Top headlines from this weekend:
- Ukraine’s proposed 2020 budget of $46 billion is heavy on debt repayment and defense. Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk and Economy Minister Oksana Markarova held a joint press conference on Sept. 15, presenting how Ukraine’s 2020 budget may look like.
- Zelensky vetoed a new Electoral Code, saying it violates the Ukrainian constitution. Now the parliament will have 30 days to amend the Electoral Code vetoed by the president, or it will be dropped.
- Ukraine is in fresh talks with the IMF for a $5 billion loan. The country is set to agree a new loan of about $5 billion over three years from the International Monetary Fund, Bloomberg reported on Sept. 14, citing sources close to the talks.
- US OPIC is mulling more investment in Ukraine, as it doubles its overall fund to $60 billion.
- The government canceled a decision awarding offshore gas rights to a US company. Western hedge-fund investors, mostly American, were ready to pump at least $200 million into the country’s substantial reserves of untapped gas under the Black Sea.
- The West lost faith in its values, but Ukraine shouldn’t. That was the advice and warning from Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum at the YES Conference in Kyiv.
- Ukrainian PM Honcharuk says his are ‘an underestimated people’ at YES. “Ukrainians are a well-educated people, an underestimated people,” Honcharuk said. “Ukrainians are honest, decent, sincere people, and the long history of our country created an environment where Ukrainians were forced to lie and manipulate.”
- President Kaljulaid: Estonia has shown the path to successful e-government. Ukraine’s new administration wants to make state services available on smartphones, and there is one country in particular it can learn from.
- Protesters staged an animal rights rally in Kyiv, calling for tougher laws on cruelty and circus animals (PHOTOS).
