Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko mocked the president’s nearly fatal 2004 dioxin poisoning, saying on Thursday that Viktor Yushchenko’s main problem was being poisoned by unlimited power.
Tymoshenko is locked in a bitter feud with Yushchenko that has ruined their coalition and put the county on the brink of its third parliamentary elections in as many years.
INVESTIGATION
PHOTO: AFP
She spoke before she was questioned again in a probe into the dioxin poisoning four years ago. No evidence that she was involved has been made public and many see her questioning as part of the political infighting.
“The main poisoning is the poisoning with unlimited power, a serious intoxication in the presidential secretariat,” Tymoshenko told reporters.
The pro-Western coalition of Tymoshenko’s and Yushchenko’s parties fell apart this week because of the two leaders’ rivalry ahead of the 2010 presidential vote and disagreement over how to deal with Russia following its war with Georgia last month.
Yushchenko has strongly condemned Russia’s actions and accused Tymoshenko of kowtowing to the Kremlin by taking a cautious stance on the conflict.
Tymoshenko, while saying she does not support Russia’s recognition of two Georgian separatist regions, stressed that Ukraine needs good relations with its eastern neighbor.
Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were the heroes of the 2004 Orange Revolution that catapulted Yushchenko to the presidency.
FRIENDS OF MOSCOW
Experts say a new government is likely to include the Moscow-friendly Party of Regions and could turn Ukraine toward Russia and away from the West.
The poisoning incident came at the height of the 2004 election campaign and left Yushchenko’s face badly disfigured. He has suggested the poisoning may have been orchestrated by Russia.
In a sign that a tough political struggle loomed ahead, lawmakers on Thursday gave an initial approval to a bill that could make disbanding parliament a criminal offense in some cases.
The bill, which was supported by Tymoshenko’s faction in parliament, was a clear warning to Yushchenko, who has threatened to call a new vote if no coalition is formed within the next month.
Yushchenko’s dissolution of parliament last year led to early elections.
Tymoshenko has hinted that she may not want to resign even though the coalition has collapsed.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
RSS