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Third child dies in Thai protest violence
Third child dies in Thai protest violence (AFP) / 24 February 2014 The girl died from wounds after a grenade attack on Sunday afternoon on a busy Bangkok shopping district, near a rally by demonstrators trying to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra Anti-government protesters pray near the site of a bomb blast. -Reuters A six-year-old girl on Monday became the third child to die in recent days in Thailand’s political unrest, as the army chief warned the country could collapse if violence continues. The girl died from wounds after a grenade attack on Sunday afternoon on a busy Bangkok shopping district, near a rally by demonstrators trying to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Her four-year-old brother and a women also died in the blast, which left blood splattered on a main road lined by street stalls, several top-end hotels and a major shopping mall. Police said the grenade was fired into the crowd by unknown attackers from an M79 shoulder-held launcher. They said an officer also died on Monday, nearly a week after being shot in the head in a gunbattle with protesters. Six people — including two officers — were killed in that incident in Bangkok’s historic heart, a stone’s throw from the city’s backpacker zone. Twenty-one people have now been killed and more than 700 wounded in violence linked to almost four months of anti-government demonstrations. Attacks have mainly been mounted in Bangkok, although a drive-by shooting late Saturday on a protest rally in the eastern province of Trat killed a five-year-old girl. The current unrest is the worst in the bitterly divided kingdom since protests by “Red Shirts” — allied to Yingluck’s older brother Thaksin — against a previous government in 2010 sparked clashes and a military crackdown that left more than 90 people dead. “As days go by, there will be more violence until it cannot be controlled,” army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha warned in a rare televised live speech. “If losses continue, the country will collapse for sure and nobody will win or lose,” he said. Prayut urged reconciliation and talks. He said troops are “ready to do their duty” but “do not want to use force and weapons to unnecessarily fight with the Thai people”. He did not elaborate. The army has staged numerous coups — with the most recent one ousting Thaksin from office in 2006 — and the army chief’s comments are closely scrutinised for signs of possible intervention. The head of the government’s security response to the protests also predicted more unrest. “From now on violence will keep happening, for sure, so anyone who is not involved in the protests should not go to them,” said Labour Minister Chalerm Yubamrung. “I accept that it is hard to control.” The government says it has been hamstrung by a court ruling last week banning it from using force to disperse peaceful protesters. Authorities say high-calibre weapons fired at them last week indicate the protesters have heavily armed support, while television footage has shown apparent protesters firing handguns in clashes. The shocking death of the three children earned swift condemnation from UN chief Ban Ki-Moon. Prime Minister Yingluck labelled them “terrorist acts”. The UN children’s fund UNICEF called on protesters to keep children away from the rallies, which have for many weeks been treated as boisterous family occasions. Yingluck spent Monday inspecting local produce in a province 150 kilometres (90 miles) east of Bangkok, in a move seized on by her opponents as a sign she is on the run. But a government spokeswoman told AFP she would return to Bangkok by the evening. Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, who as deputy premier at the time oversaw the 2010 crackdown on the Red Shirts, said the government bore responsibility for the weekend violence. “We use peaceful tactics, we are empty-handed. In past four months, we have never created any violence,” he told a rally. Hatred for Thaksin, who lives in exile to avoid prison over graft charges, is at the heart of the anti-government movement. Protesters allege he still runs the government through Yingluck and has fostered widespread corruption. But Thaksin and his sister enjoy strong support in the rural north and northeast. For more news from Khaleej Times, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes , and on Twitter at @khaleejtimes Continue reading
Arrest warrant issued for President Yanukovych
Arrest warrant issued for President Yanukovych (AP) / 24 February 2014 Calls are mounting in Ukraine to put Yanukovych on trial, after a tumultuous presidency in which he amassed powers, enriched his allies and cracked down on protesters. Anti-Viktor Yanukovych protesters outside parliament in Kiev.-AFP Ukraine’s acting government issued a warrant on Monday for the arrest of President Viktor Yanukovych, last seen in the pro-Russian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, accusing him of mass crimes against protesters who stood up for months against his rule. Calls are mounting in Ukraine to put Yanukovych on trial, after a tumultuous presidency in which he amassed powers, enriched his allies and cracked down on protesters. Anger boiled over last week after snipers attacked protesters in the bloodiest violence in Ukraine’s post-Soviet history. The turmoil has turned this strategically located country of 46 million inside out over the past few days, raising fears that it could split apart. The parliament speaker is suddenly nominally in charge of a country whose economy is on the brink of default and whose loyalties are torn between Europe and longtime ruler