukraine, the government is trying to restore Ukrainian TV and radio broadcasting on the frontline and even in the Russian-separatist occupied parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. But media analysts are skeptical these efforts will make much difference.

Ukrainian Minister, Governor in ’Street-Style’ Spat - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/12/15/world/europe/ap-eu-ukraine-reform-tensions.html

At the Monday meeting, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov challenged Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president who now heads the Odessa region, about Saakashvili allegedly approaching a Russian tycoon about privatizing a big chemical plant.

Saakashvili “broke into hysterics ... I refrained from hitting him — splashed water in his face,” Avakov said on Facebook.

Ukrainian news reports said Saakashvili in turn accused Avakov of financing a private militia through corrupt means and demanded that video of the council session be made public.

Presidential spokesman Svyatoslav Tsegolko said on Facebook that “such street-style skirmishes shame the country.”

The incident highlighted both concerns over endemic corruption and the frequently boisterous politics in Ukraine, where fistfights in the parliament are not uncommon.

Yatsenyuk says Russia may be involved in blowing up power line to Crimea
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/yatsenyuk-says-russia-may-be-involved-in-blowing-up-power-line-to-crimea-4

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk does not rule out that Russia may be involved in blowing up the pylons of the power line in Kherson region, which lead to power outage in Crimea.

Le reste derrière #paywall. Hélas ! je ne saurais pas les éventuels éléments de preuve de ces allégations !

Yatsenyuk ally says he will resign from parliament amid corruption scandal
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/kyiv-post-plus/yatsenyuk-ally-says-he-will-resign-from-parliament-amid-corruption-scandal

Mykola Martynenko, an ally of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, said on Nov. 30 that he had submitted his resignation as a member of the Verkhovna Rada.

The decision comes amid a high-profile corruption scandal around Martynenko.

Swiss and Czech prosecutors are investigating Martynenko on suspicion of accepting 30 million Swiss francs from Czech engineering firm Skoda for giving it a contract to supply equipment to state-owned nuclear power firm Energoatom.

Last week Sergii Leshchenko, a lawmaker from President Petro Poroshenko’s bloc, published documents from Swiss prosecutors that detail the corruption accusations and ask for help from Ukrainian prosecutors, assistance that evidently was not forthcoming.

Ukrainian authorities have shown no interest in investigating Martynenko, however.

“Given that attacks against me are also attacks against the Cabinet and the authorities in general, I submit my resignation as a lawmaker and voluntarily renounce my parliamentary immunity,” Martynenko, a member of Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front faction and head of the Verkhovna Rada’s fuel and energy committee, said on the Free Speech talk show on the ICTV television channel.

He urged parliament to vote on the issue next week, possibly on Dec. 10.

Pushkov says return to visa-free regime with Turkey depends on progress in anti-ISIL operation, bilateral relations
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/pushkov-says-return-to-visa-free-regime-with-turkey-depends-on-progress-in

Argh, le Kyiv Post rend payant l’accès à ses articles.

Russian Culture Ministry freezes ties with International Organization of Turkic Culture
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/content/russia-and-former-soviet-union/russian-culture-ministry-freezes-ties-with-international-organization-of-t

The Russian Culture Ministry has announced the decision to discontinue all communication with the International Organization of Turkic Culture (TURKSOY), a ministry spokesperson told Interfax on Nov. 27.

Organisation internationale pour la culture turque — Wikipédia
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_internationale_pour_la_culture_turque

L’Organisation internationale pour la culture turque (en turc : Uluslararası Türk Kültürü Teşkilatı - TÜRKSOY) est une organisation internationale de pays regroupant des populations turques qui parlent une langue appartenant à la famille des langues turques. En plus d’être une abréviation de l’ancien nom officiel Türk Kültür ve Sanatları Ortak Yönetimi - Coopération pour la Culture et les Arts turcs, « Türksoy » est un nom composé signifiant en turc « Türk » (Turc) et « soy » (ancêtre).

6 des 14 membres sont des « sujets de la Fédération de Russie ».

Russia stops gas supplies to Ukraine

▻http://www.kyivpost.com/content/russia-and-former-soviet-union/russia-stops-gas-supplies-to-ukraine-402778.html

La guerre du gaz repart.

http://www.kyivpost.com/media/images/2015/09/24/p1a0097nls1lkqph31c0kf5h1aju4/original_big.jpg

MOSCOW - Supplies of Russian gas to Naftogaz Ukrainy are being stopped on Wednesday because prepayments have ended, and new money has not arrived, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told journalists.

#gaz #ukraine #russie #guerre_du_gaz

Thousands protest voting fraud in Kryvyi Rih, call for uprising
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv-post-plus/thousands-protest-over-voting-fraud-in-kryvyi-rih-call-for-uprising-402616

About 5,000 demonstrators attended a protest rally on Nov. 22 against alleged voting fraud in the Nov. 15 mayoral run-off election in the city of Kryvyi Rih in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

The mood at the rally was tense, with speakers calling for an uprising, saying that they feel the authorities are ignoring both the law and their demands.

