 |
|
|
649 Arrested at Washington Protest
 WASHINGTON (AP) - Protesters opposed to war, capitalism and global trade policies clashed with police Friday as finance ministers from around the world began a weekend of meetings. More than 600 people were arrested, and one protester was slightly injured. Demonstrators and legal observers said police made no effort to disperse the crowd and refused to let people leave before beginning the arrests. | |
Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) establish "Big Brother" database
 September 26, 2002
The Privacy Commissioner of Canada www.privcom.gc.ca today sent the letter to the Honourable Elinor Caplan, Minister of National Revenue, about CCRA's plans to establish a massive "Big Brother" database on the foreign travel activities of all law-abiding Canadians.
The CCRA intends to do this by retaining for six years the Advance Passenger Information/Passenger Name Record (API/PNR) information on every air traveller entering Canada. |
|
|
Original Textbooks and Language to schoolchildren discretion
|
| By newspaper Day |
Claims by Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Viktor Chernomyrdin that schoolchildren in Ukraine do not have an opportunity to study in the Russian language of instruction “are untrue,” Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Vasyl KREMEN stated at a September 7 press conference in Kyiv. Over 25% pupils in Ukraine study in Russian, and everybody wanting to study Russian has every chance to do so. Quite the opposite, he stressed, “We cannot secure that in some regions separate subjects are taught in Ukrainian.” Commenting on Mr. Chernomyrdin’s opinion that Ukraine can have two state languages, Ukrainian and Russian, the minister spoke for preserving the current status of the Russian language.
Mr. Kremen also informed that the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine “did not, does not, and will not prepare any common textbooks” with any other country, since compiling textbooks in any subjects, especially in the humanities, is Ukraine’s internal affair. Simultaneously, according to ForUm, he noted that creating groups of historians from Ukraine and some other countries (in part, Russia and Poland) is a worthwhile initiative that could be extended to other countries.
When asked about his ministry’s attitude toward opposition protest actions planned for September, Mr. Kremen said, “We will not let this upset studies or organize actions in educational institutions.” The ministry will “firmly follow the law On Education,” he promised, stressing that outside the educational process “everybody can do whatever he/she likes”” including taking part in protest actions. |
|
 Ukraine offers some spectacular rewards
By BRYAN DEMCHINSKY, The Gazette www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette
Saturday, September 14, 2002
A bit of effort pays off in Ukraine
It might be described as not-ready-for-prime-time tourism, but Ukraine offers some spectacular rewards for those who make the effort to discover them.
Lviv - the lion city - is named for Prince Lev, the son of the founder, King Danylo Halytsky. The lion emblem appears frequently on public buildings. On a building just off the main square is a lion of Venice, a reminder that the Venetian city state was a major power and maintained an embassy here.
The city's cosmopolitan character is reflected in its many churches. Built and rebuilt over the centuries, they offer splendid examples of Renaissance, neo-classical and baroque styles. >>>
Ukraine in black and white
On the grounds of a 17th-century Orthodox Christian monastery are signs of religious revival and a past both sacred and profane.
The monastery we saw was all bright and new. In the chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, the Orthodox saints appeared freshly painted on the iconostasis, the wooden screen that in churches of the eastern rite separates the nave from the area where the worshippers stand.
It had been closed for more than 50 years. In 1939, the Soviet Union occupied western Ukraine, seizing it from Poland at the same time as Hitler's armies devoured the rest of the country. The communists shut the monastery and dispatched the monks, who were from a Greek Catholic order, to the gulags. They never returned. >>> | |
| NKVD records were moved to Moscow... |
| By newspaper Day and website RUH-PRESS. |
 The bodies of at least 130 people were discovered at a monastery in western Ukraine that was used by the Soviet secret police after World War II, investigators said Thursday. The remains — including those of 70 children, some less than one year old — were discovered by monks restoring a Greek Catholic monastery in Zhovkva, 570 kilometers (340 miles) west of the capital Kiev, said Mykhailo Pavlyshyn, a leader of a team of experts investigating the burial site.
Monks doing maintenance work found the remains, along with some postwar photographs, in three rooms at the monastery that had been sealed off with bricks. Investigators said the monastery was occupied by Nazi forces during World War II and later by the NKVD, the predecessor to the KGB. The building was also used as a medical school, Pavlyshyn said.
Many of bodies are riddled with bullets. Experts on Soviet-era repressions who have been to the site suspect the remains belonged to victims of the NKVD, which persecuted millions of Soviet citizens, but say it is too early to tell for sure. "Presently, it's hard to say anything definite because the investigation is still underway," Pavlyshyn said. However, he said there was little hope of proving NKVD responsibility beyond doubt, since NKVD records of the time were moved to Moscow, where they are still classified.
|
|
| Germany breaks its silence |
| E-POSHTA August 30, 2002JOIN the list: [email protected] |
 The Saturday, 24 August 2002, edition of one of the French-language newspapers in Montreal La Presse published a series of three articles by its Berlin correspondent Isabelle Hachey, under the general title of "L'Allemagne rompt son silence" [Germany breaks its silence]. The introduction to this trio of articles is below, followed by an English translation (Marta D. Olynyk).
