Ceasefire at Ukraine Airport After Deadly Clash
Ukraine: Ukraine #39;s military said Monday that its forces and Russian representatives had agreed a temporary ceasefire around the airport in rebel-held Donetsk that has been the focus of fighting...
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Ceasefire at Ukraine Airport After Deadly Clash - Video
BRUSSELS, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- Ukraine, an important energy transit nation for Europe, needs to rebrand itself as a safe haven for foreign investors, Europe's neighborhood commissioner said.
Ukraine erupted in violence following a November 2013 decision to abandon efforts to join the European Union. With a new government in Kiev warming again to the EU, European Neighborhood Policy Commissioner Johannes Hahn briefed lawmakers following his visit last week to Ukraine.
"I was able to sign an agreement for regional development worth $68 million with the acting Minister of the Economy Valery Piatnitsky," he said Monday.
Ukraine's battered economy was left in shambles following last year's political upheaval. Energy reforms were part of the loan conditions offered after the revolution by the International Monetary Fund.
Hahn said the IMF was reviewing Ukrainian reforms with the view of releasing as much as $2.72 billion in additional support.
"Internal reforms are essential: the rule of law creates the necessary climate for investment by Ukrainian investors but also from foreign enterprises," the commissioner said. "Interest is there if the conditions can be created."
Ukraine serves as a key energy transit country for the European economy. Europe gets about a quarter of its natural gas needs met by Russia, though more than half of that runs through the Soviet-era pipeline network in Ukraine.
Ukraine, with the help of European negotiators, brokered an interim deal with Russia to secure a discount on gas prices and reliable supplies through the winter in exchange for commitments to repay the billions of dollars in debt owed to Russian gas supplier Gazprom.
Ukraine has said it was trying to lessen its dependence on Russia by working with its neighbors to reverse the direction of natural gas supply lines and by exploiting domestic shale reserves.
Europe, meanwhile, is wary of any pipeline developments that would involve Gazprom or other similar state-backed entities, saying producers shouldn't be controlling the means of delivery.
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Ukraine needs to court investors, EU says
Thirteen floors above a snow-covered complex on the outskirts of Kiev, in a half-built high-rise, Egor Popov wondered aloud when the warren of dusty rooms would be ready for move-in: maybe next year, probably not.
Presales on the 1,210-unit Sun Gates fourth wing, still a concrete-and-brick skeleton accessible only by a shaky open-air elevator, may be delayed, he said. Not because of a lack of financing or demand for flats. The issue is the nine layers of red tape and graft requests that are part of finishing the project, said Popov, a spokesman for TMM Real Estate Development Plc (TR61), Ukraines only publicly listed developer.
A year after Ukrainians rose up against the pro-Russian policies of then-President Viktor Yanukovych, business leaders still wait for an end to corruption and cronyism, promised by the revolutions leaders. Even as war rages in the east and the deepest recession since 2009 shows no sign of lifting, the president, premier and foreign minister said in the past week that graft is the nations biggest threat. Ukraine ranks as Europes worst on Transparency Internationals corruption index.
Man cannot live by patriotism alone, said Popov as blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags fluttered from balcony railings across the courtyard. The year thats passed hasnt brought many positive things to ordinary people. Bureaucracy and corruption just havent changed.
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said to lawmakers on Nov. 26 that he has been less than successful at rooting out corruption, though he refuted claims his administration hasnt tried. Close
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said to lawmakers on Nov. 26 that he has been less... Read More
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Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said to lawmakers on Nov. 26 that he has been less than successful at rooting out corruption, though he refuted claims his administration hasnt tried.
As foreign investors flee the former Soviet republic, Ukraine relies on a $17 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to stay afloat. The hryvnia has lost 45 percent against the dollar this year, the biggest decline among all currencies tracked by Bloomberg. Central bank reserves are at $12.6 billion, the lowest level since March 2005.
It may get worse. IMF negotiators left Kiev on Nov. 25 without an agreement needed for disbursement of a $2.8 billion installment of the loan. Two days later, lawmakers met one of the key concerns by agreeing on a government coalition, a month after snap parliamentary elections.
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Ukraine Revolution Fails Business as Graft Envelops Bureaucracy
Ukrainian armed forces and representatives of the self-described Luhansk Peoples Republic (LPR) have agreed to a ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons, according to a new report from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
The latest report by the OSCEs Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine followsanother announcementlast month by SMM stating that Russia and the Ukrainian heads of the Joint Centre for Control and Co-ordination (JCCC) had agreed on a draft schedule for gradual disengagement of forces along the line of contact in Donbas, in southeastern Ukraine.
All agreed in principle to a total ceasefire along the entire line of contact between Ukrainian Armed Forces and those under control of the LPR, to be effective from 5 December They also agreed that the withdrawal of heavy weapons would start on 6 December, the SMM report said.
According to the report, the ceasefire agreement was reached after discussions on Saturday involving the head of the Ukrainian contingent to the JCCC, the head of the Russian representation in southeastern Ukraine and members of the LPR. The JCCC was set up by Ukraine, Russia and Didier Burkhalter, the top OSCE official in eastern Ukraine, in October to coordinate the execution of the ceasefire agreement in the country.
Last month, OSCE said in a report that the Russian and Ukrainian heads of the JCCC signed adraft schedulethatproposed the disengagement of forces in three phases -- a ceasefire for two days, the withdrawal of heavy weapons for five days and disengagement of forces to the line of contact referred to in the Minsk Memorandum for 21 days.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine intensified in April, after Kiev launched a military operation against pro-Russian rebels in the country's southeastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. When the crisis escalated, the Ukrainian government requested the services of the SMM. Kiev and the West have accused Russia of interfering in the region by arming separatist forces in the country's east, helping the rebels form self-styled republics in a bid to secede from Ukraine. However, Moscow has consistently denied the accusations.
According to data released by the United Nations, about 4,300 people have been killed and almost 10,000 have been injured since the beginning of the armed conflict in Ukraine, RIA Novosti reported.
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Ukraine Crisis: Kiev Forces, Luhansk Militia Agree To Total Ceasefire, OSCE Says
Local disaster response workers in eastern Ukraine began loading the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 onto trucks Monday for transport to the Netherlands and further examination in hopes of identifying the cause of the disaster, the Dutch Safety Board announced in a statement.
The debris from the July 17 disaster has only recently been inventoried and collected for relocation because of continued hostilities around the crash site, which is in a rural area of the Donetsk region that is under the control of pro-Russia separatists fighting Ukrainian troops.
A preliminary report in September by the Dutch-led international investigative team said the crash, which killed all 298 passengers and crew on board, was caused by the impact of "high-energy objects," consistent with being hit by a ground-to-air missile.
Hours after the jet exploded at 33,000 feet,Ukrainian military officials claimed to have intercepted radio communications between Russian and separatist commanders in the area whose exchange suggested the rebels had mistaken the civilian passenger jet for a Ukrainian military transport. The separatists and their Russian backers contend the plane was probably downed by an air-to-air missile, suggesting that the Ukrainian military was to blame.
More than two-thirds of those on board were citizens or residents of the Netherlands.
The Dutch government statement said the debris, which was spread across several square miles of farmland, would be taken to the Gilze Rijen Air Base in convoys over the next week. Once the relocation is completed, the plane will be partially reconstructed, the statement said.
MH-17 was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, when it crashed while flying over the eastern Ukraine battlegrounds. The route had been used by numerous airlines for flights between Europe and Asia; until the disaster, the route had been considered safe for planes at cruising altitude.
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Wreckage from MH-17 downed over Ukraine being sent to Netherlands