Out of Action
Orange Ukraine gone (mostly) static
Hello to everyone who's still with us out there reading Orange Ukraine, at those, increasingly rare, times that I have been updating the site. It is with quite a bit of sadness that I announce to you that Orange Ukraine will be going static for the foreseeable future.
The gist of the matter is that since Lesya and I have returned to the US to work on the immigration process and will be here through 2009, I won't be able to give you the on-the-spot items I'd been able to up until May. In addition, I have needed to emphasize my editing work, to the detriment of my ability to pass along pertinent information about Ukraine (If you are curious, my site for editing and fiction writing is here).
What you are likely to see in the next few months, though, is more maintenance and expansion of the brand new Philanthropic Ideas page, and also the Book Recommendations page. What I will not be doing much of is the core blogging.
My apologies to all you loyal readers that I won't be able to provide you with the same updates and roundups, editorials and pointers to other news, as I have in the past. I warmly encourage you to look to some of the other great Ukraine bloggers I've linked to: Foreign Notes, Ukrainiana, Neeka's Backlog...
All the best,
Dan
Dan McMinn
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Reader Comments (7)
Good luck to you in your endeavors.
But then again, you are right, and there's nothing to report anyway, except petty squabling and a government pie fight among oligarchs - nothing is happening in Ukraine.
The Rada (Parliament) is at a standstill, because one faction or another is blocking it.
Tymoshenko does something - Yushchenko issues decrees canceling the action.
It's simply gridlock, and unless people in government come to their senses, unless Yushchenko, among others, come to their senses, Ukraine will not last.
Maybe Yanukovych's son, who touts his billiards expertise and is a member of Parliament in the Party of Regions, will solve everything.
Good luck to you.
Now it's time for IIU to get her own blog or join Levko at Foreign Notes like Scott Clark had hoped.
dlw
You will always be remembered as one of the founding fathers of Ukraine's English-language blogosphere.
Drop by when you can and good luck!
The Sich
http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-264080.html
When businesses enter into contracts with the US government, the US government demands - and gets - all sorts of information about the entities with whom it is going to do business.
Ambassador Taylor would not be making his comments if this were taking place in the US. The problem in Ukraine is that Yushchenko is looking to Akhmetov to prop him up as a money-man for his next presidential bid. Yanukovych is an old sovok hand, along with Akhmetov, and they are used to sovok-style corruption - they've already robbed country blind.
In Ukraine, there is law - but no legality. This deal, and all the sovok-style attempts by Yushchenko to white-wash this deal, at the expense of the people of his country, just to further enrich Akhmetov and unknown other rats who barged their way in after the deal was made, stinks to high heaven.