OSCE urges full probe 15 years after Gongadze's disappearance:
By RFE/RL
The OSCE's media-freedom representative has highlighted the 15th anniversary of the disappearance of Ukrainian investigative journalist Heorhiy Gongadze by reiterating her call for authorities in Kyiv to fully investigate the crime.
Gongadze disappeared on September 16, 2000. His decapitated body was later found later, buried in a shallow grave in a wooded area outside of Kyiv.
Dunja Mijatovic, the media-freedom representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said on September 16, "Gongadze paid the ultimate price for his courageous work.
Fifteen years on, his killing continues to have a dampening effect on the free expression and free media in Ukraine."
Mijatovic added, "the masterminds behind this vicious crime must be brought to justice."
She also expressed concern about the lack of progress in investigations of at least nine killings and numerous attacks against journalists in Ukraine since fighting with pro-Russian separatists began in April 2014.
Ukraine Seeks To Blunt Russia's UN Veto Power
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
Ukraine has stepped up its effort to restrict Russia's use of its veto in the UN Security Council, which Kyiv says has enabled the Kremlin to block international action to punish Moscow for "aggression."
In a resolution unanimously adopted on September 16, the Ukrainian parliament called for urgent reform of the Security Council, in which Russia holds veto powers as one of the five permanent members.
"There is convincing evidence of the urgency to reform the veto [system] to prevent its abuse," the Verkhovna Rada resolution said.
It said the veto has too often been used to "cover up the crime of aggression by a permanent member of the UN Security Council."
The resolution urged UN member states to take "all possible measures to stop the Russian aggression against Ukraine."
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine last year after sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced by about 100 UN member states as illegitimate, and has supported separatists in a conflict with Ukrainian forces that has killed more than 7,900 people since April 2014.
In July, Russia blocked a resolution that would have established a tribunal to try those suspected of responsibility for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine, which killed all 298 people aboard.
Kyiv and the West suspect separatists shot the jet down with a Russian-supplied missile system.
Last year, it vetoed a resolution criticizing the secession referendum in Crimea.
Also in July, Russia blocked a resolution that would have declared the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995, in which some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed, to be genocide.
The Ukrainian campaign appears to be an effort to build on a French effort to persuade the other four permanent members -- Britain, China, Russia, and the United States -- not to use their veto when action is required to address a mass atrocity.
The French initiative attracted attention after Russia and China used their veto power last year to block a resolution asking the International Criminal Court to investigate crimes committed in Syria, where Moscow has backed President Bashar al-Assad throughout a devastating civil war.
On September 4, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told Voice of America that Russia should be stripped of its veto power in the UN Security Council.
Russia has criticized both the French initiative and the Ukrainian campaign.
"We stand in favor of preserving rights for the five permanent Security Council members," state-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov as saying.
Interfax quoted Russia's UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, as saying the French initiative had a "political subtext."
"We disapprove of this initiative, assuming that the right to veto is an utmost important mechanism to make the permanent members work on finding consensual solutions, and this brings success in a great number of cases."
Kyiv's efforts to see Moscow stripped of its veto power come ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin's first appearance at the UN General Assembly session in 10 years, amid persistent tension over the conflict in Ukraine and signs of a Russian military buildup in Syria.
Putin is expected to speak at the General Assembly on September 28, a day before Poroshenko. (w/ AFP, RIA Novosti, Interfax)
Separatists plan elections on different dates than rest of Ukraine:
The self-proclaimed leader of Ukraine's breakaway Donetsk region, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, has signed a decree that schedules elections for local self-government bodies on October 18.
Elections in territory under the control of pro-government separatists in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk region are planned for November 1.
The scheduled dates do not coincide with elections scheduled in parts of Ukraine.
Ukrainian government officials in Kyiv have indicated that holding the votes on a different date than local elections in the rest of the country would be considered a violation of the Minsk peace agreements.
Denis Pushilin, the separatist Donetsk region's envoy to the so-called Contact Group on Ukraine's crisis, said on September 16 that the Minsk agreement calls on Kyiv to coordinate with separatist leaders about elections in eastern Ukraine.
He said the separatists decided on "yet another unilateral implementation of the Complex of Measures [for Fulfilment of the Minsk agreement]" because Kyiv has never coordinated on the issue.
Voting for representatives of other local self-government bodies in Ukraine are scheduled for October 25. (Interfax, Rossia 24)
While on hunger strike in Russian prison, Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko wrote a book titled Strong Name Hope (Nadia means "hope" in Ukrainian). Savchenko's sister, Vira, said that Nadia was afraid she wouldn't survive and people would never learn the truth.
Today the book was presented in the Ukrainian parliament.
"The money that we will collect today, we will transfer to guys in Russian jails who don't have money for lawyers. Their relatives have to print T-shirts with their images and collect money that way," Vira said.
The Yustynian publishing house issued 10,000 copies of the book so far, but plans to issue more, as well as to publish it in a paperback.