World

KIEV — Western powers threatened sanctions on Wednesday over the death of 26 people in the worst violence since Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union, pressuring President Viktor Yanukovich to compromise with his pro-European opponents.

Yanukovitch, backed by Russia, denounced the overnight bloodshed in central Kiev as an attempted coup and his security service said it had launched a nationwide “anti-terrorist operation” after arms and ammunition dumps were looted.

In the western bastion of Ukrainian nationalism, a regional assembly declared self-rule and crowds seized public buildings.

European Union leaders condemned what they called “the unjustified use of excessive force by the Ukrainian authorities” and said they were urgently preparing targeted sanctions against officials responsible for the crackdown.

EU officials said Yanukovich himself would not be on the list to keep channels of dialogue open. The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland will visit him on Thursday, hours before an emergency EU meeting to decide on the sanctions.

The United States, going head to head with Russia in a dispute heavy with echoes of the Cold War, urged Yanukovich to pull back riot police, call a truce and talk to the opposition.

Neighbouring Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said Ukraine faced civil war, even partition, if dialogue fails: “What if no compromise is achieved?” he asked in parliament. “We will have anarchy and perhaps division of the state or civil war, the beginning of which we may now be witnessing.”

Protesters have been occupying central Kiev for almost three months since Yanukovich spurned a far-reaching trade deal with the EU and accepted a $15-billion Russian bailout instead.

The sprawling nation of 46 million, with an ailing economy and endemic corruption, is the object of a tug-of-war at a global level between Moscow and the West. But the struggle was played out at close quarters, hand to hand, in fighting through the night on Kiev’s Independence Square, or Maidan.

After night fell, fires blazed along the barricaded frontline between the protesters and riot police but there was no immediate sign of a repetition of Tuesday’s violence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Yanukovich spoke by telephone during the night, and both denounced the events as an coup attempt, a Kremlin spokesman said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blamed the West for encouraging opposition radicals “to act outside of the law”.

Moscow announced on Monday it would resume stalled aid to Kiev, pledging $2 billion hours before the crackdown began. The money has not yet arrived and a Ukrainian government source said it had been delayed till Friday “for technical reasons”.

Ukraine’s hryvnia currency, flirting with its lowest levels since the global crash five years ago, weakened to more than nine to the dollar for the second time this month.

Battle zone

After a night of petrol bombs and gunfire on Independence Square, a trade union building that protest organisers had used as headquarters stood blackened and gutted by fire.

Security forces occupied about a third of the square — the part which lies closest to government offices and parliament — while protesters reinforced their defences on the remainder of a plaza they have dubbed “Euro-Maidan”.

In a statement posted online in the early hours, Yanukovich said he had refrained from using force during three months of unrest but was being pressed by “advisers” to take a harder line: “Without any mandate from the people, illegally and in breach of the constitution of Ukraine, these politicians — if I may use that term — have resorted to pogroms, arson and murder to try to seize power,” the president said.

He declared Thursday a day of mourning for the dead. The state security service said it had opened an investigation into illegal attempts by “individual politicians” to seize power.

One opposition leader, former world champion boxer Vitaly Klitschko, walked out of a overnight meeting with Yanukovich, saying he could not negotiate while blood was being spilt.

When fighting subsided at dawn, the square resembled a battle-zone, the ground charred by Molotov cocktails. Helmeted young activists used pickaxes and elderly women their bare hands, to dig up paving to stock as ammunition.

The Health Ministry said 26 people were killed in fighting in the capital, of whom 10 were police officers. A ministry official said 263 protesters were being treated for injuries and 342 police officers, mainly with gunshot wounds.

The interior ministry said five of the dead policemen were hit by identical sniper fire in the head or neck. Journalists saw some hardline protesters carrying guns at the barricades.

EU weighs sanctions

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said the 28-nation EU, at an emergency meeting on Thursday, would impose asset freezes and visa bans on those blamed for the bloodshed.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, on a visit to Paris, said Washington was ready to impose similar sanctions.

The European Investment Bank, the EU’s soft-loan arm, said it had frozen its activities in Ukraine due to the violence.

The leaders of Germany and France said after talks in Paris that the sanctions were only part of an approach to promote a compromise leading to constitutional reform and elections.

“What is happening in Ukraine is unspeakable, unacceptable, intolerable,” French President Francois Hollande told a joint news conference. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said targeted sanctions against Ukraine’s leaders would show the EU was serious in pressing for a political solution. She made clear they were talking to all sides in the crisis, including Russia.

Diplomats cautioned that any sanctions would be largely symbolic, noting that similar Western measures had long failed to sway or unseat the rulers of Belarus or Zimbabwe.

