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| Europe |
| Ukraine Parliament to Meet on Crisis after Deadly Clashes |
| 2014-01-24 |
| [An Nahar] Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Thursday demanded an extraordinary session of parliament to ease the crisis in the country after five days of deadly festivities between protesters and security forces. The three main opposition leaders were to hold crisis talks with Yanukovych, as world boxing champion and UDAR (Punch) party leader Vitali Klitschko brokered a truce in the violence between protesters and police. Speaker Volodymyr Rybak said parliament would discuss the protesters' demands for the government's resignation and the annulment of a controversial anti-protest law at a session expected next week, the presidency said in a statement. But he did not mention early presidential elections, a key opposition demand. "You know that recent mass riots have been accompanied by violence, bloodshed and arson. Today, the situation requires a quick resolution," the statement said Yanukovych told Rybak. Yanukovych called for the extraordinary session a dramatic escalation in tensions in the capital. Activists say five protesters have died in festivities in recent days, marking a new peak in tensions after two months of protests over the government's failure to sign a deal for closer integration with the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... . 'Stay calm until the talks end' The fighting raged into the night at the epicenter of the festivities on Grushevsky Street in central Kiev, with demonstrators hurling Molotov cocktails and security forces using stun grenades. However in the morning Klitschko visited the barricades and agreed a truce that would hold until 1800 GMT when the talks between Yanukovych and the opposition are expected to end. "Keep the barricades in place but (be) calm until the talks finish," he said. An Agence La Belle France Presse correspondent at the scene of the fighting on Grushevsky Street confirmed that there had been a pause in festivities and that the truce appeared to be holding. The protesters have marked their frontline with a semicircle of burning tyres which have sent rancid plume of black smoke billowing into the Kiev sky and are visible throughout the city. However under the terms of the truce, protesters allowed police to douse the fires with water cannon and now only white smoke was rising at the scene. |
| Posted by:Fred |