The trials and tribulations of being an independent TV station in Ukraine

Normally I stay away from the headline news in Ukraine, quite simply because you can read about that in other places, albeit I wouldn’t guarantee the objectivity, accuracy or unbiasedness of the reporting in those places necessarily.

Like so many foundational pillars of society in Ukraine, the media here also too often sets low standards and routinely fails to achieve them.  That is not necessarily a criticism of the journalists themselves, although you are oft left to ponder if they ever bother to check facts or the validity of what comes from “sources”, but one of editorial policy and quite probably in some cases, ownership influence.  That accounts for media outlets that have a bias for any side of the political line.

In fact it is sometimes quite difficult not to feel sorry for those journalists who try to provide a balanced, factual and thoughtful article considering the hurdles that lay in wait when trying to get anything published.  Naturally this can lead to self-censorship just to earn a crust.

Anyway, amongst the very few media outlets that appear genuinely neutral and will give critical coverage to both government and opposition alike, is television channel TBi.  It is a channel that I regularly watch if I want to know what is happening in Ukraine rather than just Odessa and feel confident there is at the very least some element of balance in the reporting.

For events in Odessa, I tend to watch C Odessa which is biased towards the current opposition parties, hardly surprising when they share the same offices as Arseny Yatseniuk’s Front for Change political party, and occasionally Art TV which is owned by my neighbour and leader of Party Rodina, Igor Markov, which is equally as biased in favour of his own party naturally.  Nevertheless for local news of events, current and future, in Odessa, they are both fairly good and I am very well aware of their bias.

Returning to TBi, back in 2011 they were involved in a tax situation with the tax authorities which went to court and they lost.  They then appealed and won.

Unsurprisingly, the tax authorities then changed their centre of attention from TBi itself to those individuals who own and control it.

Now, as already declared I am something of a TBi regular when it comes to daily viewing and it would therefore be quite easy for me to simply say this is government pressure on a television network that is often rightly critical of it.  That said, having lived in Ukraine for a decade I also know that tax avoidance is a national pastime for rich and poor alike on a daily, if not hourly basis for the vast majority of 46 million people.

Even I, who pay my taxes in Ukraine, at the end of last year had to cough up an additional few thousand US$ in taxes, not because I wanted to avoid paying, but because the tax system is simply so difficult to navigate even the tax authorities regularly work things out wrongly (or indeed are bribed to work things out wrongly by those who pay paxes).

So, knowing that even with the very best of intentions and a complete openness with the tax authorities can lead to being wrongly taxed even by their calculations, I accept that there may be a tax case to answer.  Quite simply, I very much doubt anybody at a personal level, ever actually pays exactly the right amount of tax either deliberately or inadvertently.

The issue here is therefore not necessarily that the owners of TBi are being investigated for tax issues, but the timing of the investigation immediately prior to the official 90 day electioneering campaigns.

A popular national television channel and the people within, who are openly critical of the current government when appropriate, being subjected to tax investigations on the eve of parliamentary electioneering screams indirect government pressure via the tax authorities.

Quite simply the investigation could have been delayed until after the elections to avoid the inference of political pressure.  Any evidence of any wrong doing is not going to disappear during the electioneering window.

Further to that, apparently, TBi disappeared from the screens of those viewers in Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Luhansk, Zaporizhya, Donetsk, Poltova, Symferopol, Sumy, Kharkiv and Odessa from 20th July.

Except it didn’t.  My coverage of TBi in Odessa has not been interrupted at all.

It appears that those people who watch TBi via Triolan cable provider are affected but no others.  How many people are subscribed to Trilan, I have no idea, however if my cable provider pulled TBi then I would dump them and use another, watch TBi via the Internet or get it via satellite if dumping the provider proved a severe pain contractually.

Triolan are citing technical difficulties in continuing to carry TBi – a strange phenomenon considering on 19th July and for the previous years they had encountered no technical difficulties carrying TBi and yet on 20th, there were technical difficulties. – Hmmm

Fortunately, no other cable providers are following suit or intending to do so.  Thus I will continue to have uninterrupted coverage of one of my preferred channels.

