Yemen tribes kill 4 soldiers in fresh anti-army attack

Aden (AFP)
Jan 12, 2014

Armed tribesmen attacked an army post in southeast Yemen on Sunday and killed four soldiers in the latest assault targeting security forces in the area since December, a military official said.

The attack took place near Shahr in Hadramawt province, which has been hit by protests against the central government since last month, after the army killed tribal chief Said Ben Habrish and his bodyguards at a checkpoint.

Gunmen and troops traded fire after the attack, witnesses said, adding that army reinforcements had arrived in the area.

The military official said a regional tribal alliance was behind the attack.

In addition to attacks on the army, the recently formed alliance of tribes in Hadramawt has sabotaged pipelines in the region at least two times in recent weeks.

On Saturday, members of the alliance killed two soldiers and wounded another in an attack on oil installations operated by Norwegian DNO in Hadaramawt, a security official had said.

Hadramawt was part of the formerly independent South Yemen, which was unified with the north in 1990.

A secession attempt four years later sparked a brief but bloody civil war that ended with northern forces taking over the south.

Southern grievances have hindered the political transition following the 33-year rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who stepped down last year following Arab Spring-inspired protests.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Yemen_tribes_kill_4_soldiers_in_fresh_anti-army_attack_999.html.

Al Qaeda destroyed American Drone Control Center in Yemen

6 December 2013

On Friday, Al Qaeda took responsibility for a successful attack on the Yemeni puppet defense ministry that killed 52 apostates on Thursday, saying the complex hosted US personnel behind drone strikes against Muslims, reports AFP.

Accounting to democratic media, in a statement published by an unnamed media outlet of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) on an unnamed Twitter account, the Mujahideen said:

"The city center compound was stormed... after the Mujahedeen proved that it accommodates drone control rooms and American experts”.

“As part of a policy to target drone control rooms, the Mujahideen have dealt a heavy blow to one".

“Such security headquarters in partnership with the Americans in their war on these Muslim people are a justified target wherever they may be.”

According to official apostates' figure, up to 25 Mujahideen took part in the assault, and 11 of them embraced Martyrdom (God willing). The other 14 Mujahideen returned safely to their bases.

Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center

Source: Kavkaz Center.
Link: http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2013/12/06/18624.shtml.

US, Yemen hold talks to build new Guantanamo prison

Sat Nov 9, 2013

The Obama administration is negotiating with Yemen to build a new detention facility on its soil that would hold dozens of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, US and Yemeni officials say.

The facility which will hold only Yemeni prisoners, who comprise more than half of the 164 prisoners held in Guantanamo, is said to be established near the capital of Yemen, Sana'a, the Los Angeles Times reported.

'There's a definite recognition that this needs to happen but if it's not done right, the risks are very high,' said a US official familiar with the talks, on condition of anonymity because the plans are classified.

President Barack Obama has repeatedly promised to close the unpopular Guantanamo detention facility in Cuba. Closing the detention camp was a central theme of Obama's presidential campaign in 2008 as he acknowledged that the prison was a symbol of the US government's violation of human rights.

The administration announced in August that it was mulling over the construction of a facility in Yemen for the rehabilitation of the Yemeni prisoners who would return home from the Guantanamo prison.

As details of the talks are tightly held between the two countries, speculations over whether the new facility will be another prison for illegal detention and torture of terrorism suspects or a rehab center are still varied.

Human rights activists say they would oppose the new facility.

'I don't think [it] should exist unless it's an actual rehabilitation program,' said Andrea Prasow, senior counter-terrorism counsel with Human Rights Watch. 'There's no way I would find it acceptable for [returned Yemeni detainees] to be held against their will.'

Tens of Yemenis have been imprisoned at Guantanamo for over a decade without any charge.

The Pentagon has designated 55 of the Yemenis in Guantanamo for transfer to Yemen, and 25 of those are considered low risk and approved for 'immediate' hand over. The other 30 may be transferred if Yemen provides assurances that they will not return to violence.

Yemeni officials are anxious not to be seen helping Washington build a new Guantanamo prison as funding of the project is still an unresolved issue.

The US ambassador to Yemen, Gerald Feierstein, said in August that Washington had held a meeting with representatives from Yemen and Saudi Arabia in the Italian capital, Rome, to negotiate over the construction of the facility.

The administration has brought Saudi Arabia into the talks as well in the hope that it will contribute to the project.

Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, privately offered to pay for the project in a meeting with President Obama at the White House in August, according to a Yemini official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Yemen has since denied such an offer.

Source: Global Security.
Link: http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/news/2013/11/sec-131109-presstv01.htm.

As Iraq hands out election IDs, unrest rages on

February 22, 2014

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi election officials began handing out new, computerized voter identification cards Saturday across the capital as the country prepares for its first nationwide election since the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

But the more than $100 million push to modernize voting comes as officials can't distribute cards in embattled Anbar province, where the ISIS fighters seized control of parts of two cities, and as militant attacks rage on unabated, killing at least 14 people alone Saturday and wounding nearly two dozen.

The new voter cards, which include a computer chip, will allow election officials to check a voter's identity and try to halt fraud. Several Iraqi political blocs alleged that some people voted multiple times in the last vote in 2010, although the results of the election were not widely disputed.

In previous elections, voters had to go through lists glued outside balloting centers to find their names before going inside. Spanish technology firm Indra signed a five-year deal with Iraq to supply the new system and train election officials.

Nearly 22 million Iraqis are eligible to cast their ballots in coming April 30 parliamentary elections. Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki is eyeing a third term in office despite objections from political rivals who accuse him of marginalizing partners and seizing control of state institutions to consolidate power.

In a televised speech Wednesday, al-Maliki reiterated a pledge to not delay elections because of the violence, calling on people to overcome any reluctance to pick up cards "because their vote will be decisive this time."

Voters in 13 of Iraq's 18 provinces began to receive cards three weeks ago, Independent High Electoral Commission official Aziz al-Kheikani said. Distribution began Saturday in four new provinces, including the capital, Baghdad, he said.

Saddam Raheem Jassim, a resident of Baghdad, received his card Saturday and praised the effort. "This identity chip for voters, looking at its form and shape, is good," Jassim said. "It looks like they made big effort for it, for the sake of Iraqi people. This will ensure our rights and prevent any means of forgery in the election."

Meanwhile Saturday, two bombs targeted a four-vehicle patrol in the town of al-Saadiyah, 140 kilometers (90 miles) northeast of Baghdad, a police officer said. Militants opened fire on the troops after the bombing in an attack that killed nine and wounded four, he said.

The attack came hours after three car bombs exploded in the city of Tikrit, some 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad, another police officer said. The officer said the blasts near the homes of local security and civilian officials killed five people and wounded 18.

Two medical officials confirmed figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information to journalists. Fierce clashes pitting government security forces and allied Sunni tribal militias against a coalition of insurgents also have been raging in western Iraq's Anbar province since late December. ISIS and other insurgent groups have taken control of the city of Fallujah and parts of the provincial capital, Ramadi. Thousands have fled the violence.

On Saturday, al-Maliki announced a three-day halt of military operations in Fallujah as a "goodwill" gesture. In a statement read on state television, al-Maliki said the halt began Friday and will last through Monday after requests from clerics and tribal sheiks to halt the bloodletting.

Al-Maliki's statement did not say whether military operations would resume after the halt. Government officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Associated Press writer Murtada Faraj contributed to this report.

Turkey discusses greater powers for spy agency

February 22, 2014

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A Turkish parliamentary committee is debating a government proposal to increase the powers and immunities of the nation's spy agency — the latest in a string of moves critics say is undermining democracy in the EU-membership aspiring country.

The proposal before the internal affairs committee on Saturday follows a wave of contentious measures introduced by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, including legislation that increases government controls over the Internet and the judiciary.

The proposed legislation would allow Turkey's National Intelligence Agency greater eavesdropping and operational rights and access to personal data without court orders. Journalists publishing leaked documents would face jail terms. The agency would not be prosecuted for its actions without the prime minister's permission.

The proposal is expected to reach the floor next week.

Syrians in remote tented settlement feel abandoned

February 22, 2014

NORTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan (AP) — Every day at dawn, teenager Sultan Ahmad al-Saleh gets up and starts work, 12 hours in the fields picking vegetables in this remote corner of northwestern Jordan. It's what he's been doing for the past three years, ever since he was 14 years old and his family fled here to escape Syria's civil war.

The boy and his family are part of a nearly forgotten pocket of Syria's refugee crisis — some 1,200 families who have ended up living in squalid, impromptu tent communities in the Jordan Valley. Until recently, they have lived below the radar among the 1.2 million Syrians who have flooded into Jordan since the conflict next door began in early 2011.

The majority of those refugees have moved into Jordan's towns and cities, many of them impoverished but able to reach facilities and access aid from the United Nations and other international groups. Jordan also has two organized encampments near the northern border with Syria. The largest of them is Zaatari camp, with a population of 120,000, where refugees are under direct care of the United Nations and the Jordanian government. In total, international aid reaches about 595,000 registered refugees.

But the approximately 7,000 Syrians living here, half of them children, have been largely scraping by on their own. Most of them are farming families from Syria's central provinces of Hama and Homs, both heavy battle zones between rebels and government forces. Hoping to find livelihoods, they fled to Jordan's breadbasket, in the northern Jordan Valley near the border with Israel, to work on the area's vegetable farms.

