UKRAINIAN MINERS END STRIKE. Miners from Pavlovhrad, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, have ended their strike following a government pledge to pay their back wages, ITAR-TASS reported on 18 June. The miners, who had marched some 600 kilometers to Kyiv to demand the payment of wage arrears, left the capital only after witnessing a payment order signed by the government. Ukrainian Television reported on 16 June that the government has signed a protocol with the Pavlovhrad miners whereby it will pay 17 million hryvni ($13 million) in current wages and allocate another 30 million to pay wage arrears. The protocol also provides for the implementation of the parliament's resolution on allocating 600 million hryvni to support the coal industry. JM

UKRAINIAN LAWMAKERS PROTEST SUPPRESSION OF OPPOSITION PRESS. Ten Supreme Council deputies published an open letter to Prime Minister Valeriy Pustovoytenko in the 17 June "Holos Ukrayiny" requesting him "to put an end to the negative development of events in the [country's] information sphere." The deputies accused Information Minister Zinoviy Kulyk of clamping down on opposition newspapers and media critical of the current government. They pointed to "Pravda Ukrayiny," "Vseukrainskiye vedomosti," and "Polityka," whose publication was "temporarily suspended" following legal actions taken against them by the Information Ministry or administrative measures applied by tax and other services subordinated to the executive. JM

UKRAINIAN MINERS END STRIKE. Miners from Pavlovhrad, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, have ended their strike following a government pledge to pay their back wages, ITAR-TASS reported on 18 June. The miners, who had marched some 600 kilometers to Kyiv to demand the payment of wage arrears, left the capital only after witnessing a payment order signed by the government. Ukrainian Television reported on 16 June that the government has signed a protocol with the Pavlovhrad miners whereby it will pay 17 million hryvni ($13 million) in current wages and allocate another 30 million to pay wage arrears. The protocol also provides for the implementation of the parliament's resolution on allocating 600 million hryvni to support the coal industry. JM

UKRAINIAN LAWMAKERS PROTEST SUPPRESSION OF OPPOSITION PRESS. Ten Supreme Council deputies published an open letter to Prime Minister Valeriy Pustovoytenko in the 17 June "Holos Ukrayiny" requesting him "to put an end to the negative development of events in the [country's] information sphere." The deputies accused Information Minister Zinoviy Kulyk of clamping down on opposition newspapers and media critical of the current government. They pointed to "Pravda Ukrayiny," "Vseukrainskiye vedomosti," and "Polityka," whose publication was "temporarily suspended" following legal actions taken against them by the Information Ministry or administrative measures applied by tax and other services subordinated to the executive. JM