Topless Protesters At Davos Forum: Three Shirtless Ukrainian Women Detained

DAVOS, Switzerland — Three topless Ukrainian protesters were detained Saturday while trying to break into an invitation-only gathering of international CEOs and political leaders to call attention to the needs of the world's poor.

Swiss police detained three women who tried to stage a topless protest at the World Economic Forum.
Separately, demonstrators from the Occupy movement marched to the edge of the gathering.

After a complicated journey to reach the heavily guarded Swiss resort town of Davos, the Ukrainians arrived at the entrance to the complex where the World Economic Forum takes place every year.

With temperatures around freezing in the snow-filled town, they took off their tops and tried to climb a fence before being detained.

"Crisis! Made in Davos," read one message painted across a protester's torso, while others held banners that said "Poor, because of you" and "Gangsters party in Davos."

Davos police spokesman Thomas Hobi said the three women were taken to the police station and told that they weren't allowed to demonstrate.

He said they would be released later Saturday.

The activists are from the group Femen, which has become popular in Ukraine for staging small, half-naked protests to highlight a range of issues including oppression of political opposition.

They have also conducted protests in some other countries.

"We came here to Switzerland to Davos to explain the position of all poor people of the world, to explain that we are poor because of these rich people who now sit in the building," said Inna Schevchenko.

Protesters from the Occupy movement that started with opposition to practices on Wall Street held a separate demonstration in Davos on Saturday.

A small group of protesters are camped in igloos in Davos to call for more help for the needy.

About 40 Occupy protesters gathered in front of the town hall.

Some held placards with slogans such as "If voting would change anything, it would be illegal" and "Don't let them decide for you, Occupy WEF."

They then marched toward the forum, prompting about a dozen police officers to hastily erect a mobile barrier as Saturday shoppers looked on with bemusement.

The demonstrators chanted anti-capitalist slogans, remaining about 100 feet (30 meters) from police lines.

One member of the Occupy camp was invited to speak at a special event outside the forum on Friday night to discuss the future of capitalism.

British opposition leader Ed Miliband was also speaking.

Soon after the panel discussion began, some activists in the audience jumped up and started chanting slogans, and the protester panelist walked off the stage.

Other members of the audience told the activists to "shut up" and arguments disrupted the panel for about 20 minutes.

The discussion then resumed, without the Occupy panelist.

Source: Huff Post

Israel Refuses Extradition In Ukraine Murder

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's prosecutor general says Israel is refusing to extradite a former presidential bodyguard charged with abuse of office after claiming his boss plotted the murder of an investigative journalist.

Mykola Melnychenko
Mykola Melnychenko released tapes in which former President Leonid Kuchma is allegedly heard conspiring against Heorhiy Gongadze, who exposed high-level corruption.

Gongadze's beheaded body was found in a forest outside Kiev in November 2000.

A Ukrainian court cleared Kuchma of involvement last year, while Melnychenko was charged with abuse of office and divulging state secrets, prompting him to flee to Israel.

Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka told the Interfax news agency Friday that Israel has refused to extradite Melnychenko.

Source: AP

Ukraine, Russia “Doomed” To Gas Compromise - Yanukovych

DAVOS, Switzerland -- Ukraine hopes to find a solution to the gas dispute with Russia soon, President Viktor Yanukovych said on Friday in Davos at the World Economic Forum.

Viktor Yanukovych says Ukraine is pushing for gas price revision with Russia, to no avail.
“Ukraine pays the world’s highest gas price. No one pays a price for gas like the price Ukraine has [to pay]. I have repeatedly asked the question to myself, our Russian partners and all who directly dealt with the 2009 contract: ‘Why and for what was Ukraine punished?’” Yanukovych said.

“No one has found an answer to this question for me. We will have to find an answer to it as soon as possible,” the Ukrainian president said.

“We have been negotiating for two years. We, both Russia and Ukraine, realize that we are ‘doomed’ to make the decision, find a compromise. The process is ongoing but there’s no solution yet,” he said.

Ukraine has long been seeking to alter the terms of the 2009 gas deal it signed with Russia.

The deal ties the price of gas to oil prices, which have risen strongly since 2009, boosting Ukraine's gas bill.

Ukraine will have to pay some $416 per cubic meter of Russian gas in 2012. Kiev insists the price and volume of its gas imports should be reduced.

Yanukovych said Ukraine has considerably cut Russian gas consumption volumes and will continue following that path, seeking ways to diversify energy supplies.

