World

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s prime minister vowed Wednesday that his government will pursue peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban, naming a four-member committee to facilitate negotiations.

In a speech to parliament, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also called on the militants to observe a ceasefire, and condemned them for targeting security forces and civilians in recent months.

Sharif long has supported talks as the best way to end the years of fighting in the country’s northwest.

But after a spate of attacks in January, some in Pakistan have advocated he forego negotiations in favour of a large-scale military operation against the Taliban and other Islamic extremist groups.

“It is necessary for the success of the talks to start this process with good intentions and it demands that the acts of terrorism be immediately stopped. Talks and terrorism cannot go side by side,” Sharif told lawmakers.

He said he had decided to accept a recent offer by the militants to start negotiations. “We want to give peace another chance by forgetting the bitter experience of the past,” Sharif said.

The four people named by Sharif to head the negotiations are: Rahimullah Yousafzai, a local journalist and expert on the Taliban; Pakistan’s former ambassador to Afghanistan, Rustam Shah Mohmand; retired intelligence officer Mohammed Amer and columnist Irfan Sadiqui.

One of the negotiators, Mohmand, said the government had few options but to keep trying to bring the militants to the table because force had not ended the militants’ attacks.

“You will kill them. They will kill you. The killing cycle will go on,” Mohmand said.

He said the committee would initially try to covertly establish contacts with the militants, but warned that the task would not be easy.

Another committee member, Sadiqui, said he hoped the Taliban would respond positively to the initiative. “Let us make an effort for peace and expect good results,” he told a news conference in Islamabad.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Shahidullah Shahid, said the militant group has convened a meeting of its executive council to discuss the prime minister’s offer and the negotiating team.

“We believe in serious and purpose oriented talks,” he said in a statement.

Sharif has come under fire in the past for pursuing peace talks over military action against Pakistani Taliban militants in the northwest who have been trying to overthrow the government and enforce their harsh brand of Islam across the country. Critics say the militants have broken numerous peace accords and simply use the negotiating time to gather their strength.

In a country that seems to suffer from endless bomb attacks and shootings, the idea of a negotiated settlement has some popularity. Many Pakistanis view the war in the country’s northwest as being imposed on them by the United States after the invasion of Afghanistan and resent being forced to fight fellow Muslims.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani Taliban continued their attacks Wednesday in other parts of the country, underlining just how difficult it would be to come to a negotiated settlement.

Three members of the security forces were killed in separate attacks in the southern city of Karachi, said senior police officer Amir Farooqi. A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks.

In one, assailants threw a grenade at a vehicle carrying paramilitary Rangers in the Nazimabad neighbourhood, killing one of them. Minutes later, a roadside bomb wounded three security personnel in the same area, and then a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the headquarters of the paramilitary Rangers, killing one Ranger and a private guard, Farooqi said.

Karachi is the capital of southern Sindh province. It has been the scene of scores of such attacks against security personnel in recent years.

BANGKOK — Thailand’s government vowed Tuesday to push ahead with controversial elections this weekend, despite threats by opposition protesters to disrupt the polls in an attempt to stop the ruling party returning to power.

The announcement followed talks between Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and election officials, who urged a delay following violence in which at least 10 people have been killed and hundreds injured in grenade attacks, drive-by shootings and clashes.

In the latest incident, shots were fired Tuesday near a Bangkok army facility where Yingluck was holding meetings, as hundreds of protesters massed outside. Emergency services said two people were injured.

Police later said an undercover officer fired a shot to fend off angry protesters who saw him, injuring one demonstrator.

The officer was then left “critically injured” by rally guards who severely beat him, police added in a statement.

The Thai capital has been shaken by nearly three months of mass street demonstrations, demanding Yingluck’s elected government step down to make way for an unelected “people’s council” that would oversee reforms aimed at curbing the dominance of her billionaire family.

“Even if the election is postponed, the problems will not go away. I don’t think that the [protest] movement will stop,” Deputy Prime Minister Phongthep Thepkanjana told reporters.

