Though he favours closer ties with Russia, Viktor Yanukovich has in recent years sought to shake off his image as a servant of Moscow. He is currently well ahead in opinion polls for the January 17, 2010 vote.
In this edition: Brazil is at fever pitch. Following the 2014 Football World Cup, the country will now also host the 2016 Olympic Games. Thousands of Cariocas are celebrating Brazil’s nomination. And the net echoes this jubilation.
Eight people were killed and five injured in a suspected methane blast at a mine in Ukraine's Donetsk region, the RIA Novosti news agency has reported. 141 miners were said to be underground at the time of the blast.
In this special edition on Eastern Europe: the fight against corruption in Bulgaria; Ukraine's communist past; a garden with Stalinist statues in Lithuania; and a Bulgarian minister who is also a sculptor.
US Vice President Joe Biden said to Georgian lawmakers on Thursday that Washington would support Georgian accession to NATO, and that the US did not recognise the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations.
A former general in the Ukrainian police has confessed to the murder in 2000 of journalist Georgy Gongadze (photo) and implicated senior officials in the killing.
US Vice President Joe Biden is in Georgia as part of his mission to reassure former Soviet satellites of US support despite warming relations with Moscow. "America's stand with Georgia will continue," Biden said in a toast on Wednesday.
US Vice President Joe Biden said the US was committed to a "strong and prosperous Ukraine" during a visit to Kiev before heading to Georgia in a bid to reassure the former Soviet bloc nations about US efforts to repair ties with Moscow.
Ukrainian Lawmakers have agreed on a January 17 date for the country's presidential election, in which President Viktor Yushchenko (photo) is likely to be upstaged by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former premier Viktor Yanukovich.
Four miners have died and nine more are still reported missing after an apparent build-up of methane gas prompted a blast at a coal mine in Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.