Over time, with their growing numbers, five separate tent camps have cropped up, isolated down long dirt roads, with no health care or schools and little access to U.N. food aid. Only in the past year have U.N. agencies begun reaching them with some supplies.

"We are the untold story of the Syrian crisis," said 48-year-old Abu Ahmad, a farmer who fled here with his wife and five children from the Syrian village of Maan, near Hama. "The world seems to have forgotten about us."

He wiped off his sweat with a red-checkered headdress under the scorching heat of the arid valley. He's worried that his children are missing out on an education — and most importantly, about his family's health. "If I, my wife or any of my children fall gravely ill in the middle of the night, we may die before anyone gets here to help us," he shouted.

In total, about 2.3 million Syrians have fled the three-year old Syrian conflict, seeking shelter in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq, according to UNHCR figures. As in Jordan, most have moved into established communities or in organized camps, especially in Turkey. But in a few places, like near Lebanon's border with Syria and in the Jordan Valley, thousands still end up in self-made, informal camps.

In the largest of the Jordan Valley camps, home to around 2,000 people, tents are clumped together in a gully between a steep line of Jordan's mountains and the Jordan river, forming the border with Israel. The refugees have received tents from the U.N., but have to pay rent to the Jordanian farmers on whose land they've set up and pay for the electricity that has been strung out to them and the water supplies being shipped in.

On a visit the past week by The Associated Press, children, some as young as four, played barefoot in the dust. Some slid down a gravel hill on a torn-up plastic bucket near a trash dump. A five-year-old girl named Rima clutched on two wooden sticks she called her doll as she watched the boys play.

Few of the kids attend school, and most work in the fields with their parents. "Life has no meaning to me," said al-Saleh, the 17-year-old. "When I am off work, I get bored to death because I have no school and there isn't much to do around this ghost town anyway."

His friend, 16-year-old Saleh Khaled Mohammad, who also works in the fields, said: "My life has been totally wasted." "I had wished to be an agricultural engineer, but I dropped out of school when I was in the ninth grade a year ago and it's difficult for me to go back now because I have to work to provide for my family," said the boy.

Both said they earn about 10 Jordanian dinars, around $14 for a day's work, and they work six or seven days a week — half of it goes for rent and the rest is barely enough to pay for utilities. Ali Awad, a 12-year-old also doing farm work, said he envied boys his age who "enjoy a normal childhood."

"They can access Facebook, they have cell phones, football playgrounds and can go swimming," he said. "But look at us. We have nothing here except the mountains and farms," Volker Schimmel, an urban planner with the U.N. refugee agency, said 95 percent of the 7,000 Syrians living in the Jordan Valley camps now receive UNHCR assistance, including food coupons and cash assistance. But the agency is trying to improve other areas, including children's accessibility to education and ending child labor.

Jordanian teacher Mohammad Marahleh and his wife have volunteered through UNICEF — the U.N. agency helping refugee children — to give informal weekly classes to children in the largest valley settlement.

It's part of an effort by UNICEF and the independent charity Save the Children to provide informal education for some 30,000 refugee children in Jordan who are not eligible to go back to school because they have missed months of classes, sometimes even years, because of the conflict, said UNICEF communication officer Melanie Sharpe.

"Clean up the dust off your feet and come in," he shouted as some 70 refugee boys filtered into a classroom under a white plastic tent. He said his wife gives lessons to a similar number of girls. "I volunteered because I felt bad seeing these children wasting their time playing, instead of going to school," he said. He said there were dozens of other children whose families refuse to let them attend his classes and insist that they go back to a proper school.

On a hill overlooking the settlement, Jordanian farmer Raafat Madahneh, 18, stood watching the refugees. "Although they compete with us for jobs, we feel bad for them, help them and share our food and water with them," he said.

Ailing Algeria president to seek 4th term

February 22, 2014

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Algeria's president, who hasn't publicly addressed the country for nearly three years and suffered a stroke last year, will be running for a fourth term in April, his prime minister said Saturday.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 76, left it to Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal to break the news at a press conference in the western city of Oran. "I announce today the candidacy of the President of the Republic Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the presidential elections of April 17," Sellal said, according to the state news agency.

"Even if he has not completely recovered physically, I can assure you he is in possession of all his mental and intellectual faculties," Sellal added. The North African nation has the largest land area on the continent, is rich in gas and oil and is a key ally of the West in the fight against terrorism in the region.

Bouteflika is credited with helping to wind down a brutal insurgency by Islamic extremists, including al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which moved south into Mali, then was uprooted last year in a French-led military intervention.

The announcement of Bouteflika's plan to renew his mandate drew immediate criticism from some quarters, including the main moderate Islamist party, the Movement of Society for Peace, or MSP, which had already said it would boycott the elections.

"With the announcement of this candidacy, the election will be closed," said Zinedine Amri, a top aide to MSP chief Abderrazak Makri. "But the most serious (consequence) is that this choice will condemn Algeria to the status quo of political immobility when what we need is change, a young political class."

The question of whether Bouteflika would run again, despite his obvious health problems, has dominated the country's politics. In the past few weeks, normally concealed differences among top party and military officials broke into open salvos traded in the media. Some took this to be a sign of that Algeria's political order was breaking down.

Despite regular elections, power in Algeria is in the hands of a small group of powerful generals that rule by consensus. Since returning from a four-month convalescence in Paris following his stroke, Bouteflika has only appeared rarely on television and always in a wheelchair. He appears to have limited movement on one side of his body.

Despite his apparent infirmity and doubts about his ability to campaign, Bouteflika will likely win the election. He has a huge contingent of supporters who have been pushing for him to declare his candidacy, notably his powerful party, the National Liberation Front, which had ruled Algeria for nearly three decades.

Many officials and analysts, however, have expressed their doubts about the wisdom of Bouteflika serving another mandate, especially in light of the security challenges, with the Sahel region to the south increasingly unstable.

"Bouteflika's candidacy is, for me, proof that there is consensus at the summit of the state between the different clans, meaning the DRS (military intelligence) and the presidency," said Mohamed Saidj, a political analyst at the University of Algiers. He called Bouteflika's candidacy "an insult to Algeria" expressing concern that the country would be the "laughing stock of nations."

Koreans part, likely for last time, from relatives

February 22, 2014

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — As his North Korean daughter wept Saturday, 93-year-old South Korean Park Un-hyeong tried to console her before boarding a bus to take him south across the world's most heavily armed border after spending three days with her in the North. For Park and dozens of other Koreans at these rare reunions of families divided by the Korean War, it was likely the last time they'd see each other.

"You shouldn't cry on this good day," he told his daughter, Pak Myung Ok, 68, as he prepared to leave the North Korean resort that hosted the first reunions of North and South Koreans in more than three years, according to South Korean media pool reports. "We'll be able to meet again soon. Trust your father, stay healthy and live well."

In another emotional scene, an 84-year-old South Korean woman, Lee Oh-hwan, became short of breath from crying too hard and was immediately treated by a medical team. Her North Korean sister, 72-year-old Ri Ok Bin, tried to calm her down, telling her in an aching voice not to get sick.

Again and again, similar scenes played out as 80 elderly South Koreans said their goodbyes to North Korean relatives. They wept, held hands, caressed faces, took pictures and tried to convince themselves that they'd meet again.

Both democratic South Korea and authoritarian North Korea share the same type of rhetoric about eventual reunification, and many average Koreans say they long for that day. But after near continual animosity and occasional bloodshed since the three-year war ended in an unsteady armistice in 1953, many analysts see that as only a distant possibility.

The reunions will continue when a group of about 360 South Koreans arrives Sunday to meet with North Korean relatives whom most haven't seen in six decades. The second and final round of reunions is set to end Tuesday.

It's an unusual moment of detente between the rivals. Millions of Koreans were separated from loved ones by the tumult and bloodshed of the war, and few have been reunited. Both governments ban their citizens from visiting each other or even exchanging letters, phone calls and emails. During a previous period of inter-Korean rapprochement, about 22,000 Koreans had brief reunions — 18,000 in person and the others by video. None got a second chance to reunite, Seoul says.

The current reunions were arranged after impoverished North Korea began calling recently for better ties with South Korea, in what outside analysts say is an attempt to win badly needed foreign investment and aid. But Pyongyang threatened to scrap the reunions to protest annual military drills between Seoul and Washington set to start Monday. North Korea had canceled previously scheduled reunions in September at the last minute.

In South Korea, there are still worries that the current reunions might be disrupted because of the impending military drills. Despite Pyongyang's recent charm offensive, many in Seoul remember that a year ago North Korea threatened repeatedly to launch nuclear strikes against Seoul and Washington.

The reality of the Korean division wasn't lost on those lucky few who said their goodbyes Saturday. When it was time to part, many began to wail. North Korean personnel tried to calm down weeping North Korean families, according to the pool report, saying that too much crying would make them sick.

South Korean TV showed elderly North Koreans straightening their stooped backs to get a final look at loved ones who had boarded the buses. As their breaths steamed in the cold air, men wearing suits and women wearing thin traditional Korean dresses waved without gloves.

Some stood on tiptoes so they could put both of their hands on the bus windows, their loved ones doing the same on the inside of the glass. South Koreans on the bus shouted out goodbyes, wiping their faces with one hand and waving with the other. Some held up paper with names or thank you messages.

