Approx. 6 months of headlines from Ukraine

Yatseniuk: Moratorium on land sales should be prolonged until 2014 in Ukraine

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Yushchenko: There cannot be two free trade areas on one territory
Oct 19, 2011 at 16:29 | Interfax-Ukraine
An agreement setting up a free trade area with the CIS countries has closed Ukraine’s path to trade integration with the European Union, as there cannot be two free trade areas – with the EU and the CIS – on the same territory, Ukraine’s third president (2005-2010), Viktor Yushchenko, has said.

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East Europe banking: It’s a wild, wild ride
Nov 10, 2011 at 22:34 | Jakub Parusinski
The past decade has been a rollercoaster of a ride for banks in Central and Eastern Europe, with Ukraine experiencing the “the sharpest ups and downs.”

These are the findings of a recent report by the world’s top business consultancy, McKinsey.

The report shows that the boom years of 2000-2007 saw a rise in the market capitalization of leading Central and Eastern European banks of 52 percent – the highest in the world – only to be followed by an equally outstanding crash of 67 percent during the next two years.

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Azarov: We must limit flow of luxury goods to our country
Nov 15, 2011 at 19:28 | Interfax-Ukraine
Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said that it is necessary to limit the flow of luxury goods to Ukraine.

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This is a story about another government enterprises functioning as siphons of tax payer money to politically connected Oligarchs.

Yanukovych: Losses on Naftogaz’s balance sheet almost come to $6 billion
Dec 19, 2011 at 20:20 | Interfax-Ukraine
The losses on national joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy’s balance sheet have come to almost $6 billion, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said at a press conference on the results of the EU-Ukraine Summit in Kyiv on Monday.

“Naftogaz currently doesn’t have a financial balance and Ukraine doesn’t have $500 million monthly to cover the losses. This means that means that in 2010, even though we received a $100 discount according to the Kharkiv agreement worth $3 billion, we now have almost $6 billion in losses on Naftogaz’s balance sheet,” he said.

Yanukovych added that these losses are “a burden on Ukraine’s financial system and state debt,” which is, in fact “the ruination of the country.”

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HA! I don’t believe this for a second:

Chief tax officer: Tax payment rate hits 96% in Ukraine in 2011
Feb 2 at 17:21 | Interfax-Ukraine
The level of the voluntary payment of taxes by Ukrainians in 2011 was 96%, according to the chief of Ukraine’s State Tax Service Oleksandr Klymenko.

“In 2011, the level of tax payments was 96%. This is a very good indicator – of course it’s not 100% yet, but we’re getting there. Even Europe cannot boast 100%,” he said in an interview with Ukrainian television’s Fifth Channel on Tuesday evening.

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Iran’s ships stopped from shipping Ukrainian grain
Feb 1 at 21:39 | Reuters
Traders are no longer booking cargoes on Iranian ships to transport grain exports from Ukraine because of difficulties with payments following European Union sanctions on Iran, traders said on Wednesday.

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Ukraine to pump $320 million into national space program in 2013-2017
Feb 19 at 18:55 | Kyiv Post
Ukraine plans to pump Hr 2.58 billion (around $320 million) into it’s national space program from 2013 through 2017, Interfax-Ukraine learned from the State Space Agency, which cited a a government program adopted last week.

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Naryshkin: Russia, Ukraine pledge simultaneous ratification of CIS free trade zone agreement
Feb 20 at 12:51 | Interfax-Ukraine
The Russian State Duma and the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada will simultaneously ratify the CIS free trade zone agreement.

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Corporate raiding hurts investment
Feb 3 at 00:04 | Jakub Parusinski
On Jan. 25, police raided the Odesa plant of Stalkanat Silur, a steel rope and wire producer, seizing documents from the plant’s administrative building.

When a special Sokol police unit returned five days later, workers fought back to defend the factory against what they said was an illicit corporate raid being used to take over the company.

“The police are just a tool” in an illegal attempt to take over the factory, which has annual revenue of Hr 900 million and employs more than 1,000 people, Stalkanat spokesman Vitaliy Niroshnikov said.

A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry office in Odesa said the head of the office was unavailable for comment.

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NBU confirms plans to include ruble as reserve currency in 2012

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Some good news, I think. The Ukrainian government is trying to centrally plan its money in a way that smarter than the central planners of the US:

NBU: Credit rates in Ukraine could fall
Feb 29 at 12:31 | Interfax-Ukraine
Measures taken by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) should produce a fall in credit rates in Ukraine in 2012, according to the director of the chief department for monetary and credit policy at the NBU, Olena Scherbakova.

“A trend of falling credit rates will be seen. The NBU and banks are trying to achieve this and working on this… This will be a trend as we gave a signal to the market,” she said at a roundtable on Tuesday.