In staunchly pro-European western Ukraine, opponents of Yanukovich declared political autonomy after seizing regional administrative buildings in Lviv overnight and forcing police to surrender. Protesters also took over regional offices in Ivano-Frankivsk, blocked a road to a border crossing to Poland and torched the main police station in the city of Ternopil.

Many in the west, parts of which were first ruled from Moscow in World War Two, view Yanukovich as a corrupt ally of Russia and of business oligarchs in the Russian-speaking east.

On the central Kiev square, opposition speakers harangued thousands of protesters, some masked and in combat fatigues.

Priests intoned prayers from a stage while young protesters in hard-hats improvised forearm and knee pads to protect themselves against baton blows. Others prepared petrol bombs.

“They can come in their thousands but we will not give in. We simply don’t have anywhere to go. We will stay until victory and will hold the Maidan until the end,” said a 44-year-old from Ternopil who gave only his first name of Volodymyr.

Traffic entering Kiev were restricted and the capital’s metro was closed to prevent protesters getting reinforcements.

Demonstrations erupted in November after Yanukovich bowed to Russian pressure and pulled out of a planned far-reaching association agreement with Brussels. Western powers urged him to turn back to the EU and the prospect of an IMF-supported economic recovery, while Russia accused them of meddling.

Ukraine has been rocked periodically by political turmoil since independence from the Soviet Union more than 22 years ago, but it has never experienced violence on this scale.

KIEV — Ukrainian protesters hurled petrol bombs, fireworks and stones at riot police on Tuesday, and at least nine people died in the worst day of violence since demonstrations erupted against President Viktor Yanukovich 12 weeks ago.

Western powers warned Yanukovich against trying to smash the pro-European demonstrations and opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko, fearing an assault, urged women and children to leave Kiev’s central Maidan square “to avoid further victims”.

A police spokeswoman said seven civilians and two policemen had died in Tuesday’s clashes.

Forces loyal to the Russian-backed leader broke through front-line barricades near the Dynamo Kiev soccer stadium and marched to the edge of occupied Independence Square (Maidan). They moved in hours after Moscow gave Ukraine $2 billion in aid which it had been holding back to demand decisive action to crush the protests.

Nationwide protests against Yanukovich erupted in November after he bowed to Russian pressure and pulled out of a planned far-reaching trade agreement with the European Union, deciding instead to accept a Kremlin bailout for the former Soviet republic’s heavily indebted economy.

In what has become a geo-political tussle redolent of the Cold War, the United States and its Western allies are urging Yanukovich to turn back to Europe, and the prospect of an IMF-supported economic recovery, while Russia accuses them of meddling.

Clashes raged for several hours on Tuesday outside the parliament building, where opposition lawmaker Lesya Orobets said three demonstrators were killed and taken to a nearby officers’ club used as a medical centre. More than 100 people were injured, she said.

“Three bodies of our supporters are in the building. Another seven are close to dying [because of wounds],” she said on her Facebook page. Two more bodies were lying in front of a Metro station on the southeastern side of the square, a photographer told Reuters.

The police spokeswoman said the two officers and three protesters died of gunshot wounds. Two more protesters suffered heart attacks while one died in a fire and another in a traffic accident.

The State Security Service (SBU), in a joint statement with the interior ministry, set protesters a 6pm (1600 GMT) deadline to end street disorder or face “tough measures”.

“If by 6pm the disturbances have not ended, we will be obliged to restore order by all means envisaged by law,” the statement said.

The defence ministry issued a separate warning to protesters to evacuate the officers’ club near parliament.

Klitschko, a former world heavyweight boxing champion who leads one of three main opposition groups, told protesters on the occupied square: “We cannot exclude the possibility of use of force in an assault on the Maidan.”

Western alarm

Right Sector, a militant far-right group, added to tension by calling on people holding weapons to go to Independence Square, centre of the revolt, to protect it from a possible offensive by security forces.

As protesters and police battled on the streets of Kiev, Russia called the escalation a “direct result of connivance by Western politicians and European structures that have shut their eyes... to the aggressive actions of radical forces”.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who has tried to broker a power-sharing transition in Ukraine, said she was deeply concerned about the escalating violence and casualties.

“I urge the leadership of Ukraine to address the root causes of the crisis,” she said. “Political leaders must now assume their shared responsibility to rebuild trust and create the conditions for an effective solution to the political crisis.”

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called on all parties to refrain from violence. Germany’s foreign minister telephoned his Ukrainian counterpart to warn against sliding back into violence and keep working for a political solution.