“The situation in the gas sector for Ukraine bears all the hallmarks of a threat to national security, without exaggeration,” he said.

In October 2011, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was found guilty of abuse of office when she signed gas deals with Russia in 2009.

She was sentenced to seven years in jail and was ordered to pay $187 million in damages to the Naftogaz company.

Tymoshenko said the charges against her were President Viktor Yanukovych's political revenge, which he denied.

Tymoshenko’s supporters say the prosecution is politically motivated.

The Ukrainian authorities deny the accusations.

On Friday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said the gas talks with Russia were very difficult.

“Very difficult talks are being held with Russians, who believe this contract is, like [Russian energy giant Gazprom CEO Alexei] Miller said, made of reinforced concrete,” Azarov said on Friday at a meeting with labor union representatives.

“What can we use to break reinforced concrete?”Azarov asked them. “We are trying to find a proper tool now.”

The premier said a number of important decisions were made at a recent meeting of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council: to reduce gas consumption, to develop energy saving technology and diversify the fuel supply routes.

“This is our hammer drill answer to Russia,” he said.

Source: RIA Novosti

Ukraine, Russia To Launch 2 Dnepr Carrier Rockets In 2012

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine and Russia will carry out two rocket launches under the joint Dnepr space program, head of the National Space Agency of Ukraine Yuri Alekseyev said on Friday.


Moscow has recently decided to continue the implementation of the joint Russian-Ukrainian program to use decommissioned RS-20 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) in commercial space launches under the Dnepr program.

“We are planning to carry out two launches [this year],” Alekseyev told reporters in Kiev.

“The first, with a Korean KOMPSAT-5 satellite, is tentatively scheduled for April-May…and probably in September or October we will have a launch with a large number of Arab satellites,” he said.

Alekseyev said the price of the launches would be the subject of negotiations with the Russian Defense Ministry.

“We want to lower the price, they want to make it higher, and that's natural because it’s a market economy,” he said.

The RS-20, classified by NATO as the SS-18 Satan, is the most powerful ICBM in the world.

It was first launched in 1973 and is still in service with Russia's Strategic Missile Forces (SMF).

RS-20 missiles are being gradually removed from the Russian arsenal and converted into Dnepr launch vehicles.

Alekseyev said Ukrainian experts continue to take part in the maintenance of the remaining 52 Satan missiles in service with Russia’s SMF.

Source: RIA Novosti

Ukraine’s President Firm Against Tymoshenko Despite EU Criticism Of Her Case

DAVOS, Switzerland -- Ukraine’s president showed no mercy Friday for imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, despite increasing fears that her case will hurt his country’s struggling economy and its relations with the European Union.

Viktor Yanukovych
The gas contract with Russia that was the premise for Tymoshenko’s conviction “is Ukraine’s biggest problem today,” President Viktor Yanukovych said at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

He added that he foresaw more judicial troubles for the ex-premier.

Tymoshenko, a bitter rival of the current president, is serving a 7-year sentence on charges of abuse of office in a case the West has condemned as politically motivated.

Her family accuses prison authorities of denying her proper medical care.

Tymoshenko was found guilty last year of overstepping her authority while negotiating the natural gas import contract with Russia in 2009.

Authorities say the contract was not in Ukraine’s economic interest.

She charges that Yanukovych has ordered her imprisonment in order to bar her from elections.

Yanukovych’s presence at the forum in Davos was aimed at attracting investment from international CEOs at the invitation-only event, but his comments about Tymoshenko did little to soothe concerns about doing business in Ukraine.

Ukraine “cannot hope to attract investment if the law doesn’t apply,” Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said.

He told The Associated Press that a landmark cooperation deal between Ukraine and the EU is “dead in the water” as long as Tymoshenko is jailed.

But Tymoshenko’s jailing is a dilemma for the EU.

Some experts believe the bloc should not be partners with a government that throws opposition leaders in jail.

Others say that snubbing Ukraine would push it back under Russia’s influence as Kiev is courting Moscow for cheaper natural gas.

Tymoshenko rose to fame during Ukraine’s 2004 popular uprising.

She became an opposition leader after losing the premiership in 2010.

Yanukovych has made membership in the 27-nation EU a top priority, but exhibited little sign Friday that he was ready to concede on the Tymoshenko case.

The state security service has launched a slew of new criminal investigations against Tymoshenko since her conviction, probes that Yanukovych defended.

