Category: Eastern Europe

Seven Ukrainian sailors imprisoned in Turkey go on hunger strike

Seven Ukrainian sailors imprisoned in Turkey go on hunger strike

Yesterday at 10:31 | Interfax-Ukraine

Seven Ukrainian sailors from the Nemo, an Estonian cargo ship that has been under arrest in the Sea of Marmara (Turkey) for a year, are in a Turkish prison in the town of Derince and went on a hunger strike on Jan. 4.

Valeriy Babakov, a relative of the captain of the Nemo cargo ship, Oleksandr Tymoshenko, told an Interfax-Ukraine reporter that “the crewmembers of the Nemo cargo ship – seven Ukrainians – are asking for assistance from the state, because they are in a Turkish prison, and they went on a hunger strike from Jan. 4.”

He also noted that “the Estonian cargo ship Nemo, with seven Ukrainians on board, which was flying the flag of Antigua and Barbuda, has been in the Sea of Marmara (Turkey) for a year, because the ship was arrested by local authorities on Jan. 11, 2011 due to the debt of the ship’s bankrupt owner. The dry cargo ship was transferred to Swedbank Estonia due to the debtor’s loans, but the crew then refused to leave the Nemo without getting salaries.”

Babakov said that he was in constant phone and Skype contact with the captain of the cargo ship, Oleksandr Tymoshenko, and that he tried to attract the attention of the media to this problem, and “earlier, through a trade union of seafarers, the captain individually tried to solve the problem with the payment of salaries to the crew.”

Then, in August 2011, Ukraine learned through a number of Ukrainian media outlets that the sailors of the Nemo cargo ship needed assistance [a press conference was held on Skype with the ship’s captain], “however, attempts by the Ukrainian consulate to help the Ukrainian sailors return home failed.”

Babakov also told he was continuing to try to help his relative, Tymoshenko, and his crew, by sending an appeal to Director of the Consular Service Department of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Andriy Olefirov.

The appeal notes that “according to the captain, the ship ran out of fuel and food long ago. On Dec. 28, 2011, consuls, after repeated requests from the crew, still took the sailors from the ship and placed them in a Turkish police department, waiting for the permission to leave the country.”

“Despite the fact that permission from Ankara was received on Jan. 2, I understood from the words of the captain that the chief of the port, in which the ship is now located, prevents the Ukrainian crew from leaving home. The vice-consul cannot convince the port authorities (they are writing letters to the port to which no one responds). On Jan. 4, 2012, the crew (the guys lost 15-20 kg in weight over this year) went on a hunger strike,” Babakov said in the appeal.

Babakov asked the leadership of the Consular Service Department of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry to provide assistance to the Ukrainian sailors.

He also said that the Ukrainian crewmembers of the cargo ship had finally lost hope to get their salaries, “because there was a long-awaited auction on the sale of the ship, at which the money was to be used to repay debts to creditors and salaries to the crew. However, nobody decided to buy the vessel.”

via Kyiv Post. Independence. Community. Trust – Ukraine – Seven Ukrainian sailors imprisoned in Turkey go on hunger strike.

January 6, 2012
Turkey Approves Russian Gas Plan

By JACOB GRONHOLT-PEDERSEN

MOSCOW—Russia secured approval from Turkey on Wednesday to build the South Stream gas pipeline across the Black Sea, removing the last major obstacle to proceed with a project that could increase Europe’s dependence on Russian natural-gas supplies.

The move heats up the battle between Russia and the European Union over competing pipelines, especially the European Union-backed Nabucco project, and increases pressure on Ukraine to give Moscow control of its pipeline system.

[SOUTHSTREAM]

Turkey’s approval, given by Energy Minister Taner Tildiz during talks with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, had been a stumbling point for Russia to proceed with the offshore part of the South Stream project.

Russian state gas giant OAO Gazprom ships most of its gas exports to Europe via Ukraine, but supply disruptions in recent years due to pricing disagreements between the two countries have led Russia to seek to bypass Ukraine and promote new pipelines such as South Stream.

Analysts say progress on South Stream increases pressure on Ukraine. Kiev is pushing for cheaper gas in order to balance its budget.

But in exchange for cheaper gas, Moscow is aiming to gain control of Ukraine’s pipeline system.

South Stream is envisioned to carry as much as 63 billion cubic meters of Russian gas under the Black Sea to Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary before branching out to Western Europe.

Gazprom, the main shareholder in the project and a major supplier of gas to Europe, said Turkey’s approval means South Stream will start operating according to plan by the end of 2015. ENI SpA of Italy, BASF SE of Germany and Électricité de France SA are minority partners in the project.

“This is a very good and positive signal for all of us, which undoubtedly will provide stability in energy supplies to the European market,” said Mr. Putin.

A European Commission spokesman played down the impact of the South Stream agreement, which he said “would not affect the existing framework and commitments.”

European officials say that, unlike Nabucco, South Stream hasn’t reached the project stage yet.