"Let's meet again later," South Korean Woo Young-shik wrote in part to his aunt. Then, flipping the paper over, he wrote a second message: "Stay healthy until the day we reunite."

Ukraine parliament head takes presidential powers

February 23, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — With an ally claiming presidential powers Sunday and the whereabouts and legitimacy of the nominal president unclear, newly freed opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko may feel her chance to take Ukraine's leadership has come. But even among protesters who detest President Viktor Yanukovych, Tymoshenko sparks misgivings.

The former prime minister, who was convicted of abuse of office in a case widely seen as political revenge by her arch-foe Yanukovych, is a polarizing figure in a country staggering from political tensions that exploded into violence. Admired and even adored by many for her flair and fiery rhetoric, Tymoshenko is regarded by others as driven by intense ego and tainted with corruption.

Just a day after she left the hospital where she was imprisoned, demonstrators outside the Cabinet of Ministers expressed dismay that she could be Ukraine's next president. One of them held a placard depicting Tymoshenko taking power from Yanukovych and reading, "People didn't die for this."

Ukraine is in a delicate state of uncertainty since Yanukovych and protest leaders signed an agreement to end the conflict that left more than 80 people dead last week in Kiev. Soon after signing it, Yanukovych's whereabouts are unclear after he left the capital for his support base in eastern Ukraine. Allies are deserting him.

Russia's next moves in the crisis were not immediately clear, but Washington warned Moscow not to intervene militarily. The newly emboldened parliament, now dominated by the opposition, struggled to work out who is in charge of the country and its ailing economy. Fears percolated that some regions might try to break away and seek support from neighboring Russia, particularly the Crimean peninsula where Russia's Black Sea naval fleet is based.

Ukraine is deeply divided between eastern regions that are largely pro-Russian and western areas that widely detest Yanukovych and long for closer ties with the European Union. Yanukovych set off a wave of protests by shelving an agreement with the EU in November, and the movement quickly expanded its grievances to corruption, human rights abuses and calls for Yanukovych's resignation.

The parliament on Sunday assigned presidential powers to its new speaker, Tymoshenko ally Oleksandr Turchinov, who 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.

The Kiev protest camp at the center of the anti-Yanukovych movement filled with more and more dedicated demonstrators Sunday, setting up new tents. Demonstrators posed with an APC and two water cannon that protesters seized during last week's clashes and carried flowers to memorialize the dead, some of whom were killed by snipers.

Tymoshenko, the blond-braided and controversial heroine of the 2004 Orange Revolution, increasingly appears to have the upper hand in the political battle, winning the backing Sunday of a leading Russian lawmaker and congratulations from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. senators on her release.

Although her spokeswoman, Maria Soroka, said it's too early to discuss whether she will run for president in early elections called for May 25, Tymoshenko is possessed of adamant determination. Even from a wheelchair because of a back problem that was aggravted in 2 1/2 years of imprisonment, she was a powerful speaker Saturday to a crowd of tens of thousands at the protest camp.

"She knows how to do it. She is our hero," said Ludmilla Petrova, one of those at the square the next day. Other demonstrators objeccted. "She is just as corrupt as Yanukovych," said 28-year-old Boris Budinok. "We need new faces in Ukrainian politics. The old ones brought us to where we are now."

Tymoshenko's admirers remember her as the most vivid figure of the Orange Rvolution, which forced a rerun of a fraud-riddled presidential election purportedly won by Yanukovych. After the new vote, won by Viktor Yushchenko, Tymoshenko became prime minister.

But she and Yushchenko quarreled intensely and their government was a huge letdown for those who had hoped it would help integrate Ukraine into Europe. Detractors also look askance at her for her years at the helm of Unified Energy Systems, a middleman company that was the main importer of the Russian natural gas on which Ukraine depends. Nicknamed "The Gas Princess," she was accused of giving kickbacks to then-premier Pavlo Lazarenko, who is no imprisoned in the United States for fraud. Later, as deputy prime minister, she pushed through reforms of the energy sector that some said did little more than fill the pockets of her associates.

Susan Rice, President Barack Obama's national security adviser, said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during a telephone conversation Friday that a political settlement in Kiev should ensure the country's unity and personal freedoms. Rice also said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that it would be a "grave mistake" for Russia to intervene militarily in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has been largely silent about whether it still supports Yanukovych. Putin, who presided over the close of the Sochi Olympics, has not spoken about recent events in Kiev. He had developed a productive working relationship with Tymoshenko when she was Ukraine's prime minister.

Russia recalled its ambassador from Kiev for consultations because of the developments in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on its website. The conviction that sent Tymoshenko to prison was for allegedly negotiating an excessively high price for Russian gas.

Russian legislator Leonid Slutsky said Sunday that naming Tymoshenko prime minister "would be useful for stabilizing" tensions in Ukraine, according to Russian news agencies. Russia's finance minister urged Ukraine to seek a loan from the International Monetary Fund to avoid an imminent default.

Tensions mounted in Crimea, where pro-Russian politicians are organizing rallies and forming protest units and have been demanding autonomy from Kiev. Russia maintains a big naval base in Crimea that has tangled relations between the countries for two decades.

A crowd of pro-Russia demonstrators in the Crimean city of Kerch, following a rally Sunday at which speakers called for Crimea's secession, marched toward city hall chanting "Russia! Russia!" and tore down the Ukrainian flag. Marchers scuffled with the mayor and police officers who tried but failed to stop the crowd from hoisting a Russian flag in its place.

The political crisis in this nation of 46 million has changed with blinding speed in the past week. In a special session Sunday, the parliament voted overwhelmingly to temporarily hand the president's powers to speaker Turchinov. He stuck with Tymoshenko even as others deserted her in her roller coaster political career.

The legitimacy of the parliament's flurry of decisions in recent days is under question. The votes are based on a decision Friday to return to a 10-year-old constitution that grants parliament greater powers. Yanukovych has not signed that decision into law, and he said Saturday that the parliament is now acting illegally.

However, legal experts said that de facto the parliament is now in charge. Presidential aide Hanna Herman told the AP on Sunday that Yanukovych was in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv as of Saturday night and plans to stay in power.

Protesters smashed portraits of Yanukovych and took down statues of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin in several towns and cities. On Sunday, some pro-Russian protesters took up positions to defend Lenin statues in Donetsk and Kharkiv. Statues of Lenin across the former U.S.S.R. are seen as a symbol of Moscow's rule.

Associated Press writers Maria Danilova, Yuras Karmanau and Dusan Stojanovic in Kiev, Lynn Berry in Moscow, and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

Ukraine's Tymoshenko rallies protesters in Kiev

February 23, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — In a stunning reversal of fortune, Ukrainian opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko left imprisonment Saturday and spoke to a massive, adoring crowd, while her arch-foe President Viktor Yanukovych decamped to eastern Ukraine and vowed he would remain in power.

Protesters took control of the presidential administration building and thousands of curious and contemptuous Ukrainians roamed the suddenly open grounds of the lavish compound outside Kiev where Yanukovych was believed to live. Parliament, which he controlled as recently as a day earlier but is now emboldened against him, on Saturday called for his removal and for elections on May 25. But Yanukovych said he regards the parliament as now illegitimate and he won't respect its decisions.

The political crisis in the nation of 46 million, strategically important for Europe, Russia and the United States, has changed with blinding speed repeatedly in the past week. First there were signs that tensions were easing, followed by horrifying violence and then a deal signed under Western pressure that aimed to resolve the conflict but left the unity of the country in question.

Tymoshenko, whose diadem of blond peasant braids and stirring rhetoric attracted world attention in the 2004 Orange Revolution, was both sad and excited as she spoke to a crowd of about 50,000 on Kiev's Independence Square, where a sprawling protest tent camp was set up in December. Sitting in a wheelchair because of a back problem aggravated during imprisonment, her voice cracked and her face was careworn.

But her words were vivid, praising the protesters who were killed this week in clashes with police that included sniper fire and entreating the living to keep the camp going. "You are heroes, you are the best thing in Ukraine!" she said of the victims. The Health Ministry on Saturday said the death toll in clashes between protesters and police that included sniper attacks had reached 82.

And she urged the demonstrators not to yield their encampment in the square, known in Ukrainian as the Maidan. "In no case do you have the right to leave the Maidan until you have concluded everything that you planned to do," she said.

The crowd was thrilled. "We missed Yulia and her fire so much," said demonstrator Yuliya Sulchanik. Minutes after her release, Tymoshenko said she plans to run for president, and Sulchanik said "Yulia will be the next president — she deserves it."

Under the agreement signed Friday, Yanukovych faces early elections, but it is unclear when they will happen. His authority in Kiev appeared to be eroding by the hour. Yanukovych spoke on television in Kharkiv, the heartland of his base of support and ironically the same city where Tymoshenko was imprisoned. He truculently likened his opponents to the rise of Nazism in the 1930s and accused them of a putsch.

"Everything that is happening today is, to a greater degree, vandalism and banditry and a coup d'etat," he said. "I will do everything to protect my country from breakup, to stop bloodshed." Ukraine is deeply divided between eastern regions that are largely pro-Russian and western areas that widely detest Yanukovych and long for closer ties with the European Union. Yanukovych's shelving of an agreement with the EU in November set off the wave of protests, but they quickly expanded their grievances to corruption, human rights abuses and calls for Yanukovych's resignation.