And neighbouring Poland, an EU member, summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to express concern at the clashes and call for immediate dialogue.

Monday’s $2 billion cash injection, a resumption of the $15 billion aid package, was seen as a signal that Russia believes Yanukovich has a plan to end the protests and has dropped any idea of bringing opposition leaders into government.

In another apparent gesture towards Moscow, a Ukrainian government source said state gas company Naftogaz has paid back $1.3 billion of its 2013 debt to Russian gas monopoly Gazprom , although it still owes $1.5 billion.

Ukraine’s hryvnia currency fell towards five-year lows after the fresh outbreak of violence, with importers clamouring for dollars.

While Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have won the battle for influence in Ukraine for now, protesters who have occupied the centre of the capital are not going quietly.

“I think Russia received some kind of assurances from the Kiev leadership that were satisfactory, because only a day before there was nothing like it,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, former Kremlin adviser and political analyst in Moscow.

“I think Yanukovich showed he would stick firmly by his position in talks [with the opposition], he would not make excessive concessions, he would fight the radicals who are getting stronger in the opposition... and that the [new] prime minister would not be a member of the opposition.”

Yet rather than boosting Yanukovich, Moscow’s move may have helped to provoke a more violent turn in the protests, especially from those demonstrators who have a strong anti-Kremlin agenda.

Several thousand protesters torched vehicles and hurled stones in the worst violence to rock the capital Kiev in more than three weeks. Police replied by firing rubber bullets, and stun and smoke grenades from trucks, and from the tops of buildings, forcing the protesters back by about 100 metres.

“The authorities do not want to compromise on any issue... We understand that yet another odious candidate will be put forward [for prime minister], one who will be unable to restore the economy or end the political crisis,” said Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, an opposition deputy.

Inside parliament, opposition leaders brought proceedings to a halt by blocking the speaker’s tribune and opposition leader Klitschko urged Yanukovich to take riot police off the streets to avert further “conflict in society”.

The protesters had marched to parliament to back the opposition leaders’ calls for Yanukovich to relinquish what they call his “dictatorial” powers and particularly his control of the economy and the security forces.

When they were blocked by a line of trucks about 100 metres from the building, they threw stones at police, a Reuters witness said, and set three trucks ablaze with petrol bombs.

As the clashes extended into early afternoon, protesters ransacked a nearby office of Yanukovich’s Party of the Regions.

BANGKOK — Thailand’s embattled premier will be charged with neglect of duty, anti-graft officials said Tuesday, as clashes between police and opposition protesters left four dead, and dozens wounded in central Bangkok.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission said that if found guilty of the accusations — which relate to a controversial rice subsidy scheme — Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra could be removed from office.

The announcement came hours after gunfire and explosions shook an area of the city’s historic district just a short walk away from major tourist attractions, as riot police moved to clear sites of protest rallies.

A policeman was shot dead and three civilians were killed, according to the Erawan emergency centre, while 64 others were injured. Police said 24 of its officers were among those hurt.

The protesters have staged more than three months of mass street rallies demanding Yingluck’s resignation, occupying major state buildings and preventing civil servants going to work.

Police launched another operation to reclaim besieged government buildings and clear rally sites in the capital Tuesday, tearing through razor wire and sandbag barricades.

They met fierce resistance from protesters and were eventually forced to retreat amid volleys of gunfire. It was unclear who was shooting.

“The government cannot work here anymore,” a spokesman for the protesters, Akanat Promphan, said from a rally site near Yingluck’s headquarters.

“The will of the people is still strong. The government is trapped. It has no way forward,” he added.

Bemused tourists caught up in the chaos were seen taking photos of the aftermath of the clashes near the backpacker haven of Khaosan Road.

“I heard there were political problems in Thailand but I came anyway,” said Jerome Dennehy, 45, from Ireland.

“It’s not good to see but this is one part of Bangkok, in a country of millions. It won’t stop my holiday.”

Around 150 opposition demonstrators were arrested at a different rally site at an energy ministry complex in the capital on charges of violating a state of emergency — the first mass detentions after the current protests began.

Years of rival protests

Thailand has been periodically rocked by mass demonstrations staged by rival protest groups since a controversial military coup in 2006 that ousted then-premier Thaksin Shinawatra — Yingluck’s brother.

Fifteen people have died and hundreds have been injured in political violence linked to the latest round of rallies.

Yingluck’s opponents say she is a puppet for her brother Thaksin, a billionaire tycoon-turned-politician who fled overseas in 2008 to avoid jail for a corruption conviction.

