World

SEOUL, South Korea — LG Electronics Inc. said it will launch a computerized wristwatch later this year, entering a nascent market where Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Corp. and smaller companies such as Pebble are already jostling for dominance.

Park Jong-seok, president of LG's mobile communications division, said early smartwatch models failed to demonstrate why consumers should buy them. He said LG's strategy is not to release a half-baked product, but like other smartwatches, the LG smartwatch will be paired with a smartphone.

LG announced its smartwatch plans at a mobile industry fair in Barcelona. Park made his comments during a pre-announcement briefing last week.

LG was a late comer in both smartphones and tablets compared with its home rival Samsung Electronics Co., now the world's largest maker of smartphones.

LG spokeswoman Kim So-yeong declined to comment on news reports that LG will manufacture an Android-powered smartwatch for Google. LG already makes some of Google's Nexus mobile products.

Part of LG's efforts to boost its mobile brand in the crucial North American market was to collaborate with Google. It manufactured Google's Nexus 5 smartphone, the first mobile device to be powered by KitKat, which is the latest version of Google's Android operating system, and the Nexus 4 smartphone.

LG Electronics finished 2013 as a fourth-largest smartphone maker in the world according to research firm Gartner. But the No. 4 title doesn't mean its business is profitable.

LG's mobile division is among the distant second-tier group in the market where nearly all profit is taken by the two leading companies — Samsung and Apple Inc. LG lost $58.5 million in the final three months of 2013 due to hefty marketing costs and falling smartphone prices.

Samsung, which sold 1 million Android-powered Galaxy Gear smartwatches to retailers and mobile carriers last year, dropped Google's Android in its latest announcement of smartwatches.

Samsung unveiled two new smartwatches Sunday on the eve of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Both are powered by lesser-known operating system called Tizen, developed jointly by Samsung and Intel Corp.

KIEV — A new era dawned in Ukraine on Sunday as parliament appointed a pro-Western interim leader after ousted president Viktor Yanukovych fled Kiev to escape retribution for a week of deadly carnage.

The ex-Soviet state’s tumultuous three-month crisis culminated in a dizzying flurry of historic changes over the weekend that saw parliament sideline the pro-Russian president and call a new poll for May 25.

Lawmakers then went a step further by approving the release of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

The former premier, who was serving a seven-year jail sentence, was a star of the 2004 Orange Revolution. She was thrown behind bars less than a year after Yanukovych came to power in 2010.

The constitutional legitimacy of parliament’s actions remains an open question and Yanukovych vowed in a taped interview to fight the “bandits” who now claimed to rule Ukraine.

But Yanukovych’s grasp on power was in limited evidence in Kiev on Sunday as the city’s police presence vanished and protesters took control of everything from traffic management to protection of government buildings after a week of bloodshed that claimed nearly 100 lives.

The United States vowed to drum up financial help that could pull Ukraine out of a crisis sparked in November when Yanukovych spurned a historic EU deal and secured a $15-billion bailout for the struggling nation of 46 million people, from its old master Russia.

 ‘Government of the people’ 

Lawmakers voted on Sunday to name close Tymoshenko ally Oleksandr Turchynov — himself only appointed parliament speaker on Saturday in place of a veteran Yanukovych supporter — as interim president tasked with forming a new government by Tuesday.

Turchynov immediately vowed to draw up a “government of the people” and urged leading lawmakers to build a new parliamentary majority that could swiftly approve stalled reforms.

“We have until Tuesday,” the 49-year-old interim leader said.

New interior minister Arsen Aviakov announced the launch of a probe into police involvement in the “execution” of protesters in a week of carnage that turned Kiev’s heart into a war zone.

Yanukovych was dealt another blow when his own Regions Party issued a statement condemning him for issuing “criminal orders” that led to so many deaths.

Parliament also voted to dismiss Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara after sacking the federal police chief and prosecutor general on Saturday.

And it took the symbolic step of handing over Yanukovych’s marble-lined mansion outside Kiev — its vast car collection and golden toilet fixtures opened up for public viewing on Saturday — to the state.

