Inside News on Odessa and Ukraine
Right. Tomorrow I leave the dysfunctional state of Ukraine and head for (the less than) United Kingdom for 10 days or so. I am tagging on some days holiday prior to, and post, a symposium I am expected to attend in the ever beautiful city of Bath. Therefore I very much doubt I will be […]
Well, well, well! No - not three holes in the ground filled with water, but rather a sarcastic acknowledgement that Odessa City Hall has finally got around to creating a new website - Invest in Odessa. I deliberately use the word “finally”, as way back in autumn 2007 when I first met Mikhail Freidlin, he was […]
Uggggghhhhhhhh! In the first real test of cohesiveness after the voting on 28th October, the opposition parties are doing their very best within a week of proving my previous statements about their (in)ability to work together correct - in the fastest time possible. Sometimes I write something in the hope of being proved absolutely and […]
Well today is election day in Ukraine (and also my mother-in law’s birthday) - thus a short post as I am expected elsewhere. However I will leave you to ponder just how much these people advertising their votes for sale on VK (a social forum similar to facebook) will have actually been paid for their votes. $20, […]
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, regional or national in Ukraine. The platform has been created by the Institute of […]
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 sides to some degree. He recently gave a press […]
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 generally meet the standards necessary - whilst at the same time stating those in Georgia have already failed to […]
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 that is noticeable, and no Internet applications are blocked by the government. Further, the Ukrainian forums are […]
Well, much has been written in the Ukrainian press, many horrified tweets from Ukrainian journalists on twitter, (at least amongst those I follow and those that follow me), and many paragraphs have been blogged about the passing at the first reading, of the law to re-criminalise defamation (libel and slander). I briefly mentioned it a […]
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/given (take your pick) under the auspices of the Council of Europe’s “Action plan for Ukraine”. The “action plan” is designed to assist […]