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Ukraine has receded from world attention since its peak in 2014, when it changed presidents, Russia annexed Crimea and fighting was active in its east. The world reacted, for the large part, with words rather than actions.

Independent since 1991 in the wake of the Soviet Unions dissolution, Ukraine, Europes second-largest country, with a population of 45 million, is in the center of a tough region, with borders on Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovakia. None of these seven countries is particularly prosperous. Russia is far and away Ukraines most important trading partner, taking 18 percent of its exports and providing 22 percent of its imports.

Russias annexation of Crimea, and its continued military involvement in Ukraines rebellious east, is the current cause of tension, intermittent fighting and complex relations between the two. It bears noting that Crimea was part of Russia until 1954 and that 60 percent of the population of Crimea is Russian speaking.

Russia and President Vladimir Putin, seeking to bolster his popular political support through successful aggression in Ukraine, are very much the villains of the piece in the trouble in eastern Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and Western European and American reaction, including economic sanctions against Russia.

Seeking to make lemonade from the lemon of current relations, the Russians and the Trump administration could serve as the vehicle through which the Ukraine problem, as a regional issue, could be cleaned up. The U.S. could stop pushing to incorporate Ukraine into Western Europe through NATO and the European Union, Russia could withdraw its military support for the eastern Ukrainian rebels, and Crimea could become some sort of internationally observed territory as a step toward restoring it to Ukraine.

Putin and Trump need to meet soon, in any case. Ukraine has to be on the agenda.

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Another View: Russia's aims still drive friction as attention to Ukraine ... - Press Herald

A Russian TV presenter mocked the Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenkoin an angry tirade in which he claimed Ukranian's were becoming slaves to the European Union.

During his rant, the host targeted Ukraine's President suggesting his decision to join a visa waiver agreementis negatively impacting his citizens.

Speaking to Vesti News, Dmitry Kiselyov, said: Previously [Mr Poroshenko] called a visa-free tourism to the EU a national idea of the Ukrainians.

Now, he said that a final divorce was completed with Russia.

YOUTUBEVESTINEWS

If you look at the price of this visa-free regime, there will be no giggles.

You would be horrified.

The TV host then claimed the Ukrainian President was turning his citizens into slaves for the EU.

He added: According toofficialdate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, four million of their citizens germanely reside in Russia.

Approximately the same amount of Ukrainian migrant workers reside in the West.

The visa-free regime... turns his citizens into slaves for the European Union

Russian TV host

The visa-free regime that made Poroshenko giggle so much, turns his citizens into slaves for the European Union.

Tourists from Ukraine dont get the right to work or study in the EU, and their stay there is limited, 90 days within six months.

The European Union approved visa-free travel for Ukrainians following a long-awaited decision.

The host also criticised Ukraine for the way they managed the Eurovision song contest.

The European performance cost the Ukrainian treasury 30million, while better Eurovision music shows, for example, held in Sweden or Estonia, cost three times less, he said.

EPA

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Jean-Claude Juncker jokes and gives Margaritis Schinas a slap before the weekly college meeting of the European Commission

The TV presenter, who in 2013 was appointed by Vladimir Putin to head the countrys government-owned news agency, finished by claiming the EU was the most corrupt country in Europe.

He said: Following the results ofthe 2016,the Accounting Court of Auditors of the European Union, official recognised Ukraine as the most corrupt country in Europe.

There, bribes are a common thing and are accepted everywhere. Everyone can be bribed.

In February 2015, the warring parties to the Ukrainian conflict signed the Minsk agreement in order to bring an end to violence in the region.

Earlier this month, Angela Merkel told Vladimir Putin that EU sanctions would be lifted if Moscow fully implemented the Minsk Agreement.

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Russian TV host issues extraordinary rant calling Ukraine's citizens 'slaves to the EU' - Express.co.uk

The weak legislation on protection of the environment was also high on the agenda

The 4th meeting of the EU-Ukraine Civil Society Platform (CSP) in Brussels held a debate to assess the progress in the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. The discussions focused on environmental protection, media freedom and the first year of the EU-Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement.

Opening the meeting, co-chair Alfredas Jonuka, member of the EESC welcomed the reforms carried out by Ukraine to implement the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement (AA), and said he hopes that these demanding reforms continue to be as determined and consistent.

