Section: The Gulf Today (United Arab Emirates)
Ukraine polls marred by cancelled vote
KIEV: Western-backed Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s fragile ruling coalition faced a major survival test on Sunday in local elections swiftly marred by polls failing to open in the strategic port of Mariupol. A smooth vote and show of support for Poroshenko’s unpopular austerity and anti-corruption measures could help his...
S.Ossetia eyes Crimea-style vote on joining Russia
MOSCOW: Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia has said it plans to hold a referendum on joining Russia but the Kremlin appeared to pour cold water on the idea on Tuesday. Announced by the leader of the breakaway statelet, the plan drew an angry reaction from Georgia, which called it part of “Russia’s creeping annexation.” The...
Captain detained over deadly Ukraine boat sinking
ODESSA: The captain of an overloaded pleasure boat which sank in the Black Sea near the Ukrainian city of Odessa has been detained, officials said on Sunday as the death toll rose to 14. Local officials said the vessel, which went down in a heavy storm on Saturday, had no life jackets and had too many people on board. “Two people who were...
Flight MH17 ‘downed by missile’
GILZE-RIJEN: Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by a Russian-made Buk missile, the Dutch Safety Board concluded on Tuesday in its final report on the crash in July 2014 that killed all 298 people on board, most of them Dutch. But the long-awaited findings of the board, which was not empowered to address questions of...
Don’t trust Putin, prepare for worst: Poroshenko
KIEV: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko warned on Monday he had no trust in Russia’s Vladimir Putin and urged the army to prepare “for the worst” despite a new truce in the separatist east. The pro-Western Ukrainian leader’s comments to servicemen in Kiev came ahead of this week’s Defenders of the Fatherland Day – an...
Rebels say one killed in Donetsk despite truce
KIEV: Ukrainian army fire killed one person and wounded another in the pro-Moscow rebel bastion of Donetsk in the east on Saturday, despite a truce that had held for several weeks, the separatists said. “According to initial reports, the (casualties) are civilians,” the rebels’ news agency said, citing their “defence ministry.” Earlier, the...
Groups slam Ukraine for slow polio response
KIEV: Global health groups accused Ukraine on Friday of being critically late and ineffective in responding to Europe’s first polio outbreak since 2010. The World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed in late August that two Ukrainian children had been crippled by the virus in the former Soviet state’s southwestern Zakarpattya region....
Real truce has begun in Ukraine, says Poroshenko
KIEV: President Petro Poroshenko said on Wednesday a “real truce” had begun in Ukraine but that a long-lasting peace with pro-Russian insurgents would still take some time. “There has not been a single shot fired. This is still not peace. This is not the end of the war,” the pro-Western leader said in a televised address. “The end of war will...
Ukraine rebels delay local polls
DONETSK: Ukraine’s pro-Russian insurgents took a major step towards political reconciliation on Tuesday by announcing they will push back disputed local elections into next year in line with Western demands. The decision coincided with the withdrawal of Ukrainian tanks from the line splitting government forces from the rebels of one of the...
Russia must cede border by end of year, says Ukraine
KIEV: President Petro Poroshenko has stressed that Ukraine must regain control of its eastern border by the end of December even if full implementation of a February peace deal with Russia is delayed until 2016. The Western-backed leader was seeking to clarify his stance in view of remarks by French President Francois Hollande at a media event...