“The Ukrainian part of the crimes committed by people who were in one way or another connected to Tymoshenko have not been fully investigated,” he said — adding that the cases will go to court soon.

Yanukovych was cold to efforts to adopt changes to the criminal code that would allow the former prime minister to be freed.

“That is up to the parliament,” he said.

The parliament is dominated by his supporters.

Source: AP

Prosecutor General: Tymoshenko Could Be Questioned In 'Lazarenko Case'

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka has said that after former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko returns from the United States, investigators will question former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko as part of the "Lazarenko case."

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko
"The investigators will have questions for Tymoshenko if Lazarenko appears. Abuse, fraud and other issues are not very comfortable for Tymoshenko in the context of what has to be proved, whether she was an accomplice in crime or not," he said in an exclusive interview to Interfax- Ukraine.

Pshonka said that if Lazarenko returns to Ukraine, the investigating authorities will be obliged to detain him, announce the indictment, interrogate him and then bring him to court to decide on choosing the measure of restraint for him.

"The questions for Lazarenko concern the crimes of which he is accused. And he is accused of abuse of office while holding senior positions and serving as Ukraine's deputy prime minister and prime minister."

"Damages of UAH 4 million ($0.5 million) were caused to state interests."

"He also is accused of misappropriating another's property and budget funds worth more than $15 million and UAH 20 million ($2.5 million), as well as receiving a bribe of over $100 million, and being involved in the organization of premeditated murders," Pshonka said.

He said that he did not know whether Lazarenko would come to Ukraine after serving his prison sentence in the United States and whether investigators would contact him.

"We don't know whether he will stay in America and whether there will be contact with him, or whether he will come here, or it will be permitted to question him there..."

"In the Lazarenko case there are reasons to question Lazarenko along with Tymoshenko, as well as having face-to-face meetings," Pshonka said.

As reported, a new criminal case was opened against Tymoshenko on October 12, 2011 for laying the burden of the debts of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) corporation on the Ukrainian budget.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that the reason for launching a new criminal case against the former Ukrainian prime minister was a letter from the Russian Defense Ministry to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, which raised the issue of repaying the corporation's debt of $405.5 million.

The ex-premier's defense team has challenged in court the decision to open the criminal case.

Lazarenko was charged in the United States with laundering money obtained illegally and transferring it to foreign bank accounts in 1994-1999.

In August 2006, he was sentenced by a court in California to nine years in prison for money laundering and other crimes.

He is under house arrest at his apartment in San Francisco.

In June 2011, Lazarenko's custody period was reduced by seven months, to January 11, 2012.

It was reported in August 2011, citing Chris Burke, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that Lazarenko is to be released from prison in the United States on November 1, 2012, rather than on January 11, 2012, as was planned earlier.

On August 4, 2011, Lazarenko was transferred from the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Dublin (California) to FCI Terminal Island, a low-security prison for men (also in California).

Source: Interfax

Romanov Descendant Looks For Love On Ukraine Show

KIEV, Ukraine -- He is a descendant of Russia's last czar — and has lived in the jungle, starred in Bollywood movies and trained as a stuntman.

Francis Mathew
Now Scottish photographer Francis Mathew is in a new adventure: finding a bride on a reality TV show in Ukraine.

Mathew, the great-great-nephew of Nicholas II, is the star of the second season of Ukraine's version of the popular U.S. show "The Bachelor" — in which an unmarried man picks a fiancee through a series of dates and romantic getaways.

"I've been very lucky in life, but very unlucky in love," the 33-year-old, who comes across as a romantic behind bad-boy looks, told The Associated Press in an interview.

"I am actually ready for a proper relationship, I have been for a couple of years," he said.

"I am pretty fussy when it comes to choosing a longterm girlfriend, it's very difficult to find someone to be compatible with."

As many as 16,000 young women from across Ukraine and beyond auditioned to compete for the heart of "a prince" — as Mathew is billed by the show's producers, even though he has no royal title.

Twenty-five contestants were selected for the show, also called "The Bachelor" in Ukrainian, and some have gotten into shouting matches and even fights over who gets to spend more time with him, according to the STB Channel, which is set to air the show in March.

The 12 episodes, which are currently being filmed in Ukraine, Finland, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, entail romantic dinners, a helicopter ride and Mathew taking on a 350-kilogram (750-pound) bull as a matador.

Mathew speaks little Ukrainian or Russian, so both he and the contestants wear earpieces and rely on simultaneous translation.