Nabucco is the most ambitious and expensive of four competing proposals to take gas from Azerbaijan, and possibly eventually from other countries, into the European Union. But Nabucco’s estimated cost is a potential deterrent for developers of the giant gas field, which lies under the Caspian Sea. A decision on the winning project is expected to be announced in the first half of 2012.

Gazprom has insisted South Stream will be built regardless of talks with Ukraine, but Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller said earlier this week that realization of South Stream depends on the continuing talks with Kiev.

“This all looks like negotiating tactics, as Russia prepares for a new round of talks with Ukraine,” said Johannes Benigni, managing director at Vienna-based research consultant JBC Energy. “I don’t think they need to build South Stream at all.”

Last month, another transit country, Belarus, sold its gas-pipeline operator Beltransgaz to Gazprom in exchange for a major discount on gas supplies. Ukraine is likely to face a similar situation, Mr. Benigni said, adding that with a $15.5 billion price tag on South Stream it would make more sense for Gazprom to invest its money in Ukraine.

The news on Russian progress on South Stream also comes as the Nabucco project, which seeks to carry gas from Azerbaijan and other Central Asian countries to Europe, has faced hurdles. The EU has promoted Nabucco to reduce the bloc’s dependence on Russia but suffered a setback as Azerbaijan recently said it plans to build its own pipeline through Turkey that would run parallel to Nabucco’s planned route.

South Stream has failed to gain backing in Brussels and has still to get exemptions from new EU rules known as the Third Energy Package. The legislation is pushing for more competition in Europe’s energy market and has sparked tensions with Russia as Moscow believes they undermine its own investments in the 27-nation EU, including South Stream.

—Laurence Norman and Alessandro Torello

via Turkey Approves Russian Gas Plan – WSJ.com.

December 31, 2011
Ukraine, Turkey sign agreement on visa-free regime

23-12-2011 15:09 Ukraine, Turkey sign agreement on visa-free regime

Ukraine and Turkey signed an agreement on the visa-free regime of citizens’ trips. The signature of the document took place in Ankara in the presence of President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and Prime Minister of the Turkish Republic Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“The agreement should introduce a visa-free regime for entrance, leaving, transit and stay of citizens of one party on the territory of other party state, based on valid travel documents, pointed out in the addendum to the present agreement, under condition that the term of their continuous stay does not exceed 30 days since the entrance date. At the same time, total term of their stay on the territory of other party should not exceed 90 days over each period of 180 days,” the statement of the Presidential press service informs. Yanukovych and Erdogan also signed a Joint Statement by results of holding the first meeting of the high level Strategic Council between Ukraine and Turkey. The document proves the countries’ striving to build relations of strategic partnership. A special attention was paid to strengthening of such priority trends of cooperation as power engineering, transport and modernization of the infrastructure. In addition, agreements were signed between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the government of the Turkish Republic on air communication, on cooperation in the sphere of quarantine and plant protection, on cooperation in the sphere of fishery, economic and financial cooperation, as well as an Action Plan for development of bilateral relations between the countries for 2012-2013, as well as the Program of Cooperation in the sphere of culture for 2012-2014.

via Ukraine, Turkey sign agreement on visa-free regime / News / NRCU.

December 24, 2011
Turkey’s Akkuyu 1st nuclear unit seen complete 2019

ANKARA Dec 16 (Reuters) – Construction of the first unit of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant is expected to be completed in mid-2019, and the global financial crisis will not hit costs of the project, the Russian contractor company said on Friday.

Last year Turkey awarded Russia’s Atomstroyexport a contract to build its first nuclear power plant at Akkuyu on the country’s Mediterranean coast.

“We are planning to finish construction of the first unit in mid-2019. Pre-construction work will start in the second half of 2012, and will take two years,” Akkuyu NGS Power Production general manager Alexander Superfin told a press conference in Turkey’s capital Ankara.

Atomstroyexport set up Akkuyu NGS Power Production in 2010 to build and operate the 4,800 megawatt nuclear power plant. The total investment is seen around $20 billion.

The agreement includes a tariff package that guarantees Turkey’s state electricity corporation will pay $12.35/KWh for 70 percent of the power produced by two of the plant’s four 1,200 MW units, and the same price for 30 percent of the power produced by two other units for 15 years after commissioning.

Turkey plans to construct three nuclear power plants of up to 5,000 MW each.

South Korea’s Kepco pulled out of negotiations for a second plant at Sinop after Turkey refused sovereign guarantees for the plant’s output. Japan’s Tepco pulled out of the planned project in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. (Reporting by Mustafa Seven; writing by Ece Toksabay; editing by Keiron Henderson)

via Turkey’s Akkuyu 1st nuclear unit seen complete 2019 | Energy & Oil | Reuters.

December 19, 2011
Turkey To Help Ukraine In Liberating Ukrainians Detained In Libya

Turkey will help Ukraine in liberating Ukrainian citizens detained in Libya, reads a statement made by the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Ahmet Davutoglu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, has announced this at a meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Kostiantyn Hryschenko.

Davutoglu also remarks, Turkish diplomatic institutions in regions of Turkey’s established political-diplomatic influence will be consistently assisting the Ukrainian foreign-policy agency in defending Ukrainians’ legitimate interests.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, 22 Ukrainian citizens are still under arrest to the room in Tripoli, Libya.