The co-chair from the Ukrainian side, Zoriana Mishchuk, expert of the Ukrainian Environmental NGO "MAMA-86", began a debate which welcomed the Councils adoption of the Commission's proposal for visa-free travel regime for the citizens of Ukraine for up to 90 days.

The CSP meeting assessed the state of play in the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. On the DCFTA, the participants stated that the EU and Ukraine should closely monitor its implementation and assess the impact on trade and investments, on labour, environmental and human rights issues.

Media freedom

The Platform declared its satisfaction with the significant improvements in the media environment in Ukraine since 2014 including transparency and strengthening the legislative environment for journalists and media outlets. However, the Platform regretted that impunity for crimes committed against journalists in Ukraine persists; including undue political interference on content and violence, harassment, and other abuse of journalists. It recommended that journalist organisations and overseeing bodies increase the ethical standards for media, and invest into the competences of both journalists and managers of media outlets competence exchange and on-the-job training programmes in the media outlets and institutions of the EU Member States. Serious challenges remain, such as: fragmentation of reforms, lack of strategic vision in reforming mass media and public broadcasting, lack of unified position of responsible authorities, and the absence of effective control over public authorities on information disclosure. Journalistic investigations lead not to punishment for misuses, but, to aggressions against journalists.

Environmental protection

The CSP noted that environmental issues are of low priority on the agenda of the Ukrainian government and parliament, resulting in limited progress. The adoption of laws on environmental governance was vetoed by the President and reforms have been undermined by vested interests, weak governance, political instability and lack of leverage on the part of the EU. It therefore called upon the government to speed up the update of its National Strategy on environmental policy until 2020 and to adopt its National Action Plan. The joint declaration expressed concern regarding the absence in Ukraine of legal acts to ensure the implementation of crucial environmental policy tools, such as Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment.

The Platform adopted its joint declaration which will be forwarded to the EU-Ukraine Association Council, the Association Committee, the Parliamentary Association Committee and other relevant bodies both in Ukraine as well as in the EU.

Background

The EU-Ukraine Civil Society Platform, established in April 2015, is one of the joint bodies established under the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. It allows civil society organisations from both sides to monitor the implementation process and submit their recommendations to the relevant authorities. Its previous meeting on 8-9 November 2016 in Kyiv addressed labour market regulation and antidiscrimination legislation issues.

The Platform has 15 members on both sides. On the EU side, it comprises 9 members of the the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels and 6 permanent observers from European civil society networks (Eurochambres, BusinessEurope, ETUC, Copa-Cogeca, Cooperatives Europe, EaP Civil Society Forum).

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EU-Ukraine civil society denounce persisting impunity for crimes against journalists in Ukraine - EU News

With emotions still raw from the removal of New Orleans' Confederate monuments, it can be helpful to look at how other countries have dealt with the changing symbols of history.

David Hammer, WWL 12:40 PM. CDT May 21, 2017

NEW ORLEANS -- With emotions still raw from the removal of New Orleans' Confederate monuments, it can be helpful to look at how other countries have dealt with the changing symbols of history.

From the joyous fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, to U.S Marines toppling a massive Saddam Hussein statue when they took Bagdhad in 2003, historic symbols of oppression often come down when regimes change. But in the American South, its been a much longer, more painful process.

It took 152 years after the Confederacy lost the Civil War, more than 100 years after Jim Crow-era leaders erected statues honoring heroes of the so-called Lost Cause and more than 50 years after the fall of Jim Crow for New Orleans to take down three Confederate monuments of President Jefferson Davis and Gens. Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard and a fourth dedicated to an uprising of white supremacists at the Battle of Liberty Place.

The closest comparison may be in Ukraine, where it took 25 years after Ukrainian independence to take down more than 1,300 statues of Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet leader who conquered Ukraine in 1921.

Investigative journalist Oleg Khomenok said thats because when Ukraine re-asserted its independence with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it remained under Communist control.

Actually, the first Ukrainian president was the chief of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and there was no way to get rid of this legacy, Khomenok said.

