I knew it all along! The Evil Empire is in charge in Ukraine! Watch the video!
PreSSident Yanuk Vader and his Administration Stormtroopers try to take over the Cabinet of Sinisters to continue their diabolical goal of turning Ukraine into Yanukstan. With Princess Yulia and Luts Skywalker in prison, will Yats Solo and Chewklychko - along with Lando Tiahnybokian - free Ukraine's political prisoners and restore Ukraine's democracy?
http://youtu.be/e3espGNFjzo
Tuesday 26 February 2013
Thursday 21 February 2013
Action Item: STOP THE YANUKOVYCH BULLDOZER!
The Canadian Group for Democracy in Ukraine (CG4DU) is appealing to the European Union (EU) to rethink its approach towards Ukraine as long as the Yanukovych regime continues its authoritarian chokehold over the Ukrainian people.
Unquestionably, Ukraine's place is in the EU. However, as long as her current administration, legislature and judiciary are unconstitutionally controlled by a select group of autocrats under the direction of the president and his cronies, Ukraine will never be a true democratic and sovereign partner in Europe's family of nations.
The EU must insist that Ukrainian officials return the country to the people by restoring human rights, by stopping the pillaging of state coffers, by giving the media its deserved freedom - by following the constitution. Political prisoners - namely former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko - must be freed immediately and unconditionally by the judiciary from illegitimate incarceration. These must be the first steps to give Ukraine back to her citizens. This is the correct path to EU integration for Ukraine.
For more information, please read ...
"WELCOME TO BRUSSELS, PRESIDENT YANUKOVYCH!"
http://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/kuzyo/512650c7005d4/
Also, please read this advertisement, which the CG4DU placed in the European Voice on February 21st - leading up to the scheduled EU-Ukraine Summit in Brussels on February 25th ...
Unquestionably, Ukraine's place is in the EU. However, as long as her current administration, legislature and judiciary are unconstitutionally controlled by a select group of autocrats under the direction of the president and his cronies, Ukraine will never be a true democratic and sovereign partner in Europe's family of nations.
The EU must insist that Ukrainian officials return the country to the people by restoring human rights, by stopping the pillaging of state coffers, by giving the media its deserved freedom - by following the constitution. Political prisoners - namely former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko - must be freed immediately and unconditionally by the judiciary from illegitimate incarceration. These must be the first steps to give Ukraine back to her citizens. This is the correct path to EU integration for Ukraine.
For more information, please read ...
"WELCOME TO BRUSSELS, PRESIDENT YANUKOVYCH!"
http://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/kuzyo/512650c7005d4/
Also, please read this advertisement, which the CG4DU placed in the European Voice on February 21st - leading up to the scheduled EU-Ukraine Summit in Brussels on February 25th ...
Download the above using this link ...
Canadian Group for Democracy in Ukraine
Wednesday 6 February 2013
Verkhovna Rada 7, Session 2, Day 1 ... STALEMATE!
Headlines from Twitter @UANews4ENMedia ...
#450ua #Рада2012 #Rada2012 #Рада2013 #Rada2013
1. Opposition blocks #Ukraine parliament over proxy voting row
2. #Ukraine opposition blocks work of parliament, demands individual voting
3. What guests at opening of 7th #Ukraine parliament's 2nd session saw
4. #Ukraine parliament argues over fingerprint voting, new session stalls
5. #Ukraine's Rada TV channel avoids parliament's stalemate
=====
Opposition blocks Ukraine parliament over proxy voting row
Feb. 5, 2013 ... By Olzhas Auyezov
KYIV (Reuters) - Opposition lawmakers surrounded the speaker's rostrum in Ukraine's parliament on Tuesday in protest at what they say is proxy voting by the pro-government majority, stopping the work of the legislature.
Dozens of opposition members, reinvigorated after the ruling party lost seats in an election in October, joined in the protest on the first day of the session after a winter break
=====
Oppositionists block work of parliament, demand individual voting
Feb. 5, 2013 … by Interfax-Ukraine via Kyiv Post
Members of the oppositional parliamentary factions have blocked the presidium and the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, before the beginning of its second session of the seventh convocation.