According to the official results of the mayoral election, incumbent Mayor Yury Vilkul, a former associate of disgraced ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, won with 49.25 percent, while Yury Milobog from the pro-European Samopomich Party got 48.83 percent – a difference of a mere 752 votes. Milobog argues that the vote was rigged and is calling for a recount.

Early on Nov. 22, a Dnipropetrovsk court rejected all of Milobog’s complaints, triggering a backlash from his supporters.
[…]
[Samopomich MPs Yegor] Sobolev demanded that members of Kryvyi Rih’s election commission be replaced with more “principled” people.

Representatives of the Radical Party, Batkyvshchyna, Petro Poroshenko Bloc and People’s Front at the commission, which is dominated by Vilkul’s representatives, had consistently supported Vilkul. Critics say the parties’ local branches have sold out to him.

Media: National Guard, Kherson battalion troops beat Crimean blockade activists (UPDATED)
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv-post-plus/media-national-guard-kherson-battalion-troops-beat-crimean-blockade-activi

About 100 Ukrainian National Guard troops and soldiers from the Kherson Battalion have beaten a group of activists enforcing an unofficial blockade of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territory of Crimea, Ukrainian media reported on Nov. 21.

The troops were reported to have surrounded a group of activists near the town of Chaplynka, at the site of some high-voltage power line pylons reported to have been damaged by explosions in the early hours of Nov. 20.

According to Shevket Namatullaev, a journalist of the Crimean Tatar television channel ATR, the armed troops were beating the activists away from the area with their rifle butts. He said several Crimean Tatar activists had been injured.
[…]
According to the spokeswoman of the National Guard of Ukraine, Svitlana Pavlovska, the National Guard has yet to arrive in the area. However, she said that the guardsmen had been ordered by the Interior Ministry to provide security while the power pylons are being repaired.

“In accordance with the Interior Ministry leadership’s decision, the National Guard has been sent to secure areas, along with the national police and other law enforcement agencies, where electrical supply lines were damaged in order to ensure and provide security while they’re being repaired,” Pavlovska told the Kyiv Post by phone.

“The National Guard hasn’t arrived yet to those areas. It has no orders that are related to the so-called blockade / roadblock of Crimea from the mainland,” she added.

Officials say the damage to the electricity pylons could threaten the power supply to 40 percent of Kherson and Mykolayiv oblasts, Ukrainian television channel 24 Kanal reported.

Crimean Tatar activists, along with fighters from the ultra-nationalist Right Sector organization, have been blockading the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula for several weeks, preventing heavy goods vehicles from entering the annexed Ukrainian territory.

Kuwait arrest raises specter of Ukraine black market as source of arms for ISIS
▻http://mashable.com/2015/11/20/kuwait-ukraine-isis-weapons

The arrest in Kuwait of a Lebanese man with ties to the Islamic State has raised the specter that Ukraine’s notorious illicit arms market may be a source of weapons for the the militant group.

One senior Ukrainian official with access to intelligence agency reports told Mashable on Friday that it is “plausible” the man, arrested by Kuwaiti authorities on Thursday, had obtained FN-6 surface-to-air missile systems he admitted to getting from a broker in Ukraine. Calling news of the arrest “interesting,” the official stopped short of giving a definitive answer to a question about whether Kiev had direct information about the arms sale in question.

Pour les purs et durs, ça ne peut venir, évidemment, que des zones tenues par les séparatistes…

FN-6 shoulder-fired missile systems, manufactured by China, have never been sold to Ukraine, nor has the government given permission for their transit through its territory, the Ukrainian defense ministry said in a statement on Friday. And there have been no documented reports of the the FN-6 shoulder-fired missile systems appearing in Ukraine since the war began in April 2014.

But that doesn’t mean the weapons couldn’t have been transported into the country another way, the senior official admitted, adding that Kiev has monitored the illicit trafficking of weapons to and from separatist-controlled territories since the start of the war, and that it "really struggles" to stem the “heavy” flow.
[…]
But on both sides of the battle lines, weapons have a way of disappearing in Ukraine, where corruption remains rampant, an Ukrainian security official told Mashable in June.

“Weapons can disappear all the time,” possibly falling into the hands of extremist groups, said the official. “We have seen the black arms market flourish since the start of the war in Donbass,” the official said, using the colloquial term for eastern Ukraine.

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/newsphoto/2013-03-15/450/FN-6%20MANPADS%203-121005_copy1.jpg

Ukraine : audition parlementaire pour faire le point sur l’enquête sur les événements de Maïdan (demain 21/11 sera le deuxième anniversaire du début)

Ni le procureur général, ni le ministre de l’Intérieur ne se déplacent.

Frustrations high at EuroMaidan killings hearing as violence erupts
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/frustrations-high-at-euromaidan-killings-hearing-as-violence-erupts-402499

On the eve of the two-year anniversary of the Nov. 21 start of the EuroMaidan Revolution, lawyers representing the families of dozens of protesters killed asked why those responsible still haven’t been brought to justice.

The Prosecutor General’s Office and the Interior Ministry ignored the meeting, where they were called to give a progress report on the investigations.

Yegor Sobolev, the head of the Anti-Corruption Committee, threatened that “the public would take action” in light of such disrespect by the authorities.