The protesters are demanding Yingluck hand power to a temporary, unelected government that would carry out reforms to tackle corruption and alleged misuse of public funds before new elections are held.

Pro-Thaksin parties have triumphed at the ballot box for more than a decade, helped by strong support in the northern half of the kingdom.

But many southerners and Bangkok residents accuse Thaksin and his sister of using taxpayers’ money to buy the support of rural voters through populist policies such as the rice farm subsidy scheme.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission said Yingluck had ignored warnings that the flagship rice policy was fostering corruption and causing financial losses. It summoned her to hear the charges on February 27.

Yingluck defended the scheme in a televised press conference Tuesday, accusing her opponents of causing the delays in payments to farmers.

“It’s a pity that Thai rice farmers’ dreams of a better life were destroyed by political games,” she said.

There was no immediate comment from Yingluck on the charges, but a spokesman for her Puea Thai Party questioned why the anti-graft panel was apparently giving priority to the rice scheme allegations over other corruption cases against the opposition Democrat Party.

“It is likely to be a process to overthrow Yingluck’s government,” said the spokesman, Pormpong Nopparit.

For more than a month demonstrators have blocked major intersections in a self-styled “shutdown” of Bangkok, although attendance has dropped sharply compared with December and January — when at the peak tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of people took to the streets.

Yingluck’s government held a general election on February 2 to try to ease tensions but the opposition boycotted the vote, saying it would not end the long-running political crisis.

The deployment of security forces has revived memories of a military crackdown on mass pro-Thaksin “Red Shirt” rallies in 2010 under the previous government that left dozens dead. 

ANKARA — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday urged youngsters not to become “slaves to the Internet” as he handed out free tablet computers to students.

The premier also used the occasion to again defend his government’s controversial push to tighten control of the Internet, a move that has drawn widespread criticism.

“The Internet is a very important tool but it can become the biggest threat of our time at the hands of evil-minded people,” Erdogan told a group of primary and secondary school pupils, and teachers in Ankara.

“Don’t become slaves to the Internet, don’t become the slaves of computers,” he said at a ceremony marking a government initiative to hand out 100,000 tablets to students across the country.

Turkey’s parliament triggered a storm of protest at home and abroad earlier this month after it approved restrictions to the Internet which include giving authorities the power to block webpages deemed insulting or as invading privacy.

Critics of Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party say the legislation is an attempt to stifle dissent.

The timing of the law has also raised eyebrows as it comes as Erdogan is grappling with a high-level corruption investigation that has implicated key allies, and some of the details of the probe have been leaked online.

But Erdogan has vehemently denied accusations of online censorship, and on Monday said the proposed Internet curbs were vital to protect the privacy of young people.

“We do not aim to limit the freedom of anyone. On the contrary, we want to protect our youth from blackmailers, usurpers and crooks,” he said.

Rights groups have urged President Abdullah Gul not to sign the Internet bill into law.

Erdogan has long been suspicious of the Internet, branding Twitter a “menace” last year for helping organise mass anti-government protests in which six people died and thousands were injured.

His tough stance on the Internet as well as his crackdown on police and prosecutors in response to the corruption probe has raised questions internationally about the state of democracy in Turkey.

GENEVA/ADDIS ABABA — The co-pilot of a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines flight surrendered to Swiss authorities in Geneva on Monday after commandeering his aircraft to seek asylum in Switzerland, police said.

The plane’s second-in-command, named by Ethiopia as Hailemedhin Abera Tegegn, 31, took control of the plane when the pilot left the cockpit to use the toilet.

After landing, Hailemedhin left the aircraft via a cockpit window, without harming passengers or crew, police spokesman Pierre Grangean told a news conference. He was not carrying a weapon.

“Just after landing, the co-pilot came out of the cockpit, and ran to the police and said, ‘I’m the hijacker.’ He said he is not safe in his own country and wants asylum,” Grangean said.

The opposition and rights campaigners in Ethiopia accuse the government of stifling dissent, and torturing political detainees. But it is rare for state officials and employees — Ethiopian Airlines is run by the state — to seek asylum. The last senior official to do so fled to the United States in 2009.

Ethiopia said Hailemedhin had worked for Ethiopian Airlines for the past five years and had no criminal record.

“So far it was known that he was medically sane, until otherwise he is proven through the investigation which is going on right now,” Redwan Hussein, spokesman for the Horn of Africa’s government, told a news conference.

Redwan said Ethiopia may ask for his extradition.

Ethiopian Airlines pilots had visas to travel freely to Europe, he said, adding that it made no sense to hijack one’s own plane given “that the anti-hijacking law in any country is severe” and can lead to up to 20 years in prison.

