Gore to visit Chernobyl, and seek Ukraine reforms,

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Wednesday July 22 7:02 AM EDT 

KIEV, Ukraine (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Al Gore plans to 
press the Ukrainian government on Wednesday to speed up
its sluggish economic reforms during his visit to the former Soviet 
republic, U.S. officials said. 

Gore arrived in Kiev early on Wednesday for a two-day stay that 
will include meetings with Ukrainian President Leonid
Kuchma and a brief visit on Thursday to Chernobyl, site of the 
world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986. 

U.S. officials said Gore's main aim was to persuade the Ukrainian 
government to undertake the economic reforms that are vital
if Ukraine is to win a $2.5 billion loan from the International 
Monetary Fund (IMF). 

"What he needs to get across is that it is essential to persevere 
with the reform process -- to go through with it," said a senior
U.S. official traveling with Gore. 

"We know that it is hard," the official added. "It's a message of 
encouragement in something which is difficult politically for
Kuchma and difficult in the personal lives of the people of Ukraine." 

Both Ukraine and neighboring Russia, which Gore will also visit on 
his trip, have seen their financial markets hit in recent
months as the Asian financial crisis has spread to other emerging 
markets. 

Russia on Monday got a helping hand from the West when the IMF 
board approved $22.6 billion in fresh loans to shore up its
ailing economy. 

Ukraine is negotiating for new funds with the IMF, which earlier this 
year suspended a $542 million standby credit and set 92
conditions for Kiev, including slashing its budget deficit and 
pushing ahead with stalled privatization. 

Russian President Boris Yeltsin has enacted some economic 
reforms by decree, seeking to push through austerity measures
that the State Duma -- Russia's lower house of parliament -- has 
been loathe to pass. 

In Ukraine, by contrast, reform has been given at best a lukewarm 
embrace by Kuchma's government, and faces outright
hostility in the left-leaning Ukrainian parliament elected in March. 

Kuchma has also issued a string of decrees on the economy but, 
unlike the broad presidential powers that Yeltsin enjoys, he
needs the approval of the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, to carry 
them through. 

"For Kuchma, it's a double task -- he has to work with people 
inside his own government as well as his Rada," said a U.S.
official. 

Gore travels to Chernobyl on Thursday to see a first hand the site 
of the world's worst civil nuclear accident. 

The U.S. vice president, a long-time environmentalist, will travel to 
Chernobyl by helicopter, flying over the ring of barbed wire
that surrounds a 30 km (20 mile) exclusion zone around the plant 
and several abandoned towns nearby. 

The Ukrainian government, which has promised to close the power 
plant by 2000, has threatened to keep it open if it does not
get $1.2 billion in Western money to pay for two new plants to 
replace the power lost when Chernobyl shuts. 

The West is already seeking to raise the estimated $760 million 
needed to shore up the steel and concrete sarcophagus that
entombs Chernobyl's fourth reactor, which exploded in April, 1986, 
spewing a radioactive cloud over parts of Russia, Ukraine
and Belarus. 

Gore is not expected to bring any new money for Chernobyl, but 
mindful of the nuclear arms race brewing in South Asia is
expected to use his brief visit to speak of the dangers of misusing 
nuclear power for civil or military purposes.

------------------
Sandy Perle
Technical Director
ICN Dosimetry Division
ICN Plaza
3300 Hyland Avenue
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Office: (800) 548-5100 x2306 
Fax:    (714) 668-3149
  
sandyfl@earthlink.net
sperle@icnpharm.com

ICN Dosimetry Website:
http://www.dosimetry.com

Personal Website:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -

The opinions expressed are solely, absolutely, positively, definitely those of the author, and NOT my employer