COMMUNIST LEADER ACCUSES KUCHMA OF PROVOKING 'ANTICOMMUNIST HYSTERIA.' Ukrainian Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko has accused President Leonid Kuchma of stirring up "anti-communist hysteria" in the lead-up to the presidential elections on 31 October, AP reported. According to Symonenko, Kuchma is afraid of losing power and facing responsibility for his policies and is therefore seeking to shift the blame for his mistakes onto the parliament and the left-wing camp. "Instead of repentance in front of Ukraine and its people, the dirty political affair of advancing the incumbent president in the elections is continuing," the agency quoted Symonenko as saying. Symonenko has registered to run against Kuchma in the presidential race. JM

MOLDOVA, UKRAINE TO SIGN BORDER TREATY IN JULY. Moldovan Deputy Premier Nicolae Andronic and visiting Ukrainian Deputy Premier Serhiy Tyhypko told journalists in Chisinau on 1 June that the treaty on the demarcation of their countries' joint border will be signed during President Petru Lucinschi's official visit to Ukraine in July, Reuters reported. Tyhypko said that the text has been finalized and that an official map will be completed within two weeks. Under the agreement, Moldova will receive a 100-meter swath of land along the River Danube, near the village of Giurgiulesti, which is essential for the construction of a Moldovan oil terminal. They will swap plots of land near the southern Moldovan town of Basarabeasca, and Moldova will give up a 7-kilometer portion of the road near the village of Palanca. MS