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Moscow, Russia Ukrainians will elect a new parliament in March and one-time prime minister and former presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych heads the political party leading the polls. The "Orange Revolution" that delivered Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency is in disarray, and has given Yanukovych an election platform full of irony: Campaigning against the corruption and incompetence of the ruling elite. According to a recent public opinion poll conducted by the Razumkov Center, Yanukovych's Party of the Regions tops voter preference for the slated March 26 parliamentary election with 17.5 percent. The People's Union-Our Ukraine electoral bloc that includes Yushchenko as...

Year after Orange Revolution, Ukraine sees grayer days Unmet promises, corruption leave country divided By Mara D. Bellaby, Associated Press | November 20, 2005 KIEV -- One cold day this fall, Inna Grigoryeva stepped out in her orange scarf, hoping it would add a bit of cheer, and she was overwhelmed by the smiles and affectionate looks from passersby. A year after Ukraine's color-coded Orange Revolution, the excitement and ideals that brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to the capital's main square are already the stuff of orange-tinged nostalgia. Reality has taken on a darker hue, muddied by unfulfilled promises...

AZERBAIJANI ELECTIONS: And the Winners are Aliyev and... Putin Asim Oku, AIA Turkish section Aliyev and Putin, the winners of the elections The wreck of the "Orange revolution" in Azerbaijan was predictable. It was caused by disunity of the opposition, inconsistent position of the West, Aliyev's "carrot and stick" policy and fears of impoverished population. However, the priorities of the Azerbaijan governor who just strengthened his grip of power are also predictable. Trying to keep more or less good relations with the West, he will sail in the wake of the Russian policy... The West Condemns and... Accepts as a...

KIEV, (AFP) - A year after the "orange revolution" that swept him to power, Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko is visibly tired, bitter about his shattered revolutionary team, and as determined as ever to lead the ex-Soviet nation on a pro-Western course. In an interview with AFP in his spacious office overlooked by a large icon above his desk, the Ukrainian leader reflected on a tumultuous year that began with breathtaking images of peaceful "people power" and ended with bitter infighting and recriminations amid the dream team that led the revolt. The president, under fire at home over the past several...

This government has been an unmitigated disaster of socialist populism This has been a miserable year for the Ukrainian economy. Last year, Ukraine enjoyed an economic growth of no less than 12.1 percent, but that had declined to 3.7 percent during the first seven months of 2005. Moreover, output has declined by almost every month and so has industrial production that fell by 2.4 percent in July over July last year. Construction and investment are falling ever more. A huge trade surplus last year has been eliminated in the last months. Clearly, Ukraine is on the way toward 2-3 percent...

Embattled President Viktor Yushchenko faced deepening political turmoil after parliament ignored his pleas and rejected his nominee for prime minister, casting further doubt on the pro-Western course which the "orange revolution" leader has set for Ukraine. On Tuesday, Yushchenko's trusted ally Yury Yekhanurov came three votes shy of the 226 votes required for confirmation in the 450-seat parliament, the Upper Rada. The rebuff was the latest in a series of setbacks for the Ukrainian president, who assumed power after leading last year's "orange revolution" on pledges of driving the ex-Soviet nation towards membership of the European Union and the North...

What became of the beautiful people? The political crisis in Ukraine is being followed with much interest in neighboring Poland, a country that gave its wholehearted support to the Orange Revolution there. Polish politicians and analysts, however, think that these events are not out of the ordinary. Michal Kubicki reports. In an interview for Polish Radio, president Aleksnader Kwasniewski admitted that a standoff between President Yushchenko and the charismatic Prime Minister Tymoshenko could be expected, given the vast differences in their personalities. He expressed the hope, however, that the dismissal of Tymoshenko's cabinet will not prove a setback for the...

KIEV (AFP) - Controversy has enveloped the son of Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko for a second time in a week, amid reports that the 19-year-old owned the copyright to the lucrative trademarks of last year's "orange revolution." ADVERTISEMENT The new scandal erupted as the legal chief of Yushchenko's campaign tried to put to rest a controversy that flared last week, after local media reported that Yushchenko's eldest son, Andriy, appeared to be living beyond his declared means. "Andriy Yushchenko has author's rights to all political brands that were used during the 'orange revolution,'" Mykola Katerynchuk was quoted as saying during...

The copyrights on Orange symbols (horse-shoe, flags and other things with the slogan "Tak!" (Ukrainian "yes") belongs to Andrey Yushchenko, the son of President of Ukraine. All incomes from the sale and usage of Orange symbols belong to Yushchenko-junior as well. Nikolay Katerinchuk, the deputy Chief of State Tax Administrationof Ukraine stated this fact during the interview to newspaper Kommersant. According to his words, he gave copyright to the son of President of Ukraine. "It happened after the victory in the third round of presidential elections. The assignation of the copyright was juridical arranged by notaries. It belongs to Andrey...

MOSCOW, July 27 (RIA Novosti political commentator Peter Lavelle) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's acrimonious exchange with a journalist this week is a very telling reflection of Ukraine's troubled Orange Revolution. When challenged on his son's spending habits and lifestyle, Yushchenko launched into a diatribe that was defiant, at times confused, and directionless. We may never really know what Yushchenko was thinking when a journalist from Ukrainska Pravda said he wanted to ask a question that "has to do with a much-talked-about issue these days. It's about the president's son - what car he is driving, and other quite expensive...