US offers help 

Western countries gave vital but cautious backing to the sweeping changes in Ukraine while Russia once again cautioned that payment of its huge bailout package was on hold.

Ukraine stands on the precipice of a default and owes nearly $13 billion in debt payments this year — money it cannot drum up on financial markets because of prohibitively expensive borrowing costs.

US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told a G-20 meeting in Sydney that Washington “stands ready to assist Ukraine as it implements reforms to restore economic stability and seeks to return to a path of democracy and growth”.

US National Security Adviser Susan Rice warned it was in no one’s interest to see crisis-hit Ukraine break apart.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin also tried on Sunday to calm some of the Cold War-style joisting that had erupted between the West and Moscow over Ukraine’s future in the past weeks.

A Merkel spokesman said the two leaders agreed on the need to preserve Ukraine territorial integrity — a reference to the deep cultural fissure that runs between the pro-European west of the country and its far more Russified east.

Russian Finance Minister Alexei Ulyukayev for his part confirmed that disbursement of the remaining $12 billion in Moscow’s assistance package was on hold until the political situation in Kiev cleared up.

“The fact that the opposition groups have prevailed means that the Russia rescue deal of last December will now almost certainly be withdrawn,” said Chris Weafer of the Moscow analysts Macro Advisory.

Tymoshenko for president?

The whereabouts of Yanukovych remained a mystery amid speculation that he was hiding out in the pro-Russian east.

Turchynov and Ukraine’s border service both said Yanukovych had been prevented from fleeing the country out of the eastern city of Donetsk because his charter plane did not have the required paperwork.

“When officials arrived to check the documentation they were met by armed people who offered them money to fly out urgently,” border service spokesman Serhiy Astahov told AFP.

Yanukovych claimed in his taped video message on Saturday that he would never leave Ukraine or relinquish the presidency to opponents he compared to “Nazis”.

But attention of world leaders was quickly shifting to Tymoshenko amid mounting speculation that the former premier had the best chance of uniting the opposition for a presidential bid.

Tymoshenko — who had appeared before the crowd in a wheelchair on Saturday because of back problems — held telephone talks with Merkel and also met Western ambassadors in Kiev.

Her spokeswoman stressed that the charismatic 53-year-old had made no decision about running in May.

“This is not the right time for this,” spokeswoman Natalia Lysova told AFP.

Yet Tymoshenko also rejected consideration for the post of prime minister in the new interim Cabinet — a comment that reignited speculation she was intent on becoming head of state.

The opposition’s main presidential challenge had until this weekend been primarily expected to come from boxer turned lawmaker Vitali Klitschko.

The popular UDAR (Punch) party leader had initially announced his presidential ambitions in October. But he backtracked from those comments on Sunday in an apparent concession to Tymoshenko’s continued public appeal.

“My main goal is not to take the chair of president,” Klitschko told the BBC. “My main goal [is] to make Ukraine a modern European country with European standards of life. It is the main point.”

CARACAS — Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas in marches for and against President Nicolas Maduro’s government Saturday, as the nation’s massive divide became ever more visible.

The protests — which began on February 4 — are seen as the biggest test yet to socialist leader Maduro since he succeeded late leftist icon Hugo Chavez last year, with the country’s economic problems at the heart of often bloody scenes that have left 10 people dead and scores injured.

Saturday’s competing mass rallies in the capital laid bare a chasm between those who support Maduro and those who oppose him, in an oil-rich country that despite having the world’s largest proven reserves is grappling with basic goods shortages, rampant inflation and violent crime.

Just 24 hours after Maduro made a rare offer to US President Barack Obama of talks to end more than a decade of enmity, there appeared no prospect of rapprochement after Secretary of State John Kerry hit out at the Venezuelan government’s handling of the protests.

Heeding the call of opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who narrowly lost to Maduro in the election to succeed Chavez last year, at least 50,000 anti-government protesters streamed into several avenues in the Caracas neighborhood of Sucre.

