UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT SUSPENDS PRIVATIZATION. The parliament on 4 November passed a resolution suspending privatization and demanding that President Leonid Kuchma appoint a new privatization chief, Interfax reported. The legal impact of that decision is unclear, but it is another indication that the Ukrainian legislators include many opponents of reform, against whom Kuchma has repeatedly warned. In another largely symbolic move, the parliament refused to approve Kuchma's proposal to rename 7 November as a "Day of Memory and Reconciliation." pg

UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT PRAISES CIS'S PAST ROLE. Kuchma said in Kharkov on 4 November that the CIS had "helped start building interstate relations" and allowed a "mostly civilized" divorce of the former Soviet republics, ITAR-TASS reported. But he discussed its positive role only in the past tense and suggested that "now almost all member-states agree" that the organization must be reformed if it is to have a future. In other comments, Kuchma said that there will be no forced "Ukrainization" of the country's ethnic Russians and that Russia will "long remain a leading partner of Ukraine." pg