A Ukrainian human rights group has started an annual anti-award program they call Thistle Awards. They are trying to call attention to the most brutal violators of human rights.

First place winner: Prosecutor General’s Office for restricting access to information on natural disasters and accidents.

Runner up: Government Department that runs the prisons for the high number of immate suicides.

Runner up: Alchevsk prosecutor’s office for not investigating complaints of torture in the local prison.

In a blog last month, I mentioned a BBC news story about Harrowing reports of babies stolen at birth and human organ removal.

And then I read this news story.

Healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells, evidence obtained by the BBC suggests.

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Ukraine has become the self-styled stem cell capital of the world.

There is a trade in stem cells from aborted foetuses, amid unproven claims they can help fight many diseases.

But now there are claims that stem cells are also being harvested from live babies.

From: Ukraine babies in stem cell probe

Transnistria is in the news again. I have a summary of this not-country's issues with Ukraine. Ukraine is firmly on Moldova's side.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry says that the international community finds both the presidential elections and the recent referendum held in Transnistria in September 2006 inconsistent with international rules and regulations, and the UN and OSCE principles, and hence they do not contribute to the settlement of the Transnistrian conflict as a whole.

From: Ukraine decries Transnistrian elections as illegitimate

Ukraine is a growing economy if these hotel chains are opening in Kyiv.

Several upscale hotels are scheduled to open in Kyiv within the next couple of years to satisfy the growing demand.

Increasing numbers of business travellers and tourists coming to the Ukrainian capital stimulates appearance of new hotels.

From: Hyatt, Hilton set their sights at the Ukraine hotel market