With some sporting Guy Fawkes masks or faces painted in the colors of the Venezuelan flag, they demanded the disarming of groups accused of intimidating and even attacking demonstrators.

“The state should stop these paramilitary groups,” said the head of the main opposition coalition, Ramon Guillermo Aveledo. “It is unacceptable that there are armed groups that are out of control.”

Others accused Maduro and late leader Chavez for allowing the economy to tailspin, and for failing to tackle street crime and corruption.

“I can’t stand the situation. It’s not fair that we’re in one of the richest countries in the world and still can’t get food,” 24-year-old student Joel Moreno told AFP.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of pro-government supporters, mostly women who clutched flowers, and dressed in red and white, gathered in the centre of the capital.

Some of Maduro’s backers, draped in the national flag, denounced the student protests.

“Venezuela is a country of peace, and they can’t come here and try to change what it is,” said Josefina Lisset, 54.

“They should let this president rule, he was elected democratically.”

On Saturday, Maduro who denies holding links to armed groups, unveiled a new peace initiative — a week after a national public safety strategy he announced was overtaken by the protests.

“I am calling on the Venezuelan people to join me Wednesday in a national peace conference with all the country’s political sectors... so we Venezuelans can try to neutralise violent groups,” he said.

While supporters from the rival camps spilled on to the streets in different parts of the capital, security was heavy amid fears further clashes could erupt if they collided.

The head of the Organisation of American States, the regional bloc for the Americas, meanwhile, floated the idea of international mediation.

In an op-ed piece in the Chilean paper La Tercera, Jose Miguel Insulza said that if neither government nor demonstrators in Venezuela “trusts anybody any more, no institution or person to be fair and balanced... maybe they should resort to external actors from somewhere in the Americas” to mediate “before it is too late”.

As the rallies got under way on Saturday, medics announced that a 23-year-old woman shot in the face three days ago in the northern city of Valencia had died of her wounds, raising the official death toll linked to the unrest from nine to 10.

KIEV — Thrust to centre stage in Ukraine’s fast-moving political drama, the hugely charismatic but equally divisive Yulia Tymoshenko has remained coy about her political future after being set free by parliament.

The fiery 53-year-old, who was jailed after losing to Viktor Yanukovych by a razor-thin margin in a 2010 presidential poll, walked free on Saturday in the latest dramatic twist to anti-government unrest that had swept Ukraine for more than three months and left scores dead.

The former pro-Western prime minister, who was the undisputed star of the 2004 Orange Revolution, was met by rapturous crowds when she emerged, wheelchair bound because of chronic back pain, onstage in Kiev’s Independence Square.

She is widely seen as the most popular figure in the fractured Ukrainian opposition movement — a politician of world standing with the experience to both contest and win the presidential election that parliament has set for May 25.

But even as other opposition leaders made comments that seemed to clear the road for a run by Tymoshenko for presidency, the woman most Ukrainians simply refer to as “Yulia” took pains to play down her ambitions on her first full day of freedom.

First, she ruled out a run for prime minister — a post she has held twice before — in the new coalition government of interim leader Oleksandr Turchynov, one of her closest allies.

“Information that I was being considered for the post of prime minister of Ukraine came as a surprise. This issue was not agreed or discussed with me,” she said in a statement released by her Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) Party.

‘Telegenic but steely’ 

In fact many protesters, having braved months of freezing temperatures and periods of brutal police violence in order to forge a new Ukraine, would be happy if Tymoshenko remained out of politics altogether.

A telegenic but steely figure, she is closely associated with the corrupt and tumultuous years that followed the collapse of Soviet rule in the 1990s, dogged by suspicions of personal enrichment and opportunism.

“We expect nothing good from Tymoshenko, unfortunately,” said a woman who only gave her first name Svetlana when interviewed by AFP on the square.

Another anti-government protester called Ruslan said: “What she did before was not good for the country. We hope that after her imprisonment, she will change her opinions.”

