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/ 8 December 2004
Ukraine’s Parliament passed a controversial plan to weaken the presidency on Wednesday, breaking a tense stand-off between outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and the opposition. The vote was hailed in Ukraine and abroad as a breakthrough in the political crisis that has split this strategic nation in two polarised camps.
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/ 1 December 2004
Ukraine’s Parliament voted to oust the country’s pro-Moscow government on Wednesday as European and Russian mediators took a second stab at trying to quell a political crisis. Parliament backed an opposition proposal to dismiss Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and replace his team with a ”people’s government,” while thousands of chanting and singing demonstrators built human chains around official buildings.
Ukraine opposition renews blockade
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/ 25 November 2004
Ukraine split into two geographic camps on Thursday as the nationalist west backed the pro-Western opposition leader as president, while the Russian-speaking east supported the disputed victory of the prime minister. Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has warned that the sudden polarisation has put the country ”on the verge of civil conflict”.
Thirteen Ukrainians were bitten by poisonous black widow spiders in one week, the newspaper Segodnya reported on Wednesday. Last week’s incidents occurred in the southern Odessa region. All the victims were farm workers bitten while digging onions.
More than 100 snakes invaded a Ukrainian railroad building, forcing workers inside to evacuate the premises and so halting rail traffic for several hours, according to a Tuesday Fakty newspaper report. The incident took place in Ukraine’s south-eastern steppe zone along a rail line connecting the cities Donetsk and Mariupol.
Ukrainian authorities on Wednesday gave the go-ahead to the controversial launch of a new nuclear reactor on the country’s western border with Poland, despite European protests and safety concerns. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has claimed the reactor does not meet safety levels.
The death toll from the crash of a Ukrainian air force jet during an air show in western Ukraine has risen to 83 people, including 19 children.