According to an Interfax-Ukraine reporter, posters reading "Deputy, Go to Work, Vote Individually!" and "No to Button-Pushing!" are hanging in the sitting hall. The MPs also hung a poster reading "The Rada Rots from Rybak" above the presidium. A banner reading "Button-Pushers, Get Out of the Rada!" is hanging on the presidium.
Members of the UDAR faction came to the sitting wearing red pullovers reading "UDAR" and "Vote Individually."
[ PHOTO: Members of the oppositional parliamentary factions have blocked the presidium and the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, before the beginning of its second session of the seventh convocation. © Kostyantyn Chernichkin ]
=====
Guests invited to attend opening of parliament's second session leave Verkhovna Rada
Feb. 5, 2013 … by Interfax-Ukraine via Kyiv Post
Members of the Regions Party parliamentary faction have collected their voting cards from the voting slots at their seats in the sitting hall of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, as the opposition factions blocked today's parliamentary sitting.
According to an Interfax-Ukraine reported, the diplomats that were invited to attend the opening of the second session of the Verkhovna Rada of the seventh convocation have left their seats on the balcony.
The Veryovka National Academic Folk Chorus, which was supposed to sing the national anthem of Ukraine, has also left the sitting hall.
Around 200 MPs, including members of the oppositional and other factions, remain in the hall.
As reported, this morning members of the opposition parliamentary factions blocked the presidium and the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada before the beginning of its second session.
Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Rybak called a meeting of the parliamentary faction heads in his office.
[ PHOTO: Members of the Regions Party parliamentary faction have collected their voting cards from the voting slots at their seats in the sitting hall of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, as the opposition factions blocked today's parliamentary sitting. © Ukrafoto ]
=====
Parliament fails to open amid fighting over fingerprint voting
Feb. 5, 2013 … by Katya Gorchinskaya, Kyiv Post
Ukraine's parliament failed to convene after a long winter break on Feb. 5 due to disagreement between the majority and the opposition on personal voting by the deputies.
This constitutional demand – that lawmakers must cast their votes only for themselves, not colleagues -- has for years been ignored by the pro-presidential majority.
This unconstitutional practice has infuriated voters and made Ukraine's 450-member Verkhovna Rada the butt of jokes worldwide. It has bolstered criticism that the legislative body is a rubber-stamp institution whose members are not accountable to the people who elected them and don’t take responsibility for their actions.
In Ukraine, deputies who pressed buttons for colleagues were nicknamed “pianists” or “button-pushers.” A public campaign for personal voting activated before the Oct. 28 parliamentary election, in which the opposition captured 40 percent of the seats, and the momentum is carried on by the three opposition factions in the new year.
On Feb. 5, the opposition showed up in the session hall early and well-prepared. Vitali Klitschko’s faction UDAR turned up in similar red sweatshirts in support of personal voting by deputies. With the help of Batkivshchyna and Svoboda, they hung up banners with slogans like “No to button pushers!” and “Deputy, come to work! Vote personally!” One of the posters had a picture of a guillotine hanging dangerously over a hand, another one – a bleeding, chopped-off hand.
The deputies from the majority did not seem to be put off, though. They walked about visibly in a good mood, joked with colleagues about the opposition's initiatives, and started to leave parliament half an hour after the scheduled start of the session, assuming that it would not start at all.
Speaker Volodymyr Rybak said the majority deputies “showed up, but were not permitted to work,” so they left the parliament building. He said only two majority deputies failed to show up for the session because they're sick.
Oleh Tiahnybok, leader of the opposition Svoboda Party, explained at a briefing that the opposition “do not consider it expedient to start the session until the sensor button is activated.” The button, which requires a fingerprint to register a vote, was installed in the Rada when Arseniy Yatseniuk was speaker in 2007-2008.
Tiahnybok said the pro-government party is “afraid of personal voting” and coming up with excuses, such as the voting system is bad for the deputies’ health.
Rybak lashed out at the opposition for disrupting the session and failing to compromise on personal voting, and refusing to unblock the podium.
