World

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan — Pakistani fighter jets bombarded Taliban hideouts in the troubled northwest Tuesday, killing at least 30 in the fourth airstrikes since peace talks stalled, in what analysts say is a surgical operation to reassert the military’s dominance.

The early morning attacks on hideouts in the North and South Waziristan tribal districts were the latest in a series of airstrikes by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) since February 20 that have killed more than 100 alleged militants.

Experts say the strikes are designed to give the military the upper-hand if talks eventually resume and do not believe the army is prepared to launch a full-fledged operation in the area.

Independent verification of the death tolls in the strikes has not been possible since it is difficult for journalists to enter the area and civilian administrators are reluctant to comment.

“The death toll from the airstrikes [on Tuesday] has risen to 30,” a security official in Peshawar told AFP, updating the earlier death toll of 15.

The focus of Tuesday’s attacks, which also involved helicopter gunships, was mostly the mountainous Shawal valley and Datta Khel in North Waziristan, and Sararogha in neighbouring South Waziristan, the officials said.

Helicopter gunships were still continuing shelling in both North and South Waziristan, considered bastions of Taliban and Al Qaeda militants, they added.

Residents said hundreds of families have fled their homes.

“People are leaving the area after a deadlock in peace talks,” a resident of Miranshah told AFP by telephone requesting anonymity.

Earlier this month Pakistan had entered into talks with the Taliban aimed at ending their seven-year insurgency.

But the militant group continued carrying out attacks on a near-daily basis, with dialogue suspended after the insurgents claimed last week they had executed 23 kidnapped soldiers in a northwestern tribal region.

Since then the PAF has conducted a number of airstrikes in the volatile tribal regions.

Retired general and security analyst Talat Masood said the military may be attempting to strengthen its position if talks eventually resume.

“The peace process if at all it continues now would be from a position of strength and not from a position of weakness. For some time it looked like [the Taliban] had the upper hand. These attacks change that,” he said.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon plans to scale back the US Army by more than an eighth to its lowest level since before World War II, signaling a shift after more than a decade of ground wars.

Saying it was time to “reset” for a new era, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel recommended shrinking American forces from 520,000 active duty troops to between 440,000 and 450,000.

In a speech outlining the proposed defence budget, he said Monday that after Iraq and Afghanistan, US military leaders no longer plan to “conduct long and large stability operations”.

If approved by Congress, the Pentagon move would reduce the army to its lowest manning levels since 1940, before the American military dramatically expanded after entering World War II.

The proposed 13 per cent reduction in the army would be carried out by 2017, a senior defence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

The spending plan is the first to “fully reflect” a transition away from a war footing that has been in place for 13 years, Hagel said at a press conference.

The plan comes amid growing fiscal pressures and after years of protracted counter-insurgency campaigns, which saw the army reach a peak of more than 566,000 troops in 2010.

Having withdrawn US forces from Iraq in 2011, President Barack Obama has promised to end America’s combat role in Afghanistan by the end of this year.

The proposed cut in manpower along with plans to retire some older aircraft and reform benefits for troops could run into stiff resistance in Congress.

A senior US military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged the political challenge.

“We’re going to need some help from our elected representatives to get this budget across the finish line,” the officer said.

Several members of the Senate Armed Services Committee immediately expressed reservations about the budget proposal.

Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, who sits on the committee, said the proposals had the “potential to harm America’s military readiness”.

The Pentagon had previously planned to downsize the ground force to about 490,000.

But Hagel warned that to adapt to future threats “the army must accelerate the pace and increase the scale of its post-war drawdown.”

Hagel also said the army national guard and reserves would be cut by 5 per cent.

The smaller force would entail some “added risk” but it would still be able to defeat an adversary in one region while also “supporting” air and naval operations in another, he said.

The Pentagon for years had planned to ensure the army could fight two major wars at the same time but that doctrine has been abandoned.

Even under the planned reductions, the US Army will remain one of the largest in the world and the American military’s budget still dwarfs other countries’ defence spending.

While the army will see troop numbers drop, the military’s elite special operations forces will be increased to 69,700 — up from 66,000 currently.

Retiring old aircraft

The proposed budget also calls for scrapping the Air Force’s entire fleet of A-10 “tank killer” aircraft and retiring the storied U-2 spy plane that dates back to the 1950s.