Just hours before Saturday’s public appearance, Tymoshenko had been under guard in a hospital in the industrial, eastern city of Kharkiv, serving a seven-year sentence for “abuse of power” she received in 2011 after her arch-rival Yanukovych came to power.

A slender blonde known for wearing her long hair in an elaborately braided crown, Tymoshenko’s looks bely an unbending temperament that has been compared to that of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher — one of her heroines.

Sometimes referred to as the “Iron Lady”, after Thatcher, Tymoshenko was a leader of the 2004 Orange Revolution that forced the annulment of elections initially awarded to Yanukovych.

She challenged Yanukovych in a bitterly contested 2010 presidential election, losing in a run-off and then finding herself the target of a string of criminal investigations she claimed were aimed at eliminating her from politics.

She was first arrested in August 2011, then sentenced to seven years in October that year on controversial charges of abusing her power in a 2009 gas deal signed with Russia during her premiership.

‘Stabilising Ukraine’ 

Her jailing, which Tymoshenko argued was the result of a vendetta pursued by Yanukovych, and his “family” of close relatives and oligarchs, prompted anger in the West and a crisis in Ukraine’s relations with the European Union.

Her detractors however describe her as an unscrupulous political opportunist with no fixed ideas who became enormously rich in the corruption-stained 1990s.

On Sunday, she held a series of meetings with Western ambassadors and fielded a call from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who offered her medical attention for her back in Germany.

“Merkel... highlighted that her return to politics would be an important factor for stabilising the situation in Ukraine, maintaining the unity of the country and bringing it back on the path of European reforms,” her party said.

The German chancellor also called on Tymoshenko to “commit to the holding-together of the country”, and approach the people in the country’s pro-Russian east, a German government source added.

While the country waits to hear what the political veteran will do next, Tymoshenko’s first step is to head to her home city of Dnipropetrovsk with her mother, her spokeswoman Natalia Lysova told AFP.

KIEV — Ukraine’s jailed pro-Western opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko walked free Saturday moments after parliament voted to oust the country’s embattled President Viktor Yanukovych and set new elections for May.

The latest developments in the ex-Soviet nation’s three-month political crisis came after protesters took control of Kiev’s charred city centre and seized Yanukovych’s lavish residence and official offices, in a day of dramatic twists and turns.

Yanukovych denounced the “coup” and branded his political foes as “bandits”, comments that won firm support from his backers in Moscow.

But the balance of power swung firmly in the opposition’s favour a day after Yanukovych and the opposition signed a Western-brokered peace pact designed to resolve Ukraine’s bloodiest conflict since its independence in 1991.

Tymoshenko, the fiery 53-year-old co-leader of the 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution, waved to hundreds of supporters chanting “free Yulia!”

One of her close allies said Tymoshenko was travelling directly to address the crowds on Kiev’s iconic Independence Square — occupied since Yanukovych’s decision in November to spurn an agreement with the European Union in favour of closer ties with Russia.

“The dictatorship has fallen,” Tymoshenko said in a statement released on her official website.

“It fell thanks to those people who came out to defend themselves, their families and their country.”

Yanukovych refuses to resign 

Ukraine’s pro-Russian regime appeared on the verge of collapse as lawmakers passed a resolution stating that Yanukovych was “removing himself [from power] because he is not fulfilling his obligations”.

They set new presidential election for May 25.

But Yanukovych defiantly told a local television station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv — a pro-Russian bedrock of support — that he would fight tooth and nail against the “bandits” trying to oust him.

“I am not leaving the country for anywhere. I do not intend to resign. I am the legitimately elected president,” the 63-year-old leader said in a firm voice.

Yanukovych said with a hint of outrage that “everything happening today can primarily be described as vandalism, banditry and a coup d’etat.”

Opposition seizes Yanukovych office 

The president, however, appeared to have deserted Kiev altogether, as key government buildings were left without police protection and baton-armed protesters dressed in military fatigues wandered freely across his once-fortified compound.