The conviction of Tymoshenko was one of the underlying issues driving the protests. After the 2004 Orange Revolution helped bring Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency, Tymoshenko became prime minister. But when Yanukovych won the 2010 election, Tymoshenko was arrested and put on trial for abuse of office, an action widely seen as political revenge.

On Saturday, before Tymoshenko's arrival, other opposition figures hailed Yanukovych's deteriorating hold on the country. "The people have won, because we fought for our future," said opposition leader Vitali Klitschko to a euphoric crowd of thousands on Independence Square. Beneath a cold, heavy rain, protesters who have stood for weeks and months to pressure the president to leave congratulated each other and shouted "Glory to Ukraine!"

"It is only the beginning of the battle," Klitschko said, urging calm and telling protesters not to take justice into their own hands. Top EU foreign envoy Catherine Ashton welcomed the release of Tymoshenko as "an important step forward in view of addressing concerns regarding selective justice in the country."

The president's support base crumbled further as a leading governor and a mayor from the eastern city of Kharkiv fled to Russia. Oleh Slobodyan, a spokesman for the border guard service, told The Associated Press that the Kharkiv regional governor and mayor left Ukraine across the nearby Russian border. Another service spokesman, Serhiy Astakhov, said the former prosecutor-general and former taxation minister were prevented from leaving on the order of unspecified law-enforcement agencies.

Russia came out Saturday firmly against the peace deal, saying the opposition isn't holding up its end of the agreement, which calls for protesters to surrender arms and abandon their tent camps. Tymoshenko's entreaty is likely to make the latter condition slow to be fulfilled.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday called his German, French and Polish counterparts and urged them to use their influence with the Ukrainian opposition to stop what he described as rampages by its supporters. European officials urged calm.

Ukraine's defense and military officials also called for Ukrainians to stay peaceful. In statements Saturday, both the Defense Ministry and the chief of the armed forces said they will not be drawn into any conflict and will side with the people. But they did not specify whether they still support the president or are with the opposition.

In Kharkiv, governors, provincial officials and legislators gathered alongside top Russian lawmakers and issued a statement saying that the events in Kiev have led to the "paralysis of the central government and destabilization of the situation in the country."

Some called for the formation of volunteer militias to defend against protesters from western regions, even as they urged army units to maintain neutrality and protect ammunition depots. Anti-government protesters around the country took out their anger on statues of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, using ropes and crowbars to knock them off pedestals in several cities and towns. Statues of Lenin still stand across the former U.S.S.R., and they are seen as a symbol of Moscow's rule.

The past week has seen the worst violence in Ukraine since the breakup of the Soviet Union a quarter-century ago. At Independence Square Saturday, protesters heaped flowers on the coffins of the dead.

"These are heroes of Ukraine who gave their lives so that we could live in a different country without Yanukovych," said protester Viktor Fedoruk, 32. "Their names will be written in golden letters in the history of Ukraine."

Maria Danilova and Yuras Karmanau in Kiev and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

Ukraine agreement reached, but the street resists

February 22, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Under heavy pressure from the West following a deadly day of clashes and sniper fire in the capital, President Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leaders struck a deal Friday aimed at bringing Ukraine's three-month political crisis to an end. But radical protesters and some pro-Russian factions rejected it, leaving lingering doubts over whether peace could be restored.

On a day of electrifying developments, the Ukrainian parliament also opened a path for Yulia Tymoshenko —Yanukovych's political nemesis — to be let out of prison. In spite of what looked like a significant government retreat, protesters booed opposition figures who took to a stage Friday evening to present the deal, which cuts Yanukovych's powers and calls for early elections but falls short of demands for his immediate resignation.

"Death to the criminal!" some chanted, referring to Yanukovych. "Resign! Resign! Resign!" shouted others as one radical speaker threatened to go on an armed offensive if the opposition doesn't demand the president's resignation by Saturday morning.

Addressing the crowd in Kiev's Independence Square, opposition leader Vitali Klitschko tried to persuade them that Yanukovych had likely given all he was willing to give. "He's not going to resign. This isn't realistic. We have to think about realistic steps," Klitschko said.

The agreement signed Friday calls for presidential elections to be moved up from March 2015 to no later than December, but many protesters said that is far too late. And it does not address the issue that set off the protests in November — Yanukovych's abandonment of closer ties with the European Union in favor of a bailout deal with longtime ruler Russia.

The standoff between the government and protesters escalated this week, as demonstrators clashed with police and snipers opened fire in the worst violence the country has seen since the breakup of the Soviet Union a quarter-century ago. The Health Ministry put the death toll at 77 and some opposition figures said it's even higher.

The U.S., Russia and the 28-nation EU are deeply concerned about the future of Ukraine, a divided nation of 46 million. The country's western regions want to be closer to the EU and have rejected Yanukovych's authority in many cities, while eastern Ukraine favors closer ties with Russia.

Hours after the deal was signed, Ukraine's parliament voted to restore the 2004 constitution that limits presidential authority, clawing back some of the powers that Yanukovych had pushed through for himself after being elected in 2010.

Parliament then voted to fire the interior minister, Vitali Zakharchenko, who is widely despised and blamed for ordering police violence, including the snipers who killed scores of protesters Thursday in Kiev, the capital that has been nearly paralyzed by the protests.

Then the parliament, which once was overwhelmingly pro-Yanukovych, took the bold move of approving a measure that could free arch-rival Tymoshenko, who has served two and a half years on a conviction of abuse of office, charges that domestic and Western critics have denounced as a political vendetta.

Legislators voted to decriminalize the count under which Tymoshenko was imprisoned, meaning that she is no longer guilty of a criminal offense. "Free Yulia! Free Yulia!" lawmakers chanted. However, Yanukovych must still sign that bill into law, and then Tymoshenko's lawyers would have to ask the court for her release from prison in the eastern city of Kharkiv.

Yanukovych fears her popularity. The charismatic blond-braided heroine of the 2004 Orange Revolution — which also drove Yanukovych from the presidency — Tymoshenko served as prime minister and narrowly lost the 2010 presidential election to Yanukovych.

With Yanukovych's supporters quitting his party one after another Friday, legislators also approved an amnesty for protesters involved in violence. Under the agreement, Ukrainian authorities also will name a new unity government that includes top opposition figures within 10 days.

The deal was a result of two days and all-night of shuttle diplomacy by top diplomats from Germany, France and Poland, who talked with the president and the opposition. In Washington, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the deal is consistent with what the Obama administration was advocating, and that the U.S. will closely monitor whether it is fulfilled, holding out the threat of more sanctions if it's not.

"The agreement is a necessary compromise in order to launch an indispensable political dialogue that offers the only democratic and peaceful way out of the crisis that has already caused too much suffering and bloodshed on all sides," European Union President Herman Van Rompuy said.

But neither side won all the points it sought, and some vague conditions could ignite strong disputes down the road. The deal calls for protesters to hand over all their weapons, withdraw from buildings they have occupied and take down the camps they have erected around the country. It is far from clear that the thousands of protesters camped out in Kiev's Independence Square — known as the Maidan — will pack up and go home.

"The Maidan will stand up until Yanukovych leaves," declared one protester, 29-year-old Anataly Shevchuk. "I hope that the direction of the country changes, but so far the goals of the Maidan have not been achieved," said another, 45-year-old Kira Rushnitskaya. "Yanukovych agreed to give up powers to stay in power overall."

The agreement did not set a deadline for leaving the camp and many protesters are likely to move out slowly, both because of the emotional closeness the camp fostered and because of their distrust that the deal will actually be implemented.

Shots were heard Friday morning, a day after the deadliest violence since Ukraine became independent in 1991. It is unclear who was targeted and whether anyone was hurt or injured. A tense calm prevailed in the square late Friday.

The leader of one of the major radical groups, Pravy Sektor, declared that "the national revolution will continue," according to the Interfax news agency. The deal has other detractors, too. Leonid Slutsky, a Russian lawmaker who chairs the committee in charge of relations with other ex-Soviet nations, told reporters that the agreement serves the interests of the West.

"We realize where and by whom this agreement has been written. It's entirely in the interests of the United States and other powers, who want to split Ukraine from Russia," he said. Russia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that Russian mediator Vladimir Lukin's refusal to sign the deal doesn't mean that Moscow isn't interested in looking for a compromise to end the bloodshed.

"We will stand ready to continue helping Ukrainians normalize the situation if they ask for it," it said. The statement said Ukrainians should take into account all regions in its political transition — apparently referring to the areas in Ukraine's east and south that have close economic ties to Russia and where some see the protesters as puppets of the West.

In addition to anger over the failed EU deal, protesters across the country are upset over corruption in Ukraine, the lack of democratic rights and the country's ailing economy, which just barely avoided bankruptcy with the first disbursement of a $15 billion bailout promised by Russia. The recent violence has added to Ukraine's dire economic troubles.

Associated Press writers Maria Danilova, Yuras Karmanau, Efrem Lukatsky and Yuri Uvarov in Kiev; Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

Ukrainian protesters claim control over capital

February 22, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Protesters in the Ukrainian capital claimed full control of the city Saturday following the signing of a Western-brokered peace deal aimed at ending the nation's three-month political crisis. The nation's embattled president, Viktor Yanukovych, reportedly had fled the capital for his support base in Ukraine's Russia-leaning east

Police abandoned posts around the capital, and protesters took up positions around the presidential office and residence. Parliament discussed voting on impeaching Yanukovych and setting a quick date for new elections to end a crisis over Ukraine's identity and future direction.