The A-10 enjoys backing from some lawmakers but commanders want to invest in the new hi-tech F-35 fighter jet and the unmanned Global Hawk surveillance drone.

The budget would reduce the US Navy’s planned fleet of littoral combat ships, a small vessel designed for coastal waters that faces questions about its reliability.

Instead of 52 LCS ships, the budget calls for building only 32 and requires the navy to study developing similar ships with heavier weapons and tougher defences.

Venturing into politically sensitive territory, Hagel called for slowing growth in pay and benefits — which make up nearly half the Pentagon’s budget — and closing more bases in the United States.

Lawmakers have long resisted base closures or any reform of pay, pensions or other benefits.

Military spending doubled after the attacks of September 11, 2001 but has started to decline as lawmakers push to slash government budgets.

Under a bipartisan accord adopted in December to avert automatic spending cuts, the Defence Department will have a $496 billion budget for fiscal year 2015.

But the Pentagon is backing a $26 billion “opportunity” fund that would bolster training and other programmes.

KIEV — Ukraine’s new authorities issued an arrest warrant on Monday for mass murder against ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, who is on the run after being toppled by bloody street protests in which police snipers killed demonstrators.

Russia, Yanukovych’s main backer, said it would not deal with Ukrainians who seized power from their elected leader in an “armed mutiny”. It declared that Russian citizens’ lives were under threat there, and contacted NATO to express concern.

With Ukraine’s neighbours raising the alarm about a break-up of Ukraine, Moscow said the concerns of local leaders in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, Russian-speaking bastions of electoral support for Yanukovych, must be taken into account.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton arrived in Kiev to discuss measures to shore up the ailing economy, which the finance ministry said needs urgent financial assistance to avoid default.

The EU has contacted the United States, Japan, China, Canada and Turkey to coordinate aid for Ukraine, a senior EU official said. France’s foreign minister said an international donors’ conference was being discussed.

US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and IMF chief Christine Lagarde agreed Ukraine would need bilateral and multilateral support for any reforms, a US Treasury official said.

US Treasury officials will accompany Deputy Secretary of State William Burns on a trip to Kiev this week.

Ukraine’s parliament, exercising power as leaders try to form an interim government, replaced the head of the central bank, appointing lawmaker and former banker Stepan Kubiv.

Yanukovych, 63, who fled Kiev by helicopter on Friday, was still at large after heading first to his power base in the east, where he was prevented from flying out of the country, and then diverting south to the Crimea peninsula on the Black Sea, acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.

“An official case for the mass murder of peaceful citizens has been opened,” Avakov wrote on Facebook. “Yanukovich and other people responsible for this have been declared wanted.”

Yanukovych had left a private residence in Balaclava, near the home base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol, for an unknown destination, Avakov said. He went by car with one of his aides and a handful of security guards.

It was an ignominious political end for Yanukovych who has been publicly deserted by some of his closest erstwhile allies, stripped of his luxury residence near Kiev and had to witness the release from prison of his arch-rival Yulia Tymoshenko.

Ambassador recalled

Russia recalled its ambassador from Kiev for consultations on Sunday, accusing the opposition of having torn up a transition agreement with the president it supported.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow had grave doubts about the legitimacy of those now in power in Ukraine and their recognition by some states was an “aberration”.

“We do not understand what is going on there. There is a real threat to our interests and to the lives of our citizens,” Medvedev was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

Russia cited a duty to protect the lives of its citizens in 2008 as one justification for military intervention in Georgia, another former Soviet republic, in support of Kremlin-backed separatists in South Ossetia.

On Independence Square in central Kiev, cradle of the uprising, barricades of old furniture and car tyres remained in place, with smoke rising from camp fires among tents occupied by diehards vowing to stay until elections in May.

The mood among the few hundred on the square was a mixture of fatigue, sorrow for the more than 80 people killed last week, and a sense of victory after three months of protests.

A large video screen by the side of the stage was showing the faces of the dead, one after another, on a loop.

“Now is not the time for celebrating. We are still at war. We will stay here as long as we have to,” said Grigoriy Kuznetsov, 53, dressed in black combat fatigues.