One wonders though, how such a move will effect the subscriptions to Triolan as time passes.  Maybe they will resolve their technical problems with TBi just after the elections are over?  Now that wouldn’t surprise me at all.

With TBi standing firm to the inferred governmental pressure, maybe the Triolan was put under the similar pressure.  Maybe it is owned by a member of the government who simply made a decision not to carry a channel critical of themselves and colleagues.

Whatever the case, I very much doubt that technical issues are the cause of TBi being dropped.

EU, Ukraine and the environment

Following on from yesterday’s post relating to the continuing successful low profile dealings between the EU and Ukraine, whilst the high profile bickering continues, on the same day the technical bits of the DCFTA were finally agreed and initialed (19th July), the first really serious negotiations relating to EU and Ukrainian environmental issues took place.

This meeting was held between Eduard Stavytsky the Ukrainian Environment Minister and the European Commissioner for the Environment, Janez Potocnik.  The net result of this meeting is the agreement to launch high level dialogue on matters environmental.

Well, why not?  Many environmental issues simply refuse to adhere to national borders unlike governments and people, thus environmental issues in Ukraine may be of concern to the EU nations and vice versa.

It should also come as no real surprise then that when Mr Stavytsky met with Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for Climate Action,  (yes the EU has a Commissioner for everything), also on 19th, the EU and Ukraine resumed the sales and purchase of emission quotas.

One assumes that the EU are now happy Ukraine’s Kyoto Protocol books are now in order after the debacle caused by Ms Tymoshenko momentarily forgetting where she put the money the Chinese paid for AAUs from Ukraine, causing an external audit of the Ukrainian carbon credit books and carbon credit generating schemes which were typically found wanting.

It is only natural that now the Ukrainian carbon books are in order and buying Ukrainian fresh air to offset others dirty air is now allowed globally once more, the EU is in the market to buy that clean air once again.

Of course this is not the only Ukrainian interest in getting friendly with the EU over issues environmental.  Aside from opening another channel of high level dialogue far removed from the headlines concerning Tymoshenko and others that both sides will quietly use to continue to talk to each other through, (and it is one of many despite the appearances that everything stops when Barroso or Ashton remember to bang the Tymoshenko drum), there is also a fair amount of EU sponsored environmental schemes that are undoubtedly poorly managed, improperly audited, and heavily financed and thus appealing from a Ukrainian politicians point of view.

Here is a list of one such EU scheme called LIFE.  It is not by any means the only EU funded environmental scheme in existence.

Chernobyl and a few other international (rather than simply EU) funded projects aside, I expect there is great scope for attracting EU money for environmental issues that could be deemed to pose a threat to EU Member States unless tackled post haste.

Let’s watch this space and see just how long it takes for Ukraine to appear on a list such as LIFE with numerous EU funded projects to its name (and typically poor accounting from both sides).

EU/Ukraine DCFTA final text initialed

Whilst almost everyone would be forgiven for thinking that the EU-Ukrainian DCFTA agreement has either already been initialed and dealt with some time ago, or that it has simply ground to a halt over EU concerns regarding selective prosecutions and shabby trial procedures, naturally they would be wrong.

Such incredibly complicated agreements, even when initialed to some public fanfare, have an awful lot of technical bits and pieces that still require the devil of the detail putting into print and being agreed.

Thus this has been the caase between the EU and Ukraine ever since the public initialing of the DCFTA some time ago.

However, on 19th July, the technical bits and pieces were finally agreed and initialed in Brussels between both sides – to absolutely no fanfare whatsoever – other than a short statement from those involved confirming that it had indeed occurred.

There never has been much glory or acknowledgement for the boiler room staff in such matters, garlands and public platitudes being reserved for those who are figureheads is the traditional way.

Anyway, it is now done – almost.  Off to the translators within the EU for it to be put into the 22 languages used, and then be circulated to the 27 Member States.

As the devil is so oft in the detail that was only agreed and initialed a few days ago, any of my Brussels Quarter readers who may happen upon a copy of this, do feel free to share!