Yanukovych's whereabouts were unclear Saturday morning. Media outlets reported that he left Kiev for his native eastern Ukraine after surrendering much of his powers and agreeing to early elections by the end of the year.

Despite significant concessions by the president Friday, elections later this year aren't soon enough for protesters who blame him for police violence and amassing too many powers. They want him out now.

At a special parliament session Saturday morning, Oleh Tyahnybok, head of the nationalist Svoboda party, called for discussion of impeachment. The parliament speaker — Yanukovych ally Volodymyr Rybak — submitted his resignation, citing ill health as the reason. The president's representative in parliament warned against splitting the country in two, an outcome that worries many but is increasingly seeming a possibility.

The country's western regions want to be closer to the EU and have rejected Yanukovych's authority in many cities, while eastern Ukraine — which accounts for the bulk of the nation's economic output — favors closer ties with Russia.

The president's concessions came as part of a deal Friday intended to end violence that killed scores and left hundreds wounded in Kiev this week as snipers opened fire on protesters. It was the worst violence in Ukraine's modern history.

Andriy Parubiy, a leader of the protest camp on Independence Square, known as the Maidan, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that Yanukovych fled for Kharkiv, the center of Ukraine's industrial heartland. Kharkiv was the capital of Soviet Ukraine from 1919-1934.

The claims of the president's departure could not be immediately confirmed, however. Parubiy also said Saturday that protesters are now in full control of the capital. Police on Friday retreated from their positions in Kiev's government district, and the night passed quietly.

A group of protesters in helmets and shields stood guard at the president's office Saturday. No police were in sight. Protesters booed opposition figures who took to a stage Friday evening to present their deal with the president, which cuts Yanukovych's powers.

"Death to the criminal!" some chanted, referring to Yanukovych. A motion seeking the president's impeachment was submitted late Friday to the Ukrainian parliament, where members of Yanukovych's faction defected in droves to the opposition side, quickly passing constitutional amendments that trimmed his powers.

It wasn't clear if or when the impeachment motion would be put to a vote. Neither side won all the points it sought in Friday's deal, and some vague conditions could ignite strong disputes down the road.

The agreement signed Friday calls for presidential elections to be moved up from March 2015 to no later than December, but many protesters said that is far too late. And it does not address the issue that triggered the protests in November — Yanukovych's abandonment of closer ties with the European Union in favor of a bailout deal with longtime ruler Russia.

The standoff between the government and protesters escalated this week, as demonstrators clashed with police and snipers opened fire in the worst violence the country has seen since the breakup of the Soviet Union a quarter-century ago. The Health Ministry put the death toll at 77 and some opposition figures said it's even higher.

The U.S., Russia and the 28-nation EU are deeply concerned about the future of Ukraine, a divided nation of 46 million. The parliament on Friday quickly approved a measure that could free Yanukovych's arch-rival Tymoshenko, who has served two and a half years on a conviction of abuse of office, charges that domestic and Western critics have denounced as a political vendetta.

Legislators voted to decriminalize the count under which Tymoshenko was imprisoned, meaning that she is no longer guilty of a criminal offense. However, Yanukovych must still sign that bill into law, and then Tymoshenko's lawyers would have to ask the court for her release from prison in Kharkiv, the city controlled by Yanukovych's loyalists where the opposition has little public following.

Ukraine Announces Caretaker Government, But No Calm Yet

February 21, 2014
By Associated Press

KIEV, Ukraine— Ukraine’s presidency said Friday that it has negotiated an international deal intended to end battles between police and protesters that have killed scores and injured hundreds. It was unclear whether the deal would appease protesters, and shots rang out Friday morning in central Kiev.

President Viktor Yanukovych’s office said that the government and the opposition have agreed to initial the deal, reached after all-night negotiations with EU diplomats, at noon local time (10:00 GMT).

European officials cautioned that it’s too early to declare a breakthrough in a standoff that has plunged this country into the deadliest violence it has seen since winning independence from the Soviet Union.

The conflict is a battle over the identity of Ukraine, a nation of 46 million that has divided loyalties between Russia and the West. Several regions in the west of the country are in open revolt against the central government, while many in eastern Ukraine back the president and favor strong ties with Russia, their former Soviet ruler.

The preliminary deal struck overnight would see Ukraine’s president he would lose some of his powers, and a caretaker government created in 48 hours that would include representatives of the opposition, Slovakia’s Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak said.

“Of course, the participants of the talks, my colleagues, warned it is still premature to say the crisis is over.”

The head of Yanukovich’s party in parliament, Oleksander Yefremov, said the deal includes early presidential elections in December, and a constitutional vote in September, according to the Interfax news agency.

The demonstrators, who have camped for three months on Kiev’s Independence Square, known as the Maidan, are demanding Yanukovych’s resignation and early elections. The president, who triggered the protests by aborting a pact with the European Union in favor of close ties with Russia, has made some concessions, but has refused to step down.

Shots were fired near the square Friday morning, though it was unclear where they were coming from or whom they are targeting. The Interior Ministry accuses the opposition of breaking a truce and firing at law enforcement officers.

In a sign of the high tensions, armed law enforcement officers tried to enter parliament Friday morning during a debate over measures to end the crisis. Shouting lawmakers pushed them out.

The report of a deal followed the worst violence yet in the confrontation between the government and protesters.

Protesters advanced on police lines in the heart of the Ukrainian capital on Thursday, prompting government snipers to shoot back and kill scores of people in the country’s deadliest day since the breakup of the Soviet Union a quarter-century ago.

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/521738-ukraine-announces-deal-to-end-crisis-shots-fired/.

Ukraine: President, opposition sign crisis deal

February 21, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's opposition leaders signed a deal Friday with the president and European and Russian mediators for early elections and a new government in hopes of ending a deadly political crisis.

It could be a breakthrough in a months-long crisis over Ukraine's future and identity that worsened sharply this week and left scores dead in the worst violence in Ukraine's history as an independent nation.

A key question is whether the thousands of protesters camped out in Kiev will heed it. The leader of a radical group that has been a driver of violent clashes with police, Pravy Sektor, said Friday he doesn't believe President Viktor Yanukovych will honor the deal and "the national revolution will continue," according to the Interfax news agency.

The agreement says presidential elections will be held no later than December, instead of March 2015 as scheduled, according to a copy provided by the German government. It says Ukrainian authorities will restore within 48 hours a previous constitution that limits presidential powers, then name a coalition government within 10 days.

It also says the government will not impose a state of emergency and both sides will refrain from violence. It says opposition protesters should hand over any weapons and withdraw from buildings they have occupied and protest camps around the country.

The signing came hours after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych made concessions under pressure from European mediators. Some protesters said talk of early elections in December is not soon enough — they want him out of the presidency immediately.

European foreign ministers had stayed up all night in Kiev trying to negotiate an end to the standoff, prompted when the president aborted a pact with the European Union in November in favor of close ties with Russia instead.

An EU official in Brussels said that if an agreement is signed, Russia and the EU would act as observers to ensure that it is implemented. The U.S., Russia and European Union are deeply concerned about the future of Ukraine, a nation of 46 million that has divided loyalties between Russia and the West. Shots were heard again Friday near the protesters' camp in Kiev, a day after the deadliest violence in Ukraine's post-Soviet history. It is unclear who was targeted and whether anyone was hurt or injured in Friday's incident.

Protesters across the country are upset over corruption in Ukraine, the lack of democratic rights and the country's ailing economy, which just barely avoided bankruptcy with the first disbursement of a $15 billion bailout promised by Russia.

The violence is making Ukraine's economic troubles worse. Ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Ukraine's debt rating Friday, saying the country will likely default if there are no significant improvements in the political crisis, which it does not expect.

Jim Heintz, Efrem Lukatsky, Yuri Uvarov and Angela Charlton in Kiev, David Rising in Berlin, Monika Scislowska in Warsaw and Karel Janicek in Prague contributed to this report.

Ukraine president announces early election

February 21, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Friday announced early presidential elections and promised to bring opposition members into the government in a bid to defuse a deep crisis in which scores have been killed and hundreds injured.

He gave no time frame, however, and it's unclear whether his belated concessions will be enough to hold off protesters who have occupied a piece of Kiev and government buildings around the country in a nationwide battle over the identity of their country.

There was no immediate comment from opposition leaders, who were meeting among themselves after a marathon night of meetings with European diplomats. The U.S., Russia and European Union are deeply concerned about the future of Ukraine, a nation of 46 million that has divided loyalties between Russia and the West. Shots rang out again Friday near the protesters' camp in Kiev, a day after the deadliest violence in Ukraine's post-Soviet history. It is unclear whether anyone was hurt or injured in Friday's incident.

"As the president of Ukraine and the guarantor of the Constitution, today I am fulfilling my duty before the people, before Ukraine and before God in the name of saving the nation, in the name of preserving people's lives, in the name of peace and calm of our land," the president said in a statement on his website.

Yanukovych also promised constitutional reforms trimming presidential powers, a key demand of protesters. The opposition has rejected similar invitations to join the government in the past, saying that constitutional reform giving parliament greater powers has to be passed first.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who is involved in the negotiations in Kiev, called for calm. He tweeted that it's a "delicate moment for the settlement and all must remember you don't get 100 percent in a compromise."

