Ukraine’s opposition thwarted over Kiev mayor.
Thousands of supporters of Ukraine’s re-energized opposition rallied outside parliament on Tuesday to press for early elections for the mayor of Kiev and oust an ally of President Viktor Yanukovich from the powerful post.

But despite the show of strength, Yanukovich’s Party of the Regions defeated the attempt to set a June date for the ballot.
The outcome means that Yanukovich, whose first bid for power was doomed in 2004 by street protests in Kiev which became known as the “Orange Revolution”, should be able to keep his man in control of the capital when he bids for a second term in 2015.

A crowd led by the three main opposition leaders marched from the center of the capital to parliament, holding aloft banners calling for the release of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and denouncing Yanukovich’s policies.
The protesters’ direct target was Olexander Popov, appointed by Yanukovich as head of Kiev city’s administration and now effectively mayor of the capital.

The Party of the Regions is pushing for the Kiev mayoral election to be delayed for two years until after the 2015 presidential election.The last mayor, who left office in mid-2012, was effectively replaced by Popov.
Banners read “Popov as mayor means Kiev dies” and “Do not let Yanukovich steal elections from the people of Kiev” in the biggest such action this year by the united opposition which performed well in a parliamentary election in October.

But, despite impassioned pleas in the chamber by former economy minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and far-right nationalist Oleh Tyahnybok, opposition parties failed to muster enough support to secure a June election.

Tuesday’s demonstration came as Ukraine’s leaders hesitate between forging closer ties with the European Union or aligning themselves more closely with former Soviet master Russia.

The European Union warned Yanukovich in February that a free trade deal could be jeopardized if Ukraine did not show progress towards political reform by May.

For the EU, the deal is conditional on improved human rights and ending the practice of “selective justice” – meaning the jailing of political opponents such as former prime minister Tymoshenko, Yanukovich’s arch rival who is serving a seven-year jail sentence for abuse of office.

In spring 2008, the Yuliya Tymoshenko government annulled the contract but it has been revived after a positive decision by the Stockholm Arbitration Court. Donetsk oligarch Rinat Akhmetov is searching for joint investors in the Vanco project.

Royal Dutch Shell won a tender in 2012 in a consortium with other international petroleum companies for the exploration of offshore deep-water reserves in the Black Sea’s Skifska field. They agreed to pay an upfront premium of $300 million upon signing the PSA and pledged to invest $200 million in the exploration phase.

The fourth policy, probably the most important, is supporting an expansion of gas production

Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell Ukraine Graham Tiley told the Ukrainian edition of Forbes magazine last year that it is entirely feasible for a three-fold increase in gas production from the current 20 billion cubic meters.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Ukraine was the biggest gas producer in the Soviet Union and much of this infra-structure of pipelines, underground storage and expertise remains. From the late 1970s the center of Soviet energy moved to Western Siberia and Central Asia.

One of the companies supporting Ukraine’s drive for energy independence is Cub Energy, a relatively small player in Ukraine’s energy sector registered in Toronto, a city it chose believing it offered better opportunities than London or Oslo.

Jan 7 Orthodox Christmas
Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar, used in Europe and North America. Therefore the Ukrainians celebrate Christmas on January 7, 13 days later than the Catholic world. A very important religious holiday, Christmas wasn’t celebrated under the Soviets almost during the whole 20th century and only at the end of 1990s it was resurrected. On January 6th, Christmas Eve, many families gather for Sviata Vecheria (Holy Supper). The twelve-course meal is dedicated to Christ’s twelve apostles. The traditional meals included are kutia (home-made bread with honey and red poppies), borsch (beet soup), vushka (dumplings filled with onions and mushrooms), a variety of fish, vareniki (dumplings filled with cabbage, potatoes, or prunes), andholubtsi (stuffed cabbage). In the last few years many forgotten traditions like Kolyadki (masked children going door-to-door to receive candy in exchange for traditional songs and jokes) have being reviving.