Galina Kravchuk, a middle-aged woman from Kiev, was holding a carnation. “We are looking to Europe now. We have hope. We want to join Europe, “ she said.

New law

A day after Yanukovych fled, parliament named its new speaker, Oleksander Turchinov, as interim head of state. An ally of Tymoshenko, he aims to swear in a government by Tuesday that can run things until a presidential election on May 25.

Whoever takes charge faces a huge challenge to satisfy popular expectations and will find an economy in deep crisis, with state debt payments of around $6 billion due this year.

The finance ministry said it needed $35 billion in foreign assistance over the next two years and appealed for urgent aid in the next one or two weeks. It called for a donors’ conference involving representatives of the European Union, the United States and the International Monetary Fund.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in Beijing the idea was under discussion and “this should be worked out in the coming days”.

The cost of insuring Ukraine’s debt fell on hopes that the country would now receive aid and avoid default, while bonds recorded gains on expectations that a new government would focus on the economy.

Ukrainian stocks soared to their highest since September 2012, But the hryvnia currency tumbled to a five-year low against the dollar as expectations grew the new government would focus on using dwindling foreign reserves to repay debt rather than defend the currency.

Scuffles in Crimea and some eastern cities between supporters of the new order in Kiev and those anxious to stay close to Moscow revived fears of separatism. A week ago those concerns were focused on the west, where Ukrainian nationalists had disowned Yanukovych and proclaimed self-rule.

‘Grave mistake’

President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, was asked on US television about the possibility of Russia sending troops to Ukraine, which President Vladimir Putin had hoped Yanukovych would keep closely allied to Moscow.

“That would be a grave mistake,” Rice said on Sunday. “It’s not in the interests of Ukraine or of Russia or of Europe or the United States to see a country split.”

Yanukovych’s flight left Putin’s Ukraine policy in tatters, on a day he had hoped eyes would be on the grand finale to the Sochi Olympics. The Kremlin leader spoke on Sunday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose foreign minister had brokered a short-lived truce in Kiev on Friday.

They agreed Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” must be maintained, Merkel’s spokesman said.

It is unlikely the United States and its allies in NATO would risk an outright military confrontation with Russia, but such echoes of the Cold War underline the high stakes in Ukraine, whose 46 million people and sprawling territory are caught in a geopolitical tug of war.

In Russia, where Putin had wanted Ukraine as a key part in a union of ex-Soviet states, the finance minister said the next tranche of a $15 billion loan package agreed to in December would not be paid, at least before a new government is formed.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan — Unknown gunmen killed a senior commander of the Pakistani Taliban who had a government bounty on his head on Monday, as a suicide bomb attack targeting the Iranian consulate in Peshawar left two dead.

Asmatullah Shaheen, who was believed to be in his mid-40s and was a former interim chief of Pakistan’s Taliban, had a 10-million-rupee ($95,000) bounty payable for his death.

Hours later a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Iranian consulate, in Peshawar, the main city in the restive northwest, killing two paramilitary troops and wounding ten other people.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for either attack and it is not clear whether they are linked.

Shaheen was ambushed in Dargah Mandi village near Miranshah, the main town in the troubled North Waziristan tribal district, with a local security official blaming a rival militant group.

Despite his seniority, he was a highly controversial figure within the Pakistani Taliban.

Observers do not believe his death will have a major impact on the future of stalled peace talks with the government that began this month.

“Unknown attackers opened fire on Asmatullah Shaheen’s car. He along with three associates died on the spot,” a security official in Miranshah told AFP on condition of anonymity.

A close relative of Shaheen told AFP that in addition to those killed, two other people travelling in the car were critically wounded.

The attackers fled in a separate vehicle, the security official said.

Shaheen was leader of the Bhittani tribe and also chairman of the Taliban’s supreme council for more than two years.

But a militant source close to Shaheen told AFP he was removed from the post in December after developing differences with several militant commanders.

Notorious commander

Shaheen gained notoriety after claiming responsibility for a suicide attack on a Shiite procession in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi, which killed 43 people and wounded more than 100 in December 2009.

He was responsible for storming a paramilitary outpost in the northwestern district of Tank in 2011, killing one soldier and kidnapping 15. Eleven of the detainees were later executed while the rest escaped.

