EVENT

Ales Michalevic was released on February 19 under written recognizance not to leave. He remained silent for a week in order to spend time with his family – his wife and two young daughters (aged 10 and 1.5 years). Then he assembled a press conference and gave away flagrant details. Firstly – that he was released on written recognizance to cooperate with the KGB, in fact – to be an agent. Second, Michalevic spoke about how he was tormented in details. “I was forced to dispraise the Square on television. When I refused, I was thrown into a cell; the tortures started a few days later… I was handcuffed with my arms raised so high that my joints were crunching. They took me to a ‘search’ and put me naked on a stretcher, hacking my legs practically to a full split. I felt that my chords were breaking. I was forced to lean naked against the wall with my hands and stand up to 40 minutes, until my arms swelled up. They didn’t switch off the light at night and demanded that I lie with my face against the lamp, forbidding me to cover my face with a kerchief. As a result, my vision started getting weak. They co-lored the floor in the airless cell with acetone-based paints and left me there until the paints were completely dry – over 40 hours. The temperature in the cell did not exceed 10 degrees Celsius, and the walls had black mold. A citizen of Afghanistan, who was jailed with me, said he was taken captive by the Taliban and they treated people better...” After the presidential elections in Belarus, seven of the ten candidates turned out to be under investigation in a criminal case on participation and organization of mass unrest (which can entail up 15 years of imprisonment). Five of them are in the KGB jail. The candidate Yaraslau Ramanchuk condemned his competitors’ actions on the Square the next morning after the election on television (later he admitted that he was intimidated and he read a text written by the KGB), and he was not accused. The candidate Vital Rymasheuski was released under written recognizance after he wrote a “repentance letter” to President Lukashenka. The candidate Uladzimir Niaklajeu was transferred to house arrest, with a ban on all forms of contact; two employees of the KGB stay at his apartment 24 hours a day. The candidates Rygor Kastusev and Dmitry Uss are free, but they gave a written recognizance not to leave and are suspects in a criminal case. Andrei Sannikau and Mikola Statkevic remain in the KGB prison, their lawyers have no contact with them. The candidate Andrei Tereshchenko, whom many consider as a “governmental candidate,” is considered a witness. 

The head of the Sevastopol municipal administration Valerii Saratov announced this during a session dedicated to solving the problems linked to the implementation of the city’s investment development program for 2011-13. “We need to broaden investment opportunities in Sevastopol and establish an Investor Information Center on the Ukraina cinema premises. We must ensure our exhibition area is hosting exhibitions all the time,” he said. Saratov considers it necessary to expedite the processing of all investors’ papers at state institutions as much as possible and work hard with people who already own plots that were allocated to them for some specific purpose. Among the priority sectors for investments in Sevastopol, he named the port facilities, commercial and residential property (including industrial parks), alternative energy, utilities and other areas, including tourism and recreation business. In addition, the municipal administration plans to develop new bylaws to eliminate obstacles in the investment process. 

London hosted the Women’s Saber World Cup, in which 140 sportswomen from 21 countries took part, Ukrinform reports, referring information from the International Fencing Federation (FIE). Ukraine’s Olha Kharlan won the Cup. The Olympic champion from Mykolaiv beat Russia’s Sofia Velikaya in the semifinals (15:14). In the final she bested Italian Gioia Marzocca (15:11), who in her turn defeated another Olympic champion Halyna Pundyk, from Khmelnytsky, in the quarterfinals (15:14). 

Representatives of the world-known German Marlow Navigation crewing company, the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Sport of Ukraine, and the Kherson Oblast State Administration signed an agreement on collaboration, which would boost the quality of the education received by the students of the Kherson State Maritime Institute. The German company will finance the creation of two computer rooms with free Internet services and a hundred netbooks at the Institute. Walter Wekenborg, Marlow Navigation’s personnel director, believes that the agreement is a logical continuation of the company’s collaboration with the Institute, which began ten years ago. His company forms crews for over a thousand modern German vessels, thoroughly selects staff and takes care of their education. German vessel owners are convinced that the Kherson institute’s mechanics and boat pilots meet the highest standards. That is why they started investing in the modernization of the institute’s training facilities. The educational process at the institute is adapted to international requirements. There is an English communication course and modern training centers. Ralph Becker-Heins, a professor at Bremen University, taught navigation to the future sailors. The students, who become candidates for Marlow Navigation, receive a 50-dollar monthly allowance. The future sailors are invited onboard ships for the paid trainings. After graduation they return to those ships for regular work. There are various promotion programs for employees who prove to be good workers. Young Khersonians know that desire and persistence can turn them into captains. According to Volodymyr Khodakovsky, rector of the Kherson State Maritime Institute, the agreement will help the institute in achieving this goal. It is quite ambitious as the institute wants to become one of the best educational establishments of the world and receive the title of “academy” by 2015. 

The leader of Ukrainian rocket engineering, Pivdenny Machine Building Plant, is back in full-scale working mode. Starting April 1, it is switching back from a three-day to a five-day working week. The news was presented at a meeting of the Pivdenmash and Pivdenne Design Department CEOs with Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast State Administration.

Two years ago, the aerospace engineering plants were affected by an abrupt reduction of offers caused by the global financial crisis. Now, with the economic revival, the market for aerospace engineering and services is gradually coming back to life, too. This year’s scheduled turnover for Pivdenmash is 1,945 million hryvnias, compared to last year’s 1,295 million hryvnias, thus exhibiting almost 50 percent growth. Also, considerable sums are to be invested into modernization works (nearly 50 million hryvnias).

This year is rife in contracts: Marine Start (309.5 million dollars), Ground Start (over 1 billion dollars), Lybid (33 million dollars), the US program Taurus 2, and Chassis AN-148.

Pivdenne Design Department can also boast of reassuring growth indices. Its financial plan envisions a turnover increase of up to 756 million hryvnias, i.e., the growth will constitute around 17 percent.

“Our enterprises have a stable rate of growth in production and sales volumes,” noted Oleksandr Dehtiariov, chief designer at Pivdenne Design Department. “At the same time, we plan our activities for the next year very carefully, as they depend on many factors. But our plans are very positive. Our net income is small, but the gross income is large enough to attract investments. They mostly come from international contracts, and are mainly linked to the IT sphere.”

At the meeting the head of the oblast state administration touched upon the question of salary and wage hikes at Pivdenmash and Pivdenne Design Department, and remarked that growth should constitute 20 percent instead of 8. In his turn, Vilkul promised his assistance and support in solving the problem of simplifying the state purchase procedure, which slows down the work of the aerospace engineering enterprises.