Communist sponsored homophobia?

Law 8711 was proposed back in June, written by Yevhen Tsarkov of the Communist Party and supported by Catherine Lukyanov, Lilia Grigorovych, both OU-PSD deputies and Paul Unguryan BYuT from Ms Tymoshenko’s block, as well as Julia Korolevskaya of the ruling majority Party of Regions.

Law 8711 is intended to ban the promotion of homosexuality, thus banning parades, propaganda and actions, thus  forcing media and TV censorship, making illegal demonstrations, and mass events that may put homosexuality in a positive light.  The undercurrent is that a positive image of homosexuality is a national security threat and it was also necessary to insure the protection of children from such information. – Hmm!

Needless to say, not a law that would endear Ukraine to the EU and thus has been left to gather dust rather than take up RADA time – for now anyway.

That is not to say it won’t reappear, particularly as it has cross-party support as I have detailed above.  Of course this law goes against some of the most basic principles of democracy, such as freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, but neither the Party of Regions or indeed Tymoshenko’s BYuT are particularly democratic or positive advocates for human rights, despite their claims otherwise.

That is not to say all Ukrainian politicians are homophobic.  Equally spread across party lines is a great deal of empathy for the homosexual community.   MPs such as Yuri Stets OU-PSD, Yuriy Liovochkin Party of Regions and Vitali Klitschko leader of UDAR Party are all deemed friendly to the homosexual cause.

The fact law 8711 has been left to gather dust is possibly a good sign, however, Communist MP Tsarkov is not prepared to let a sleeping dog remain a sleeping dog.  He is now trying to add, what can best be described as a clause that is a hangover from the days of Stalin, to the Criminal Code, relating to sodomy and homosexual male sex.

One can only assume that in being so specific relating to sodomy, it would remain quite OK for anal sex with a woman.  Heterosexual men and women of Ukraine who like anal sex rejoice.  To be crude, any hole remains a goal as far as you would be concerned.

Now I have often taken issue with the far right and the Svoboda Party in this blog.  I have no love for the fascist ideology on the whole.  This time I have to take issue with the far left and the Communist Party, an ideology to my mind probably more cancerous than the fascist far right, but that is a personal view.

In fact, as the Communist Party supporters grow older and older and begin to die off, whilst lamenting how much “better” things were in the USSR, I hope one day that the Communist Party of Ukraine will also die off with them.  It would seem appropriate that a system that was supposed to take its people from cradle to grave, goes to the grave with the last remaining supporters of this ideology.

One has to hope that laws such as Law 8711 and Mr Tsarkov’s sodomy fixation also meet a firm rebuttal from those who believe in freedom of assembly, freedom of expression (whatever the cause), and a right to a private life free from the interference of the State.  One where anal sex between consenting adults of same or different sexes remains private and does not become unnecessarily dragged into the public domain by becoming the subject of Stalinist show trials once again.

With a nation so immersed in corruption, would such a sodomy law do anything to move away from this, or will the good old days of blackmail and coercion return, where payments are made under the threat of being “outed”?   Those who would prima facie support such laws in abstract on the grounds of disliking the very idea of homosexuality, must consider the wider implications in such a corrupt political environment – even if they have no consideration for such basic human rights as freedom of assembly and expression.

Meanwhile, the homophobic elements within Ukrainian society have a champion in the form of Mr Tsarkov and the Communist Party.

Questions for the EU – “State of Europe” Round Table

Completely unrelated to this blog, I have been invited by an EU institution to pose a number of questions at the 9th annual “State of Europe” round table on 11th October.

Amongst those sitting at the round table will be Herman Van Rumpoy, Jose Manuel Barroso and Martin Shulz.  Some big EU names.

Naturally, October is a very good time for me to be posing questions with the Ukrainian parliamentary elections happening but a few days after the round table.  A good time to ask under what circumstances the elections will be deemed free and fair considering Ms Tymoshenko will very likely still be incarcerated.