It took decades for Ukraine to truly emerge from under Russias thumb. The Orange Revolution of late 2004 helped undo a rigged presidential election and get a pro-Western government. But the pro-Russian candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, took back control in 2010.

Khomenok knows first-hand about toppling regimes. He led a television news investigation into Yanukovychs corruption and was among a group of journalists who chased the disgraced president out of his opulent Mezhyhirya palace in 2014.

Another pro-Western government took over and finally passed a law to remove the Communist monuments and change more than 52,000 street and town names.

Since then, Russia has seized the Crimean peninsula and made military incursions into eastern Ukraine. But Khomenok says resistance to the law removing Communist symbols and names has not been seriously challenged.

One argument that was made against the law sounds a lot like those made recently against removing the Confederate monuments in New Orleans.

The Communist Party leaders were talking this shouldnt be done because this is the history and is part of our past, Khomenok said.

But that didnt fly.

Actually, the Communist Party of Ukraine was also banned as a part of this law, Khomenok said. The website Raining-Lenins.Silk.co tracks whats called the Lenin-Fall movement in Ukraine. It keeps photos and maps of all the Lenin statues around the world, including four in the U.S. -- in a park in Seattle, atop a building in New Yorks East Village and at casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

Earlier this year, Khomenok came to New Orleans to meet with reporters and got to see the Confederate monuments in person. When he heard about the debate, he found the motivation to take down symbols of American slavery reminiscent of the passions that drove the Lenin-Fall movement.

They were mad that these people who were guilty (of) a million peoples deaths would be standing on the squares in the cities, to be looking (like) glorious heroes of the country, he said.

2017 WWL-TV

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Ukraine also faced monument removal challenges - WWL

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Almost a quarter of billion dollars worth of Brazilian talent will be on the field in Shanghai on Wednesday as two Chinese Super League teams meet in the second round of the 2017 Asian Champions League.

Big names such as Hulk, Oscar, Alex Teixeria,Ramiresand Elkeson have all helpedShanghai SIPG and Jiangsu Suning progress past the group stage to set up the first-ever all Chinese meeting in the tournaments history.

With two-time winner Guangzhou Evergrande also in the last 16, China has more teams in the second round than ever before, with all three teams that started the tournament surviving the first round. It is another sign of the growing strength of the big spending Chinese league.

We will have to be at our best when we play Jiangsu, said Shanghai coach Andre Villas-Boas ahead of the first leg, which takes place on Wednesday with the return match in Nanjing a week later. We know all about their quality and they know all about us. We have been playing well and we will have to continue that form.

The two teams come into the game in very different situations. Hulks fifth league goal of the season helped the team to a 3-1 win in Fridays Shanghai Derby at Shanghai Shenhua. The three points put SIPG second in the table behind Guangzhou.

Jiangsu, runner-up in the league in 2016, may have won its group with two games to spare but has been struggling at home.

After ten games of the season, Jiangsu is bottom of the 16-team league with just one victory, and speculation is growing in the Chinese media that the teams coach Choi Yong-soo is in serious trouble.

We havent been getting the results in the league but our form in the Asian Champions League has been good this season, said Choi, who led FC Seoul to the 2013 final. It will be a tough game against Shanghai but if we can get a good result there in the first leg we will have a good chance of going to the next stage.

Despite the growing challenge from Chinese teams, Guangzhou Evergrande remains the only club to bring the trophy back to the country.

Under Luiz Felipe Scolari, Guangzhou, which has won the last six Chinese Super League titles, is looking to become the first club to win three Asian Champions League tournaments. The first two came in 2013 and 2015.

Guangzhou was less impressive than Jiangsu or Shanghai in the group stage but leads the standings in China. It faces a tough task against Japanese champion Kashima Antlers, with the first leg at home.

Elsewhere in the eastern zone, the tournament is divided into two geographical regions that come together only in the final, Thai champion Muangthong United is preparing for the first knockout game in its history, against Kawasaki Frontale of Japan.

The 2007 champion, Japans Urawa Reds, travels to the South Korean island of Jeju to face Jeju United.

The pick of the ties in the western zone sees 2016 finalist Al Ain of the United Arab Emirates meeting Esteghlal of Iran.

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Brazilian stars on show in all-Chinese Asian clash - Washington Times - Washington Times