“We have taken the perimeter of the president’s residence under our control for security reasons,” Mykola Velichkovich of the opposition’s self-declared Independence Square defence unit told AFP.

Thousands of mourners meanwhile brought carnations and roses to dozens of spots across Kiev’s iconic Independence Square on which protesters were shot dead by police in a week of carnage that claimed nearly 100 lives.

Coffins draped with Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow passed from shoulder to shoulder through the crowd before being taken outside the city for burial.

Thousands of residents also took their first-ever tour of Yanukovych’s lavish Mezhygirya residence just north of Kiev.

“I am in shock,” a retired military servicewoman named Natalia Rudenko said as she inspected the president’s rare pheasant collection and a banquet hall built to look like a galleon.

“In a country with so much poverty, how can one person have so much?”

Police supports ‘people’ 

The Ukrainian police appeared to retreat Saturday from their entrenched defence of the pro-Russian government by releasing a statement in support of “the people” and “rapid change”.

The country’s vast army issued its own statement hours later stressing that it “will in no way become involved in the political conflict”.

The next test for the police will come Sunday when a deadline expires for protesters to relinquish public spaces such as Independence Square.

The Ukrainian protests have escalated into a Cold War-style confrontation pitting attempts by the Kremlin to keep reins on its historic fiefdom against Western efforts to bring the economically struggling nation of 46 million into their fold.

Russia’s foreign ministry on Saturday accused the opposition of “submitting itself to armed extremists and looters whose actions pose a direct threat to the sovereignty and constitutional order of Ukraine”.

The ruling Regions Party that had previously pushed Ukraine closer towards Russia stood in disarray amid mass defections by lawmakers to opposition ranks.

More than 40 lawmakers had already quit the Regions Party — once in control of 208 votes in the 450-seat Rada — since the deadly unrest first erupted on Tuesday.

Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Rybak resigned in favour of Tymoshenko’s right-hand man Oleksandr Turchynov.

Deputies also named another Tymoshenko ally, Arsen Avakov, as interior minister in place of Vitaliy Zakharchenko — a figure hated by the opposition who is blamed for ordering the police to open fire on unarmed protesters.

VALENCIA, Venezuela — A university student beauty queen was mourned Friday in the provincial Venezuelan city where she was slain last week during a political protest, a victim of what government opponents say is indiscriminate violence used by President Nicolas Maduro and his supporters to stifle dissent across the country.

Family members and friends of 22-year-old Genesis Carmona say the former Miss Tourism 2013 for the central Venezuelan state of Carabobo was shot down by members of the armed militias known as “colectivos” who opened fire on a demonstration in Valencia on Tuesday.

The government says the incident is under investigation and Maduro said at a news conference Friday that it has been “well-established” by ballistics experts that shot came from the opposition protesters. Mourners at the private Mass and graveside memorial for Carmona said they have no doubt which side fired the fatal round.

“She wanted to support her country and, well, look what it cost her for going out with a flag and a whistle. Killed by government mercenaries,” said Jose Gil, an uncle of Carmona.

The violence drew condemnation Friday from US based watchdog group Human Rights Watch, which said “Venezuelan security forces have used excessive and unlawful force against protesters on multiple occasions since February 12, 2014, including beating detainees and shooting at crowds of unarmed people.”

The report also said “the government has censored the news media, blocking transmission of a TV channel and threatening to prosecute news outlets for their coverage of the violence.” 

CARACAS — Opponents of Venezuela’s leftist government prepared for a mass protest rally in Caracas Saturday, a day after President Nicolas Maduro issued a surprise call for direct talks with the United States.

The risk of violence was high as a march of pro-government “Chavista women” was also scheduled for Saturday in Caracas.

Henrique Capriles, governor of Miranda state and the main opposition leader, has called on marchers to focus their demands on disarming pro-government civilian groups blamed for attacking demonstrators.

At least nine people have been killed in the past two weeks in the wave of protests shaking the Maduro administration, its biggest test since the death of leftist icon Hugo Chavez last year.

At least 137 people have also been injured and 104 have been arrested, according to government figures.