The kingdom has been bitterly divided since Yingluck’s older brother Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted as prime minister by royalist generals in a coup more than seven years ago.

Critics accuse the billionaire tycoon-turned-politician of controlling his sister’s government from Dubai, where he lives to avoid prison for a corruption conviction.

The Election Commission (EC) proposed during Tuesday’s talks to postpone the election for 120 days, but after discussions it agreed with the government to press ahead with the February 2 vote.

The EC fears that there might be “clashes” during voting, election commissioner Somchai Srisutthiyakorn told reporters, adding that polling stations would close early in the event of problems.

The main opposition Democrat Party is boycotting Sunday’s polls, saying reforms are needed to ensure the vote is truly democratic and to prevent abuse of power by the next government.

‘No justification’ for voter intimidation

Advance voting over the weekend was marred by widespread disruption by opposition protesters who besieged polling stations and stopped hundreds of thousands from casting ballots.

“The protesters claim they are fighting corruption and seeking reforms, but this doesn’t justify their use of force and intimidation to block voting,” Brad Adam, Asia director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Tuesday.

Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban late Tuesday urged supporters to “prepare everything to not allow the election to happen on February 2”, raising fears of further violence.

An anti-government rally leader was shot dead on Sunday while giving a speech from the back of a pickup truck in a Bangkok suburb, during the campaign by demonstrators to block advance voting.

In another apparently politically related killing, the body of a man wearing a wristband popular among protesters was found Tuesday near a rally site with several bullet wounds, according to police, although the circumstances of his death were unclear.

“Thailand is spiralling into political violence as opposition and pro-government groups respond tit-for-tat against attacks and provocations,” Adams said.

“Leaders on all sides need to rein in their supporters, order the attacks to stop, and negotiate a political solution that respects democratic principles before the situation deteriorates further.”

Yingluck’s meeting with the election authorities came after the constitutional court last Friday ruled that the polls could legally be pushed back because of the civil strife.

The government notes that under the constitution an election should normally be held no more than 60 days after the dissolution of parliament, which happened in early December.

The protesters have staged a self-styled “shutdown” of Bangkok since January 13, occupying several main intersections, although attendance has gradually dwindled and disruption has been limited.

The government has declared a 60-day state of emergency in the capital and surrounding areas, giving authorities the power to ban public gatherings of more than five people, although they have not yet done so and demonstrators have vowed to defy the decree. 

KIEV — Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov resigned on Tuesday while deputies loyal to President Viktor Yanukovich, acting to calm violent street protests, back-tracked and overturned anti-protest laws they rammed through parliament 12 days ago.

The first real concessions by Yanukovich since the crisis erupted two months ago brought cries of “Hurrah!” from several thousand demonstrators on Kiev’s Independence Square, focal point of the protests.

But opposition leaders said they would continue to harness street power to wring even more gains from Yanukovich.

“We have to change not only the government, but the rules of the game as well,” declared boxer-turned-politician Vitaly Klitschko. “We are sure the struggle will continue,” he said.

The 66-year-old Azarov tendered his resignation as parliament met for an emergency session to work out a deal that would satisfy the opposition, and end protests in the capital Kiev and in other cities in which six people have been killed.

Yanukovich quickly accepted his resignation and that of his Cabinet. Azarov’s spokesman said first deputy prime minister, Serhiy Arbuzov, a former central bank chief, would step in as acting prime minister while other ministers would stay on in an acting role until a new cabinet had been formed.

Azarov, a loyal lieutenant of Yanukovich since the latter was elected to power in February 2010, said he was stepping down to help find a political compromise “for the sake of a peaceful settlement of the conflict”.

But in reality he has been publicly humiliated by Yanukovich’s offer at the weekend to give his job to former economy minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, another opposition leader, in an effort to stem the rising protests against his rule.

The opposition has been calling consistently for the resignation of the Azarov government since the crisis started.

But opposition leaders have shied away from the offer of top government posts by Yanukovich, seeing it as a trap intended to compromise them in front of their supporters on the streets.

