Yanukovych Goes Dirty Dancing at His 60th Anniversary Party

Still got that spark, huh?



Music: Philipp Kirkorov, People’s Artist of Ukraine (Yushchenko’s 2008 choice).

Dance partners spotted:

Yanukovych+Lyudmyla Kuchma (Kuchma’s wife)
Yanukovych+Akimova
Bohatyryova+Kuchma
Bohatyryova+Klyuev
Kuchma+Olena Franchuk (Kuchma’s daughter)
Franchuk+Klyuev
Akhmetov+Pinchuk (free hugs oligarchfest)
Zvyahilsky (Hava Nagila, solo)

Anybody seen First Lady Lyudmyla Yanukovych?



And where the hell is Lady HaHa?



Video embedded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/164838.html Original source: http://lifenews.ru
Images:
http://img.tabloid.pravda.com.ua/images/doc/0/4/04cda-dr5.jpg
http://durdom.in.ua/uk/main/photo/photo_id/17252/person_id/2.phtml

Tymoshenko, the Mother of All Miners

First, she gets chummy with Zvyahilsky. Then, she sides with the miners.



She talks about them working in extremely unsafe conditions and being low paid. She sponsors bills that look good on paper.

The trouble is, little has changed. Sure, the Party of Regions wants to exploit that.

So, to keep the angry miners from marching on Kyiv, Tymoshenko makes a nice movie.

In other words, she works hard for the money, and the sun always shines on TV.

A-Ha - The Sun Always Shines On TV
Uploaded by zocomoro

Video embedded from:http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/117100.html
Original source: http://5.ua

Zvyahilsky Statement Wishful Thinking!

November 21, the day of the rigged 2004 presidential election, marks the third anniversary of the Orange Revolution, officially celebrated on Nov. 22. Still, with miners dying by the dozen and with the smell of shyrka in the air, few fell like celebrating. Ukraine’s circle of life hasn’t changed much.

Donbas, which overwhelmingly supported Yanukovych, made no peace with the Orange Revolution. Now that the Yanukovych’s Party of Regions has been in power for a while and will probably remain so, will Donbasians make peace with coal mines that send them to death?

Ukrayinska Pravda quotes a Delo report in which Yukhym Zvyahilsky, the man who controls the Zasyadka Mine, denies expressing willingness to close the mine. In fact, Zvyahilsky issued a full denial at a funeral ceremony yesterday.

Delo traces the previous statement to Anatoliy Akimochkin, leader of an independent labor union, who, in his own words, overheard it during Zvyahilsky’s conversation with head of the Secretariat Baloha and national security chief Plyushch.

The Zasyadka Mine produces 4 million tons of coal annually, but has a casualty rate 7 times above the industry average.

The poster caption reads:
“Life’s gotten better, comrades. Life’s gotten more fun. And when life is fun, work gets done.”

— Joseph Stalin

Stakhanovtsy, expand the ranks of the Stakhanov movement!
(Note: From 1924 to 1961, Donetsk bore the name of Stalino.)


Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/11/21/67123.htm http://delo.ua/news/economic/theme/info-60173.html
Image uploaded from: http://sovmusic.ru/p_view.php?id=415

Zvyahilsky Offers to Close Mine

Just listen to this open-minded guy:

I can’t provide any explanation for the accident that happened. If so many people die, and nobody knows the cause, maybe we really should close this mine.

Proactive, isn’t he?

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/11/20/67065.htm

More on Yukhym Zvyahilsky

Want to know more about the man who controls the Zasyadka Mine and who called in sick yesterday? Here’s a quote from "The Theft of the Truth," a 2001 article by Julian Evans published in New Statesman:

Zvyahilsky is an old political colleague of President Kuchma's, having briefly been prime minister in the mid-Nineties. When his political career ran off the road after he was said to have diverted somewhere between $40m and $250m of state funds into his own pocket, he avoided the hue and cry by emigrating to Israel for two years. The case against him was dropped for "lack of evidence", and he returned to Ukraine, where he became the mine chairman.

Some of the miners I spoke to said Zvyahilsky had agreed to pay back some of the allegedly stolen money, and that Kuchma forgave him. Other versions say that it was Kuchma himself who told him to leave the country for a few years, to allow things to settle down. It is said that he has acquired 60,000 hectares of prime Ukrainian farmland since his return. An informant who works in the agricultural sector has proof that Zvyahilsky owes 400,000 hryvna (£51,000) for seeds purchased for use on his farm.

There is no doubt that Zvyahilsky is a powerful man. At the offices of a Donetsk newspaper, I spoke to a journalist, who preferred not to be named. "Put it this way," he said, "in this region there are two clans. Mr Zvyahilsky is the head of one of them." He, too, was nervous of saying more. Would his newspaper publish anything negative about Zvyahilsky if it had proof? "No."

Zvyahilsky is indeed a powerful man. You can see his power here, here, and here. So how many more people have to die before we stop stabilnist?

Sources:

http://www.newstatesman.com/200111050020
http://photo.unian.net/eng/keywords/5113
http://wap.president.gov.ua/en/news/data/1_8627.html
http://blog.kievukraine.info/2005/07/yushchenko-visits-hostile-donetsk.html

Methane Blast Kills 100 in Donetsk Mine (Updated)

A massive explosion at the Zasyadka Mine — some 1,078 m (3,537 ft) underground — at 3:11 a.m. Kyiv time on Sunday took the lives of 100 miners in what has already become Ukraine's deadliest mine accident.

As of 3:09 p.m. Tuesday, the bodies of 10 more miners have yet to be recovered. 32 miners have been hospitalized; 53 bodies have been identified; 28 were buried today. Body recovery efforts are hampered by the fire that still rages on deep inside the mine shaft.

Tuesday will be a day of mourning in Ukraine. (Read the CNN report. View UNIAN photo reports here and here.)

According to experts, the casualty rate in the local mining industry puts Ukraine second only to China. Here's a quote from the CNN report:

Since the 1991 Soviet collapse, more than 4,700 miners in Ukraine have been killed. For every 1 million tons of coal brought to the surface in Ukraine, three miners lose their lives, according to official data.

The Zasyadka Mine is rented by Yukhym Zvyahilsky, a member of the Party of Regions.

Listed below is the death toll from major mine accidents in Ukraine during the last sixteen years:

Jun. 1991 Pivdenno-Donbaska Mine, Vugledar, Donetsk Oblast: 31
Sept. 1994 Slovyanoserbsk, Luhansk Oblast: 30
Apr. 1998 Skochynsky Mine, Donetsk: 63
May 1999 Zasyadka Mine, Donetsk: 50
Mar. 2000 Barakova Mine, Luhansk: 80
Aug. 2001 Zasyadka, Donetsk: 55
Jul. 2002 Ukraine Mine, Ukrayinsk, Donetsk Oblast: 35
Jul. 2004 Krasny Lyman, Donetsk Oblast: 37
Sept. 2006 Zasyadka Mine, Donetsk: 13
Oct. 2007 Krasnodonvugillya Mine, Luhansk Oblast: 4



Sources:

http://unian.net/ukr/news/news-222612.html
http://unian.net/ukr/news/news-222523.html
http://unian.net/ukr/news/news-222495.html
http://unian.net/ukr/news/news-222322.html
http://unian.net/ukr/news/news-222296.html
http://photo.unian.net/ukr/themes/5485
http://photo.unian.net/ukr/themes/5510
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/11/18/67002.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/11/18/66999.htm
http://www.gpu.ua/index.php?&id=131178&eid=212
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/19/ukraine.mining.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/18/ukraine.mining.ap/index.html

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Photo courtesy of: AP