Maduro says the protests are part of a “coup d’etat in development” instigated by Washington and conservative ex-Colombian president Alvaro Uribe.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but under Maduro and Chavez the economy has tailspinned, street crime has soared and corruption has risen.

There have been near-daily protests in Caracas as well as cities like San Cristobal, the state capital of Tachira, as well as Valencia, in the north-central state of Carabobo.

Maduro’s government warned it would cut off gasoline supplies to restless areas.

Capriles, who lost last year’s presidential election to Maduro by a razor-thin margin, is again in the limelight following the Tuesday arrest of another opposition leader, 42 year-old Leopoldo Lopez, on charges of instigating violence, property damage and criminal association.

Renewed ties? 

On Friday, Maduro challenged Obama to meet him for talks. “I call a dialogue with you, President Obama... between the patriotic and revolutionary Venezuela, and the United States and its government,” he said.

“Accept the challenge and we will start a high-level dialogue and put the truth on the table,” Maduro told a news conference with foreign reporters.

Caracas and Washington have not exchanged ambassadors since their respective envoys were withdrawn in 2010. Venezuela has expelled eight US diplomats over the past year, including three on February 16.

Oil rich Venezuela’s main customer for its key export is the United States, yet Venezuela’s relations with the United States, long strained under Chavez, have worsened under Maduro.

Maduro, who lashed out at Obama earlier in the week, proposed to restore ties to the ambassadorial level and said he had given his foreign minister “special powers” to handle bilateral dialogue.

US Secretary of State John Kerry late Friday chastised Caracas for its crackdown and said nothing about the call for direct talks.

“The government’s use of force, and judicial intimidation against citizens and political figures... is unacceptable, and will only increase the likelihood of violence,” Kerry said in a statement.

He criticised Venezuela’s arrest of protesting students and a key opposition figure, as well as its crackdown on the freedoms of expression and assembly.

“This is not how democracies behave,” Kerry said.

In his statement, Kerry urged the government to release jailed opposition members and launch a “genuine” dialogue.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said during a visit to Nicaragua on Friday that his government was “open to dialogue” with the opposition, but gave no timeline.

Obama earlier called on Venezuela’s leftist government to address the “legitimate grievances” of its people — comments that Maduro dismissed as US meddling in Venezuelan affairs.

Washington has also expressed concern over the jailing of Leopoldo Lopez, a Harvard-educated economist, and insisted that any charges against him be handled in an “impartial and transparent” manner.

‘We love the American people’ 

In a move filled with anti-US sentiment, Maduro has threatened to block US broadcaster CNN, accusing the network of inciting “civil war”.

CNN said several of its journalists working in Venezuela, on both Spanish-language and English-language programmes, had seen their press credentials revoked or refused.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan — Pakistani jets launched strikes on Taliban hideouts in the northwest on Thursday, killing 15 people according to security sources, in retaliation for attacks by the militants which have derailed peace talks.

The first raid confirmed by security officials came early Thursday when jets bombed several locations including a compound in the town of Mir Ali and surrounding parts of the North Waziristan tribal district.

“There are confirmed reports of 15 militants including foreigners killed in these airstrikes,” a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“Air strikes were carried out to target militant hideouts with precision,” the official said.

“A huge cache of arms and ammunition has also been destroyed.”

A second strike targeted militants hiding and arms stockpiles in the Khyber tribal district who are suspected of bombing a cinema in Peshawar last week, and killing an army major on Tuesday, a second security official said

A third security official in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan, said air attack lasted more than an hour, while many local residents fled to safer areas.

The air strikes and spiralling violence cast further doubt on a troubled peace process between the government and the insurgents just three weeks after talks began.

After several rounds of talks, government mediators pulled out of scheduled dialogue with their Taliban counterparts on Monday amid outrage over the claimed execution of 23 kidnapped soldiers.

On Sunday a faction of the Islamist movement from Mohmand near the Afghan border said they had killed the soldiers who were seized in the area in June 2010.