Yatsenyuk, one of a “troika” of opposition leaders, formally turned down the offer of the top government job on Monday night.

The steward of the heavily-indebted economy through hard times and recession, Azarov backed the decision in November to walk away from a free trade agreement with the European Union — the move which sparked the mass street protests.

And it was Azarov who took the heat in parliament, defending the need for closer economic ties with Russia in a stormy debate with the opposition.

Repeal of laws

Parliament went into emergency session on Tuesday with ministers loyal to Yanukovich saying they would press for a state of emergency to be declared if the opposition leaders did not rein in protesters, and end occupation of municipal and government buildings across the country.

But then Yanukovich loyalists — clearly under pressure from the president and his aides to make a U-turn — voted to repeal anti-protest legislation they had rammed through on January 16.

It was these laws — banning virtually all form of public protest — which sparked a violent turn on the street leading to open clashes between radical activists and police in which six people were killed.

Opposition leaders sought to keep up the pressure on Yanukovich, with Yatsenyuk calling on him to swiftly sign the repeal of the laws into force.

Klitschko said opposition lawmakers would now press for an amnesty for detained activists and a return to the 2004 constitution which would greatly reduce the present powers of the president.

“These decisions which parliament has adopted are good but it’s only a little progress. We won’t leave here until the system and the constitution has been changed,” said Ivan, 45, from Lviv region who was at one of the people’s barricades leading down to Independence Square.

“We have been fighting for two months and we do not want to stop now half way along the road. The time for talk is over. Everything is serious now,” said Serhiy from Vinnytsya region in central Ukraine.

Alarm in West

Though the protest movement began because of Yanukovich’s U-turn on policy towards Europe, it has since turned into a mass demonstration, punctuated by clashes with police, against perceived misrule and corruption under Yanukovich’s leadership.

Several hundred people camp round-the-clock on Kiev’s Independence Square and along an adjoining thoroughfare, while more radical protesters confront police lines at Dynamo football stadium some distance away.

A leader of “Right Sector”, a radical nationalist group involved in violent clashes with police, said the group’s members would stick to a truce which has held for several days as long as authorities made an effort to find a compromise with opposition leaders.

“If they (the authorities) make a move to compromise we will reduce our activities,” Right Sector leader Petro Yarush told reporters.

Talk of a state of emergency being declared in the former Soviet republic of 46 million made the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, hastily bring forward a visit to Ukraine and was due to arrive in Kiev on Tuesday night.

US Vice President Joe Biden called Yanukovich on Monday to urge the government not to declare a state of emergency and to work with the opposition to bring a peaceful end to unrest.

In Brussels, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose government has extended a $15 billion aid package of credits and cheaper gas to Ukraine, said Moscow would abide by its commitments to Ukraine, irrespective of whoever was in government.

KIEV — Ukraine on Monday said the introduction of a state of emergency was not yet on the agenda after radicals seized the justice ministry in Kiev in an attack that raised concerns of a derailing of talks to ease the crisis.

The Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday was due to meet to discuss concessions proposed by President Viktor Yanukovych, in a highly anticipated extraordinary session that could be a make-or-break moment to resolve the standoff.

With concern growing in the West that the situation in Ukraine was spiralling out of control, the country’s worst crisis since independence was also set to dominate an EU-Russia summit on Tuesday.

The protests, which began in November as a drive for EU integration after Yanukovych ditched a key deal with the bloc under Russian pressure, have now turned into an all out uprising to unseat him.

Amid a febrile atmosphere in Kiev, the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia news website reported the cabinet was preparing a decree for a state of emergency which would restrict movement on some Kiev streets.

But Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara told reporters Monday: “Today we are not considering the introduction of a state of emergency. Today, this measure is not on the table.”

Tensions remained high in Kiev after several dozen radical protesters seized control of the justice ministry late Sunday.

Justice Minister Olena Lukash, who is taking part in the negotiations with the opposition, said she would ask for the talks to be broken off if the building was not freed.