He hopes the project will help him reconnect with his Slavic roots.

Matthew admits that the show, in which he eliminates women one by one based on their date performance until he proposes to one of the two finalists, may be provocative.

"Honestly, the concept is crazy, absolutely crazy," Mathew said.

"You have to be of a certain mindset to enter a contest like that, I think it takes courage."

But he says he has met attractive and interesting women on the show and hopes to fall in love.

"Love works in very mysterious ways," Mathew said.

"It does come from the most random places sometimes, the most unexpected places, so why not TV?"

The odds of finding true love, however, appear to be against Mathew.

His predecessor on the show, a Ukrainian-American ballroom dancer, split with his newfound fiancee shortly after it ended last summer.

Only one of the 15 seasons of "The Bachelor" in the U.S. resulted in marriage.

Mathew is the son of Princess Olga Andreevna Romanov, 61, whose father, Prince Andrei Alexandrovich, was the nephew of Nicholas II, Russia's last czar.

Nicholas II was assassinated by the Bolsheviks shortly after the 1917 Revolution together with his wife and children.

Mathew's grandfather was able to escape and settled in Britain.

Born in London and raised in Scotland, Mathew decided against going to university and chose to become a stuntman instead.

He spent more than five years studying martial arts and other sports, while working in landscape gardening to pay for his living.

Stunt acting "was my childhood dream," Matthew said.

"I was always a very adventurous child ... I climbed every building I could jump off. I used to do crazy things."

But the training ended after he badly injured his ankle on a trampoline and Mathew found a new passion in photography.

He photographed jungle animals while living in a mud hut in Cameroon and spent over three years in India working as a fashion photographer.

While in India he also played villains in Bollywood movies and starred in commercials, including for chewing gum and an airline company.

Mathew says he has been in love before, but his lifestyle prevented him from settling down.

His most romantic relationship, incidentally, was with a Ukrainian girl.

"Whenever I've met somebody who I either fall in love with or have a great connection with, either she is leaving or I am leaving," he said.

This time he is hoping for a happy ending.

"I am not in love at this point, but there is definitely potential to fall in love," he said.

"Have I kissed a girl? You have to watch and find out."

Source: AP

Ukrainian Media Publish Full List Of Tymoshenko's Violations

KIEV, Ukraine -- Full description of the economic crimes that Yulia Tymoshenko is arrested and trialed for has been published by Obozrevatel citing a source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

Yulia Tymoshenko
The Kharkiv department of the Security Service completed investigation in the case.

The former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko has been charged with violations worth USD 20 million.

The charges against Yulia Tymoshenko include embezzlement of state funds in excess of UAH 14 million (equivalent of USD $7 million at the time - ed.), VAT evasion in the amount of UAH 4.7 million (USD $2.3 million), attempted embezzlement of UAH 11 million (USD $5.5 million) in VAT reimbursement, forgery and tax evasion for not paying UAH 681 thousand in personal income tax.

In the course of the investigation it was established that in 1996-1997 the Industrial Financial Corporation United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU), headed by Tymoshenko, purchased metal products from domestic producers and exported them to Russia instead of foreign offshore companies (controlled by Tymoshenko and her family) whose addresses were indicated in the export documents.

In order to create an illusion of return of foreign currency earnings to Ukraine Tymoshenko together with UESU top management and personnel of the Joint Stock Bank Pivdenkombank, where she was a president, forged financial statements.

Such scheme allowed the perpetrators to illegally claim VAT reimbursement of UAH 30 million (USD $15 million) from the state budget.

Yuliya Tymoshenko is also accused of not paying of UAH 681 thousand in income tax on USD $1 million she received onto her bank card in 1996-1998 while being a member of Ukrainian Parliament.

In 1995-1997 Tymoshenko facilitated UESU's VAT evasion totaling UAH 10 million by increasing the purchasing price on paper for 34 billion cubic meters of Russian gas.

Besides the listed accusations, Yulia Tymoshenko was found guilty of concealing USD $165 million profits but the criminal case has been closed due to decriminalization of the respective paragraph of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

According to the currently conducted investigations, Yulia Tymoshenko administered her subordinates in UESU to make unjustified transfer of funds to United Energy International Limited (company within Tymoshenko's control).

It was established that the following sums were wired: USD $944,683,245.63, GBP 30,833,509.91, and DEM 269,304.

Source: The Sacramento Bee