06/26/2015 Ukraine: Daily Highlights - The terrorist attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait, Somalia and France. One Ukrainian woman injured

The terrorist attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait, Somalia and France

06.26.2015 Daily Highlights by the Digests & Analytics Ukraine News Agency

Topics from Media and Social Networks

• The terrorist attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait, Somalia and France. One Ukrainian woman injured.
• Russian prosecutors said the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 was illegal.
• Saakashvili excoriated the management of State Aviation Service.
  

Key Events in Ukraine

• President Poroshenko said that he will submit proposals to amend the Constitution to the Verkhovna Rada next week.
• The Cabinet of Ministers has appointed the former Chairman of the Kirovograd regional administration Chernysh as a head of the agency on the restoration of Donbass.
• Prime Minister Yatsenyuk proposed to legalize gambling and send the proceeds from it  to support cultural projects.
• Minister of Social Policy Rozenko announced the reorganization of public employment service into a national agency to address employment issues.
• Head of the Odessa Regional State Administration Saakashvili demanded to ensure transparent conditions for all air carriers from the management of the State Aviation Service and accused officials in lobbying the main market participant - UIA, owned by oligarch Kolomoisky.
• Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said that the 86 facilities of the company Ostchem owned by oligarch Firtash were arrested,.
• Finance Minister Yaresko said that the international committee of creditors blocks decision on the restructuring of Ukrainian sovereign debt.
• National Bank has kept the official interest rate at 30%.
• According to the NBU there are 128 banks left in Ukraine, 40 of them have foreign capital, excluding the institutions in which a temporary administration was introduced. 41 banks was liquidated in a half of the year.
• The official rate of the hryvnia against major currencies rose slightly ahead of the weekend: 21.02 UAH/USD (-0.18 UAH), 23.54 UAH/EUR (-0,21 UAH), 3.83 UAH/RUR 10 (-0.05 UAH).

Ukraine at War

• Militants provocations on the demarcation line does not stop even for a day. The main fighting took place in the vicinity of the Donetsk airport, near Mariupol, north of Horlivka, Luhansk and in the Schastya village.
• President Poroshenko said that the number of troops in the antiterrorist operation zone  increased to 60 thousand.
• SBU stops the usage of the paper passes for crossing the demarcation line from June 26  and completely changed it  to electronic authorization, which can be accessed through a dedicated website.
• As the result of the fire from automatic gun two police officers were wounded in Odessa, one - died in the hospital.

Ukraine and the World

• The militants of the Islamic State performed the terrorist attack in Tunisia which killed 39 people, mainly tourists from the UK and Germany. A citizen of Ukraine received a gunshot. An explosion of the bomb in a mosque in Kuwait by the suicide bomber killed 25 people. At least 30 people killed during the terrorist attacks on the base of the African Union troops in Somalia.
• The situation with the Greek sovereign debt remains extremely difficult. Prime Minister Tsipras proposed a referendum on the country's fulfillment of the requirements of international lenders.
• "Tariff maidan" in Yerevan is growing, authorities moved additional police units toward the center of the Armenian capital.
• EU plans to start discussions on a new strategy for foreign and security policy which will be presented by the European Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Mogherini before the end of June.
• Russia is unlikely to cancel the contract for the transit of gas through Ukraine after 2019, as the excess of the actual production and China's refusal to finance the construction of the gas pipeline "Power of Siberia" requires pumping capacity under conditions of excess gas and drop in consumption.
• The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry described the idea of ​​creating an international tribunal to bring people guilty in destroying an airliner flight MH-17 to justice as "untimely and counterproductive,".
• Russian General Prosecutor's Office called the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 illegal, as this decision did not satisfied the constitution of the country at the time.
• A former Pentagon chief Perry sees no alternative to a diplomatic detente between the US and Russia and considers that the Russian nuclear threat should be taken seriously.

The Trends

• Venice Commission drew attention to the lack of an article on the special status of Donbass in the final section of the draft Constitution of Ukraine in the conclusions. There were reports in the media that the Ukrainian authorities intend to include this article in the bill. In case of a positive vote in the Verkhovna Rada it will actually secure Russia imposed federalization. In addition, the comments of the Venice Commission which were not included in the project, give the president additional power and reduce the rights of the other branches of government.
• The public and the number of People's Deputies believe that the permit system imposed by the ATO headquarters at checkpoints in a war zone, does not fulfill the basic tasks to detain terrorists but increases hatred to the Ukrainian authorities by the population living in the occupied territories of Donbass. The biggest problems are huge queues at checkpoints, bus ban and unequal conditions for the movement of goods, especially food, through the line of demarcation for businesses and citizens.
• The terrorist attacks in Muslim countries distract the West from the problem of the Russian aggression in Ukraine.