Redwan said among the 193 passengers on board the Boeing aircraft were 139 Italians, 11 American and four French nationals.

Code ‘hijack’

Flight ET702 departed the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Sunday evening and was bound for Rome. The plane was hijacked at about 0330 GMT while over northern Italy, Grangean said. It landed at Geneva at 6:02am (0502 GMT).

He said the co-pilot, an Ethiopian born in 1983, locked the flight deck door when the pilot went to the toilet. He then asked to refuel at Geneva, landed the plane, climbed down on an emergency exit rope from a cockpit window and gave himself up.

Robert Deillon, CEO of Geneva airport, said air traffic controllers learnt the plane had been hijacked when the co-pilot keyed a distress code into the aircraft’s transponder,

“There is... a code for hijack. So this co-pilot put in the code for ‘I just hijacked the aircraft’,” he said. As the plane was over Italy at the time, two Italian Eurofighters were scrambled to accompany it, he said.

The brief drama in Geneva on Monday morning caused the cancellation of some short-haul flights and some incoming flights were diverted to other airports. Hundreds of passengers booked on disrupted flights sought to change their tickets.

In an apparent recording of a radio communication between the Ethiopian plane and air traffic control posted on social media site Twitter, a demand for asylum was made.

“We need asylum or assurance we will not be transferred to the Ethiopian government,” the voice in the recording, apparently the co-pilot, said.

Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the recording.

Ethiopian nationals and the country’s flag carrier have been involved in several hijackings in the past. At least 50 people were killed when a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet crashed in the Indian Ocean in 1996.

JOHANNESBURG — At least 200 workers were feared trapped in an illegal gold mine in South Africa on Sunday, in the second accident in the country’s mining industry in as many weeks.

Rescuers were using heavy duty equipment to try to clear a way out for the men stuck in the mine near Johannesburg, emergency services said.

“We have got communication with about 30 trapped miners. They have told us that underneath them there’s 200 others,” Werner Vermaak, spokesman for private emergency operators ER24, told AFP.

But he said he could not independently confirm the figure of 200, while local municipality officials could only confirm 30 trapped.

The workers went down on Saturday into the mine, which has been dug illegally behind a cricket stadium in the Benoni district east of Johannesburg.

They failed to come out after boulders fell and blocked their way, municipal rescuers said.

“We are currently in the process of attempting to rescue them,” Roggers Mamaila of the Ekurhuleni municipality emergency services told AFP.

A large boulder blocking the entrance to the shaft was removed using heavy duty excavation equipment, but smaller rocks remained, making it impossible for the rescuers to go in and help bring out the miners.

But food and water has been lowered in by rope.

“They have been able to hand food and water to the illegal miners but to pull them out is proving very difficult due to the amount of rubble on the entrance,” said Vermaak.

Police on patrol nearby discovered the men when a passer-by said he had heard voices of people screaming for help from underground.

Public broadcaster SABC radio said the miners were trapped after allegedly being robbed of their gold by a rival gang on Saturday.

Accidents commonplace

No investigation has yet been launched, police said.

Accidents are commonplace in South Africa’s mines, which are the deepest in the world.

At least eight miners were killed nearly two weeks ago after an earth tremor sparked an underground blaze at a Harmony Gold mine west of Johannesburg.

In July 2009, nine workers were killed in a rock fall in a platinum mine.

The same year, at least 82 people digging illegally in an disused gold mine shaft died when a fire broke out underground.

Minerals Minister Susan Shabangu last week lashed out at the poor safety record at regulated mining operations, where 14 deaths have been recorded in the first seven weeks of this year.

“One death is one too many,” she said on Thursday.

Throughout the 20th century, an estimated 69,000 people died in South Africa’s mining industry, according to a government-sponsored commission of inquiry.

But the number of fatal accidents has fallen sharply in recent years.

According to union figures, 112 people died in the mines in 2012.

South Africa’s gold output has steadily decreased over the past 40 years, sliding from top global producer to world number six.

It produced 167,235 kilogrammes of gold in 2012. 

KIEV — Ukrainian opposition protesters ended a two-month occupation of city hall in Kiev on Sunday and opened a road to limited traffic to meet an amnesty offer aimed at easing a stand-off over President Viktor Yanukovich’s rule.

The authorities, for their part, withdrew riot police from a flashpoint district of the capital, near the Dynamo Kiev football stadium, where at least three protesters died in January in violence between ultra-radical activists and police.

Despite the conciliatory moves, opposition leaders sought to keep up pressure on Yanukovich, telling a rally in Kiev’s Independence Square that he must abandon “dictatorial” powers and let them form a government that would be independent of him.