Le seul représentant du gouvernement, chef adjoint du Service de sécurité, visiblement ironique pendant l’intervention d’un « héros de Maïdan » se prend un coup de latte dudit héros…

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-F1veQaxoY

Parasyuk later apologized for his violent outburst, but many saw a wider issue that highlighted the public anger over the continued impunity among officials despite the EuroMaidan’s demands for rule of law in the nation.

Echoing comments from a number of leading lawmakers, Volodymyr Viatrovych, the director of the Institute for National Remembrance, wrote on his Facebook page that the authorities would keep losing its monopoly on violence if it didn’t actually use that right in the pursuit of justice.

Iryna Fedets : Oligarchs rule Ukraine’s heavily biased media
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/iryna-fedets-oligarchs-rule-ukraines-heavily-biased-media-401946.html

Oct. 19 turned out to be the last day of work for Roman Sukhan, who for years had worked as a TV anchor for Channel 5, one of Ukraine’s top news stations. “I’m fired. For what? I have no idea,” Sukhan wrote on Facebook on the same day, making his frustration with his former employers public. Not stopping there, he used the opportunity to accuse the channel of several unsavory practices.

According to Sukhan, while working at the station — which is owned by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko — he received under-the-table money transfers to his private bank card every month in addition to his regular salary. Unofficial salaries are widely used in Ukraine to evade taxation. It’s no wonder the country’s shadow economy is almost half the size of the official gross domestic product, according to government estimates.

More damning for Ukraine’s media industry — and perhaps, the future of its democracy — is Sukhan’s other accusation: that every show on Channel 5, except for the straight news programs, airs content for money. He did not provide specific examples, but described the practice using the slang word “#jeans,” which in Ukraine denotes one-sided stories that promote particular people, business interests, or political parties — who have paid for the privilege. Ukrainian journalists and media experts have learned to recognize jeans by a common set of features: they cover trivial events, such as ribbon cuttings; they fail to present opposing points of view; and they often feature quotes from dubious “experts” with little relevant experience.
[…]
It’s no wonder that Poroshenko did not sell Channel 5 after being elected president in 2014, all while promising that his channel would be independent. The channel is hardly a moneymaking asset, but in this it is not alone. According to some commentators, even some of the country’s top TV stations are subsidized by their owners. But the advantage of having a personal media outlet isn’t profit — it’s gaining leverage in the power struggle among big business players, all of which, in a country as corrupt as Ukraine, have ambitious political agendas. And in this regard, Poroshenko (who is worth over $900 million) has serious competition.

In fact, all 10 of the country’s most popular channels are owned by powerful oligarchs.
Of these top 10 channels, three are controlled by Viktor Pinchuk, three by Ihor Kolomoisky, three by Dmytro Firtash and one by Rinat Akhmetov. All four of these men, who are among Ukraine’s richest and most powerful, use their media might to advance their business and political interests. As Ukrainian media monitors have shown, most of the country’s top TV channels air political advertising promoted as “news.”

Chaînes possédées par les gros intérêts économiques, pseudo-débats sans vraie contradiction, pseudo-experts,… ouf, il s’agit des télés ukrainiennes.

Ce sont des méchants #oligarques, il n’y a pas ça chez nous.

Ukraine finally passes anti-bias law, a prerequisite for visa-free travel to EU
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv-post-plus/ukrainian-finally-passes-anti-bias-law-a-prerequisite-for-visa-free-travel

In its third attempt in a week, Ukraine’s parliament passed amendments to the Labor Code on Nov. 12 that will end lingering Soviet-era workplace discrimination over sexual orientation, political and religious beliefs.

The law, which received the support of 234 lawmakers, was the most controversial bill in parliament among a package of anti-corruption and other legislation the European Union requires in its visa liberalization action plan.

The voting process has been excruciating, however, requiring six rounds of voting and frantic consultations before it finally passed. In the last unsuccessful vote, 219 lawmakers voted in favor, seven votes short of the 226 votes in the 423-seat parliament that are needed for a bill to pass. Parliament’s speaker Volodymyr Groysman then announced a 15-minute break for talks.

“Dear deputies: Seven votes stand between us and a visa-free regime,” Groysman said before calling the break.

Arguing in favor of the bill, Groysman after the break said that “the individual and his rights are at the foundation of our society.” He ensured that the anti-discrimination measure had no bearing on the broader issue of gay rights. “God forbid same-sex marriages in our country,” he said.

After the break, lawmakers returned to the vote, and managed to pass the bill at the first attempt. The extra votes needed were provided by the president’s faction, 108 of whom eventually voted for the bill, compared to 99 before the break, and by the prime minister’s faction, where 65 voted in favor as opposed to 62 before the break.

Parliament twice failed to pass the amendments in earlier voting: On Nov. 5 a similar measure garnered only 117 votes, while on Nov. 10 the draft bill gained 207 votes – still far short of the 226 votes that are needed for a bill to pass in the 423-seat parliament.

Ah ben, ça y est, le parlement a réussi à voter cette interdiction de discrimination. Mais de justesse et après une suspension de séance (et les remontées de bretelles qu’elle autorise).