An intelligence official in Peshawar said Shaheen was also wanted for masterminding other attacks on Pakistani troops that included suicide attacks.

Imtiaz Gul, a security analyst and author of “The Most Dangerous Place - Pakistan’s Lawless Frontier”, told AFP that the killing was likely the result of Shaheen’s several enmities.

“Militant groups have fought against each other in the past and the killing of Asmatullah Shaheen is apparently because of those internal differences,” he said.

 ‘Bomber targeted consulate’

In the Peshawar attack, a suicide bomber carrying five kilogrammes of explosives blew himself up after being stopped at a checkpoint by paramilitary troops, bomb disposal squad official Shafqat Malik told AFP.

The bomber wanted to target the consulate but blew himself up when intercepted, he added.

The attack took place in the upmarket University Town area of the northwestern city, where many non-government organisations are also based.

“We have two bodies of paramilitary soldiers and ten wounded have been admitted to hospital,” said Farhad Khan, a spokesman for Khyber Teaching Hospital where the casualties were taken.

Earlier this month Pakistan entered into talks with the Taliban aimed at ending their seven-year insurgency.

But the militant group continued carrying out attacks on a near-daily basis. The dialogue was suspended after the insurgents claimed they had executed 23 kidnapped soldiers in a northwestern tribal region.

Since then the air force has been carrying out attacks in the volatile tribal regions which border Afghanistan, killing dozens.

Imran Khan, chief of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf Party which leads the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said it was now up to the Taliban to save the talks by announcing a ceasefire.

“The Taliban should announce a ceasefire to save the dialogue process,” said Khan, who is often accused of being sympathetic to the militants.

“The government should talk to the Taliban groups who want to talk. But they should take action against the groups who don’t want to talk,” he added.

ROME — Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called for a “radical and immediate change” in Italy in an energetic and impassioned speech to parliament Monday which outlined his government programme but was light on detail.

The new premier said there were no excuses for failing to tackle the recession-hit country’s ills and told senators Italy would become a “country of opportunity” in a largely ad-lib speech ahead of a confidence vote in the upper house of parliament.

“If we lose this challenge the fault will be all mine. No-one has an alibi anymore,” said the 39-year-old — Italy’s youngest ever prime minister.

“This is an Italy of possibilities, an Italy of fundamental change,” he said, stressing the “urgency” of implementing reforms in “a rusty country... gripped by anxiety”.

Renzi, who grasped power after helping oust his predecessor Enrico Letta over failures to do enough to boost a flagging economy, reiterated plans for rapidly overhauling the tax system, job market and public administration.

Telling the personal stories of specific individuals — including a jobless father and a man killed by a reckless driver — he pledged to review unemployment benefits, establish a guarantee fund for small companies and comprehensively reform the justice system.

He also promised to cut the tax burden by a double-digit figure by the first half of 2014 and pay off public administration debts.

The confidence vote later Monday will be a key test of Renzi’s power to unite warring factions in Italy’s parliament and secure a solid majority.

The former mayor of Florence is expected to win based on the support of his own centre-left Democratic Party and his coalition partners — the centrists and the New Centre Right Party.

Political analysts will however be paying close attention to the size of the majority he manages to secure, as an indication as to whether the new government has a chance of living out its mandate until 2018 or whether the country will end up back at the polls.

“We are not afraid of going to the polls,” Renzi said.

Former premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia Party is in opposition, although it has agreed to support key decrees on a case by case basis.

The anti-establishment Five Star movement — Italy’s other main opposition party — has slammed Renzi for stealing the top job and called for immediate elections, and some political watchers say Renzi’s failure could significantly boost their numbers.

A bold-faced Renzi stared down critics hollering insults from among the movement’s benches and spoke out against populism and for Europe.

He said Italy must tackle its towering public debt — equivalent to 130 per cent of total economic output — not because German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for it, but because “it is our duty to, for our children’s sake”.

He spoke of the need for greater transparency — making public spending receipts available online — and of the need to attract foreign investors and shake off the image of Italy “as just a great holiday destination”.

Renzi’s insistence on speed has impressed some analysts, who say it may help him avoid getting stifled under the weight of Italian bureaucracy.

“By keeping up the momentum, Renzi is increasing the chances of these important reforms going through despite likely resistance from various camps,” Christian Schulz, senior economist at Berenburg, said in a note.