Tension still simmered before a parliament session on Tuesday when Yanukovich may present his candidate for prime minister — a choice that will show if he is ready to make more concessions to the opposition after 12 weeks of often ugly street confrontation.

Opposition leaders made it clear on Sunday they would also push at the parliament session for constitutional changes to reduce Yanukovich’s powers.

The unrest was sparked by Yanukovich in November when he spurned a free trade agreement long in the making with the European Union, and opted for a $15 billion package of Russian credits and cheaper gas to shore up Ukraine’s ailing economy.

The revolt spiralled into countrywide protests at perceived sleaze and corruption in the Yanukovich administration, and has triggered a geopolitical tussle between East and West.

As Russia beckons with the $15 billion aid package to plug holes in Ukraine’s heavily-indebted economy, the United States and its Western allies have urged Yanukovich to move back towards an IMF-backed deal with Europe.

At least six people have been killed and hundreds of people - police and protesters - wounded in the bloodshed.

As Sunday’s peaceful rally unfolded on Independence Square, attracting several thousand, young club-wielding masked men from the radical fringe of the protest movement who were on patrol, looking for government agents known locally as “titushki”.

A group of about 40 young men, wearing black balaclavas and carrying shields that announced they were from the 14th “self-defence” unit, marched through crowds gathered near the Dynamo Kiev football stadium, a frontline in the unrest.

On Saturday, at the other end of the city, several men who protested against barricades in the city emerged with bloodied faces after clashes with local “self-defence” units.

Western governments have expressed fears of an escalation of conflict, and breakdown of law and order unless Yanukovich meets opposition demands.

‘Front-line’ deal

All the same, tensions calmed at the Dynamo football stadium “front-line” with riot police leaving the streets, and protesters opening a passage for limited traffic to go through barricades to government headquarters and parliament.

On Sunday, former economy minister Arseny Yatseniuk repeated calls for constitutional changes that would strip Yanukovich of powers he has accumulated and enable an opposition government to be formed to lead the ex-Soviet republic to economic recovery.

After protesters departed Kiev’s City Hall, which they had occupied since early December, Yatseniuk called on Ukraine’s judicial authorities to live up to their amnesty promise and drop all criminal charges against protest activists.

Demonstrators had swept into the main municipal building as popular revolt took off against Yanukovich’s decision to ditch the EU trade pact in favour of a more immediately lucrative deal with Russia, Ukraine’s former Soviet master.

Under an amnesty arrangement, Ukrainian authorities have offered to drop all criminal charges against activists who have been provisionally freed as long as municipal buildings are cleared of protesters and some main roads unblocked by Monday.

“We want about 2,000 criminal cases to be dropped. If this does not happen, we will start a peaceful offensive,” Yatseniuk declared.

Switzerland, now chairman of the OSCE human rights watchdog, sent an envoy to Kiev to monitor the City Hall evacuation. Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter said in a statement later: “I strongly hope this brings Ukraine closer to a resolution of the current deadlock through peaceful and democratic means.”

In Brussels, the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton also welcomed the move, saying she expected the authorities now to close all pending court cases, including house arrests “so as to facilitate the political dialogue in parliament this week”.

Masked men

Masked men in military fatigues and the demonstrators they had protected against riot police since mid-December filed out of Kiev city hall but threatened to return if authorities did not carry out the amnesty promise.

Opposition deputies said protesters had similarly pulled out of municipal buildings in several areas of western Ukraine, a hotbed of opposition to Yanukovich, and in one part of the southeast where the president has retained more support.

Andriy, 45, commander of about 100 men in black balaclavas leaving City Hall, said they were doing so on the understanding that charges against detained activists would be dropped.

Asked what he and his men would do if the authorities did not fulfil their promise, he replied: “Then we’ll come back.”

A pivotal decision in coming days will be who Yanukovich names as his candidate for prime minister to replace the Russian-born Mykola Azarov, whom he sacked on January 28 in an unsuccessful attempt to appease the protesters.

He has until the end of the month to reach a decision although parliament speaker Volodymyr Rybak was quoted by Interfax as saying he thought Yanukovich might present his candidate to parliament on Tuesday.

His choice could decide more credit coming quickly on stream from Russia under the bailout package. But if he resists calls for constitutional change and names a hardliner, the streets could return to uproar. With the hryvnia under devaluation pressure, he has to find a new steward of the economy quickly.

KIEV — Protesters occupying Kiev city hall said Saturday they stood “ready” to vacate the premises, in a gesture of goodwill after authorities released all those detained in the anti-government unrest rocking the country.

