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/ 26 May 2007

Ukraine crisis talks enter second day

Ukraine’s president and prime minister will resume talks on Saturday in a bid to defuse an escalating political crisis and settle a dangerous arm-wrestle between the rivals for control of special security forces. President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych met for three hours late on Friday.

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/ 13 April 2007

Ukraine president, PM make few moves to compromise

Ukraine’s antagonistic leaders said on Thursday they favoured a compromise to resolve a stand-off prompted by the president’s dissolution of Parliament, but neither appeared to make immediate concessions. President Viktor Yushchenko, swept to power by the mass protests of the 2004 ”Orange Revolution”, dissolved the chamber and called a new parliamentary election for May 27.

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/ 3 April 2007

Ukraine president orders election in new stand-off

Ukraine’s pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko signed a decree on Monday to dissolve Parliament and order an election next month, stepping up months of confrontation with the assembly and prime minister. Parliament said the decree ”bears all the signs of a step towards a coup d’état” and made clear the chamber would defy it.

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/ 12 January 2006

Ukraine leader demands Parliament rescind vote

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko demanded on Thursday that Parliament rescind its vote taken earlier in the week to sack his pro-Western government. The president said that lawmakers who supported a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Yury Yekhanurov’s government on Tuesday did so "in order to form an unstable situation in Ukraine".

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/ 20 May 2005

Kitsch pop-fest turns political in Ukraine

The Eurovision song contest, an annual extravaganza of Euro-pop kitsch, has taken a decidedly political turn for its 50th edition this Saturday in Ukraine. The Eurovision contest, first held in 1956, is often associated with music of questionable merit, bizarre costumes and marked political bias in the voting.

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/ 12 May 2005

Ukrainian firemen mistake boa for hose

Firemen in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk fled a burning sauna in panic after mistaking a three-metre boa constrictor for a hosepipe, the Itar-Tass news agency reported on Thursday. The reptile called Yasha, kept as a mascot by the owner, had succumbed to smoke and lost consciousness on the floor.

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/ 10 March 2005

Zoo cleaning lady makes fatal mistake

A tiger in a Ukrainian zoo killed a woman trying to clean the animal’s cage by mistake, Interfax news agency reported on Thursday. The incident occurred at the Kiev city zoo after the 23-year-old woman confused enclosure doors, entered the cage of a tiger known to be dangerous, and began collecting trash.

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/ 10 January 2005

Another Ukraine election appeal fails

Ukraine’s Supreme Court on Monday turned down four appeals of last month’s presidential election results filed by Viktor Yanukovych, the former prime minister who preliminary results show lost to a Western-leaning reformer. It was the latest in a series of moves by Yanukovych to overturn the December 26 election won by Viktor Yushchenko.

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/ 7 January 2005

End of Ukraine’s election saga in sight

The Ukraine celebrated Orthodox Christmas on Friday with the end of its election saga finally in sight, after a Supreme Court ruling paved the way for pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko to be inaugurated president of the ex-Soviet nation. Hundreds of holiday revellers milled around Kiev’s central Independence Square.