Lugansk rgn council demands Russian back to schools, radio

DONETSK, March 4 (Itar-Tass) -- The Lugansk Regional Council on
Wednesday urged Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovich to return
Russian, a native language for the majority of people living in the
region, to school and local mass media.
One of the initiators of the appeal, Irina Zaitseva, who has a PhD in
philology, said it would be necessary not only to made a decision on
external independent testing of secondary school graduates in the language
of their choosing, but also organise public hearings to discuss
educational programmes and concepts, as well as methodologies used by
pre-school institutions.
"Testing is not so far away. The academic year is coming to an end.
And if no decision is made in the remaining time on the free selection of
the language of testing, Russian-speaking graduates, who make up the
majority in the Lugansk region, will once again be put at disadvantage as
compared to their peers living in Ukrainian-speaking regions," she said.
The council also supported Rodion Miroshnik, head of the regional
state television and radio company, who suggested submitting an appeal in
connection with the requirement imposed by the National Council for
Television and Radio Broadcasting that licences will be issued only to
those companies that broadcast entirely in Ukrainian.
Miroshnik believes it would be fair to give proportional airtime for
broadcasts in Ukrainian and other languages used by the majority of the
population in a given region.
Regional mass media have been constantly complaining that the Russian
language is being more and more forced out of the information environment
in Ukraine.

.Sechin assures president oil companies will help with spring
fieldwork.

GORKI, March 4 (Itar-Tass) -- President Dmitry Medvedev instructed
Russian Vice Prime Minister Igor Sechin to engage oil companies in
preparing for agricultural spring fieldwork.
The president admitted that the situation "is not quite simple : as
usual, it is never simple".
"Last year decisions were made that allowed our agricultural
enterprises to carry out spring and autumn fieldwork using the additional
opportunities offered to them, such as gas and other fuel on somewhat
easier terms than to other consumers," Medvedev said at a meeting with
Sechin on Wednesday.
"But giving nothing new, offering no new opportunities to our
enterprises would be wrong : we should create conditions for their
development," he said.
"We will certainly to this shortly, draft proposals and try to
dovetail them to the preferences that are granted to companies in their
respective areas of responsibility in the country," Sechin said.
"We understand that one of the important elements of work in the
sector is supplies to the domestic market. We are working with the
agrarians now to provide for spring fieldwork and are quite confident that
this task will be implemented in a stable way as it was last year," he
said.
"You are right, it should be a responsible approach. One the one hand,
we have the possibilities to stimulate them towards certain decisions, but
on the other hand, we should also help our producers," Sechin said.
-o-zak