In 1928, the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Canada, enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act. The Act, drafted to protect the gene pool, allowed for sterilization of mentally disabled persons in order to prevent the transmission of undesirable traits to offspring.
It took over 40 years to get this act repealed which effected almost 3,000 people with a slew of justifications including growing fear that new immigrants were inferior, generating fears over the protection of land and jobs. Many eugenics programs in North America were financed by the very wealthy Rockefeller family.
Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, recently spoke at a event for Tribute to Liberty, a recently established Canadian organization, whose first project is to have a permanent memorial built in Ottawa commemorating the Victims of the Crimes of Communism. He first brought Canadian government support for Tribute to Liberty into the public forum in his remarks on November 28th at the International Forum: My People Will Live Forever in Kyiv.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel went to St. Petersburg last week for meetings with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. The central question on the table was Germany’s position on NATO expansion, particularly with regard to Ukraine and Georgia. Merkel made it clear at a joint press conference that Germany would oppose NATO membership for both of these countries, and that it would even oppose placing the countries on the path to membership.
Under a proposed agreement with Kyiv, Libya would lease 247,000 acres of Ukraine’s rich black land to grow wheat. The harvest would then be shipped back to Libya, giving the desert nation a more secure supply of food in the face of predictions about higher food prices and potential shortages in decades to come. Ukraine, in turn, would get access to Libyan oil fields, helping free it from dependence on Russia for its energy needs.
The United States and Ukraine Friday signed what was termed a Charter of Strategic Partnership calling for cooperation in defense, energy, trade and other areas. The United States will set up a diplomatic mission in Ukraine’s Crimean region.
Got this e-mail from a teacher about the Orange Revolution in her lesson plans:
The Orange Revolution Project.
Lesson plans that explore the themes of Human Rights, Democracy and Good Governance. Included is an online simulation using the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine as the context. Please go to: http://www.tiged.org/orange and http://www.teachmag.com
There is a neat little flash game that lets you make the decisions through the 2004 crisis, playing the roles of both Yushchenko and Yanukovich.
Remember those Canadian history vigenettes you (sed to see on TV? I almost forgot about the one featuring Myrnam Hospital – where the Ukrainian community in Alberta along with others volunteered their time and effort in the post depression era to provide all medical services, except hospitalization, for free.
Theatre director Andriy Zholdak premiered his Holodomor play “Lenin Love, Stalin Love” in Kyiv TV last week drawing 10 million viewers. It is based on the Soviet-banned 1963 novel “Yellow Prince” by Holodomor survivor Vasyl Barka who emigrated to the US to publish his novel. The play is looking to tour through Japan, Korea, Romania, Germany, Finland, Moscow and Saint-Petersburg before ending in Kyiv.
Authorities in Kyiv have decided to take down ten Soviet-era monuments, including eight statues of Vladimir Lenin, but will leave a main Lenin monument on the main street of Kreshchatik.
Somali pirates holding an arms-laden Ukrainian cargo ship on Sunday accused the owners of stalling on a ransom payment and threatened to pull out of a deal for its release struck a week ago.
The National Bank of Ukraine has unveiled its intentions to intervene Dec. 8 through Dec. 12 so as to revaluate the hryvnia. Ukraine’s finance ministry has proposed that the central bank limit the sale of foreign currencies for cash use. Demand for the dollar has surged as the hryvnia currency rapidly shed over 60 percent of its value since the start of September. Ukraine’s economy is highly dollarised — many Ukrainians took out loans for cars or apartments in dollars.
Two Berkley California teachers got the chance this summer to impart their skills to aspiring teachers in Ukraine. They focused on training Ukrainian teachers to become technology specialists in order to promote computer literacy among teachers and students of Ukraine.
Shipping costs have plunged to 22-year lows, skewing global grain trading patterns to the point where U.S. hog farmers are importing wheat from Britain and Japan has eschewed U.S. corn supplies to buy from the distant Ukraine. Ukraine have been able to make sales far beyond its traditional markets in Europe and the Middle East, reaching out to Asia, European traders said.
Putin has brought up the possibility that Europe may be hit hard if Russia cuts natural gas supplies to Ukraine because of a pricing and debt dispute between Moscow and Kyiv. Then Putin switched from Russian into Ukrainian and added “Have you lost your mind?†— a sound-bite that is currently being carried all over Ukraine (as Putin intended). A fall in the value of the hryvnia currency has cost Ukraine an additional $83 million in meeting the cost of gas shipments and disrupted attempts to pay arrears, the state oil and gas company Naftogaz said.