On Thursday Pakistan delivered a formal protest to the Afghan government about the incident.

Still a chance for peace

The minister for interior, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, said later on Thursday that the talks were suspended because of the terrorist attacks but negotiators were still there to work for peace.

“There are clear chances that dialogue process will once again come back on track. But, negotiations and violent activities can’t go together,” he told reporters.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) had offered a ceasefire on Wednesday on condition that government forces stopped killing and arresting their members.

But Khan said that “elements” were using dialogue process to attack security forces, and the air strikes were self defence.

“Some people were targeting security agencies in the disguise of the talks. We can’t continue with negotiations in this atmosphere. They kidnapped and slaughtered 23 [paramilitary] soldiers just because they were patriots,” he said.

Meanwhile, unknown gunmen killed at least five people including a leader of an anti-Taliban party and a 12-year boy, in the Orangi Town, in the western part of Karachi.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced the start of talks on January 29 to “give peace another chance” following a seven-year Taliban insurgency that has claimed nearly 7,000 lives.

But a source in his office said Sharif, under pressure to avenge the Taliban killing spree, “issued orders to launch the airstrikes” after being briefed by military advisers.

Despite the new bloodshed, Professor Ibrahim Khan, a Taliban peace negotiator, told AFP Thursday there was still a chance of a settlement.

A total of 93 people have been killed since the reconciliation effort was launched at the end of January, including the kidnapped soldiers, according to an AFP tally.

The Taliban said 60 of their members had died before Thursday’s strikes. They have accused the army of executing members while they are in custody.

As well as the execution of the kidnapped soldiers and other killings, the insurgents claimed a car bomb attack on a police bus in Karachi on February 13 in which 12 officers died.

The government has demanded a ceasefire as a condition to resume the peace talks.

The TTP has been waging a bloody campaign against the Pakistani state since 2007, often hitting military targets.

Some observers have raised doubts about the ability of the central Taliban command to control all factions, including some opposed to peace negotiations.

The Taliban’s demands include the nationwide imposition of Sharia law, an end to US drone strikes and the withdrawal of the army from northwestern tribal regions — conditions unlikely to be met.

KIEV — Ukraine suffered its bloodiest day since Soviet times on Thursday with a gun battle in central Kiev as President Viktor Yanukovich faced conflicting pressures from visiting European Union ministers and his Russian paymasters.

Three hours of fierce fighting in Independence Square, which was recaptured by anti-government protesters, left the bodies of over 20 civilians strewn on the ground, a few hundred metres from where the president met the EU delegation.

Riot police were captured on video shooting from a rooftop at demonstrators in the plaza, known as the Maidan or “Euro-Maidan”. Protesters hurled petrol bombs and paving stones to drive the security forces off a corner of the square the police had captured in battles that began on two days earlier.

Kiev’s city health department said 67 people had been killed since Tuesday, which meant at least 39 died in Thursday’s clashes. That was by far the worst violence since Ukraine emerged from the crumbling Soviet Union 22 years ago.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland met for a marathon four hours with Yanukovich, and extended their stay to put a roadmap for a political solution to opposition leaders. Diplomatic sources familiar with the discussions said it involved a temporary government until fresh elections.

“About to start a meeting with the opposition so as to test proposed agreement,” tweeted Polish minister Radoslaw Sikorski.

Meanwhile their EU colleagues agreed at an emergency meeting in Brussels to move ahead with visa bans and asset freezes on those deemed responsible for the violence, Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said.

In a sign of dwindling support for Yanukovich, his hand-picked head of Kiev’s city administration quit the ruling party in protest at bloodshed in the streets.

But core loyalists were still talking tough.

Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko, wearing camouflage as he made a televised statement, said police had been issued with combat weapons and would use them “in accordance with the law” to defend themselves — or to free 67 of their colleagues his ministry said were being held captive.

Russia criticised the European and US actions, calling them “blackmail” that would only make matters worse. President Vladimir Putin dispatched an envoy to Kiev to join the mediation effort with the opposition at Yanukovich’s request.

