Ukraine Bars Communists From Elections
Ukraine's Justice Ministry has barred Communists from running in the upcoming local elections after the passage of new legislation.
Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko said on July 24 that the Communist Party of Ukraine, the Communist Party of Ukraine’s Workers and Peasants, and the Reformed Communist Party of Ukraine will be barred from the October local elections.
Petrenko also pledged to file a lawsuit that would formally ban the parties.
The Communist Party has been an important force in Ukraine, polling 13 percent in the 2012 parliamentary elections, but its popularity plummeted over its support for pro-Russian ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, who was toppled by deadly pro-European protests last year and is currently residing in Russia.
In 2014 parliamentary elections the Communist Party of Ukraine garnered less than 4 percent of the vote.
Ukraine passed several laws in April banning the use of symbols from the Soviet years and denouncing communist ideology.
But Communist Party of Ukraine leader Petro Symonenko said his party will take part in the election despite the ministry's decision.
Based on reporting by AP, UNIAN and pravda.ua
Ukraine makes crunch bond payment, staving off default
Kiev, July 24, 2015 (AFP) -- Ukraine on Friday made a crucial Eurobond interest payment that kept the war-torn country from slipping into technical default and potential isolation from global credit markets.
Two sources close to the situation told AFP that money to cover the $120 million (110 million euro) coupon was transferred as soon as business hours opened in Kiev.
The $2.6 billion note matures in July 2017.
The cash-strapped former Soviet nation now has two more months to negotiate a debt restructuring deal before it faces a tougher deadline to pay more than $500 million on another Eurobond.
Franklin Templeton and three other US financial titans own about two-thirds of the debt upon which Ukraine is trying to find savings of $15.3 billion (13.7 billion euros) over the coming four years.
That target is part of a $40 billion global package the International Monetary Fund patched up to help Ukraine weather an economic implosion that was exasperated by the pro-Russian revolt in its industrial east.
The IMF signalled on Thursday that it could release $1.7 billion in fresh bailout funds next week even if Ukraine fails to reach the private sector debt relief deal.
But some analysts called the very fact that Ukraine made Friday's payment an indication of Kiev's talks with the US giants proceeding smoothly after more than three months of delay.
"If there was no progress in the negotiations, we would have not payed the coupon so easily," Dragon Capital investment firm analyst Sergiy Fursa said in a research note.
"Judging by the latest news from the closed-door talks, which both sides give out very unwillingly, their advisers are engaged in active negotiations and now working on the technical details of a deal," Fursa wrote.
Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko had repeatedly threatened to impose a debt repayment moratorium as early as Friday should the bondholders fail to take a more compromising stand toward Kiev during talks now underway in Washington.
- 'Further progress expected' -
The IMF on Thursday raised market expectation of a restructuring agreement being struck before its board discusses Ukraine at a meeting tentatively set for July 31.
IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters that Jaresko's team and the so-called Ad Hoc Committee of Ukraine's Bondholders "have been making good progress in their discussions."
"Further progress is expected by July 31," Rice said.
Kiev's international allies are pitching in as part of their own effort to keep the strategic east European nation from slipping back into its historic reliance on Russia -- an uneasy neighbour that denies involvement in Ukraine's separatist war.
But a technical default sparked by the lack of a commercial debt compromise would make the longer-term cost of borrowing even more expensive and push back Ukraine's prospects for a quick return to growth.
US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has also urged lenders to support Washington's efforts to help the pro-Western leadership that rose to power in the wake of last year's popular overthrow of a Russian-backed president.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