If the protesters do not vacate the building, Lukash said she would also approach Ukraine’s national security council with “a demand to discuss imposing a state of emergency in this country”, Lukash told Ukraine’s Inter channel.

After occupying the premises for over 12 hours, the activists walked out of the building but dozens dressed in battle fatigues still blocked the front entrance, an AFP correspondent said.

Opposition leaders said in a joint statement that they were still open to negotiations “despite an attempt by the authorities to abandon the negotiations and declare a state of emergency”.

The statement confirmed the justice ministry building had now been emptied of protesters, whose action had been seen as a dangerous provocation by many within the mainstream opposition.

‘Yanukovych is getting weaker’

Protesters now control much of the city centre of Kiev around a hub on Independence Square, with their camp protected by barricades several metres high, and guarded by activists dressed in balaclavas and armed with baseball bats.

But the rebellion has now spread well beyond Kiev, with protesters occupying regional administrations in all but one region in the west of the country which has traditionally been anti-Yanukovych.

But most worryingly for the president, protests have swept to the country’s east and centre, usually considered more his heartland.

Protesters have now blockaded or attempted to blockade 14 of the 25 regional administrations across Ukraine.

However the security forces appear to have been fighting back in the east, using force to disperse protests in the regional centres of Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy and Sumy, and arresting dozens, local media reports said.

Under unprecedented pressure, Yanukovych on Saturday offered the opposition posts in government including that of prime minister, but his opponents said the offer fell short of their needs.

Yanukovych proposed sharing leadership with Fatherland Party chief Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister and UDAR (Punch) chief and world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko as deputy prime minister.

Klitschko, who is believed to have a personal rivalry with Yatsenyuk, condemned the proposal as a “poisoned offer” in an interview with German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

Yanukovych’s office has also said the president is willing to consider constitutional changes to reduce his power and return to a system according more authority to the prime minister.

A crucial day in the standoff is expected to come Tuesday when parliament meets in an extraordinary session to debate and possibly pass some of the changes offered by the president.

“Yanukovych this week will be more inclined to negotiate as he is getting weaker and the protesters stronger,” political analyst Yevgen Glibovitsky wrote in a column for online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.

Ukraine to dominate EU-Russia summit

The parliament session also coincides with an EU-Russia summit where President Vladimir Putin will be hosted by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso.

The meeting — already shortened to less than three hours — is expected to be shadowed by tensions over Ukraine, with Moscow slamming protesters as extremists but the West worried about police violence.

In a statement on Monday, the European Union stressed that an end to human rights violations by the government “was a prerequisite for the restoration of trust”.

The European Union’s enlargement commissioner Stefan Fuele was returning to Ukraine on Monday for more talks just three days after his last meeting with Yanukovych, the commission said. 

BANGKOK — Thai police have rescued hundreds of Rohingya Muslims from a remote camp in a raid prompted by a Reuters investigation into human trafficking, police officials said on Monday.

Police detained 531 men, women and children in Sunday’s raid at a camp near the town of Sadao in the southern province of Songkhla, on a well-established route for human smugglers near Thailand’s border with Malaysia. It was the first raid on illegal Rohingya smuggling camps since January 9, 2013.

The police said they were following up on a December 5 Reuters report that Rohingya were held hostage in camps hidden near the border with Malaysia until relatives pay ransoms to release them. Some were beaten and killed.

The Rohingya are mostly stateless Muslims from Myanmar, also known as Burma. Deadly clashes between Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists erupted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar last year, making 140,000 people homeless, most of them Rohingya.

Since then, tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled from Myanmar by boat and many arrive off southwest Thailand.

The United Nations and the United States called for an investigation into the Reuters report, based on two months of research in three countries, that revealed a clandestine policy to remove Rohingya refugees from Thai immigration detention centres and deliver them to human traffickers waiting at sea.

“After Reuters gave us information, we ordered an investigation into the camps,” said Chatchawan Suksomjit, deputy national police chief. He said they captured three suspected ringleaders at the camp, all of them Thai males.

