Censorship Makes Comeback As Stalin Monument Opens

Reform #5: Comrade Obama $talin will take care of press freedom.

After decades of damnation, the Steel Man who had murdered millions of innocent people won himself a magic resurrection.







His resurrection sent two of his elderly fans to the hospital and one to the graveyard. “She died a decent death, in front of Stalin,” as one fan put it at the opening ceremony in Zaporizhia.

On a hot sunny day, hundreds of Stalinists, anti-Stalinists and police attended the ceremony on the premises of the local Communist Party chapter.

Because the monument sits on private property, those who oppose it should stay away from it, MP Oleksiy Baburin (CPU-Zaporizhia) argues.



One fan donated Hr. 50K ($6K) to the Hr. 80K ($10K) monument cause. Petro “$13K Watch” Symonenko? No. Commie-friendly oligarch Grigorishin? Wrong again.

Meet Ivan Shekhovtsev, a WW II vet from Kharkiv dubbed the “lead investor” for his contribution. (IMHO, the term “lead investor” would raise a lot of questions from Stalin.)

One sign reads: “Arise, Stalin! Put some order!” It’s a deal! Let’s have some order. Let’s start with the commies in this oligarcommunist govt. Lead #1: Customs chief Ihor Kaletnyk. Let the NKVD ask him a few a questions, OK?

In the meantime, some Ukrainian reporters claim to have already experienced strokes of censorship. A report that criticized the government went down the drain, say the news people at Channel 1+1 in a public statement released Thursday.

After a closed-door beer summit with the reporters, Deputy Chief of Staff Hanna Herman said she found to signs of censorship.

And guess what? On Friday, eight STB reporters went public with censorship claims of their own.

The oligarchs run both channels.

Channel 1+1: owned by Ihor Kolomoisky, Ukraine’s third-richest man, of Israeli citizenship, who lives in Switzerland.

STB: owned by Viktor Pinchuk, Ukraine’s second-richest man, Kuchma’s son-in-law, a ‘Thinker’ according to Time magazine.

So how long before reporter killings become the norm again?

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/158112.html
Original source: http://tvi.ua

Forbes Lists 5 Billionaires from Ukraine, Up from 4 in ‘09

As Ukraine is getting poorer (economy: -15%, hryvnia: -60%), the oligarchs are getting richer.

In 2010, The World’s Billionaires features five slots from Ukraine:

148. Rinat Akhmetov: $5.2
307. Viktor Pinchuk: $3.1B
488. Ihor Kolomoysky: $2.0B
582. Hennadiy Boholyubov: $1.7B
828. Kostyantyn Zhevago: $1.2B

MP Akhmetov regains his leading position, lost to Pinchuk last year. MP Zhevago (a businessman, not an oligarch, as Tymoshenko would argue) reenters the ranking.

Sources:
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_The-Worlds-Billionaires_CountryOfCitizen_23.html

Akhmetov, Net Worth $31.1B, Named Richest Man in Ukraine, CIS, EU

According to Korrespondent magazine, Ukraine’s Top 50 richest people have doubled their assets over the last year.

Not only has Rinat Akhmetov become the richest man in the CIS, but he has also won the title of the richest man in Europe, outclassing Ingvar Kamprad of IKEA.

Korrespondent gives the following ranking:

#1 Rinat Akhmetov, PRU, $31.1B.
#2 Viktor Pinchuk, $8.8B, sponsor of Paul McCartney’s upcoming June 14 concert
#3 Ihor Kolomoisky, often linked to NUNS, $6.6B
#4 Hennadiy Boholyubov, Kolomoisky’s partner, $6.2B
#5 Kostyantyn Zhevago, BYuT, $2.2B

Members of the Party Regions control $35.42B worth of assets, while the Top 50 sit on some $112.7B, which equals two annual Ukrainian budgets.

Ukraine's GDP per capita runs below $10,000.

By comparison, in 2007 the net worth of America’s 400 wealthiest people amounted to $1.54T, or 55% of the country’s $2.8T budget for the year.

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/6/12/77446.htm
http://korrespondent.net/business/490831

Davos Is Not Donbas, or Viktor Ya’s Dirty Little Secret

Guess who's leading the Ukrainian delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos. You got it. It's Viktor Yanukovych, the incredible “Proffessor [sic] of Economics!” That’s what his handwritten presidential candidate application told us in 2004. Wait a minute, didn’t it also state a certain degree of proficiency in English? Sure it did. Should we therefore assume his American spin doctors put that precious information on his badge? Well, they most certainly chose not to, for fear it would make Borat pale by comparison.