Every indication is that no matter how technically clean, free and fair the elections actually are in the run up to, and during the actual voting, the EU will declare it was not free and fair because she (and others) remain in jail.  But what if the opposition (Ms Tymoshenko’s colleagues) win?  Will the EU still publicly state is was not free and fair casting a shadow over an opposition victory, or is that a preserve only for the PoR if they hold onto a parliamentary majority?

Will it be a more measured response? A statement to the effect it was technically free and fair but the overriding ethical position of the EU means that it cannot be deemed free and fair?  In effect a statement with something in it for both sides?

This of course will be a timely question to pose – but what others?

The last time I asked about Kosovo and the EU position relating to inclusion and there was a muddled and incoherent response – as you would expect as not all EU members recognise Kosovo.  Nothing has changed since I asked that question and the EU is still in a muddle over Kosovo.

I see no point in questioning the EU economics as I expect much hot air will be produced on the subject anyway.

Ideally I should be armed with three or four difficult questions and ideally not those likely to be asked by any other clever people there – but what to ask that will be timely in October despite thinking about them now?  I am open to suggestions!

Beware of those citing polls – Ukrainian elections 2012

The Ukrainian parliamentary election campaigning begins officially in about 10 days time as the 90 day period prior to election day rapidly approaches.

If you live in Ukraine, you would naturally be forgiven for thinking it had started prior to Euro 2012 as far as some candidates are concerned, as I have mentioned before.  The face of Natalia Korolevska for example, is now so familiar to me from local television stations, posters, leaflets, small tents containing Korolevska people handing out her political glossary on almost every main street in Odessa, I see her face more than that of my wife.

Anyway, once the official electioneering is underway, polls from various sources will be used, abused, misunderstood or misrepresented by vested interests and media alike either deliberately or through complete ignorance.

As tempted as I am to delay this entry until the official electioneering begins and polls start to be banded about, it is probably wise to write this entry now and have it available to refer back to during the campaigning once it gets into full swing.

The aim of this post is to put some perspective on  polls and just how accurate they really are in the event they prima facie pass an academic litmus test – or not.

The first and most obvious issue is that of using selective polling results both by the media supporting side A or B and also those from within parties A or B.  Here we must firstly acknowledge that a professional polling company (or poll professionally compiled by any organisation) generates a veritable mountain of information the vast majority of which does not make the media or is highlighted by spokesman for party A or B.

They will naturally highlight the parts of the poll which support their declared position and normally ignore, or at best gloss over, parts that undermine their position.

No doubt a very frustrating thing for those who compile a poll to see snippets being passed off as the whole result.  That said, we as the public who maybe influenced or have some form of belief in these snippets have to shoulder some blame.  In the vast majority of cases if we are asked a question of a political nature in abstract, we may answer it quite differently as to how we will actually vote after a series of political questions that provide a picture of us as a whole.  I may prefer party A on the issue of X, but in general my political leanings are towards party B over a much larger range of issues.

Therefore if a media outlet of a known certain bias towards any particular party is attempting to draw you attention to a specific poll result, it is because others are either contradictory or other parts of that same poll are not so flattering to its declared position.

My point, such as it is, is to look at any particular poll not only in comparison with others, but also in and of itself, as the whole rather than an abstracted and highlighted part.

This brings me to another point.  If a certain poll widely touted holds very little comparison to a number of others, then one has to consider it with a degree of caution.  The exception is hardly ever the rule and therefore a poll that seems to be the exception may not be a true representation of opinion through either a faulty academic model or a deliberate manipulation of the model upon which it is based or simply a fluke set of results.

Such manipulation can be deliberately caused by polling in cities known to favour party A or B and despite the poll then stating it was conducted in numerous cities around the nation, it was in fact deliberately skewed.  Another way is to include a disproportionate number of men or women, people of certain age ranges, a high number of employed verses unemployed etc.

Another reason a poll may seem  beyond the normative results of all the others is the manner in which it was conducted.  People may react differently to a telephone poll than to a poll in the street or via the Internet.  It may also be down to the questions themselves.  A slightly different wording or different emphasis on certain words when the question is asked can bring quite different results.  The nuance of language can and does effect the objectivity of a poll and the statistics they produce.  Something all too often overlooked.