“The laws that I propose to vote on today, there is one that contains the issue of fingerprint voting,.. but the Rada hall continues to be blocked,” Rybak complained at a briefing.
Yatseniuk, leader of Batkivshchyna, the biggest oppositional minority faction, said that personal voting “is not an ultimatum of the opposition, this is a demand of the Ukrainian Constitution and Ukrainian people.”
Yatseniuk said that if the fingerprint voting system truly does not work or is not suitable for the ruling pro-presidential Party of Regions, the opposition is ready to move to old-style voting, casting ballots with a show of hands.
[ Kyiv Post editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at gorchinskaya@kyivpost.com ]
[ Deputies of Ukrainian opposition block the parliament's platform during their openning session in Kiev on February 5, 2013. The opposition deputies were trying to reclaim respect for the individual's right to vote, after having accused pro-government deputies of giving away their votes in their absence. AFP PHOTO/ SERGEI SUPINSK © AFP ]
=====
Rada TV channel fails to see fun in session hall
Feb. 5, 2013 … by Katya Gorchinskaya, Kyiv Post
As Ukraine's parliament buzzed with excitement because of the stalemate between the majority and the opposition on Feb. 5, there was one TV channel that was uninterested in the colorful images from the session hall: parliament's very own.
Rada TV channel, which was created in 1998 and is subsidized by the taxpayers, failed to see the attraction of deputies blocking the podium, opposition wearing uniform red sweatshirts in support of personal voting by elected deputies, and huge slogans and images of guillotine and bloody chopped-off hand plastered around the perimeter.
The channel, which by 10 a.m. was ready for a live broadcast the first session after the winter break, instead chose to run ads for its own shows and meaningless graphic images, to the disgruntlement of at least some of the viewers, who complained in social networks.
“There is nothing happening in the Verkhovna Rada, according to the version of the main political channel, as they call it. The taxpayers are supporting these falsifiers,” Vlad Sodel, a photographer for Kommersant daily wrote on his Facebook page.
Vasyl Klymchuk, the general director of the Rada channel, told the Kyiv Post there is nothing extraordinary about the Rada channel being blank in the midst of a major stand-off between the majority and the opposition. “We do not switch on the broadcast according to the rules of procedure, until the speaker or deputy shows up in the hall,” he said.
The channel's coverage of the day's events started with the briefing of the speaker, who lashed out at the opposition for blocking the work of parliament.
Rada TV is financed from the state budget. Its financing is hidden under the article that sets aside money for for parliament's functioning, says Andriy Pyshny, a deputy from Batkivshchyna. The total Rada budget for this year is just under Hr 850 million.
Olena Bondarenko, a deputy with pro-presidential Party of Regions and deputy head of the freedom of speech committee in parliament, says last year's budget for Rada TV was Hr 7 million.
Parliament also has its own newspaper and magazine, which is getting a budget subsidy of just under Hr 29 million in 2013. The Cabinet's newspaper gets another Hr 5 million, according to the state budget.
Bondarenko said it was “traditional” for the Rada channel to not show parliamentary fights and the blocking of the podium. “I am not sure that this mess should be shown anyway,” she said. She also added that if the deputies wanted to establish new rules for the broadcasting, it was up to them. The opposition is in a good position to make changes through the media and freedom of speech committee, where seven out of 10 members are their representatives.
Rada TV is not the only channel that fails to serve the public interest, a recent media study showed. On Feb. 5 Telekritika watchdog published the results of its December media monitoring, which showed that the state-run Channel 1 consistently fails to observe most journalistic standards.
[ Kyiv Post editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at gorchinskaya@kyivpost.com. Kyiv Post staff writer Denis Rafalsky contributed to this story. ]
[ A deputy of the Ukrainian opposition receives help as he puts up a sign depicting cut-off hand and reading "No button pushers!”during the opening session of Parliament in Kiev on February 5, 2013. Opposition blocked the parliamentary tribune requiring pro-governments parties to put an end to the practice of deputies voting for their absent colleagues in violation of the Constitution. AFP PHOTO/ SERGEI SUPINSKY © AFP ]
=====
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)