Russia. Ukraine’s acting interior minister, Arsen Avakhov, said on his official Facebook page Monday that a warrant has been issued for the arrest of Yanukovych and several other officials for the “mass killing of civilians.” At least 82 people, primarily protesters, were killed in clashes in Kiev last week. Avakhov says Yanukovych arrived in Crimea on Sunday and relinquished his official security detail then drove off to an unknown location. After signing an agreement with the opposition to end a conflict that turned deadly, Yanukovych fled the capital for eastern Ukraine. Avakhov said he tried to fly out of Donetsk but was stopped, then went to Crimea. Tensions have been mounting in Crimea, where pro-Russian protesters raised a Russian flag on a city hall in one town and scuffled with police. Russia maintains a big naval base in the Crimean port of Sevastopol that has tangled relations between the countries for two decades. Yanukovych set off a wave of protests by shelving an agreement with the EU in November and turning toward Russia, and the movement quickly expanded its grievances to corruption, human rights abuses and calls for Yanukovych’s resignation. “We must find Yanukovych and put him on trial,” said protester Leonid Shovtak, a 50-year-old farmer from the western Ivano-Frankivsk region who came to Kiev’s Independence Square to take part in the three-month protest movement. “All the criminals with him should be in prison.” The speaker of parliament assumed the president’s powers Sunday, even though a presidential aide told the AP on Sunday that Yanukovych plans to stay in power. The speaker, Oleksandr Turchinov, said top priorities include saving the economy and “returning to the path of European integration,” according to news agencies. The latter phrase is certain to displease Moscow, which wants Ukraine to be part of a customs union that would rival the EU and bolster Russia’s influence. Russia granted Ukraine a $15 billion bailout after Yanukovych backed away from the EU deal. U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt said the U.S. is ready to help Ukraine get aid from the International Monetary Fund. The European Union, meanwhile, is reviving efforts to strike a deal with Ukraine that could involve billions of euros in economic perks. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is visiting Kiev on Monday and Tuesday. The protest movement has been in large part a fight for the country’s economic future — for better jobs and prosperity. Ukraine has struggled with corruption, bad government and short-sighted reliance on cheap gas from Russia. Political unrest has pushed up the deficit and sent exchange rates bouncing, and may have pushed the economy back into a recession. Per capita economic output is only around $7,300, even adjusted for the lower cost of living there, compared to $22,200 in Poland and around $51,700 in the United States. Ukraine ranks 137 th worldwide, behind El Salvador, Namibia, and Guyana. Ukraine has a large potential consumer market, with 46 million people, an educated workforce, and a rich potential export market next door in the EU. It has a significant industrial base and good natural resources, in particular rich farmland. For more news from Khaleej Times, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes , and on Twitter at @khaleejtimes Continue reading
Ukraine points west as US warns Russia against force
Ukraine points west as US warns Russia against force (Reuters) / 24 February 2014 US, Britain warn Russia against military intervention; acting president says European integration a top priority. Ukraine’s new interim president pledged to put the country back on course for European integration now Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich had been ousted, while the United States warned Russia against sending in its forces. Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko (C) meets with US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt (L) and head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Jan Tombinski in Kiev. -Reuters As rival neighbours east and west of the former Soviet republic said a power vacuum in Kiev must not lead to the country breaking apart, acting president Oleksander Turchinov said on Sunday that Ukraine’s new leadership wanted relations with Russia on a “new, equal and good-neighbourly footing that recognises and takes into account Ukraine’s European choice”. A day after Yanukovich fled to the Russian-speaking east following dozens of deaths during street protests aimed at toppling him, parliament named new speaker Turchinov as interim head of state. An ally of the ousted leader’s long jailed rival Yulia Tymoshenko, he aims to swear in a government by Tuesday that can provide authority until a presidential election on May 25. With battle-hardened, pro-Western protesters in control of central Kiev and determined to hold their leaders to account, lawmakers rushed through decisions to cement their power, display their rejection of rampant corruption and bring to book officials who ordered police to fire on Independence Square. But whoever takes charge as interim prime minister faces a huge challenge to satisfy popular expectations and will find an economy in deep crisis, even if the EU makes good on new offers of aid that may help make up for loans that Russia has frozen. Scuffles in Russian-speaking Crimea and some eastern cities between supporters of the new, pro-EU order in Kiev and those anxious to stay close to Moscow revived fears of separatism that a week earlier were focused on the west, where Ukrainian nationalists had disowned Yanukovich and proclaimed self-rule. 