Reuters gave the Thai authorities coordinates to one camp near Sadao which was empty by the time they arrived, but police found another camp nearby.

“From the Reuters report, we received a clue that it was in Kao Roop Chang [village]. But the camp was already moved from there when we found it. We found only an empty camp there. So we investigated more until we found the new camp,” said Colonel Kan Tammakasem, superintendent of immigration in Songkhla.

The plight of the Rohingya illustrates the limits to Myanmar’s wave of democratic reforms since military rule ended in March 2011. Inside Myanmar, they face apartheid-like conditions and, according to the United Nations, many forms of “persecution, discrimination and exploitation”.

US scrutiny

Police are trying to identify the origins of those detained after the raid, not all of whom were Rohingya, said Chatchawan. “We are interviewing all of them to see if they are victims of human trafficking,” he said.

They are being kept at an immigration detention centre in Songkhla.

“We have to interview them and proceed according to Thai immigration laws,” he said. “It will depend on whether they want to go back. If they are willing we will send them back as we have done before.”

Last year, Thailand implemented a secretive policy to deport the Rohingya.

These deportations delivered many Rohingya back into the hands of smuggling networks and human traffickers, who in some cases ferried them back to Thailand’s secret border camps, reported Reuters.

The raid comes as the US State Department is finalising its research for its next Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report, due in June, which ranks countries on their counter-trafficking performance.

Thailand is Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy and a close US ally, but has a poor record in fighting trafficking and faces a possible downgrade to the report’s lowest rank, putting it at risk of US sanctions and potentially placing it on a par with North Korea and Iran.

Nine people were arrested in Thailand in relation to Rohingya smuggling in 2013, including two government officials, according to police data, but none of the arrests has led to convictions. 

PARIS — French leader Francois Hollande on Sunday began a new chapter in his presidency as a bachelor after splitting from his partner of eight years following an affair with a younger actress.

Under intense media scrutiny since the revelation of the affair two weeks ago, Hollande — who had pledged a “normal” presidency after the domestically turbulent stint of his “bling bling” predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy — on Saturday formally announced his split from Valerie Trierweiler.

“A Bachelor at the Elysee”, said the Journal du Dimanche weekly, adding that Trierweiler’s departure as first lady was “the end of an epoch”.

Saying he was speaking as a private individual, Hollande, in a terse statement to AFP over the phone, said he was ending his “shared life” with Trierweiler.

And in an interview to Time magazine just hours before announcing the rupture, Hollande reiterated his desire to keep silent about his private life.

“Private life is always, at certain times, a challenge. And it has to be respected,” he said.

“I believe that everybody now understands that president or not president, one is entitled to have a private life.”

The split has fuelled debate in France about whether an official role is necessary for a president’s partner or spouse. A recent poll by Le Parisien daily showed that 54 per cent of French people felt it was not.

Trierweiler, 48, left for Mumbai on Sunday for charity work, her first public appearance since the scandal erupted.

She had been convalescing at a presidential residence in Versailles outside Paris after leaving hospital last Saturday, where she was treated for what was described as fatigue brought on by press revelations of Hollande’s affair with 41-year-old actress Julie Gayet.

Her entourage said she was accompanied on her India trip by a presidential bodyguard. A source close to her said: “She is on good terms with the president and she is better.”

But 59-year-old Hollande came under fire from opponents for cheating in his personal life and procrastinating on announcing the split.

Thousands of people marched in Paris Sunday in a “Day of Anger” over Hollande’s policies, some of them alluding to the scandal.

An organiser said, without naming Hollande, that some leaders “were more busy with their affairs... than with unemployment and the freedom of the French people”.

Rightwing politicians also piled on their criticism.

“Valerie, the new Diana”, tweeted Roselyne Bachelot, a former minister in Sarkozy’s government.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the far-right National Front Party, added: “’Perfect’ president? Not in private life: four children outside marriage and a mistress who is not divorced and to whom he could not remain faithful!”