The second article, entitled "Deux millions de femmes de 8 a 80 violees" [Two million women from 8 to 80 raped] is a review of British historian Antony Beevor's book Berlin: The Downfalll. Based on this work, which will appear in French in early September (Editions de Fallois), Ms. Hachey quotes Natalya Gesse, a Russian woman who observed the Red Army in action while she was a war correspondent. Horrified by what she saw, Gesse observes: "The Russian soldiers were raping all German women between 8 and 80. It was an army of rapists."
Further on, La Presse correspondent Isabelle Hachey, mentions that "certain soldiers raped indiscriminately German women, as well as female Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian prisoners of war whom the Red Army had just come to liberate from forced labour, which had been imposed on them by Hitler's regime. For these women, the joy of recovering their liberty was quickly transformed into a nightmare."
"L'Allemagne rompt son silence" - www.cyberpresse.ca/reseau/monde/0208/mon_102080129879.html
|
| Museum of Genocide Victims in Lithuania |
| E-POSHTA August 08, 2002JOIN the list: [email protected] |
 The Museum of Genocide Victims in Lithuania is located in the former KGB building in Vilnius, at 40 Gediminas Ave. To see a photo of it as well as other photos, such as the "KGB Internal Jail No. 1 (Confinement Cell of Inquiry)", go to:
www.travel-lithuania.com/genocide/welcome.htm
Some of the collections housed in the museum: the armed anti-Soviet resistance, unarmed anti-Soviet resistance, Lithuanian people in prisons and deportation, the activity of Soviet organs of repression (documents, objects, photographs, literature). The collection "Lithuanian People in Prisons and Deportation", consisting of documents, objects, and photographs, was acquired from individuals or gathered during expeditions.
How is it that a tiny country like Lithuania is able to accomplish this, while Ukraine can't seem to get its act together to establish a Famine Genocide Holodomor Museum? Do the current leaders have something to hide? Perhaps a virtual museum should be considered? |
|
| A War Crime Is a War Crime |
| E-POSHTA July 04, 2002JOIN the list: [email protected] |
It's time Canada started treating Soviet and Nazis offenders with equal harshness.
Canada got her from Russia, just six years ago. Some 55 years earlier she was a young physician, trained in Kiev in the Ukraine. That was at the start of the "Great Patriotic War,'' which is what the Soviets called the segment of World War II when they stopped being Hitler's friends, and became ours. Before June 22, 1941, when Hitler surprised "Uncle Joe" Stalin by invading Russia, the Soviet empire had prospered at Hitler's side. Poland was dismembered, western Belarus and Ukraine were occupied, the Baltic States swallowed.
Natasha - I won't use her real name, since there's no proof she committed any crime - was then in her 20s, well-educated, a city girl. When the Germans attacked she retreated east. Eventually, when the Red Army forced the Nazis back to their well-deserved apocalypse in Berlin's ruins, Natasha was with them. She joined the Communist Party. She served in SMERSH.
SMERSH is an acronym for Smert Shpionam - Death to Spies. As the Red Army moved west, SMERSH battalions followed, killing soldiers deemed cowardly, hunting all those opposed to Soviet rule. At war's end, SMERSH screened the ''victims of Yalta,'' Soviet citizens who had been repatriated forcibly by British, American, French and Canadian troops. |
| Full story >>> |
| You never know when the Minister of Citizenship may choose to come knocking on your door |
|
Yet last month 78-year-old Ukrainian-born Wasyl Odynsky, who's lived in Canada since 1949, raised a family and is a productive citizen with an unsullied reputation got official notice the federal cabinet is considering the recommendation he be stripped of Canadian citizenship and forcibly deported.
The federal government can, using our own tax dollars, institute immigration proceedings 50 years AFTER we became a citizen, even though all government records have been destroyed. This government is putting all immigrants on notice - granting you Canadian citizenship is irrelevant and subject to "guilt by association" and innuendo proceedings. The Charter of Rights does not apply to us. So-called crimes need not stand up to scrutiny. In such cases, what "probably" happened is acceptable. Proof is not necessary nor is appeal.
Keep all your documents and a lot of money on hand to defend yourself in court against this Federal government (million dollars in some cases) - as you never know when the Minister of Citizenship may choose to come knocking on your door. |
| Full story >>> |
|
| Gregory Hlady in THE OTHER |
|
 The essence of The Other is inspired by
the novel Baltasar and Blimunda by Portuguese Nobel-Prize winning writer José
Saramago. From the opening sequence of snow falling on a female hunter making her solitary
journey across a fur-strewn mosaic that leads her to revive a barely-alive hermit, we are
drawn into the dangerous and provocative possibilities that lie ahead. For the next ninety
minutes characters perform in concert to create a glorious dreamscape. Speaking
Ukrainian, French, English and Portuguese the characters pursue their quest for lost
brother, lover, and long-awaited soul mate in this non-linear piece that blends time
periods and locales as it explores the many ways of looking at others.
