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WEEKLY REMEMBERS ANOTHER INCIDENT FROM HISTORY OF 'THE NEW YORK TIMES.' Reporting about the recent departure of "The New York Times'" executive editor and the episode involving former reporter Jason Blair, "Yezhenedelnyi zhurnal," No. 73, recalled the career of "The New York Times" correspondent Walter Duranty. The weekly noted that Duranty, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his "dispassionate and objective reporting" from the Soviet Union, labeled reports about a famine in Ukraine "baseless." According to the weekly, people who knew Duranty recall that he in fact knew that 7 million people had died. The weekly speculates that Duranty was a paid agent of the Soviet secret police. It wrote that many of his articles "were clearly prepared with the assistance of the [secret police's] foreign department." Another possibility, according to the weekly, was that Duranty's work was an expression of "ideal amorality." Duranty was a close associate of satanist Alistair Crowley. At one point, Crowley reportedly wrote to Duranty suggesting that in order for the Soviet regime to be "truly modern," Stalin should proclaim a law of Satanism. The Pulitzer Prize committee is currently reviewing Duranty's award as a result of international pressure calling for its revocation, UPI and other international media reported on 2 June. ("RFE/RL Newsline," 16 June)

UKRAINIAN, POLISH PRESIDENTS MEET IN ODESA. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and his Polish counterpart Aleksander Kwasniewski attended the opening of a Polish consulate in the Black Sea port of Odesa on 24 June, Ukrainian news agencies reported. The two presidents were expected to take part in a Ukrainian-Polish business forum in Odesa later the same day. JM

NEW DEPUTY JOINS UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT. The Central Electoral Commission on 24 June registered Mykola Kulchynskyy as a lawmaker of the Verkhovna Rada, UNIAN reported. Kulchynskyy ran in the 2002 parliamentary elections on the Our Ukraine party list. He replaces Volodymyr Shcherban, whose mandate was terminated by the parliament last week in connection with his appointment to the post of governor of Sumy Oblast. Shcherban was also elected on the Our Ukraine party list but abandoned that parliamentary caucus in July 2002 for the pro-presidential People's Choice group. JM

MOLDOVAN PRESIDENT VISITS NATO HEADQUARTERS. President Vladimir Voronin, on a two-day visit to Brussels, met with NATO Secretary-General Lord George Robertson at the alliance's headquarters on 23 June, an RFE/RL correspondent in Chisinau reported. Presidential spokesman Valeriu Renita said after the talks that Voronin and Robertson discussed possible NATO involvement in helping to settle the Transdniester conflict. Renita said NATO might help Moldova achieve "reintegration" by acting via the NATO-Russia and the NATO-Ukraine councils. Voronin was expected to meet with European Commission President Romano Prodi and External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten on 24 June. MS