The Journal du Dimanche quoted Hollande as telling people close to him that “women have cost me dearly”, referring to his splits with Trierweiler and her predecessor Segolene Royal, the mother of his four children and a senior member of his Socialist Party, from whom he separated in 2007.

Citing sources, the weekly said Trierweiler would keep an apartment the couple shared in Paris’s middle-class 15th district and also receive “financial compensation”.

After Hollande’s announcement of their separation, Trierweiler tweeted: “I extend all my gratitude to the fantastic Elysee staff. I will never forget their dedication nor the emotional farewell.”

Labour minister Michel Sapin, who is close to Hollande, said the “decision was necessary for the sake of clarity. Now it’s done”.

Gayet meanwhile has kept a low profile since the scandal broke on January 10, when French glossy Closer splashed photos of Hollande arriving on a motor scooter for alleged secret trysts with her at a flat near the Elysee Palace.

Hollande had promised at a news conference earlier this month that he would publicly define what relationship, if any, he and Trierweiler had before a February 11 state visit to Washington.

Trierweiler is a glamorous, twice-married career journalist who has three children of her own.

But many French see her as arrogant, and a recent poll found she was the country’s least-liked first lady in modern history. Hollande has also scored the lowest approval ratings of any French president in modern times.

He is the second French president to split from his partner while in office. In 2007, Sarkozy divorced his wife Cecilia, marrying former supermodel and singer Carla Bruni the following year. 

KIEV — Thousands in Kiev on Sunday mourned a protester shot dead during clashes, as a rebellion against President Viktor Yanukovych’s authority spread despite sweeping concessions offered by the embattled leader.

An emotional crowd packed Saint Michael’s Cathedral for the Orthodox funeral to pay their last respects to 25-year-old Mikhail Zhiznevsky, as Pope Francis prayed for dialogue in a country swept by civil strife.

Mourners bearing flowers and waving Ukrainian flags hailed the Belarussian national, who had been living in Ukraine for several years, as a hero of their country and noted that Sunday would have been his 26th birthday.

“He was a very brave, very kind person who gave his life for the future of Ukraine,” one mourner, Iryna Davydova, told AFP.

Officials have confirmed he died of gunshot wounds during recent clashes, but the security forces have denied firing on protesters.

Thousands of activists meanwhile laid siege to local government offices in four Ukrainian cities after protesters occupied regional administrations in nine more official hubs to protest against Yanukovych-appointed governors.

De facto powers in the occupied regional centres have passed to local pro-opposition lawmakers or improvised “People’s Parliaments” set up by the protesters themselves.

In two regions, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil, local parliaments even approved motions to ban the ruling Party of Regions in a symbolic move that echoes the outlawing of the Communist Party after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Protesters clutching baseball bats and wearing military-style helmets also attended a rally in Kiev after taking over another official building in the capital on Sunday, although the gathering of tens of thousands of people was still far smaller than previous ones.

Two months after the protests began over Yanukovych’s decision to back out of a European Union pact, the president offered on Saturday to share leadership with opposition figures Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister and Vitali Klitschko as deputy prime minister in a dramatic compromise bid.

But opposition leaders have said they are not backing down and will continue negotiations with Yanukovych until other demands are met, in particular that presidential elections due in 2015 be brought forward to this year.

Former boxing champion Klitschko, leader of the UDAR (Punch) Party, branded the proposals “poisoned” in an interview with German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

“This was a poisoned offer by Yanukovych designed to split our opposition movement,” he was quoted as saying. “We will continue to negotiate and to demand early elections. The protest of the Ukrainians against the corrupt president must not have been in vain.”

Opposition leaders have been careful, however, neither accepting nor explicitly rejecting Yanukovych’s proposals.

Pope calls for ‘constructive dialogue’

World leaders have urged dialogue between the two sides — a call joined by Pope Francis who voiced hope in his weekly Angelus prayer on St Peter’s Square that “the search for common good may prevail in the hearts of all”.