Hers was the other face of Ukraine's 'Orange Revolution', and her impassioned public eloquence was crucial in helping Viktor Yushchenko - his features ravaged by assassins' poison - become the country's first freely elected President. Six months on from the euphoric scenes in Kiev's Independence Square, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's status as a national heroine still rivals that of Yushchenko in the former Soviet state. Street vendors in the square sell individual pictures of both President and Prime Minister - the former's once handsome features preserved. Among the novelties on sale is a matrioshka nesting doll where the head of...

Belarussian opposition will use Ukraine experience in elections KYIV. May 27 (Interfax) - The Belarussian opposition will work on using the experience of the Ukrainian "orange revolution" at the 2006 presidential elections in Belarus. One of the Belarussian opposition leaders, Anatoly Lebedko, told a Friday press conference in Kyiv that the electoral campaign in Belarus will be very intense, but the opposition may succeed in taking Alexander Lukashenko down form the post of president. "We have a strong political will to make 2006 an important year and we intend to fight for victory," Lebedko said.

Ukraine's Orange Revolution was an exhilarating and joyful event. It was a classical liberal revolution for democracy and freedom and against corruption. Viktor Yushchenko became the democratically elected president, promising freedom from fear and corruption. Alas, the new Ukrainian government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, another revolutionary hero, has surprisingly opted for an economic policy that appears to be socialist and populist in nature. The results have been immediate: Last year Ukraine enjoyed economic growth of 12 percent; in the first four months of this year, the growth rate plunged to 5 percent, while inflation has surged to 15 percent....

TBILISI, Georgia -- For 60 years the word "Yalta" has meant betrayal and abandonment. The diplomatic accord reached between Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States in that sleepy Black Sea resort relegated millions of people to a ruthless tyranny. As President Bush said last week in Latvia: "The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable." Thankfully, the division of Europe created at Yalta, and the Iron Curtain that marked its boundary, are ghosts in our past. The...

The Ukrainian people have survived the first one hundred days with Victor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko at the helm. A few more years lie ahead. The results of the first one hundred days can be used as a forecast for things to come. The Yushchenko regime is a showoff by nature and "Another day, another scandal" seems to be its appropriate motto. The new government laid into Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine's former president, and promised to throw him into jail should he ever return to Ukraine from his overseas vacation. Mr. Kuchma returned to Ukraine. And he is still at large....

The US is turning on old friends in Europe, writes John Laughland. Before he denounced the "prevailing influence" of the US in the "anti-constitutional coup" that overthrew him, President Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan used an interesting phrase to attack those who were stirring up trouble in the drug-ridden Ferghana Valley. A criminal "third force", linked to the drug mafia, was struggling to gain power. Originally a label for covert operatives shoring up apartheid in South Africa before it was adopted by the US-backed "pro-democracy" movement in Iran in November 2001, the third force is also the title of a book...

Like a giant political tsunami swamping defunct old dictatorships in its path, the after-effects of Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" are sweeping across Central Asia. But it remains an open question, to say the least, whether stable, successful democracies will emerge from the upheavals. Only two months after Viktor Yushchenko was triumphantly elected by a 52 percent to 44 percent vote in the re-run second round of the Ukrainian presidential election in January, the shock waves of democracy are cracking open Kyrgyzstan, one of the five, remote, land-locked former Soviet republics in Central Asia. Opposition forces were reported in control of the...

Kosovo: Look at Ukraine In handling the Kosovo issue, Serbia could do worse than heeding the example of Russia and Ukraine. The longer one looks at Kosovo, the more compelling the conclusion becomes that the only realistic way out of the current impasse is independence within Kosovo’s existing borders. Two alternative options that used to be quite popular are probably off the table. Partition along the Ibar river--a proposal made with some regularity by various politicians, pundits, and academics--would create the first international boundary in the Balkans established on the ethnic principle. This could set a precedent for the break-up...

Hedge fund financier George Soros is unlocking a £2 billion war chest to buy British commercial property. The Hungarian-born investor, who famously 'shorted' sterling and broke the Bank of England on Black Wednesday, has in the last month spent £300m on two major office developments in London and is set to go on a buying spree this year. Soros is buying UK property through Delancey, the private firm which is one of his main investment vehicles in Britain. Delancey, run by Jamie Ritblat, spent much of the past two years selling hundreds of millions of pounds worth of buildings as...

Yushchenko: Russian poison link 27/02/2005 08:53 - (SA) Kiev - In a bizarre twist to the mysterious poisoning that disfigured the face of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, investigators in Kiev are probing a new lead that involves a Russian political consultant. Prosecutors are studying an audiotape of a conversation which alleges a role in the dioxin poisoning by Kremlin-connected spin-doctor Gleb Pavlovsky, a spokesperson for the prosecutor general told AFP. Pavlovsky, a key campaign advisor to Yushchenko's defeated Moscow-backed rival Viktor Yanukovich, dismisses the claims as a "fabrication". "The prosecutor has said he knows whose voices are on the tape....