All this was not enough for some protesters, who accused the president of trying to buy time and want him out immediately. Yanukovych, who triggered the protests in November by aborting a pact with the European Union in favor of close ties with Russia, has refused to step down.

"We haven't achieved anything yet, neither Europe, nor freedom, nor new leadership. We will stop our fight only after Yanukovych resigns. He has blood on his hands," said protester Stepan Rodich, speaking at the Independence Square known as Maidan on Friday.

Several regions in the west of the country are in open revolt against the central government, while many in eastern Ukraine back the president and favor strong ties with Russia, their former Soviet ruler.

David Rising in Berlin, Karel Janicek in Prague and Angela Charlton in Kiev contributed to this report.

Hard-line Serb wins race for Kosovo town

February 24, 2014

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — A hard-line Kosovo Serb became the mayor of Mitrovica North on Sunday following a prolonged electoral race soured by the killing of one candidate and the arrest of another.

Goran Rakic, a Belgrade-backed candidate, won 52.6 percent of the ballots, according to official preliminary results. More than 28,000 people were registered to vote. Rakic's main contender, Oliver Ivanovic, is in detention after a European Union prosecutor indicted him for allegedly committing war crimes against ethnic Albanians in 1999 and alleged murder in 2000. In January, Dimitrije Janicijevic, a candidate for mayor from a party that collaborates with ethnic Albanians, was gunned down outside his house.

NATO peacekeepers and EU police heightened security measures during Sunday's vote, the fourth such ballot in as many months. Previous attempts failed because of violence and intimidation. During the initial poll on Nov. 3, a group of masked men smashed polling stations and destroyed voting material. The attack was blamed on Serb extremists wanting to disrupt the vote because they fear it endorsed Kosovo's 2008 secession from Serbia. That voted was annulled but the winner of the Dec. 1 subsequent poll then forced a new vote after he refused to swear allegiance to Kosovo's predominantly ethnic-Albanian institutions.

Serbs in Kosovo's tense north defy rule by the capital, Pristina, and back a Serbian claim over the territory. Serbia and Kosovo are locked in an EU-led effort to overcome their differences and move closer to eventual membership in the 28-member bloc. As part of the talks, Serbia allowed its minority in four northern municipalities to vote in Kosovo elections despite strongly rejecting its secession.

The four municipalities in the north have said they will create a union with another five Serb-controlled municipalities scattered elsewhere in Kosovo that would give the minority more say over daily affairs.

Girl killed, dozens hurt in attack on Thai protest

February 23, 2014

BANGKOK (AP) — Gunmen in a pickup truck attacked an anti-government protest in Thailand's east, killing at least one, an 8-year-old girl, and wounding dozens, as violence in the country's 3-month-old political crisis spread outside the capital, Bangkok, officials said Sunday.

The attack took place Saturday night in Trat province, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) east of Bangkok, where about 500 protesters demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra were holding a rally near food stalls where people were dining.

Thai media reported that as many as three people were killed and several others are in critical condition, but National Security Council chief Lt. Gen. Paradorn Pattanathuabutr so far confirmed one fatality — an 8-year-old girl.

An employee of Trat Hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information, said one victim brought there had died. The attack was the latest in a string of protest-related violence roiling Thailand over the past three months, in which at least 16 people have been killed and hundreds hurt. The protesters want Yingluck to quit to make way for an appointed interim government to implement anti-corruption reforms, but she has refused.

Police Lt. Thanabhum Newanit said unidentified assailants in a pickup shot into the crowd and two explosive devices went off. It was not clear if the protest group, which uses armed guards, fought back. He and other officials said that about three dozen people were hurt.

Both supporters and opponents of the protest group called the People's Democratic Reform Committee, as well as police, have been victims of the political violence, which before Saturday was mostly confined to the Thai capital. On Friday night, six people were hurt when unknown attackers threw a grenade into a protest crowd in Bangkok.

Both sides in the ongoing political dispute have blamed the other for instigating violence. "At this point we do not know who was behind the attack, but there are several factors to take into account in the investigation," Paradorn said.

He added that the protesters in Trat have been rallying for a long time, "so they might have caused disturbance to others. And that area is controlled by groups that are affiliated with the anti-government side," he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an immediate end to the violence from any side, and urged the government to bring those responsible to justice. "The Secretary-General condemns the escalation of violence in Thailand over the past week, in particular armed attacks against protesters in which even children have been killed," said a statement released Sunday by Ban's spokesperson.

Thailand has been riven by sometimes violent political conflict since 2006, when then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck's brother, was ousted by a military coup after being accused of corruption and abuse of power. Thaksin's supporters and opponents have since then taken to the streets for extended periods in a power struggle.

In 2010, pro-Thaksin "Red Shirts" occupied part of Bangkok for two months. When the army was called out to control them, more than 90 people were killed in violent confrontations. The Red Shirts have mostly kept a low profile during the current political unrest, but as Yingluck faces what her supporters feel are unfair court rulings loosening her grip on power, there are fears they will take to the streets again. The courts are widely seen as being based against Thaksin's political machine.

Thaksin and his allies have won every national election since 2001, with his sister taking office in 2011 with a majority of parliamentary seats. Yingluck called early elections to try to reaffirm her mandate, but the protesters disrupted February polling, which has yet to be completed, leaving Thailand with a caretaker government. She also faces several legal challenges that could oust her from office.

Thaksin's opponents claim he unfairly uses money politics and populist policies to dominate Thai politics. A spokesman for the opposition Democrat Party, which is closely allied with the protest group and boycotted the election, condemned the latest attack.

"This is something we have expected because the government has no way to go, so they have to resort to violence," said Chavanond Intarakomalyasut. "I can't say precisely that the government is behind the attack but whoever did it was on the government's side."

Costly, political, successful: Sochi Olympics end

February 23, 2014

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Flushed with pride after its athletes' spectacular showing at the costliest Olympics ever, Russia celebrated Sunday night with a visually stunning finale that handed off a smooth but politically charged Winter Games to their next host, Pyeongchang in South Korea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, these Olympics' political architect and booster-in-chief, watched and smiled as Sochi gave itself a giant pat on the back for a Winter Games that IOC President Thomas Bach declared an "extraordinary success."

The crowd that partied in Fisht Olympic Stadium, in high spirits after the high-security games passed safely without feared terror attacks, hooted with delight when Bach said Russia delivered on promises of "excellent" venues, "outstanding" accommodation for the 2,856 athletes and "impeccable organization." The spectators let out an audibly sad moan when Bach declared the 17-day Winter Games closed.

"We leave as friends of the Russian people," Bach said. The nation's $51 billion investment — topping even Beijing's estimated $40 billion layout for the 2008 Summer Games — transformed a decaying resort town on the Black Sea into a household name. All-new facilities, unthinkable in the Soviet era of drab shoddiness, showcased how far Russia has come in the two decades since it turned its back on communism. But the Olympic show didn't win over critics of Russia's backsliding on democracy and human rights under Putin and its institutionalized intolerance of gays.

Despite the bumps along the way, Bach was unrelentingly upbeat about his first games as IOC president and the nation that hosted it. One of Sochi's big successes was security. Feared attacks by Islamic militants who threatened to target the games didn't materialize.

"It's amazing what has happened here," Bach said a few hours before the ceremony. He recalled that Sochi was an "old, Stalinist-style sanatorium city" when he visited for the IOC in the 1990s. Dmitry Chernyshenko, head of the Sochi organizing committee, called the games "a moment to cherish and pass on to the next generations."

"This," he said, "is the new face of Russia — our Russia." His nation celebrated its rich gifts to the worlds of music and literature in the ceremony, which started at 20:14 local time — a nod to the year that Putin seized upon to remake Russia's image with the Olympics' power to wow and concentrate global attention and massive resources.

Performers in smart tails and puffy white wigs performed a ballet of grand pianos, pushing 62 of them around the stadium floor while soloist Denis Matsuev played thunderous bars from Sergei Rachmaninoff's Concerto No.2.

There was, of course, also ballet, with dancers from the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky, among the world's oldest ballet companies. The faces of Russian authors through the ages were projected onto enormous screens, and a pile of books transformed into a swirling tornado of loose pages.

There was pomp and there was kitsch. The games' polar bear mascot — standing tall as a tree — shed a fake tear as he blew out a cauldron of flames, extinguishing the Olympic torch that burned outside the stadium. Day and night, the flame had become a favorite backdrop for "Sochi selfies," a buzzword born at these games for the fad of athletes and spectators taking DIY souvenir photos of themselves.

"Now we can see our country is very friendly," said Boris Kozikov of St. Petersburg, Russia. "This is very important for other countries around the world to see." And in a charming touch, Sochi organizers poked fun at themselves. In the center of the stadium, dancers in shimmering silver costumes formed themselves into four rings and a clump. That was a wink to a globally noticed technical glitch in the Feb. 7 opening ceremony, when one of the five Olympic rings in a wintry opening scene failed to open. The rings were supposed to join together and erupt in fireworks.