She said that the application of quantitative easing in Ukraine is no longer appropriate: in contrast to the United States and united Europe, the application of such monetary approaches in Ukraine could affect inflation and the exchange rate pace.

“Quantitative easing could be used by developed economies… Our goal for this year is [to carry out] a stabilizing and reserved policy,” she said.

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Ukraine to complain to WTO over Russia’s restrictions on cheese import

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The authors of the graffiti “Death to Ukrainians” are searched in Dnipropentrovsk

The Dnipropentrovsk police officers search those, who painted the city with graffiti “Death to Ukrainians” and “Death to khokhly” (abusive name for Ukrainians).

As the “Segodnia” informs, these phrases began to appear in yards and back streets of the multistoried buildings of the Left bank in the beginning of the Donetsk highway. But several days later the authors of anti-Ukrainian slogans began to paint the city centre as well: “Death to Ukrainians” and “Death to khokhly” appeared on the facades of some buildings, and recently they appeared in the campus on the Gagarina prospect near the Dnipropentrovsk National and Transport universities.

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Poland Leads Wave of Communist-Era Reckoning

For all that Poland has accomplished since the fall of the Iron Curtain, it has long resisted fully coming to terms with its Communist past — the oppression, the spying, even the massacres. Society preferred to forget, to move on.

So it may come as a surprise that Poland and many of its neighbors in Central and Eastern Europe have decided the time is right to deal with the unfinished business. Suddenly there is a wave of accounting in the form of government actions and cultural explorations, some seeking closure, others payback.

A court in Poland last month found that the Communist leaders behind the imposition of martial law in December 1981 were part of a “criminal group.” Bulgaria’s president is trying to purge ambassadors who served as security agents. The Macedonian government is busy hunting for collaborators, and Hungary’s new Constitution allows legal action against former Communists.

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President gives the green light to precious metal production by central bank
Mar 3 at 15:31 | Interfax-Ukraine
Kyiv, March 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has signed law No. 4395-VI, regulating the National Bank of Ukraine’s activity in the prospecting for, mining, producing and using precious metals to replenish the gold and currency reserves, according to a posting on the presidential Web site.

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Akhmetov’s shopping spree
Jan 26 at 21:54 | Vlad Lavrov
The latest wave of non-competitive Ukrainian privatizations of multibillion-dollar energy assets has left at least one Ukrainian happy.

The auctions to sell stakes at three power generation and one distribution company has vaulted Rinat Akhmetov, the nation’s richest person, to the status of near-monopolist when it comes to generation, distribution and export of electricity.

Experts question the transparency of tender conditions that left little chance for foreign investors to compete with Akhmetov, a close ally and supporter of President Viktor Yanukovych and a lawmaker in the pro-presidential Party of the Regions.

As a result, they say, the selling price of the assets was considerably lower than the price Ukraine’s cash-strapped budget would receive if free-market mechanisms and competition were in place.

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Ukraine shuts down top file sharing website

Ukrainian police on Tuesday shut down the former Soviet republic’s most popular file sharing website, Ex.ua, accusing its owners of illegally distributing copyright-protected software, music and videos.

The move, which followed a crackdown by the United States on a similar but much larger website Megaupload earlier this month, was a result of complaints by software companies such as Microsoft and Adobe, police said.

“During a search at the website (owners’) office and data centers, police confiscated numerous computers… including 200 servers containing about 6,000 terabytes of information in total,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

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Social program could empty state coffers
Mar 8 at 20:50 | Jakub Parusinski
President Viktor Yanukovych pledged a whopping Hr 16 billion in handouts on March 7, kicking off the campaign of his Party of Regions for parliamentary elections on Oct. 28.

The program is ambitious, perhaps fatally so, and foresees a Hr 100 increase in pensions to over nine million pensioners and the return of Hr 1,000 to the six million deposit holders in the defunct Soviet Sberbank.

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Fantastic Photos of East Germany Before and After the collapse of Communism.

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World in Ukraine: Not all Swiss business is sweet in Ukraine
Mar 16 at 00:02 | Maryna Irkliyenko
Despite its attractive natural and human resources, Ukraine has been a disappointing investment destination for Switzerland, one of the world’s richest nations.

The mountainous country of nearly eight million people has earned its fortune primarily because of its financial sector.

Its policy of neutrality during both world wars helped it preserve and multiply the money stashed there.

Cumulative foreign direct investment from Switzerland to Ukraine as of 2010 stood at nearly $1.4 billion, according to figures from Switzerland’s central bank. But it could be much bigger, Swiss businessmen say.

Even though banking is usually the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about Switzerland, the country’s biggest presence in Ukraine is with sweets and chocolates via Nestle, the giant food producer.

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Horrible rape & attempted murder by burning [now-murder, after the victim lost her two-week struggle] by children of Ukraine’s political class.

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Orthodox Church: Russia must stay “combat ready”