Section: The Gulf Today (United Arab Emirates)
Crimea declares emergency after power lines blown up
CRIMEA: Crimea declared a state of emergency on Sunday after its main electricity power lines from Ukraine were blown up, leaving the Russian-annexed peninsula in darkness after the second such attack in a matter of days. Crimea depends on Ukraine for its electricity supplies, providing only 30 per cent of its own energy, according to the...
Angela Merkel marks 10 years in office
BERLIN: People who have witnessed Angela Merkel in private over the past weeks describe a changed woman. Known for tackling the major crises of her chancellorship, from Greece to Ukraine, with the detached sobriety of a scientist, the German leader is showing more emotion of late. She cracks dark jokes about her own fate. For the first time,...
‘Russian food ban would cost Ukraine $600m next year’
KIEV: Ukraine said on Wednesday it expects to lose some $600 million next year as a result of a food trade ban which Russia has threatened to introduce from January 1st. Speaking at a government meeting, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said he expected a free trade agreement between his country and the European Union to enter force...
Kiev warns of return to war if fighting escalates
KIEV: Ukraine could return artillery to its eastern frontline if fighting with pro-Russian separatists escalates further, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on Monday after a weekend of the deadliest attacks in two months. “If the situation escalates further our military commanders will be forced to return artillery and mortars to...
Five soldiers killed in Ukraine
KIEV: Five Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the past 24 hours during fighting in the east of Ukraine, the Ukrainian military said on Saturday, its highest death toll since a fragile ceasefire with pro-Russian separatists began two months ago. The guns have been mostly silent since early September, but there has been an increase in ceasefire...
Ukrainian civilian copter crashes in Slovakia, 6 dead
BRATISLAVA: A Ukrainian civilian helicopter has crashed in eastern Slovakia, killing six people, a Slovak interior ministry spokesman said on Friday. The Mi-2 turbine-powered transport helicopter crashed near Slovakia’s border with Ukraine, which is also the EU’s eastern border, ministry spokesman Ivan Netik told Reuters. An...
Ukrainian solider killed, 5 wounded in separatist raids
MINSK: Ukraine says a soldier has been killed and five others wounded in separatist attacks in eastern Ukraine and that a rise in violence is threatening the region’s delicate truce. Col. Andriy Lysenko, presidential spokesman for the military operation against the separatists, said on Wednesday that the casualties came amid 21 separatist...
Top ally of Poroshenko foe under house arrest
KIEV: The right-hand man of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s top political rival was placed under house arrest for two months on Friday pending a probe into his links to organised crime. The case of 45-year-old Gennadiy Korban — a partner of Poroshenko’s foe, Ukraine’s third-richest man Igor Kolomoyskiy — has created a...
Russia apprehends head of Ukrainian library in Moscow
MOSCOW: Russian investigators said on Thursday they had raided the library of Ukrainian literature in Moscow and detained its 58-year-old head, with ties between the two ex-Soviet neighbours in tatters. The powerful Investigative Committee said library chief Natalya Sharina was charged with inciting ethnic hatred and violating human dignity by...
OSCE dubs Ukraine vote democratic
KIEV: International monitors said on Monday local elections in Ukraine at the weekend were “well organised” and “democratic” but that Kiev’s pro-Western leadership needed to tackle political meddling by powerful oligarchs in the war-scarred country. “The elections were competitive, well organised overall and the campaign generally showed...