To look sexy at this annual carnival that brings together business and political elites from all over the globe, Proffessor (with a double "F") masquerades himself as the head of the freshly-minted investment council. Hey, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and the rest of you guys out there, you better pay attention. Our man Yanukovych here means business. As a student of Kuchma, he has a way with numbers you can’t imagine. Lakshmi Mittal, a colleague of yours, paid $4.8 bn for a steel mill that our man knew just how to sell for a mere $800 mn. You get the idea.

Viktor Pinchuk of Interpipe, a renowned Westernizer, philanthropist, Kuchma’s son-in-law and, by the way, former co-owner of that steel mill, will hold a lunch-conference titled "Where Is Ukraine Heading?” Among those who plan to attend are Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, former Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, financier George Soros, chairman of Russia's Vneshtorgbank Andrey Kostin, and Ukrainian American astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper.

So where is Ukraine heading? Yanukovych will probably trot out the same old lines about Ukraine destined to be a bridge — the bridge — between Europe and Russia, the latter, of course, being the neighbor everybody would love to have. (Lukashenka would beg to differ on that one.) And if Freud dropped by, he’d point out that the title of the conference clearly addresses the West’s repressed concern that, with Proffessor at the helm, Ukraine is going straight to hell.

OK, let's not overanalyze our humble leaders.The Ukrainian delegation includes Economy Minister Volodymyr Makukha, commodity kings Rinat Akhmetov of SCM, Serhiy Taruta of ISD, and Ihor Kolomoisky of Pryvat. The “old man” (Yushchenko), a no show at Davos, is represented by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, deputy chief of the Secretariat.

Of course, Yanukovych will go to great lengths eroticizing that 7 percent GDP growth rate for 2006. In fact, he’ll tell you any shit you want to hear. But there’s something he will avoid any discussion of. And here’s what it is: As of today, Ukraine remains one of the poorest countries on the continent, period. Ukraine ranks a dismal 125th out of the 161 countries surveyed in the 2006 Index of Economic Freedom.

With most of the profits from our retarded industry being sucked out to offshore banks, a sizable stream of investments comes from EU migrant workers who send remittances to their families back in Ukraine.

Whether you like it or not, sex tourism could become Ukraine’s next killer app. After all, it’s slightly more humane than the sex slave trade and could provide an additional source of income for local law enforcement.

That about wraps up our economic learnings of Davos for make benefit glorious region of Donbas. Proffessors of all banana republics, go hunting!

Quorum Quake Averted
Yu Takes a Stand for Minority Stockholders

Equipped with an all-seeing eye, Bankova has embarked on a countrywide minesweeping mission.

Recently, President Yushchenko has vetoed a freshly-minted corporate governance bill that lowered the stockholder quorum requirement from 60 to 50 percent plus 1 share. Few independent analysts would disagree that the vetoed bill cut corners on the rights of minority stockholders, leaving them powerless in the corporate decision making process.

Undoubtedly, such an extreme regulatory zigzag would have hurt Ukraine’s investment outlook. Therefore, for his rescuer role, Yu deserves a thank-you note from the investment community.

Where did this abortive initiative originate? Analysts point to the corporate warlords of the anticrisis coalition. These they believe may be a little too anxious to reslice the equity pie in their favor.

At the very least, the intervention Yushchenko undertook has made him the personal hero of Pryvat’s Ihor Kolomoisky, one of the richest men in Ukraine, who allegedly holds a minority stake in the UkrNafta oil company, with the controlling stake being held by the government. The quorum quake engineered by the anticrisis coalition could have resulted in the ouster of Pryvat-friendly UkrNafta CEO Ihor Palytsya.

In light of the Cabinet’s crackdown on grain exports, the calculated risk taken by the anticrisis crowd has significantly added to the outrage already present in the investment community.

Up close and personal, the Yanukovych gov't has become a synonym for the comeback of unbridled vested interests to Ukrainian institutions, unmatched by the lyubi druzi experience.

One doesn’t have to go too far to reach that conclusion. Take the barebones 2007 budget proposal. That’s the gist of Yanukovych's BLT formula. (“Better Living Today”)

Lower taxes in 2007, maybe? Uh, forget about it too. Regionomics rules!
Ukrainian courts, overloaded as they are with takeover litigation, merit a separate discussion.

The Battle of Kyivstar has reinforced their reputation as warring fiefdoms that sell their services to the highest bidder. As long as Ukrainians of all walks of life continue shelling out on justice while keeping their lips sealed, justice will bear a very close resemblance to the oldest profession.

For Yu, it’s the anticrisis adventure that brought home the truth: Being a silent observer doesn’t pay.