This time, it worked: As Putin watched from the stands, the dancers in the clump waited a few seconds and then formed a ring of their own, making five, drawing laughs from the crowd. Raucous spectators chanted "Ro-ssi-ya! Ro-ssi-ya!" — "Russia! Russia!" They got their own Olympic keepsakes — medals of plastic with embedded lights that flashed in unison, creating pulsating waves of color across the stadium.

Athletes said goodbye to rivals-turned-friends from far off places, savoring their achievements or lamenting what might have been — and, for some, looking ahead to 2018. The city where they will compete, Pyeongchang, offered in its segment of the show a teaser of what to expect in four years with video of venues, Korean music and delightful dancers in glowing bird suits.

Winners of Russia's record 13 gold medals marched into the stadium carrying the country's white, blue and red flag. With a 3-0 victory over Sweden in the men's hockey final Sunday, Canada claimed the last gold from the 98 medal events.

Absent were six competitors caught by what was the most extensive anti-doping program in Winter Olympic history, with the IOC conducting a record 2,631 tests — nearly 200 more than originally planned.

Russia's leader had reason to be pleased as the Olympics dubbed the "Putin Games" ended. His nation's athletes topped the Sochi medals table, both in golds and total — 33. That represented a stunning turnaround from the 2010 Vancouver Games. There, a meager three golds and 15 total for Russia seemed proof of its gradual decline as a winter sports power since Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Russia's bag of Sochi gold was the biggest-ever haul by a non-Soviet team.

Russia's last gold came Sunday in four-man bobsled. The games' signature moment for home fans was Adelina Sotnikova, cool as ice at 17, becoming Russia's first gold medalist in women's Olympic figure skating.

Not every headline out of Sochi was about sport. Going in, organizers faced criticism about Russia's strict policies toward gays, though once they started sliding and skiing and skating, most every athlete chose not to use the Olympic spotlight to campaign for the cause. An activist musical group and movement, Pussy Riot, appeared in public and was horsewhipped by Cossack militiamen, drawing international scrutiny.

And during the last days of competition, Sochi competed for attention with violence in Ukraine, Russia's neighbor and considered a vital sphere of influence by the Kremlin. In an Associated Press interview on Saturday, Bach singled out Ukraine's victory in women's biathlon relay as "really an emotional moment" of the games, praising Ukrainian athletes for staying to compete despite the scores dead in protests back home.

"Mourning on the one hand, but knowing what really is going on in your country, seeing your capital burning, and feeling this responsibility, and then winning the gold medal," he said, "this really stands out for me."

Associated Press journalist Oskar Garcia contributed to this report. AP Sports Writer John Leicester is covering his fifth Olympic Games.

Italy's new premier sets to work as economy ails

February 22, 2014

ROME (AP) — Matteo Renzi became Italy's youngest premier on Saturday, promising a new era of stable government after using old-school politicking to engineer the ouster of a fellow Democrat he deemed too timid to get the nation back to work.

The unabashedly ambitious Renzi, 39, quit his post as Florence mayor to take up his first national government job, insisting Italy's political leadership needed to be bolder. He tweeted before being sworn in that it be "tough" but "we'll do it."

The Italian economy is only just beginning to show signs of rebounding after several years of stagnation. Youth unemployment hovers around at 40 percent. The new environment minister, Gian Luca Galletti, told Sky TG24 TV the down-to-business, bluntly talking premier conducted his first Cabinet meeting "more like a board meeting."

Renzi has alienated some factions in his own party, because of the steely determination he used to dispatch predecessor Enrico Letta only days after publicly saying he would only seek the premiership through general elections.

The usually easy-going Letta gave Renzi a chilly, limp handshake during a brief handover ceremony Saturday. Renzi forced a wan smile. Neither Democrat looked each other in the eyes. That chilliness contrasts with the cordial relationship Renzi has been cultivating with the Democrats' arch rival, Silvio Berlusconi, the former premier and Italy's main conservative leader.

Shortly before he pushed Letta aside, Renzi cut a deal with Berlusconi to work together on electoral reform to reduce the influence of tiny parties on the government. Both men see an overhaul of election rules as potentially positioning their rival forces for a more convincing victory at the ballot box.

While a tax fraud conviction keeps Berlusconi out of public office, the media mogul made clear Saturday he disagrees with Renzi's plans for elections as far off as 2018. "You have democracy and a government of the people when the government is elected by the citizens," Berlusconi said.

When Berlusconi agreed to the reform deal, Renzi had been pushing for elections immediately after the new rules were in place. Letta had had a slim majority in the Senate, but Renzi might need defectors from the opposition if some of his own Democrats rebel against his heavy-handed leadership.

Pippo Civati, one of the Democrats soundly defeated by Renzi in the December party primary, questioned whether the new premier deserved support in Parliament. On his website, Civati asked rank-and-file Democrats to have their say, "because it's usually the voters who choose" the premier.

Renzi's government also depends on smaller parties ranging from center-right to center-left that were part of Letta's oft-bickering 10-month-old coalition. Some centrists indicated they might not back Renzi in parliament after his new Cabinet left out their only minister, who had held the defense post.

In a surprise move, Renzi also purged veteran politician Emma Bonino, a staunchly pro-Europe foreign minister. Renzi has said overemphasis on austerity ordered by Brussels would discourage economic revival.

The new foreign minister, Federica Mogherini, is largely unknown in European circles. She is the Democrats' point person on foreign policy.

Renzi will be Italy's youngest premier

February 22, 2014

ROME (AP) — Matteo Renzi will be sworn in as Italy's youngest prime minister ever Saturday after he cobbled together a government he says will change the face of the country's politics and economy.

Renzi, the 39-year-old leader of the center-left Democratic Party, unveiled his government Friday and said the broad coalition will bring hope to the economically stagnant country. After formally accepting the mandate to form the government, Renzi said he will waste no time in enacting reform.

"We aim tomorrow morning to immediately do the things that need to get done," he said. Renzi had been serving as Florence mayor when he engineered a power grab last week to effectively force fellow Democrat, Enrico Letta, to step down after 10 months at the helm of a fragile, often-squabbling coalition.

However, he is depending on the same coalition partners and hopes that the government will last through to the end of the current parliament in 2018. His Democrats will remain the biggest party, propped up by two smaller groupings — supporters of former premier Mario Monti and former loyalists of center-right leader Silvio Berlusconi.

Renzi recently cut a deal with Berlusconi, who has been kept out of office by a tax fraud conviction, to work swiftly for parliamentary passage of electoral reforms. In a key development, Renzi's economy minister will be Pier Carlo Padoan, the well-respected chief economist of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international think-tank of leading economies.

Renzi will be the third straight premier to come to office without being elected; the last premier who stood for election was the scandal-tainted Berlusconi in 2008. The aim of the political reforms is to give Italy a clear winner at the ballot box.

The new premier's heavily political cabinet is a further shift away from the "technocrat" cabinet Monti formed in late 2011 after international markets lost faith in Berlusconi's ability to get a grip on the public finances and keep the country in the euro currency bloc.

Letta was thrust aside by the brash, ambitious Renzi just as Italy began to show signs of growth and bond market investors appeared less concerned over the country's ability to repay its debts.

Frankfurt airport partially shuts due to strike

February 21, 2014

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Frankfurt airport, Germany's largest, shut down Friday afternoon for people whose flights originated from the hub after thousands of security personnel walked off the job to press demands for higher wages.

Spokesman Robert Payne said about half of the airport's fliers are transfer passengers, and their flights are not affected. But, he said, with the "massive strike action" the airport had no alternative but to close part of its operations because it did not have the security personnel to process passengers whose flights originated at the airport.

Only 74 of the airport's 1,300 flights have been canceled, though many were flying only partially filled because of the decision, Payne said. Ver.di union, which represents some 5,000 private security workers at the airport, said they went on strike at 2 a.m. and were to stay off the job until 11 p.m. in a warning strike to press their demands for an hourly wage of 16 euros ($22). Employers are offering between 10 to 13 euros per hour.

Short-term strikes are a common practice in Germany for unions to put pressure on employers. The two sides are next scheduled to negotiate on March 5.

Police clash with pillaging anarchists in Nantes

February 22, 2014

PARIS (AP) — Riot police moved into the western French city of Nantes on Saturday, clashing with hundreds of anarchists who broke shop windows, destroyed bus stops and pillaged the city center.

At least eight police officers were hospitalized after violent confrontations with up to 1,000 "radicals," the prefecture of the Loire-Atlantique region said. Fourteen people were detained. The rioters had joined an estimated 20,000 people protesting plans to build a regional airport. Officials did not say whether protesters were injured.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls said the delinquents were from the "radicalized ultra-left" and were waging an "urban guerrilla" campaign. "These are individuals who are very violent." Valls said on iTele TV station.

Police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the attackers, some wearing hoods and helmets. However, after night fall, approximately 200 were reportedly still roaming the Nantes city center. There have been numerous, sometimes violent, demonstrations against the building of an airport in Notre Dame des Landes, a pet project of Socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, a Nantes native. The anti-airport protests, mounted since 2009, have brought together an unlikely alliance of farmers, ecologists and anarchists — who call themselves ZADists, based on the French acronym for "development zone." The farmers trying to save their land have depended on the ZADists to keep their protest alive.

It was unclear whether the ZADists were joined by even more radical elements. The interior minister referred to ultra-leftist groups also active in Germany, Italy and elsewhere. The prime minister issued a firm condemnation of the violence, saying "nothing can justify it."