“I hope for constructive dialogue between the institutions and civil society,” the Argentine pontiff said, adding: “I am close in my prayers to Ukraine, in particular to those who have lost their lives and their families.”

British Foreign Secretary William Hague told BBC television he was “very worried” about the protest and emphasised that it should not be seen as “an East-West struggle” with Russia.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius spoke with Klitschko on Sunday, with the minister’s office saying afterwards he had called for “an immediate end to the violence”.

One week after clashes first erupted between the opposition and police, protesters scored another victory by taking control of Ukraine House, a Stalin-era exhibition hall near the protest zone, ousting about 200 special forces using it as a base.

The officers were allowed to exit through a side entrance early Sunday to cries of “Shame!” from protesters, after a siege in which protesters threw Molotov cocktails as police responded with stun grenades.

Protest leaders said the building would now be used as a press centre and an additional place to feed and shelter protesters.

Officials say three people have been killed in protests in Kiev, raising fears of a wider civil conflict in the former Soviet republic’s worst crisis since independence in 1991.

The opposition says six people have died.

Yanukovych’s office said after Saturday’s talks with opposition leaders that the president was willing to shuffle his government and consider constitutional changes to reduce his power, and return to a system according more authority to the prime minister.

The president also agreed to put forward an amnesty bill for arrested protesters and to re-consider draconian anti-protest laws.

But many sceptical protesters simply want Yanukovych to quit.

“We want the authorities to understand that we will stay until victory, and most of us see that as the departure of Yanukovych,” said protester Bogdan, 22. 

BEIJING — Prominent Chinese legal activist Xu Zhiyong was sentenced to four years’ jail on Sunday for his role in organising anti-corruption protests, furthering a crackdown on a rights movement he championed and sparking international criticism.

The 40-year-old lawyer was a central figure in the New Citizens Movement, a loose network of activists who organised street protests and dinner discussions on causes from educational equality to official corruption.

He is among around 10 activists facing trial for “gathering crowds to disrupt public order” — a charge that carries a maximum five-year sentence. Many had held signs in public urging authorities to disclose their assets as a check against graft, among other causes.

The United States said it was “deeply disappointed” at the verdict.

“We call on Chinese authorities to release Xu and other political prisoners immediately... and guarantee them the protections and freedoms to which they are entitled under China’s international human rights commitments,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

Amnesty International described the verdict as “shameful”.

“The Chinese authorities have once again opted for the rule of fear over the rule of law,” Roseann Rife, East Asia research director at Amnesty International, said in a statement.

Xu was the first activist to be sentenced, and the others are almost certain to be found guilty by China’s politically controlled courts.

His jailing comes as new leaders under President Xi Jinping have carried out a high-profile campaign against graft, warning it could destroy the ruling Communist Party.

But Beijing fears any organised dissent that could undermine their control, and has previously rejected outside criticism of Xu’s trial as interference in its internal affairs.

A Beijing intermediate court “sentenced Xu Zhiyong to four years in jail” after finding him guilty, it announced on an official account on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.

Xu’s lawyer Zhang Qingfang criticised the process as “nothing but a show” in which “the outcome was decided a long time ago”.

Describing Xu’s response to the verdict, Zhang said he had told the court that it had “pretty much destroyed the last bit of dignity left for China’s rule of law”.

Zhang said he would like to appeal the decision but would consult with Xu first.

He added that police had driven him away from the courthouse after the hearing ended, apparently to prevent him from speaking with a group of journalists nearby.

The premises were cordoned off with police tape, and during the proceedings officers in uniform and plain clothes blocked passers-by from approaching.

Xu gained prominence as he sought to uphold rights through the court system by offering legal aid in controversial cases, and was even profiled by China’s Esquire magazine in 2009.

But as he increasingly pushed for change, he found himself arrested that year on tax evasion charges. Although these were later dropped, he remained under surveillance and sporadic house arrest.

During his one-day trial last Wednesday Xu largely refused to speak, in protest at what he considerd unfair proceedings, his lawyer said.