The “headquarters of the revolution” since the protest movement rocking Ukraine began more than two months ago, the building where 600 to 700 protesters camp out is highly symbolic and the concession comes ahead of a fresh, mass demonstration due on Sunday.

But in a strongly worded interview, jailed opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko warned that nothing short of President Viktor Yanukovych’s resignation would satisfy protesters, up in arms over his decision to ditch an EU pact in favour of closer ties with Russia.

Speaking to AFP Saturday, Yuriy Syrotyuk, the number-two of the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) Party that controls the occupied city hall, said protesters stood “ready” to evacuate, and could do so “in a few minutes, at most half-an-hour” if the green light was given.

The evacuation of the building was one of the conditions set by authorities as part of an amnesty law that stipulates all detained protesters will be freed — but only if some parts of the Ukrainian capital are vacated.

Yanukovych approved the law at the beginning of February after protests in Kiev turned deadly, shocking the country and prompting the shaken president to start negotiating with the opposition.

On Friday, authorities announced they had freed all 234 detained members of the protest movement, adding that charges against them would also be dropped if conditions of the amnesty were met.

Some of them have been charged with fomenting mass unrest, which carries a sentence of up to 15 years in jail.

The move — welcomed by the United States — appeared to be a concession from the government in a bid to ease tensions, and Yanukovych himself promptly appealed to the opposition to yield ground too.

Protesters stormed city hall, on the main Khreshchatyk avenue in central Kiev, on December 1 following a brutal crackdown on demonstrators the previous night.

It is run with military precision, housing hundreds of protesters who sleep there to get out of the biting cold and gather for meetings, English lessons and other activities.

And while the opposition has still not unanimously agreed to vacate the building, most members support the move, Syrotyuk said.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, one of the three main opposition leaders, said in a statement that protesters would remain on Kiev’s occupied Independence Square and in other public buildings, but tellingly made no mention of city hall.

The opposition has also agreed to vacate “part” of Gruchevsky street, where the deadly riots took place at the end of January, to allow traffic to move freely.

But as protesters geared up for the mass demonstration on Sunday due at 1000 GMT — the 11th since the unrest began — Tymoshenko said that Yanukovych must go.

“The only subject of negotiation with Yanukovych is the conditions of his departure,” the former prime minister who was imprisoned in 2011 said in an interview with weekly Dzerkalo Tyzhnia.

In city hall, Commander Ruslan Andryko of the protest movement said as much, noting that while they may vacate the building, “the revolution has only just started”.

And on the square, Marina Nekrasova, who strolled in the sprawling tent city under a low, grey sky with her young daughter, said she did not know how long the occupation would continue.

“But when Yanukovych resigns, we will all have a big party here,” she said, smiling.

Outside the country, in Berlin, tortured activist Dmytro Bulatov, who sought treatment in Lithuania before travelling to Germany, pledged to fight to the end.

“I want to go back to Ukraine,” he told reporters, ruling out applying for asylum. “We will continue to resist and to protest.”

For her part, Tymoshenko accused Yanukovych of having become a puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying Ukraine had lost the independence it gained from the Soviet Union in 1991.

“Our European friends believe that after long negotiations and loans they can bring Yanukovych back onto the European road,” Tymoshenko said.

“They will not be able to do that. Because it’s not Yanukovych who decides, but Putin.”

ANKARA — Turkey’s parliament passed a bill Saturday tightening government control over the judiciary, with lawmakers violently scuffling over the contested reforms introduced amid a major graft scandal.

Fighting erupted overnight with fists flying in the air between the ruling party and opposition lawmakers as the bill was debated in a marathon 20-hour sitting.

Ali Ihsan Kokturk, lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), got a bloodied nose in the brawl, while ruling party lawmaker Bayram Ozcelik’s finger was broken.

The opposition says the reform is a “government manoeuvre” to limit fallout from a graft probe that has ensnared top allies of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“The law is an apparent indicator of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s attempt to cover the corruption investigation by redesigning the judiciary,” CHP lawmaker Aykan Aydemir told AFP.

Parliament resumed debate of the bill Friday despite an uproar from opposition parties and the international community who warned it threatened the independence of the judiciary in the European Union hopeful country.

The reform package gives the justice ministry greater sway over the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), an independent body responsible for appointing members of the judiciary.

It would change the make-up of the HSYK and give the justice minister the right to launch investigations into its members.

The measures were passed on Saturday morning with 210 votes in favour and 28 against.

CHP lawmaker Riza Turmen said his party would challenge the law, which still needs the president’s signature to come into force, before the constitutional court.

