U.S. Suspends Aid; Ex-Pats Vie For Position By Byron Rasputin, Beet Staff Writer KYIV - In what was an unwelcome shock for Ukraine's ex-pat community, the United States announced last month that it was suspending $54 million (about 1/3 of the total) in aid to Ukraine after it determined that President Kuchma personally approved the sale of the "Kolchuga" anti-aircraft radar system to Iraq. The U.S. State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, confirmed that the U.S. had authenticated an excerpt of a July 2000 recording provided by Kuchma's former bodyguard Mykola Melnychenko that has Kuchma giving the OK for the sale. As news of the halted portion of American aid made it's way through the many Western and embassy offices in Kyiv, American ex-pats began to panic as they realized the possible repercussions of this punitive action on them. "Once I heard about it I immediately called my Washington office to see if they had heard anything," said an unnamed USAID contractor. "I knew that the Ukraine-gravy-train would run out sooner or later, but I didn't think it would be this year. I'm not ready to get a real job back in the States," he said. Likewise, other U.S. advisors and project managers had similar reactions. "The thing I really like about development work is that they don't expect any results," said another American Chief of Party that withheld his name. "I'm not sure what I would do back in the real world." Meanwhile, Christopher Crowley, head of USAID, said that he was unsure specifically what USAID programs would be affected. "USAID is a mixture of work with the government and NGOs and the private sector," he said. "We are looking at those activities in our portfolio to see how we can disaggregate some activities from the others." Some unnamed staffers at USAID, however, had noted that the number of dinner invitations, greeting cards, bottles of champagne and other gratuities received by Mr. Crowley from NGOs and consulting companies had dramatically increased since the U.S. announcement. In addition, the line of ex-pats waiting to get into Mr. Crowley's office had gotten so large, that it went up Nizhniy Val Street all the way to the Ribalskiy Island bridge. Later in the week, after the announcement, the State Department clarified the action and stated that it would, in fact, only affect aid that goes to directly assist the central (Kuchma) government - resulting in a collective sigh of relief in the ex-pat community. Soon afterward, the BIZPRO SME project announced that it would be throwing a huge bash at Art Club 44 on Saturday night, October 5th.

Development: "The Alliance" Ends; Faulty Strategy To Blame By Tanaka Yoshugi, Beet Staff Writer KYIV - The U.S. government has decided to halt funding to a well-known and long-running program in Ukraine, the Alliance. The Alliance, a consortium of four U.S.-based private volunteer organizations (IESC, MBA Corps, CDC and ACDI/VOCA) closed its doors on Sept. 30 after failing to extend the program for another five years. The program started in 1996 and connected hundreds of short-term American advisors with thousands of small- and medium-sized Ukrainian companies throughout the country. The Alliance's Chief of Party, Vlad Trygub, said the program wasn't aimed at delivering monetary aid but professional expertise to local businesses - but he now realizes that that was a mistake. "It makes perfect sense to us," said a representative from USAID, "after all, you can only accomplish so much with 'expert' advice. What the Ukrainian entrepreneurs really need is cold, hard cash. Just look at Eurasia and the Renaissance Foundation - no one is cutting their funding. Plus, they didn't have any Americans working there, so how important could it have been?" she said. Admittedly, Mr. Trygub now sees where he went wrong, "We never gave a penny to anybody," he said. "We offered human resources and helped forge cross-cultural relationships, but now I see that we should have just been giving out $100 bills to guys off the street. That probably would have saved us," he sadly noted. National: Kuchma to Head Kolchuga Investigation KYIV (AP) - President Leonid Kuchma announced yesterday that a special task force would be formed to investigate the alleged shipment of Kolchuga radar systems to Iraq. Kuchma informed the press and other observers that due to the importance of these allegations, he would personally lead the investigation. "Although this might impede my ability to wrap up the Gongadze murder and other important cases that I am invovled with, I feel that this matter needs my personal attention," Kuchma said. "I promise to give this matter the same sort of attention as the other investigations that I have led." In response to this piece of news, an anonymous U.S. government official was quoted as saying, "Well gee, I guess we can tell the FBI to cancel their travel plans. Looks like a trip to Ukraine would just be a waste of their time." U.S. Satellite Photos Detect What May Be Saddam Hussein Tooling Around the Iraqi Desert in His Shiny New Kolchuga National: Topaz Factory Coughs Up Evidence By Lem Thomly, Beet Staff Writer DONETSK - As a result of the scandal regarding the Kolchuga incident, a U.S. delegation headed by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Elizabeth Jones, has visited Ukraine in search of some answers. After the Kuchma administration's pledge that, "Ukraine is prepared to make available all information, and is open to inspections by competent authorized international organizations, including U.S. experts," Jones's team went 729 km east to Donetsk to inspect the Topaz factory that produces the system. Once there, the U.S. team was shocked to find everything they could have hoped for laid out on the new factory director's desk. "Here it is, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," he said to the Americans. Jones approached the desk and examined the printout of the purchase request for 4 Kolchuga's from Topaz's internet website, dated June 3, 2000, from the Iraqi Defense Ministry, the production order from the Kolchuga assembly section, the shipping order to the middleman in Amman, the EFT confirmation for $100,000,000 from the Bank of Cyprus to an Isle of Man bank account under the name of 'Leonid D. Kuchma', the delivery-received statement from the chief Iraqi border official, and, most importantly, an autographed photograph of Saddam Hussein riding in his shiny-new Kolchuga truck in front of his main Presidential Palace in Baghdad with the signature: "Saddam 'The Americans Can Kiss My Fucking Ass' Hussein". After satisfactorily inspecting the evidence, Ms. Jones declared the visit a success and returned to Washington the next day.