In total 20 to 40 people involved with the New Citizens Movement have been detained since last year, according to members.

BANGKOK — A Thai anti-government protest leader was shot dead on Sunday as demonstrators besieged polling stations in Bangkok and forced most to close, hampering advance voting for next weekend’s disputed election.

More than two million people are registered for advance voting before the February 2 election, which was called by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to try to defuse rising political tensions after weeks of mass anti-government protests.

Protesters descended on scores of polling stations in the Thai capital and several southern provinces, stopping ballot officials from entering and prompting election authorities to shut at least 45 venues.

As the disrupted polls closed on Sunday afternoon a leader of the anti-government rallies was gunned down while he gave a speech from the back of pick-up truck in a Bangkok suburb.

Nine other people were injured in the shooting, according to the city’s Erawan emergency centre, with the violence deepening doubts over the viability of next weekend’s ballot.

“The government has failed to provide any safety and security for anybody today despite the emergency decree,” protest spokesman Akanat Promphan told AFP, referring to a government order empowering police to control protests.

Akanat accused a “pro-government mob” of carrying out the attack which killed Suthin Tharathin — a leader of the Dharma Army, a Buddhist organisation which has been prominent in the demonstrations.

Each side in the bitterly divided kingdom routinely blames the other for the violence.

Suthin was the 10th person to be killed during nearly three months of rallies that have sparked international concern and investor fears over the country’s economy.

Pressure to delay poll

Sunday’s blockade of polls denied the franchise to thousands of registered voters and flouted the government-imposed state of emergency.

“Forty-five polling stations had to be closed out of 50 in Bangkok,” said Surapong Tovichakchaikul, deputy prime minister and one of the main figures at the Centre for Maintaining Peace and Order, which is handling the crisis.

Away from the capital voting went ahead in 66 of the country’s 76 provinces, including the ruling party’s heartlands in the north and northeast, he said.

Yingluck, who has so far refused to resign or delay the poll, is set to meet elections officials on Tuesday after the constitutional court ruled that the general election could legally be delayed because of the crisis.

While the protest augurs badly for next weekend’s general election, Yingluck is likely to press on with the ballot regardless, according to Pavin Chachavalpongpun, associate professor at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at Japan’s Kyoto University.

“I don’t think it will increase pressure on her to postpone it... she wants to boost her government’s legitimacy with a quick election,” Pavin added.

The demonstrators, who have staged a near two-week “shutdown” of Bangkok to try to derail the vote, have rejected the election.

They had insisted they would not obstruct advance voters, although analysts have questioned whether the disruption is tantamount to intimidation of the electorate.

Advance voting is routinely offered for those who cannot cast their ballot on polling day. But Sunday’s exercise was seen as a test of the prospects of holding next weekend’s vote peacefully.

Deep divisions

Demonstrators want to topple Yingluck’s elected government and install an unelected “people’s council” to implement loosely defined reforms which they hope will rid Thailand of the influence of ousted former leader Thaksin Shinawatra — Yingluck’s older brother.

They say another poll victory for the ruling party will further embed the Shinawatra clan in Thai politics.

At a polling station in the capital around a dozen frustrated voters said the poll closure amounted to an assault on their democratic freedoms.

“I came to protect my rights,” said 75-year-old Vipa Yoteepitak.

“We can’t let this happen, if we don’t fight today [to vote], we will keep losing our rights.”

Thais have been left divided by years of political turmoil that began shortly before Thaksin was deposed in a military coup in 2006.

The crisis roughly pits Thaksin’s supporters from rural and urbanised communities in the north and northeast against his foes within the country’s elite, the Bangkok middle classes and parts of the south.

The billionaire tycoon-turned-politician — who lives abroad to avoid a jail term for corruption that he says was politically motivated — has won every election since 2001 either directly or more recently through allied parties.

But his opponents accuse him of corruption, “vote buying” and pushing through expensive populist policies to strengthen his electoral position.