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JAILED UKRAINIAN OPPOSITION leader Yulia Tymoshenko has said she will begin a hunger strike over a government decision to scrap a key EU pact that has sparked huge protests.
Her announcement came as President Viktor Yanukovych pleaded for calm after a second day of nationwide demonstrations over the move.
“I am announcing an indefinite hunger strike demanding that (President Viktor) Yanukovych sign an association and free trade agreement with the EU,” former prime minister Tymoshenko was quoted by her party Batkivschyna as saying.
“And if Yanukovych does not sign our agreement with the EU on November 29, wipe him off the face of Ukraine through peaceful and constitutional means together with his political and corruption metastases. Don’t stop! Go on and never look back,” said the fiery co-leader of the 2004 Orange Revolution.
Breaking his silence for the first time since announcing the shock decision to put the EU talks on ice on Thursday, Yanukovych appealed for peace after police fired tear gas on pro-Europe protesters in central Kiev.
“I want peace and calm in our big Ukrainian family,” Yanukovych said in a video statement posted on his official website.
Eugenia Tymoshenko in front of a picture of her mother, the jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko who has gone on hunger strike. Pic: AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov (File photo)
Protesters are angry at Ukraine’s failure to sign a key pact seen as a first step toward EU membership that would have marked a historic break from the Kremlin by the ex-Soviet state.
The decision came after the parliament failed to adopt legislation that would have freed jailed Tymoshenko, a key EU condition for the signing of the cooperation accord.
Pledging to continue reforms, Yanukovych said he would not act “to the detriment of Ukraine and its people”.
“No one will rob us of a dream about a Ukraine of equal opportunities, about a European Ukraine,” he said shortly before Tymoshenko announced her threat of an indefinite hunger strike.
Yanukovych said that by postponing the country’s EU integration plans, he was shielding many vulnerable Ukrainians from economic hardship.
“Just like a father cannot leave his family without bread, I do not have the right to leave people to the mercy of fate with the problems which may arise… if production comes to a halt (and) millions of citizens will be thrown out into the streets,” he said.
“That is why I have to resort to difficult decisions.”
Yesterday, tens of thousands protested in central Kiev in the biggest demonstration since the 2004 Orange Revolution overturned a rigged ballot and forced new elections.
Another 20,000 returned to the streets of Kiev Monday evening, an AFP correspondent saw.
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Retrofitting is only available to the people with plenty of cash . Same as most other benefits .
All I read in the above article is that we need to lower our living standards drastically. I do not trust anyone who tells me we need to eat less meat and then replace it with processed crap.
@An Drew Bearla: Yes, all that came out of the big meeting in Davos is that we must stop eating meat and dairy or the world will starve, and we must share our cars or cycle or walk, all the mullarkey Ryan is spouting and all from a bunch that then sat down to a four course meat laden lunch after flying in on 1500 private jets. The narrative to blame the ordinary consumer and deflect away from their lavish carbon laden lifestyles is ridiculous. Animal farm springs to mind
Will do this, will improve that. All talk and no action. The government has no motivation to implement any of these policies. Still using diesel commuter trains ffs.
@Tomo: We are making progress faster than ever before. I would live to speed it up too, but denial of what’s happening is nor helpful.
Bottom line is what comes out of our chimneys and out of the vehicle tailpipes isn’t good for us and has resulted in worse health for our population and more deaths. Even if you think climate change isn’t real (it is) then only a fool would continue to not tackle us poisoning ourselves.
@Barry Somers: a few more new taxes will sort everything.
That’s the problem, the greens solution is to tax the problem with no alternative. Of course, people are turning against it
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Not true.
@Nicholas McMurry: Yes it is true. Tax tax tax from a fella that knows about as much about climate change as my 8yr old. All the solutions Eamo is pushing for at present are financially or infrastructurally unviable like hydrogen which is inhibitively expensive to make or offshore wind which we have no way due to planning restrictions and lack of infrastructure make, but which are the chief objectives of E3G which ol Eamo is/was a senior associate of, as usual the self serving bull we have gotten used to in Irish politics. Any man that signs off on tax incentives for fuel for private jets and the writing off of carbon footprint for such is not green. No viable alternatives for anything, no reduction in our carbon footprint despite all the waffle, lying about our agricultural footprint throwing our farmers and food producers under a bus because they are a soft target while letting big corporations off the hook by giving them all our carbon credits from our grasslands, hedgegrows and forestry. Ireland is not one of the worst polluters as we are so often told to justify taxing the life out of us we just fall foul of the carbon credit rules that the large industrial countries set up to make themselves look far better than they really are, America, Germany France etc
@Nicholas McMurry: of course its true, if the government and greens in particular wanted to actually do something that wasn’t a punitive tax measure, it would be a shock.
Insulation is the most effective measure, yet they persist in making the retrofitting policy, part of the convoluted seai scheme which requires “trained” certified installers, when homeowners could, depending on their current skills learn to install it just as effectively themselves, by watching a few instructional videos, just like the “trained” installers did…
Subsidising insulation for domestic projects with a zero vat rate, would encourage more people to retrofit insulation to their homes themselves, reducing the amount of heating from all sources, along with particulate and carbon emissions across the board.
Better put the old age pension up. Where will all the food come from? More homes will be needed.
Anyone find those TRVs (main image) a complete waste of time?
I find that after a year the da*n thing is stuck on full heat. (I’ve checked the pin underneath and it seems to move freely) Was this just another way for the plumbers to make a few bucks :) ?
So, if we live in England or Wales and insulate our homes we could live for 836,000 years. I don’t want to live that long.
Why does an article in an Irish publication write about a foreign country without stipulating that it is a study done in that foreign country?
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