Ukraine is caught in a geopolitical tug-of-war between Moscow — which sees it as a market and ally, and fears protests spreading to Russia — and the West, which says Ukrainians should be free to choose economic integration with the EU.

Raising pressure on Yanukovich to restore order if he wants another desperately needed loan, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow would not hand over cash to a leadership that let opponents walk over it “like a doormat”.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Yanukovich to urge him to accept the offer of EU mediation in the crisis.

Both sides used guns

Thursday morning’s bloodshed, in which both sides used firearms, traumatised many Ukrainians, whose 2004-05 Orange Revolution for democracy passed off largely peacefully.

It heightened concern voiced by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk that Ukraine could descend into civil war or split between the pro-European west and Russian-speaking east.

Video of the clashes on the edge of the Kiev square showed “Berkut” riot policemen firing bursts from automatic rifles on the run as they covered retreating colleagues fleeing past a nearby arts centre just off the plaza. An opposition militant in a helmet was filmed firing from behind a tree.

Other protesters used police riot shields for cover, while some fell wounded as the protest camp became a killing zone. A presidential statement said dozens of police were wounded or killed during the opposition offensive, hours after Yanukovich and opposition leaders had agreed on a truce.

The interior ministry’s website advised citizens to avoid central Kiev because of the danger from “armed and aggressive individuals”. Schools, restaurants and many shops in the normally bustling city of 3 million were closed, the metro was shut down and bank machines were running out of cash.

A statement from Yanukovich’s office said organised gangs of protesters were using firearms, including sniper rifles.

Opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko urged lawmakers to convene in parliament and demanded Yanukovich call an immediate presidential election. “Today is a crucial day,” the former boxing world champion said. “The authorities are resorting to bloody provocations in full view of the world.”

Legislators gathered in parliament, near the main square, but it was not clear any significant decisions could be taken.

‘Cold war chessboard’

Wounded protesters were given first-aid treatment in the lobby of the Ukraine Hotel, where many foreign correspondents are staying. Reporters said there were bullet holes in the walls and windows of the hotel overlooking the square.

The crisis in the sprawling country of 46 million with an ailing economy and endemic corruption has mounted since Yanukovich took a $15-billion Russian bailout instead of signing a wide-ranging trade and cooperation deal with the EU.

Russia has held back a new loan instalment until it sees stability in Kiev, and has condemned EU and US support of the opposition demands that Yanukovich, elected in a broadly fair vote in 2010, should share power and hold new elections.

The United States stepped up pressure on Wednesday by imposing travel bans on 20 senior Ukrainian officials.

“Our approach in the United States is not to see these as some Cold War chessboard in which we’re in competition with Russia,” US President Barack Obama said after a North American summit in Mexico on Wednesday.

Some members of Ukraine’s team decided to leave Russia’s Winter Olympics in Sochi because of the violence back home, the International Olympic Committee said.

In Lviv, a bastion of Ukrainian nationalism since Soviet times, the regional assembly declared autonomy from Yanukovich and his administration, which many west Ukrainians see as much closer to Moscow and to Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east.

Yanukovich, who replaced the head of the armed forces, has denounced the bloodshed as an attempted coup. EU officials said the Ukrainian leader would be left off the sanctions list for now to keep channels of dialogue open.

Threat to oligarchs

Diplomats said the threat of sanctions could also target assets held in the West by Ukrainian business oligarchs who have either backed Yanukovich or are sitting on the fence.

Ukraine’s hryvnia currency, flirting with its lowest levels since the global financial crisis five years ago, weakened again on Thursday. Ukraine’s state debt insurance costs rose to their highest since December 2009.

Possibly due to the risk of sanctions, three of Ukraine’s richest magnates have stepped up pressure on Yanukovich to hold back from using force: “There are no circumstances which justify the use of force toward the peaceful population,” said steel and coal “oligarch” Rinat Akhmetov, who bankrolled Yanukovich’s 2010 election campaign.