EVENT

About 20 companies have expressed interest in participating in the tender for the Ukrainian LNG import terminal (regasification terminal) feasibility study, Deputy Energy and Coal Industry Minister Ihor Kiriushyn said during the roundtable discussion about the terminal’s construction project. The tender itself, he added, will be announced this February. According to the chairman of the State Agency for Investment and National Projects Management Vladyslav Kaskiv, the feasibility study will be completed in June 2011. By the end of September 2011, the government will develop the project’s business plan, which will determine the state’s share in the LNG terminal (various options are under consideration, including minority and majority participation), and how much to contribute to the project. According to Kaskiv, ensuring the diversification of Ukraine’s gas supplies is a prerequisite for investors willing to participate in the project. Ukraine is also exploring the possibility of building its own tanker fleet for the delivery of LNG to the terminal. Preliminary designs call for starting LNG shipments by 2014, with an annual amount of 2 billion cubic meters, and increasing annual shipments to 5 billion cubic meters by 2015 and 10 billion cubic meters by 2017. Ukraine is now considering three prospective locations for the terminal: Ochakiv (Mykolaiv oblast), Feodosia (the Crimea) and the marine oil terminal Pivdenny (Odesa oblast). Let’s recall that Ukraine was planning to announce the tender on January 19, but the date was moved ahead to allow some time for signing a memorandum with Azerbaijan; the latter is to supply two to five billion cubic meters of LNG a year to Ukraine. The Ukrainian government also hopes to attract North African and Middle Eastern nations as LNG suppliers. Also, the creation of an international consortium to implement the project is not ruled out. 

Mykola Prodanchuk, director of Medved’s Institute of Ecohygiene and Toxicology, says all GMOs are illegal in Ukraine because no line of GMOs was ever registered here, reports Interfax. “All GMOs in Ukraine are illegal because under the 2005 law on biosafety, only registered GMOs are allowed to be sold as food, animal feed, and growing plants; but to date no GMOs were ever registered in Ukraine,” Prodanchuk affirms. He stressed that even if GMOs are used, it is still illegal. By the way, the basis for the registration of a GMO is a positive conclusion of a state sanitary epidemiological review. Currently, no such line of GMOs is registered. “This means that GMOs are used illegally,” says Prodanchuk. At the same time, he noted that in Ukraine, there is little food that includes GMO ingredients: “Fortunately, there is virtually no GMO food on the Ukrainian market.” He also stressed that after more than 23,000 tests conducted by laboratories, only 24 instances of GMO use in food were found. Prodanchuk reminded that though there is no criminal responsibility for the use of GMOs in food processing, there is administrative responsibility for, and a virtual prohibition on selling such products. The expert noted that in 99 percent of cases, it is manufacturers and importers who want their produce’s GMO content checked in laboratories, as they are interested in its quality. As for labeling food with the words “without GMO,” these stickers are as reliable as the manufacturer himself, because there is no way to analyze all and every food product. As for the analysis itself, according to Prodanchuk, it is not very complex, and costs several hundred hryvnias. 

Patriarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) Filaret declared that the authorities intend to destroy his church. He said this while being interviewed by the newspaper Express. “The plan is being executed as follows: throughout Ukraine, state officials, sponsors or priests of the Moscow Patriarchate churches talk to our priests, offer them to go over to that latter church, and promise all sorts of support and assistance. In the Donbas, Kyiv and Vinnytsia regions, there are simultaneous attempts to raid and seize our churches. Our letters and appeals are either ignored, or are given formal answers. These are only some of the facts that give us grounds to believe that such a plan exists. If it were isolated cases, there might be reasons for doubt, but when events are taking place throughout Ukraine according to the same scenario, then we have no doubt, all these facts are details of the plan,” said Filaret. The patriarch stressed that such conversations are held with priests in different regions of the nation, from Lviv to Donetsk. “For example, in the Vinnytsia region, our priests were called to district administrations and presented with ultimatums,” he said. “We have no hard knowledge of the deadline, but we guess they strive to get as many defectors as possible by the time of Moscow Patriarch Kirill’s summer visit, so as to confirm his thesis that a lot of ‘schismatics’ are willing to return to the canonical church. Patriarch Kirill needs statistics, large numbers. The final result might be only one: the plan’s authors hope to destroy and annihilate the Kyiv Patriarchate, downsizing it to the marginal organization which will lack any influence. Their plan will fail, though, because they do not take into account the real situation in Ukraine,” said the patriarch. Let’s recall that earlier Filaret stated that the Moscow Patriarchate attempted to execute a comprehensive plan to destroy the Kyiv Patriarchate and cause its collapse. 

An exhibit of works of art from the 17th-19th centuries was opened in the Lviv National Art Gallery. The exposition consists of an iconostasis from the village of Humnysko (from the collection of the Lviv National Art Gallery), a group of 15 icons from the 17th-18th centuries, three sculptures from the 18th and 19th centuries (Drohobych Region Museum), two icons from the 18th century (Volodymyr-Volynsky Historical Museum), and an ancient printed book (Drohobych Region Museum). This is a result of several years of work by the Lviv Branch of the National Science and Research Restoration Center, the scientific research department and the scientific restoration department. The director of the restoration center and people’s artist of Ukraine Myroslav Otkovych says: “A large number of scientific examinations of the iconostasis were conducted (biological examination, radiography, chemical and biochemical studies, examination in ultraviolet rays and X-rays). In view of the simplistic views on holding restoration works in our time, we want to once again remind that scientific restoration is a knowledge- and labor-intensive sphere of human activity aimed at saving art treasures and prolonging their life for the future.”