Cant find a direct email address on your site to post to so I'm using this.
For fans of Greenjolly's Rasom Nas Bahato, I think you will find this link interesting Dan:
http://www.greenjolly.co.uk

Dan,

Is there something different about these pictures? They seem to require a login to squarespace, which the others do not.

Thanks & keep the info flowing!

Larry

Thanks for the heads-up, Larry. I did indeed forget to make the pictures public. I have fixed the problem now. Hope y'all enjoy them.

Yes, Christ is indeed risen! I'm going to Ukraine in August, to do some church work, from Texas. I'm interested in knowing more about Yushchenko's govt and how it is doing in making positive changes for Ukraine. Could you point me into the right direction for finding sources on the matter? Could you give me some insight? Thanks much!
Dan.

Hi Danny! I hope I'm getting back to you soon enough.

Good to hear that you are coming to Ukraine. My first suggestion to you would be to sign up for the Action Ukraine Report (follow the link at the top of my News and Media links section) That will provide you with almost daily collections of news on Ukraine on tons of topics. All for free. It's fabulous.

Other good sources are the Eurasia Daily Monitor, the Kyiv Post (which you would need to buy an online subscription to, unless you just intend to pick up one of the free copies around Kyiv), and Zerkalo Nedeli's handful of English-translated articles each week. All of those are also in my links section.

The insight I've gotten recently is that the Yushchenko government is moving as slow as molasses on actual reforms. Just by virtue of the fact that they are a government that is interested in people's opinions and is hoping to appeal to them in a democratic election means that the character of Ukraine has changed significantly for the better.

But aside from this major, but passive, structural change, reforms themselves are coming out slowly. The government made big social spending increases, but some very important privatization details have been up in the air for months. A lot of helpful economic reforms that have been promised are just not coming out. Tax reform is lagging.

In terms of addressing corruption, I think the government has made a good start, but again that is a structural thing. They are actually trying to stop corruption and are not interested in benefiting from corruption themselves, and that positive commitment affects the whole system all the way down to street level. But aside from the character shift, again, I haven't seen a lot of actual new policy.

Hope that's helpful.