Word: kiev
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Gazprom, Russia's state-run gas company, says it is acting simply to bring Belarus' prices more closely in line with world market levels. It gave similar reasons exactly a year ago when it turned off gas supplies to Ukraine, ensuring Kiev's swift agreement to new, tougher terms. Another former Soviet republic, Georgia, confronted with steep increases to Gazprom prices, is urgently seeking alternative supplies. Both countries are at odds with the Kremlin over pro-Western policies. Belarus, by contrast, has been seen as Moscow's closest ally - so close, in fact, that in 1997, its President, Alexander Lukashenko...
...turn of events in Ukraine. But keen observers of government in the entire former Soviet Union argue it could also be seen as evidence of an unprecedented political maturity in the fledgling democracy. ?The Orange Revolution was all about fair elections rather than individuals,? reminds Viktor Nebozhenko, an authoritative Kiev-based political analyst. For the first time ever in the region, Ukraine has both a President and a Premier elected in fair elections, with the first opportunity to learn what separation of powers really means...
...tools of its foreign policy. The clearest sign came last winter, when the state-controlled gas behemoth Gazprom shut off supplies to Ukraine for several days, in what the Russians described as a price dispute but Ukraine and many others took to be a crude political move to punish Kiev for embracing Western institutions such as nato. More recently, Russian government officials have talked tough with West European leaders, raising the prospect that they might divert energy supplies to China and the U.S. if the Europeans don't meet their demands for better access to Western markets, including ownership...
...Penguin Lost, Viktor returns home when the heat is off and gets involved in high-level Kiev politics. He learns that his penguin has ended up in Chechnya, and heads to the volatile region to save his feathered friend. There, he ends up slaving for a Chechen boss in a makeshift crematorium that is the region's only neutral zone because it accommodates the dead from both sides of the conflict. Although he eventually returns home with Misha, Viktor and the penguin soon have to flee from a Kiev mafia boss turned parliamentarian. Their escape route involves a yacht trip...
Under bleached winter skies, Kiev is saturated with color - blues, ice whites, reds and, of course, orange. Political parties have plastered every wall in their liveries; their supporters declare allegiance with vivid scarves, headbands and banners at rallies patrolled by riot police. It's as if Hollywood had decided to re-enact the orange revolution that less than 15 months ago installed the people's choice, Viktor Yushchenko, as Ukrainian President. In the Hollywood version Yushchenko would be an unimpeachable hero and his ousted rival, the former Russia-backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, an unalloyed villain. But parliamentary elections this...