Year: December 20, 2019 3:53 am

We write these words on the feast day of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, one of the most revered saints of our Ukrainian Churches. The life of St. Nicholas was the subject of a Facebook post on December 19 – the saint’s feast day according to the Julian calendar – by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which exhorted us to follow this saint’s example of love, kindness, compassion and charitable works. And then we thought about those in our midst whose good works are worthy of, not only praise, but support and emulation.
Our December 8 issue carried a story headlined “Whippany youths support children in Ukraine” about the wonderful work of the local chapter of the Ukrainian American Youth Association in brightening the lives of youngsters in faraway Ukraine. It was all part of a global endeavor by the Ukrainian Youth Association (SUM) dubbed “Warm the Heart of a Child,” whereby members fill backpacks with winter clothing, school supplies, toys and handwritten greetings.

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Five years ago, on December 23, 2014, Ukraine’s Parliament – the Verkhona Rada – voted to abandon the country’s neutral “non-bloc” status and set a course for NATO membership. The legislation was submitted by President Petro Poroshenko and passed by a vote of 303 “yes” votes in the 450-seat chamber.
The change in the law on domestic and foreign policy was explained that Ukraine’s non-bloc status that was codified under then-President Viktor Yanukovych in 2010 had left Ukraine vulnerable to “external aggression and pressure,” noting that “the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine, its illegal annexation of Crimea…, its military intervention in eastern regions” and other forms of pressure created the need for “more effective guarantees of independence, sovereignty, security and territorial integrity.”

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Christmas Pastoral of the Ukrainian Catholic Hierarchy of the U.S.A. to our Clergy, Religious, Seminarians and Beloved Faithful.

Christ is born!

These days we have a lot on our minds. Schoolchildren are being graded, high schoolers have college applications, college students just completed their exams and papers. All await the results. Adults are considering year-end family or professional budgets and December expenses – hoping to somehow come out ahead. And we all wonder: What was really accomplished during the past year? Gleeful on the outside but exhausted on the inside. The “Holiday Season” is upon us.

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Having seen his parliamentary majority reduced to a minority and not managing to get a single member of Parliament elected in two Prairie Provinces – Alberta and Saskatchewan – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has turned to his most capable minister to help heal the regional division created in the most recent election.
And that is none other than Ukrainian Canadian Chrystia Freeland, whom he has appointed his deputy prime minister. She also assumes the portfolio of minister of intergovernmental affairs and will also continue to oversee some ongoing files from her previous position as minister of foreign affairs – in particular overseeing the implementation of the revised North American Free Trade Agreement.

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Dear Editor:

Like any other attendee who was not involved in the planning of the Forum, I arrived not knowing what to expect. The informal “Meet and Greet” on Friday night gave me an inkling. As I re-connected with cherished colleagues from Canada and elsewhere, and met the remarkable and dynamic group from Michigan among other new faces from throughout North America, I could see energy and the desire for action flowing as freely as the wine. Saturday’s workshops (please see Forum write-up in the November 17 issue of The Ukrainian Weekly); the screening of the short documentary, “When we Starve” by Dr. Borys Buniak; the remarks of the evening’s honoree, retired U.S. Congressman Sander Levin; and Sunday’s speaker Brian Whitmore, all exceeded expectations.

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Dear Editor:

With the impeachment hearings under way, President Donald Trump is being accused of withholding weapons from Ukraine for his own political gain. That’s bad enough, but it’s now open season on Ukrainians in the right-wing media. Fox News is attacking Ukraine and Ukrainians, and Mr. Trump is tweeting up a storm of hatred towards friends of Ukraine such as Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Ambassador William Taylor and, most despicably of all, towards Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a decorated war hero.

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People all over the world are forced to endure many types of hunger. Of these, two types are most prevalent – a hunger for food, and a hunger for love and affection. Very often, these two hungers are closely connected – if there were more love in the world, fewer people would suffer. Unfortunately, there are so many people starving for both food and love, that those of us who would like to alleviate their pain must decide exactly whom we can help. The Charitable Program at St. John’s Ukrainian Catholic Church in Newark, N.J., has chosen to focus its attention on the needy in Ukraine, and for the past 10 years, we have provided them with a considerable amount of aid.

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The Ukrainian Canadian community has many successful individuals. Most are not noticed outside of their close circle, but some become recognized as outstanding. Back on March 20, two members of the Ukrainian Canadian community were honored at the Schulich Alumni Recognition Awards 2019.
Roman Dubczak (MBA ’87) received the Outstanding Progress and Achievement Award presented by the Schulich School of Business. He has had a stellar business career since joining the CIBC in 1992. He is currently the managing director and head of Global Investment Banking at CIBC.

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Alyaksandr Lukashenka doesn’t want to have his country absorbed by Russia because that would cost him and no family their power and perhaps even more, says commentator Roman Popkov. But a far greater obstacle to an Anschluss like Crimea is “the lack of desire of the broad masses of the Belarusian people” to give up the independent state they have lived in.
“Not all of these supporters of a sovereign Belarus are convinced members of the opposition,” the Russian opposition commentator says. “Not all of them consider the white-red-white flag as their own. But the overwhelming majority of Belarusians, while viewing the Russians as ‘our own’ and as ‘brothers,’ do not want to become Russians.”

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One Belarusian in four has not read the Belarusian media during the last month but instead relies on Russian media, often delivered via the Internet, according to Mikhail Doroshevich, the director of the Baltic Internet Policy Initiative, on the basis of a new survey.
This group watches NTV on the Internet, goes to Russian portals like Lenta.ru and communicates with each other via Russian social media, the media expert says.
This means, he suggests, that this part of the Belarusian population already effectively lives in the Russian information space, even though their country remains independent. They simply do not follow what is going on in Belarus, except through the very distorted reporting of Russian media outlets.

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“The Shoals of Ukraine,” by Serhii Plokhy and M. E. Sarotte Foreign Affairs, January/February 2020:

At first, it might seem surprising that Ukraine, a country on the fringes of Europe, is suddenly at the turbulent center of American politics and foreign policy. ...
In fact, that Ukraine is at the center of this storm should not be surprising at all. Over the past quarter century, nearly all major efforts at establishing a durable post–Cold War order on the Eurasian continent have foundered on the shoals of Ukraine. For it is in Ukraine that the disconnect between triumphalist end-of-history delusions and the ongoing realities of great-power competition can be seen in its starkest form.

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WARREN, Mich. – Sometimes, the greatest treasures are those that lie before you – unnoticed, tucked away on bookshelves or in rarely opened drawers. All it takes is a sudden realization for inspiration to take hold. Such was the case when members of Ukrainian National Women’s League of America Branch 96 perused their vast library of books at their local headquarters. This spurred the question: How many of these books were penned by Michigan authors?
As it turns out, over 200 books – in genres ranging from prose, poetry, non-fiction, memoir and drama to history, politics, journalism and more – were discovered. And this didn’t include commemorative publications, almanacs, bulletins or booklets of individual organizations. The publications span from the 1800s to the present, providing an interesting look back at the community activities of the earliest Ukrainian immigrants to the area.

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