Thus we can unwittingly be trying to compare apples with oranges, a fact normally hidden by party spokespeople or the media.

There is also the issue of the actual size and make-up of the poll.  A poll of 1000 normally is interpreted to be plus or minus 3 points.  What that actually means when comparing polls is that there could, at the extremes, be an academically sound 6 point gap between two entirely legitimate polls.  Something not to be forgotten.

The composition of these polls also matters when claims are made relating to “every region”.  As an example, polling company X carries out a poll across Ukraine of 1000 people.  Of those 1000 people across the regions, only 30 were from Crimea.  That immediately makes any results attributed to Crimea as a region a nonsense as the number of Crimeans polled is so small, the margin for error is so immense it holds no academic or statistical value whatsoever as an indicator to Crimean regional voting.  It would become even more worthless if they all come from the same town or the same age group or the same age range or the same ethnic group.

In short, for a poll to have any legitimate standing, at a minimum there should be 1000 people involved and the model upon which the results are based must be correctly weighted.  In its most fundamental form, it should have the right number of respondents relating to age, ethnicity, region, gender etc etc in proportion to the country to have a country wide relevance.  The numbers involved though cannot be used as a realistic guide to regional  results as I have explained above.  Regional results would require a survey of 1000 people in that region, also weighted to take account of social composition.

None of this will be brought to the attention of the public by the spokespeople of party A or B and neither will it be explained or brought to the attention of the public by the media who will be too busy backing their horse and trying to hobble the other,  to let a small matter of transparency or accuracy get in the way – even if they have to resort to quoting polls that simply have no real worth.

All of this applies to any elections in any nation naturally, but now I have written this, I hope that we can look at whatever polls and political and media lines taken from them, in a much more subjective fashion.

Ukrainian WTO Membership – (to answer the other question)

Regular readers will recall a few days ago, I was asked two very good questions on twitter, which I recited to you here answering only one of the questions relating to the greening of Ukraine and stating I would return to the question of the WTO and the benefits, or not, of membership.

For those of you who followed the conversation between the scholarly @Aghidel and myself via tweets what I am about to write is nothing new.

For those who didn’t, as stated I will quickly summarise my thoughts.

Many will look at the mechanics of the WTO and look to issues such as Canadian complaints of Ukrainian steel being “dumped”.  That is in practice what the WTO is all about at a nuts and bolts level.  It is though much more than that for Ukraine.

Through a different lens, membership of the WTO is also about what memberships Ukraine doesn’t have.  It is not in NATO and neither is it in the CSTO.  It is not in the EU and neither is it in the Customs Union or overly willing to take part in the Eurasian Union.  It doesn’t hold a lofty seat at the UNSC or at the WB or the IMF.

In short it is in neither an economic or security regional alliance.

Therefore, membership of OSCE, the UN, Council of Europe, BSEC and WTO et al are necessary, if secondary and somewhat unreliable, external anchors in the international arena which go someway to providing economic, security and policy foundations and international dialogue.

Needless to say, if Ukraine remains adamant it will not join specific clubs to the ire of one or another neighbour, these anchors in recognised clubs, no matter how prima facie toothless they may appear, have a perhaps unseen role in Ukrainian political psyche.   No doubt a quite deliberate policy given that the Ukrainian public are as against joining NATO as they are the CSTO for example.  UN peacekeeping and humanitarian aid is about as far as external Ukrainian boots on the ground policy will fly with the majority of the Ukrainian public.

Ergo, my point to my learned scholarly friend, was that despite the frictions that WTO membership may cause Ukrainian businesses on occasion, things such as WTO membership at a political level are necessary anchors into the world in which Ukraine lives.   The more such anchors and the longer Ukraine avoids making choices that will upset one or another neighbour, the more important these anchors are.

A UK/Ukrainian Alumni?