EU grants Bavarian pretzels protected status

February 21, 2014

BRUSSELS (AP) — A twisted piece of dough has been elevated to cultural icon status by the European Union, which has added the Bavarian pretzel to its "protected origins" list.

That means only pretzels produced in the southern German state can be sold as "Bayerische Breze," or Bavarian pretzel. In a mouth-watering statement Friday, the 28-nation bloc's executive Commission said Bavarian pretzels are "characterized by a doughy taste, combined with a short, crisp crack and a soft, fluffy texture."

It says the protection applies to the "typical Bavarian lye pastry whose shape symbolizes arms folded in prayer," be it "topped with coarse salt, cheese or poppy, sesame, pumpkin or sunflower seeds." Baked products manufactured and sold outside the EU, like Bavarian pretzels found in the United States, aren't affected by the decision.

Opposition, pro-govt rallies grip Venezuela

February 23, 2014

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans on both sides of the nation's bitter political divide took to the streets on Saturday after two weeks of mass protests that have President Nicolas Maduro scrambling to squash an increasingly militant opposition movement.

In Caracas, tens of thousands of opponents of President Nicolas Maduro filled several city blocks in their biggest rally to date against his 10-month-old government. Across town, at the presidential palace, Maduro addressed a much-smaller crowd of mostly female supporters dressed in the red of his socialist party.

The dueling protests capped a violent week in which the government jailed Leopoldo Lopez, a fiery hard-liner who roused the opposition following its defeat in December's mayoral elections, and dozens of other student activists. The violence has left at least 10 people dead on both sides and injured more than 100.

A few small clashes that erupted between government opponents and state security forces after the opposition rally broke up were visually impressive, but resulted in only five injuries. In a pattern seen in past demonstrations, dozens of stragglers erected barricades of trash and other debris and threw rocks and bottles at police and National Guardsmen. Troops responded with volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets to prevent the students from reaching a highway.

There were also clashes in San Cristobal, a remote city on the western border with Colombia that has seen some of the worst violence, but most opposition marches across the country ended peacefully. The protests claimed their 10th fatality, when a 23-year-old student in the provincial city of Valencia was pronounced dead Saturday after an eight-hour surgery for brain injuries suffered at a demonstration earlier in the week.

Geraldine Moreno was near her home on Wednesday, watching students defend a barricade at the corner of her street, when six national guardsmen rushed in and fired rubber bullets at close range, hitting her in the face, El Universal newspaper reported.

On Saturday at the opposition rally held in wealthier eastern Caracas, two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles urged supporters to keep pressuring the government to resolve problems afflicting the oil-rich nation, from rampant crime to galloping 56 percent inflation.

"If you (Maduro) can't, then it's time to go," Capriles told the crowd. Capriles, 41, has frequently criticized Lopez's strategy of taking to the streets without building support among the poor. Those differences were on display again Saturday, when he told supporters that unrest in middle-class neighborhoods distracts people's attention from the country's mounting woes and only strengthens the government's hand.

 Still, he downplayed any sense of division within the opposition's ranks, and recalled his own four-month confinement in 2002 in the same military prison where Lopez is being held while vowing to fight for the politician's release.

"We may have our differences, but there's something bigger than us all that unites us, which is Venezuela, damn it!" Capriles said. Elsewhere in the capital, government backers filled a wide avenue in a boisterous march to the presidential palace accompanied by sound trucks blaring music and slogans. The crowd made up mostly of women danced in the street and carried photos of the late president Hugo Chavez.

First Lady Cilia Flores called on supporters to be alert for opposition attempts to incite more violence in the days ahead to create conditions for a Ukraine-like power grab. "Venezuela isn't Ukraine," Flores, who rarely speaks in public but is a close adviser to her husband, told the crowd. "The right-wing fascists aren't going to impose themselves here."

Maduro said he won't pull security forces off the streets until the opposition abandons what calls a "fascist" conspiracy to oust him from power. "This elected president, the son of Chavez, is going to keep protecting the people," he said while holding up what he said was an improvised explosive device used by protesters to attack government buildings and security forces. "Nobody is going to blackmail me."

It's unclear whether the street protests can maintain their momentum with fatigue setting in, the Carnival holiday approaching and no Kiev-like ousting of Maduro in sight. Capriles has said he'll attend a meeting Monday called by Maduro to talk with local authorities, including opposition members, but is threatening to walk out if his remarks aren't broadcast live on national TV as the president's are almost daily.

Even if the protests fizzle out, the underlying frustrations that sparked them show no sign of easing: high crime, food shortages and inflation that erodes living standards in a country with the world's biggest oil reserves.

"This is a rich country and we can't even buy a kilo of flour, a rich country but we live in misery," Marta Rivas, a 39-year-old mother of two, said as she joined the San Cristobal march. The current political turmoil in Venezuela was sparked on Feb. 12 by huge opposition marches that left three people dead— two opposition members and a government supporter.

Authorities blamed opposition leader Lopez for fomenting the violence and jailed him on charges including arson and incitement, prompting anger from his supporters at home and criticism from abroad. The opposition accuses the National Guard and armed militia groups of attacking protesters and firing indiscriminately into crowds, as well as beating up and menacing some of the hundreds of activists who've been jailed nationwide.

Maduro said for the first time Friday that he's investigating whether security forces opened fire at the Feb. 12 protests. But he spent most of a nearly three-hour press conference denouncing what he called a "campaign of demonization to isolate the Bolivarian revolution" by foreign media.

Associated Press writers Ben Fox, Jorge Rueda and Andrew Rosati contributed to this report from Caracas. Vivian Sequera contributed from San Cristobal.

Venezuelan violence has roots in obscure incident

February 22, 2014

SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (AP) — The violent protests that have roiled Venezuela's major cities and challenged its socialist government have their roots in a little-known incident on a college campus in a city far from the capital.

Just over a week before the Feb. 12 opposition rallies across Venezuela, students at the University of the Andes in San Cristobal in the border state of Tachira were protesting an attempted rape of a young woman on campus.

The students were outraged at the brazen assault on their campus, which underscored long-standing complaints about deteriorating security under President Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez.

But what really set them off was the harsh police response to their initial protest, in which several students were detained and allegedly abused, as well as follow-up demonstrations to call for their release, according to students and people who live in the city of San Cristobal.

"It was shocking not just to students but to all of San Cristobal," said Gaby Arellano, a 27-year-old student leader who has been involved in the national opposition campaign. "It was the straw that broke the camel's back."

The protests expanded and grew more intense, drawing in more non-students angry about the dismal economy and crime in general, which led to more people being detained. Students at other universities decided to march in Caracas and the protest movement became a nationwide campaign when prominent opposition leaders decided to get involved.

The main rally on Feb. 12 in the capital turned violent, resulting in three deaths from gunshots and then the jailing of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez. Now, protests that continued throughout the country Friday, and are particularly fierce in San Cristobal, rarely, if ever, mention the attempted rape.

"I'm protesting because of the insecurity, for the scarcity and the abuse of power that we have been experiencing," said Maria Garcia, a 30-year-old mother in the Los Agustinos neighborhood of San Cristobal, where patrolling soldiers have strung coils to control protesters who lob rocks and Molotov cocktails. "I'm tired of waiting five or six hours in line for a kilo of flour."

Today, as the anti-government movement has snowballed into a political crisis, the likes of which Venezuela's socialist leadership hasn't seen since a 2002 coup attempt, San Cristobal remains a hotbed of unrest. Protest rallies are expected throughout the country on Saturday.

The government on Thursday said it would send paratroopers to aid hundreds of soldiers already in place to restore order and the president has said he would consider imposing martial law in the area. Maduro, it should be noted, has a very different version of events in San Cristobal, which is in the western state of Tachira that borders on Colombia.

Maduro says the city is under siege by right-wing paramilitaries under orders from former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who dismisses the allegation as an attempt by the Venezuelan leader to distract people from an economy beset by shortages of basic goods and inflation of more than 56 percent.

Maduro said Friday that San Cristobal Mayor Daniel Ceballos, a member of the same party as Lopez, would soon join the jailed opposition leader behind bars for fomenting violence. "It's a matter of time until we have him in the same cold cell," Maduro said.

Residents on Friday tried to resume their normal activities as the smell of burnt trash still lingered. Public transportation has yet to be restored, many stoplights are out and students are gearing up for what they promise will be an extended fight. As warplanes buzz the sky, there is also widespread resentment of the heavy troop presence.

"Why is the president sending these troops here? As far as I know, the military is supposed to protect Venezuelans, not attack them," said Jose Hernandez, a 31-year-old construction worker. San Cristobal, a rural city 400 miles (660 kilometers) from Caracas, would seem an unlikely place to be at the center of a national crisis. But with its disproportionately large student population and longstanding cultural and economic ties with its more conservative neighbor, it has long been an opposition stronghold.

The state of Tachira, of which San Cristobal is the largest city and capital, was only one of two where opposition candidate Henrique Capriles defeated Hugo Chavez in 2012 presidential elections. Last April, residents of San Cristobal voted nearly 3 to 1 in favor of Capriles in the race against Maduro to elect Chavez's successor.

Its independent streak may have to do with its isolation, said Arellano, who grew up in Tachira. "I think people in Tachira have always stood against abuses and being trampled," she said.

Associated Press writer Andrew Rosati in Caracas contributed to this report.