The new Libyan authorities suspect them of collaboration with Muammar Gaddafi, former Libyan leader deposed in the 2011 civil war.

via Ukranian News – Turkey To Help Ukraine In Liberating Ukrainians Detained In Libya.

December 7, 2011
Anna Politkovskaïa ….. A Bitter Taste of Freedom

By Farah Souames*

Algiers, November 21, 2011

Morocco World News

The Russian investigation committee recently accused and arrested a suspected killer of the opposition journalist Anna Politkovskaïa, who was gunned down in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on October 2006. But investigators have remained silent about who might have ordered the killing of Politkovskaïa, a sharp critic of the Kremlin and its appointed strongman in Chechnya. The alleged assassin was previously considered a potential witness, according to Vladimir Markine, spokesman for the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office. Markine announced: “The Russian investigation committee accused Lom-Ali Gaïtoukaïev for the murder of Politkovskaïa, for reasons relative to her professional activities.” Mr. Gaïtoukaïev has previously declared that an amount of $2 million had been paid for the murder.

Mr. Markine said another suspected killer has been accused, Ibraguim Makhmoudov, Gaïtoukaïev’s nephew. On September 2011, the investigation showed information proving that Lom-Ali Gaïtoukaïev organized the murder by forming a group which included former police officer Dmitri Pavlioutchenkov, former policeman Sergueï Khadjikourbanov and Makhmoudov.

A court found the Makhmoudov brothers and Sergueï Khadjikourbanov not guilty in 2009, but the Russian Supreme Court overruled the acquittal and sent the case back to prosecutors.

During her fearless reporting career, Politkovskaïa, 48, reserved her most vicious criticisms for Ramzan Kadyrov – Chechnya’s Kremlin-appointed president. Kadyrov has denied involvement in her death. Over the last three years, however, several other enemies of Kadyrov have met brutal deaths, most recently the human rights activist Natalia Estemirova, who in July was abducted from her home in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, and shot.

A Bitter Taste of Freedom ………

Los Angeles-based, Marina Goldovskaïa’s latest film, A Bitter Taste of Freedom, is a soulful homage to her best friend Anna Politkovskaïa. She tells Politkovskaïa’s life in detail from childhood to the moment it was tragically claimed by a murderer. The murder itself and the investigation, which is still underway, have not been included in the film.

More revealing than previous films about Politkovskaïa, recipient of an Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism, A Bitter Taste of Freedom blends bits of contextual archives and photos from the field with diacritic footage the filmmaker shot in Anna’s home during their many years of heart-to-heart conversations, beginning in 1990. Goldovskaïa became close to Politkovskaïa while making A Taste of Freedom about Anna’s husband Sasha Politkovsky, a prominent TV journalist known for his frank commentaries on contemporary politics. (She tracked him for six dramatic weeks during the height of popular demonstrations in the Soviet Union, when the final vestiges of totalitarianism gave way to the epoch-shifting imperatives of glasnost and perestroika.)

Colleagues, family members, former editors and even Mikhail Gorbachev appear onscreen to eulogize the fallen writer and activist, but the film’s best moments are with Anna herself, a charismatic presence admirably devoted to both her personal causes and the well-being of her two children, despite the constant threats on her life.

Marina Goldovskaïa has made 35 films and has earned numerous awards, including the PrixEuropa, Golden Gate Award, Golden Hugo, Joris Ivens and Silver Rembrandt. In 2006, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award for the Art of Documenting History from the Russian Association of non-Fiction Film and TV. She heads the Documentary program at UCLA Film School.

A Bitter Taste of Freedom, a joint project between Russia and Sweden, premiered in New York on August 20 and enjoyed huge success with the audience. It may compete at the 84th Academy Awards if the International Documentary Association approves the biopic for the program.

Goldovskaïa’s film shared the award for Best Documentary with Slovak-Czech film, Nickyho Rodina, at the Montreal World Film Festival in August. It will be appearing in the Oscar lead up program Docuweeks in New York and LA.

A total of seven Russian films were included in the program of Montreal’s film festival this year, including Once There Lived a Woman, a drama made by Andrey Smirnov, and Africa: Blood & Beauty by Sergey Yastrzhembsky, a former press secretary of President Boris Yeltsin.

Media freedom in Russia ………….

Anna Politkovskaïa’s assasination in 2006 remains of the strongest examples of the risks faced by journalists in Russia. Media freedom is an imaginary front that exists only when government interests are not the subject. Curious journalists censor themselves because of the risks of going beyond red lines.

Since 2000 during the Putin-Medvedev era, nearly 122 journalists have been found dead under varying circumstances such as car accidents or homicides Perpetrators of such crimes are rarely punished by a tolerant legal system.

In the beginning of 2000, Putin authorized a technical system of wire trapping for enabling the police to control internet use and require that internet providers cooperate with government surveillance.

* Farah Souames is Morocco World News’ correspondent in Algeria

Photo by: N. Kolesnikova / AFP

www.moroccoworldnews.com, November 21, 2011

November 21, 2011