A few days ago I spent 90 minutes in a one – to – one with one of our very clever chaps from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.  As much as I would like to tell you whom, from the very start I stated that the Chatham House Rule would apply, and thus I am morally and ethically bound not to disclose their identity, whether they care or not.

Further to that, to be quite frank, it’s not that often I am given such a length of time for a personal tete a tete with the best and the brightest that Oxford and Cambridge produce, who are snapped up by the FCO and forged in the fires of Whitehall into people capable of representing HMG and The Crown at the highest international level.  I therefore will not be writing anything said of a sensitive nature to insure such meetings will occur again.

Suffice to say, over the vast majority of issues “Ukrainian” we seemed to be singing from the same song-sheet and viewing things through a similar lens, envisaging similar outcomes in the near and medium term.  Reassuring to know I have not completely lost the plot and meandered off into a self-contained bubble within my head that has lost all sense of perspective.

One of the least sensitive areas of discussion we had was “Europeanisation” of Ukrainian society through people to people (P2P) contact.  This of course comes in many ways, Visa-free travel, tourists, Euro 2012, business and trade, social media etc.

Where the UK excels is university education.  Aside from the hundreds of very bright Ukrainians who manage to get a scholarship through various routes to UK universities, there are also those like my boy with parents like me willing to cough up a lot of money every year to send them.  Most, including my boy, write on their application forms, that they want a UK university education in order to experience the UK and make Ukraine a better place on their return.  Bravo to all those civic minded young people.

(In case you are wondering, my boy wants to work for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and thus will be reading International Relations at Durham).

Anyway, all these UK educated Ukrainians returning to Ukraine from numerous different UK universities then seems to  fall between two stools when it comes to supporting the sharing of those experiences and indeed helping them change Ukraine for the better.  If Ukraine is to truly change, no matter what the rhetoric from the top, change comes from the bottom.

In short, when my boy returns as a Durham alumni, he will have no contact or any idea of any other UK educated Ukrainians who attended different UK universities, past, present or future, unless they too are Durham alumni as he can find those via Durham University.

There is no all-encompassing UK university alumni group for these many civic minded Ukrainians.

Yes, setting up a group on Facebook, VK or Linkedin, or where ever is a start, but to be supportive there really would need to be real on-going links to the UK to encourage them to share their experiences and determination to change things as they see fit.  At the same time, it needs to be Ukrainian driven and cannot be run by the FCO or British Council in a formal way if it is to keep its integrity.  Further, with such a large geographical area, there may be a need for regional leaderships just as with the Ukrainian European Youth Parliament NGO.  Who kn0ws how this would grow, if indeed it did grow, should the idea go forwards.  Maybe it will fail to take root if the idea is tried.

Personally, the idea excites me.  There are obvious and less obvious bonuses for the Ukrainian UK alumni and also for the UK going forwards should it happen.

The question then is how to support it should it become a reality, rather than it just remain a discussion of a few days ago.  Ideally to keep the interest of any UK-Ukrainian alumni, guest speakers of note would be a good start.  I say of note, as all clever people like to listen to people cleverer than they are in an effort to learn something new or challenge how they see things.  I am no exception despite my years.

The question of funding is also an issue to address.  Direct funding from HMG or the FCO, even if available, would not necessarily be a good thing for those within the alumni.

Philanthropy?  Possible, but through what vehicle, NGO, NFP?  Who has the time to contact all the UK universities and collate and contact Ukrainian students past and present (whilst also tapping up the University for a small financial gesture in return for promoting said university to would-be Ukrainian students in the UK)?  Well, yes I do, but who else?  Ideally it should be Ukrainian led and probably not by somebody in the provinces.

As I say, this idea excites me, particularly so being UK university educated, legally domiciled in Ukraine and with a boy getting educated at a UK university (at a very significant cost).  It would be a shame to see him return and have little or not contact with others who have shared his learning and life experiences in the UK thereafter, especially so as if there is to be change from the bottom up in Ukraine, it will be his generation that drives it.

An idea that is certainly worthy of further thought if there are sufficient Ukrainian UK alumni interested and thus it takes root.