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 Yanukovich would keep closely allied to Moscow. “That would be a grave mistake,” Rice said. “It’s not in the interests of Ukraine or of Russia or of Europe or the United States to see a country split. It’s in nobody’s interest to see violence return and the situation escalate.” Yanukovich’s flight into hiding 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 in a statement. British Foreign Secretary William Hague was asked if Russia might “send in the tanks” to defend its interests among ethnic Russians in the east and on the Crimea peninsula, where Moscow bases its Black Sea Fleet: “It would really not be in the interests of Russia to do any such thing,” he told the BBC. Earlier this month, a Kremlin aide warned that Moscow could intervene and accused Washington of breaching their 1994 treaty under which Russia removed Soviet nuclear weapons from Ukraine. It is unlikely the United States and its allies in Nato would risk an outright military confrontation with Russia but such rhetoric, laden with echoes of the Cold War, underlines the high stakes in Ukraine, whose 46 million people and sprawling territory are caught in a geopolitical tug of war. EU officials offered financial aid to a new government and to revive a trade deal that Yanukovich spurned under Russian pressure in November, sparking the protests that drove him from office after 82 deaths last week, many from police sniper fire. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will travel to Ukraine on Monday to discuss economic help, the EU said. The United States has also promised help. But budgets are tight in the EU and Washington, and international creditors like the IMF may remain wary of Yanukovich’s opponents, whose years in government before him were no economic success story. However, concern about instability and a popular desire to be seen backing what looks to Western voters like a democratic movement threatened by Russian diktat may loosen purse strings – at least to tide Ukraine over until after the elections. In Russia, where Putin hoped to count on Ukraine as a key element in a union of ex-Soviet states and might also fear the Kiev uprising could inspire his own opponents, the finance minister said the next tranche of a $15-billion loan package agreed in December would not be paid, at least before a new government is formed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, according to his office, told US Secretary of State John Kerry the opposition had “seized power” by force by ignoring the EU-brokered truce on Friday that left Yanukovich in office for the time being. Lavrov said that power-sharing agreement should be revived. However, even lawmakers from Yanukovich’s own party voted for his removal on Saturday and issued a statement blaming him and his entourage for the crisis. Business “oligarchs” – rich from control of ex-Soviet assets – also distanced themselves from a man long seen as their representative in the presidency. In a mark of passions dividing Ukrainians along a historic faultline between Russian and Ukrainian cultures, local television in Kerch, in eastern Crimea, showed a crowd hauling down the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag in front of the town hall and hoisting the white, blue and red Russian tricolour. Yanukovich, whose whereabouts remain unclear but who may be in his home city of Donetsk near the Russian border, accused opponents of a Nazi-style coup and said he remained in power. In a hectic round of voting in parliament, lawmakers rushed in some crowd-pleasing measures against the ousted administration, conscious that those still occupying Independence Square – or the Maidan – remain deeply suspicious of the political class. They stripped Yanukovich of his abandoned country home near Kiev. Its brash opulence, complete with ostrich farm and hot tubs, was put on display within hours and fuelled demands that the rough-hewn former petty criminal from the eastern coalfields be held to account for stealing taxpayer billions. Several officials and ministers were singled out for being removed from office, among them an education minister accused of promoting a Russian view of Ukrainian history. Parliament-appointed security officials announced legal moves against members of the ousted administration and those responsible for police attacks on the Maidan last week. Newly appointed speaker Oleksander Turchinov, now acting president, said a government should be in place by Tuesday. His ally, Tymoshenko, defeated by Yanukovich in a 2010 presidential election and later jailed for corruption, ruled herself out as interim premier. Freed from a prison hospital on Saturday after more than two years in jail, she may want time to recover and build support before running for the presidency. As prime minister following the largely peaceful Orange Revolution of 2004-05, which overturned a first presidential victory by Yanukovich, Tymoshenko disappointed many in Ukraine who had hoped for an end to the corruption and failed economic policies that marked the aftermath of Soviet communism. “In these days the most important thing is to form a functioning government,” said Vitaly Klitschko, a former world boxing champion and also a possible presidential contender. “We have to take very important steps in order to ensure the survival of the economy, which is in a very bad shape,” he told a news conference. He denied there had been a coup. “Parliament is the last legal official institution in Ukraine,” he said. “Nobody knows where the president of Ukraine is. We tried to find him all day yesterday. His location is unknown. He left the country without a president.” For more news from Khaleej Times, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes , and on Twitter at @khaleejtimes Continue reading