“The law is against the general spirit of the constitution that guarantees judicial independence,” he told AFP after the vote.

“HSYK is key to judicial independence. An independent judiciary is only possible with an independent HSYK.”

Last month, President Abdullah Gul stepped in to resolve the deadlock by pushing for the judicial reforms to be passed as constitutional amendments, which would require cross-party support.

But the president’s initiative failed after disagreements between ruling and opposition party lawmakers.

The reforms come with Turkey in political turmoil over the graft scandal that involves alleged bribery for construction projects as well as illegal trade with sanctions-hit Iran.

The inquiry into the allegations, launched on December 17, marks the biggest challenge yet to Erdogan’s 11-year rule ahead of March local elections.

The Turkish strongman says the probe has been instigated by political rivals, including powerful US-exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen whose associates hold key positions in the police and the judiciary.

Erdogan has embarked on a series of retaliatory measures against the police, prosecution service and judiciary which he believes is using the probe to undermine him, sacking thousands of police and prosecutors.

Turkey’s parliament triggered a storm of protest at home and abroad last week after it approved restrictions to the Internet seen by opponents as an attempt by Erdogan to stifle dissent.

Some of Erdogan’s critics say the legislation is specifically aimed at preventing evidence of high-level corruption from being leaked online.

KABUL — Scores of alleged Taliban fighters walked free from jail in Afghanistan on Thursday, triggering condemnation from the United States which said they were responsible for killing NATO and Afghan soldiers as well as civilians.

The release of the prisoners further worsened the bitter relationship between Kabul and Washington as US-led foreign troops prepare to withdraw after 13 years fighting the Islamist militants.

“The 65 prisoners were freed and walked out of the Bagram prison compound this morning,” Abdul Shukor Dadras, a member of the Afghan government’s review body, told AFP.

“Their cases were reviewed and we had no reason to keep them in jail.”

The US embassy criticised the releases as “a deeply regrettable” move that could lead to further violence in Afghanistan, which has suffered a bloody Taliban insurgency since 2001.

“The Afghan government bears responsibility for the results of its decision,” the embassy said in a statement. “We urge it to make every effort to ensure that those released do not commit new acts of violence and terror.”

But President Hamid Karzai has called Bagram prison a “Taliban-producing factory” and alleged that some detainees were tortured into hating their country.

The US military described the men as “dangerous individuals” directly linked to attacks which killed or wounded 32 NATO personnel and 23 Afghans.

It gave names and details of three men to be freed, including Mohammad Wali, whom it described as a suspected Taliban explosives expert “biometrically linked” to two bombings against troops in Helmand province.

“Violent criminals who harm Afghans and threaten the peace and security of Afghanistan should face justice in the Afghan courts,” the US force said in a statement.

US aid at risk?

Plans to free the men have enraged US officials and become a focus point of strained relations as the two countries wrangle over a security deal, which would allow some American soldiers to stay in the country after 2014.

Most US and other foreign troops are scheduled to pull out this year, but a small force may stay to conduct training and counterterrorism missions.

Thursday’s prison releases could threaten essential funding for Afghanistan as US lawmakers become increasingly frustrated at Kabul’s antagonistic approach to its biggest aid donor.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen also criticised the decision, which he said was “a major step backwards for the rule of law in Afghanistan and poses serious security concerns”.

Afghan officials say the Bagram detainees have been held, often for years, without being charged or brought to trial, and that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute them.

The prison, 50 kilometres north of Kabul, was the main detention centre housing Taliban and other insurgents captured by Western military forces until it was transferred to Afghan control last year.

The fate of the remaining detainees had been a running sore for Karzai, who sees the jail as a symbol of Afghanistan’s efforts to regain its national sovereignty.

Some analysts believe the Afghan government hopes that the releases could help kick-start moribund peace talks with the Taliban, who were ousted from power in 2001.

Lieutenant General Ghulam Farouq, head of the military police that runs Bagram jail, told AFP the prisoners “got into cars and headed off to their homes”.

“We freed them and it’s up to them how they left. We didn’t prepare transport for them,” he added.

Karzai was in Turkey on Thursday to met Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, with efforts to start negotiations with the insurgents likely to be high on the agenda.

Karzai, who is due to step down after presidential elections on April 5, is pushing for neighbouring Pakistan to help start a peace process before NATO troops withdraw.

The Afghan president made a surprise decision late last year not to sign the security deal with the US that would allow about 10,000 troops to stay after this year, although negotiations on the agreement continue.

A similar deal with Iraq collapsed in 2011 leading to a complete US troop pullout, and the country is now in the grip of worsening sectarian violence.