The Other was created in Montreal in the spring of 2001 and was
coproduced by The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation of Lisbon, Portugal. This special
collaboration enabled Carla Ribeiro and Bruno Schiappa, two Portuguese artists, to be
involved in this production. |
Directed and choreographed by
Paula deVasconcelos
Set Design
Raymond Marius Boucher
Costume Design
Louis Hudon, Anne-Marie Veevaete
Lighting Design
Jean-Charles Martel
Cast
Daniel Desputeau
Gregory HIady
Anne Le Beau
Catherine Senart
Paul-Antoine Taillefer
Caria Ribeiro and Bruno Schiappa
Usine C
1345, Lalonde Street (Beaudry Metro)
April 4th to 13st at 8pm
Matinee Sunday April 7th at 3pm
Tickets $23 for adults, $18 for students and seniors
Box Office: 521-4493
|
A spellbinding creation - perhaps Paula de Vesconselos'
most captivating in recent yeas - original and partiticularly imaginative. Truly
poetic.
Andrée Martin
Le Devoir
Bodies come to life, run, breathe in and out their thirst to live as
woman and man... Love is what constitutes de Vasconcelos' eternal fascination.
They write with their bodies, dancing time and love. They are
together and alone. I'm searching for the story. The thread that ties them together. I
can't understand with my head because they don't speak the some language as mine. And yet,
inside of me, I find a kind of meaning. They talk with their muscles. Something in me
understands : somehow they are trying to give the breath of life...
Annie Gaudreau
Revue Liberté
The primal joy of dancing (and running) until you drop is
celebrated. Just when you think the revels are ended, there's one more exhuberant fling...
Bravely innovative.
Pat Donnely
The Gazette
The Other is a stunning integration of dance and theatre performed with awe-inspiring
grace, intensify and passion.
Sarah Gignac
The Other Press - Vancouver
We are miles away from the blunt realism of Savage/Love's opening
by the same de Vasconcelos. Still, the despair is the same, only deeper and more mature.
Enchanting and paradoxal. Like a dream.
PierreThibeault
ICI Montréal |
| Ukrainian Institutions in Toronto Burglarized |
The New Pathway
Petro Lopata
In a series of shocking events over the last two weeks, three Toronto Ukrainian
institutions have been burglarized, leading some in the community pointing to the start of
a crime wave targeting Ukrainians in this city. The three organizations involved in the
burglaries -– The Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre (UCRDC),
Children of Chornobyl Canadian Fund (CCCF) and scouting organization Plast - are all
charities.
The first robbery occured overnight March 14-15 at the UCRDC, in the St Vladimir
Institute building near downtown Toronto. According to Nadia Skop, UCRDC Executive
Administrator, staff left the building March 14 at 7pm after a meeting. When she arrived
for work the next day at 10am, she found the offices had been ransacked, and that
computers and a safe were missing. Skop said although there wasn’t any money in the
safe, it contained the master betacam cassette of “Harvest of Despair”, the
award-winning UCRDC-funded documentary on Ukraine’s artificial famine of 1932-1933,
valued at $6,000. She pleaded for the return of the cassette, which has no re-sale value,
saying that “no questions” would be asked. Skop also expressed her surprise over
the fact that of all the organizations housed in the St Vladimir Institute, only the UCRDC
had been targeted by the burglars. Despite the UCRDC being singled out in this incident,
“we’re going to be enhancing security throughout the whole building”,
informed Skop. After the burglary at the UCRDC, the spate of crimes shifted to Bloor West
Village, a strip of Bloor Street West spanning from High Park to Jane, with a significant
visible Ukrainian presence. Here, over the evening of March 25 to 26, both Plast and the
building at 2118 Bloor Street West - within 5 minutes walking distance of each other
– were burglarized by unknown perpetrators. According to Plast employee Zenon
Waschuk, missing from their offices are two older model computers, while a fax machine and
printers were left behind. Though there were no immediate signs of forced entry into the
building, Waschuk said that the safety-glass doors to their second-story offices were
broken with such force that glass shards lay as far as seven metres away from the doors.
Again, only the second story was targeted at 2118 Bloor Street. Andy Cottrell, who handles
maintenance and is part-owner of the building, said a hole had been broken through a wall
to enter the joint offices of CCRF and Help Us Help the Children. A music school and an
information technology company, also found on the second story were burglarized. Cottrell
breathed a sigh of relief as he told the New Pathway that steel doors in a second-story
hallway prevented the burglars from entering the Ukrainian Canadian Art Foundation,
television studio Kontakt and other tenants’ offices. The ground floor houses a
number of retail shops, the Consulate General of Ukraine in Toronto and an Ontario
Ministry of Transportation office. |
|
|
|
|