“Much will depend on the concrete reform proposals and how they will be watered down in the inevitable political wrangling afterwards,” he said.

But Chiara Corsa and Loredana Federico from Unicredit asked “whether the Renzi government is strong enough or sufficiently ‘revolutionary’ to implement the reform agenda”.

CARACAS — Anti-government demonstrators set up barricades and started fires in Venezuela’s capital on Monday despite calls from within the opposition to rein in protests in which at least 12 people have died in the OPEC nation.

Traffic slowed to a crawl around Caracas and many people stayed at home, as protesters burned trash and piled debris along main avenues a day after opposition leader Henrique Capriles called on them to keep demonstrations peaceful.

“We know we’re bothering people but we have to wake up Venezuela!” student Pablo Herrera, 23, said next to a barricade in the affluent Los Palos Grandes district of Caracas.

Authorities in the convulsed border state of Tachira confirmed the latest death from the unrest: a man hit by a stray bullet watching a protest from the balcony of his apartment.

The most sustained unrest in Venezuela for a decade is the biggest challenge to President Nicolas Maduro’s 10-month-old government, though there is no sign it will topple him nor affect oil shipments from Latin America’s biggest exporter.

Capriles, 41, was invited to meet Maduro in the afternoon as part of a gathering of mayors and governors that could open up communications between the two sides but may not be able to stem the nearly two weeks of street violence.

He and other opposition figureheads are demanding that the government release imprisoned protest leader Leopoldo Lopez and about a dozen jailed student demonstrators.

They also want Maduro to disarm pro-government gangs and address national issues ranging from crime to shortages of basic products. Hardline student protesters, though, are demanding that Maduro step down, less than a year into his term.

The president, a 51-year-old former union activist who has made preserving Chavez’s legacy the centerpiece of his rule, accuses opponents of planning a coup backed by Washington.

Capriles, who has seen his leadership of the opposition upstaged by Lopez’s street activism, lashed Maduro for talking “rubbish” and said he was unsure if he would attend the meeting scheduled for the afternoon at the presidential palace.

Socialist governor speaks out

The governor of the turbulent state of Tachira, who belongs to the ruling party, on Monday criticised the government’s response to the protests and called for Lopez to be freed — an extremely unusual stance for a Socialist Party official.

“It’s a matter of peace; all of those in jail for political motives should be sent home,” said Jose Vielma, referring to Lopez and another well-known opposition-linked prisoner.

Socialist Party leaders have for years avoided making comments that could appear to be breaking away from the party line, making Vielma’s comment all the more uncommon.

The protests have hit the border state Tachira harder than any other, with gangs of student demonstrators now the de facto authorities in some parts of its principal cities.

Even though Maduro has sent in troops to restore order, transport is frequently disrupted by improvised roadblocks that charge tolls to those seeking passage and throw rocks at those who attempt to move on without paying.

Supermarkets in Tachira are opening only for several hours in the morning, with supplies of food limited because delivery trucks cannot get through.

The nationwide wave of protests began with sporadic demonstrations in Tachira’s capital of San Cristobal due to outrage over an attempted rape, sparking student protests around the region.

Lopez, a 42-year-old Harvard-educated economist and firebrand opposition leader, rode the coattails of those protests to create a nationwide effort called “La Salida” or “The Exit” meant to end Maduro’s rule.

Relatives of Lopez, who was arrested on Tuesday, said he was bearing up at Ramo Verde prison outside Caracas. “He’s strong. But he’s a prisoner, and for a mother, it’s devastating,” his mother Antonieta Mendoza de Lopez told Reuters.

The wave of violence has shifted attention away from economic troubles including inflation of 56 per cent, slowing growth, and shortages of staple goods such as milk and flour.

The opposition blames these problems on Chavez’s economic legacy of nationalisations, currency controls and constant confrontation with businesses.

They say socialism has crippled private enterprise and weakened state institutions while spawning a nepotistic elite that enriches itself with the country’s oil wealth.

Maduro calls it an “economic war” led by the opposition. The former bus driver calls himself the “son” of Chavez and has vowed to continue the generous public spending that helped reduce poverty and propelled the late president to repeated election victories over 14 years.

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.