I am not an lawyer nor have I played one on TV. The following blog is just my personal opinion. It is up to everyone to decide what they are ethically comfortable with.

From my Vocabulary Definitions blog:

bribe - You pay someone to act illegally.

expedite fee - You pay someone to work faster.

Let's travel back in time and... more

I believe the current political mess caused the adoption slow down. This is just my pet theory. I haven't seen this is print.

I wrote some blogs about Ukrainian poverty and wealth... more

The current Ukrainian political situation may be delaying the appointment of a new SDA director (or maybe not... it can be hard getting a definitive answer).

Fortunately this hasn't halted adoptions but rather slowed adoption processing.

So I decided to blog on the political standoff between the 2 Viktors.

Ukraine has a unicameral parliament called Verkhovna... more

I have been reading about the Ukrainian Constitutional Court.

They are going to settle the current dispute between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Both sides have agreed to accept the court's decision on the following question.

Does President Viktor Yushchenko have the constitutional authority to... more

President’s decree on dissolving the parliament published today. So now it is the law of the land. The current parliament is no more.

I did an informal poll of a few Ukrainians. And I checked in with a Russian who lives in the United States. None of them were concerned or worked up over Ukraine's political unrest.

It wasn't that they were indifferent. This power... more

Let's be selfish for a brief moment. President Yushchenko dissolved parliament and called for elections.

Remember bill #2562? This is the draft law that would make single parent adoption illegal... and set a minimum and maximum age for adoptive parents.

Well it is dead now.

But Ukraine really has bigger issues right now. One bright spot is that... more

I played chess when I was a child. I remember teaching myself to play based on a rule book. And I didn't have to twist my younger brother's arm too much... He eventually played chess. It was just a fun game.

Illya Nyzhnyk is 10 years old and just beat the pants off of quite a few adults in the Moscow Chess Open 2007. And he did it with a teddy panda bear snuggled in his arms.

YouTube has a short movie/interview with Illya when he was... more

I enjoy reading Nicholas' Kiev blog. He is an American who has lived in Ukraine for 15 years now.

His blog contains gems like Ukrainians Arrested For Smuggling Pork Fat.

He also posts news stories about Ukrainian politics like Ukraine's Premier Asks Prosecutor To Block Borys Tarasyuk As Foreign Minister.

Most... more

65 years ago today, Ukraine wasn't a country. Lvov (Lviv) was part of Poland. In Lvov a Jewish Ghetto was established in late 1941 with 106,000 people. The province of Ruthenia still existed and was part of Czechoslovakia. After 1945 this land became part of "the Ukraine" (the borderland).

The German Army arrived in Kyiv on September 19 1941. And some people thought the Germans were the lesser of 2 evils when compared to Stalin.

It was a confusing time... more

The Korespondent Journal created this richest Ukrainian list. I cannot find an on-line link to this story. I got this information via The Action Ukraine Report.

Continuing the list... Here are the 9th and 10th richest Ukrainians.

9. Oleksii Martynov

Korespondent estimates his assets at USD 1.4 billion.

I cannot find a single thing about him via google. The man keeps a low profile. Or the information is only available via Russian language web sites.

10.... more