About the Author: Ann Stock serves as Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.

February 6 marks the 27th National Day of Women and Girls in Sports.

Today in Esteli, Nicaragua, girls from under-served areas are on the softball diamond, fielding grounders, running out base hits, and learning how sports can improve their health and their performance in the classroom.

In Donetsk, Ukraine, girls were on the basketball court, looking for the outlet pass, grabbing rebounds, and working as a team.

In Knoxville, Tennessee, 12 young, female basketball players from Senegal recently concluded a 10-day international exchange.… more »

Press Statement
Mark C. Toner
Acting Spokesperson
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
October 29, 2012

The United States Government is concerned that the conduct of Sunday’s parliamentary elections constituted a step backwards from progress made during previous parliamentary elections and the 2010 presidential election, elections that had marked important steps forward for Ukraine’s democracy.

We share the concerns cited in today’s preliminary report from observation missions from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. These include the use of government resources to favor ruling party candidates, interference with media access, and harassment of opposition candidates. While election day was peaceful overall and observed by a large number of domestic and international observers, we are troubled by allegations of fraud and falsification in the voting process and tabulation, by the disparity between preliminary results from the Central Election Commission and parallel vote tabulations, and by the Central Election Commission’s decision not to release precinct results. We also reiterate our deep concern that the politically motivated convictions of opposition leaders, including of former Prime Minister Tymoshenko, prevented them from standing in these elections. We again call on the Government to put an immediate end to the selective prosecution of political opponents.

The United States will continue to support the Ukrainian people’s aspirations for an independent, prosperous and democratic Ukraine. We regret that flawed parliamentary elections do not advance Ukraine toward this goal, but we remain committed to working with Ukraine to improve democratic institutions, strengthen the rule of law, and advance essential economic reforms.

About the Author: Jamie Findlater serves as New Media Advsior in the Office of eDiplomacy.

On September 12 and 13 in Kyiv, Ukraine, the U.S. Department of State hosted the 13th TechCamp, a program initiated to build the digital literacy of civil society organizations around the world. TechCamp Kyiv, themed “Creating a Global Citizen: Building Schools without Walls,” brought together over 80 civil society organizations comprised of educators, youth advocates, and community organizers from Ukraine and Belarus to work together and examine how social challenges can be addressed using effective, low cost, easy-to-implement technology solutions. TechCamps raise the digital literacy for civil society organizations by bringing in local and regional technology experts to educate, train, and work with civil society groups over the course of two days. The core of Secretary Clinton’s Civil… more »

By U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Eric Goosby

I recently visited Ukraine for the first time in my role as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. I was pleased to have the opportunity to return to Ukraine, a country where I have spent considerable time working to strengthen HIV prevention, care and treatment services…