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NEWS ITEM: The 64th World Newspaper Congress will take place in Kyiv on Sept. 2. It’s designed to be a key event for the Ukrainian media community and a priceless opportunity for local journalists to exchange ideas with their foreign colleagues. However, the sponsorship of the conference is raising eyebrows. Group DF, the holding company of Ukrainian billionaire Dmytro Firtash, is a main sponsor. He doesn’t have a good reputation for defending free speech or being accessible to journalists, to say the least. In 2010, Firtash filed a libel lawsuit against the Kyiv Post in England, but the London High Court dismissed the claim last year. Ukraine’s largest television channel Inter also is considered by media experts to have low journalistic standards. The U.A. Inter Media group was formed when Vice Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovsky and Firtash merged their TV assets. According to media watchdog Telekritika, news programs at Inter appear to be censored and strongly tilted in favor of government officials.