News In Brief (Wire Reports) Prosecutor General Admits Mistakes in Gongadze Case; Body Should Have Been Buried Deeper Investment In Zhytomyr Dairies Up; Cows Now Given Food Lukashenko Imposes Strict Curbs on Religion; Deems Himself Sun God Microsoft Says Piracy Rate in Ukraine is 87%; Lying Rate is 13% Sugar Beets Are of Low Quality This Year; New Worthless Vegetable Sought Defense Experts Say Kolchuga system in Iraq poses Serious Risk; U.S. pilots in "No-Fly" Zone Need an Extra 5-7 Minutes To Patrol Zone. Moldovan sells slingshot and handful of rocks to Iraqi; U.S. seriously "rethinking" relations with Moldova International: Omelchenko Named Person of the Year NEW YORK (Reuters) - Kyiv Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko was declared "Person of the Year" by the Ukrainian In-stitute of America for his considerable contribution to restoring historical monuments in Ukraine and implementing new modern projects, said UIA President Volodymyr Nazarevych. He said an official ceremony would he held in the Plaza Hotel on Dec. 8, during the opening of a photo exhibition about the develop-ment in Ukraine's capital. Mr. Nazarevych was then later seen smoking from a crack-pipe near the Penn Station bus terminal in Mid-town. International: Ukraine Pushes Tourism on Japan KYIV (AP) - The Ukrainian Embassy in Japan held a seminar last week discussing the issue of developing Ukrainian-Japanese cooperation in tourism. The Ministry of Foreign Af-fairs (MFA) reported that Japanese tourism companies specializing in the Eastern Eu-ropean market were informed about the latest deci-sions on prices and tariffs for services to visiting foreigners. The MFA now expects more yen to make its way to Ukraine. However, the Japanese Embassy in Kyiv expressed some misgivings about Ukraine's proposal. "Hey, what's with the hard-sell tactics? We've already set up six or seven sushi joints in Kyiv, what the hell else to they want? Japanese tourists?", an embassy official was quoted as saying. International: U.S. Declares Kuchma Rogue - Plans Invasion of Ukraine WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In response to the FBI's authentication of a section of the Melnychenko tapes which indicate that President Kuchma OK'd sales of the Kolchuga radar system to Iraq, the U.S. has officially declared Kuchma a rogue. "Iraq is the greatest threat that freedom loving countries of the universe have ever faced. Anyone who assists them in any way, shall face our wrath," declared George Bush. Sources close to the U.S. president stated that, "We are in the early planning stages for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine to topple President Kuchma. After we institute a regime change, we will let the U.N. run the country for a few years." Reaction to this news was mixed. Kharkiv resident, Vladimir Tipichniy, feels that, "Having the U.N. run Ukraine would probably be better than the current government we have now. However, I am not really in the mood to have the Americans drop bombs on us. I, for one, am prepared to surrender immediately." An American development worker was conflicted in his evaluation of the situation: "On the one hand, I think it is a complete over-reaction. Still, think of the fat development contracts that could come out of this." The U.S. has yet to ask the U.N. to sanction the invasion of Ukraine, but contingency plans are being drafted, according to a Defense Department official. National: Foreign Ministry Floats Evil Twin/Robot Double Theory KYIV (Reuters) - Amidst charges of selling weapons to Iraq, money laundering, journalist decapitating, abuse of power and so on and so forth, President Kuchma has finally gone on the offensive. Kuchma had earlier suggested that he was the victim of a "super apparatus" capable of producing a credible version of his voice (later dubbed into hundreds of hours of fake conversations). However, a Foreign Ministry spokesman is now stating that they may have underestimated the threat to their beloved leader. "We believe that Leonid Danilovich (Kuchma) may be the victim of an evil twin or, perhaps, a robot double." The evil twin/robot double theory would explain why many individuals featured on the Melnychenko tapes claim to have actually had the conversations recorded, while Kuchma himself has no recollection of such conversations. This evil twin/robot double would, obviously, have been the creation of various foreign intelligence sources that are dedicated to discrediting Ukraine in the eyes of the world. "It's just so nefarious that I can hardly believe it," the spokesman uttered in his closing words. HELP WANTED Experienced KrAZ mechanics sought for work overseas. Knowledge of Arabic a plus. E-mail us at:BaghdadKolchugService@hussein.gov.iq

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