Here are some more details from RFE/RL's news desk about Porsoshenko putting his signature to a new lustration law.
Poroshenko's press service said on October 9 that the bill adopted by the parliament on September 16 has been signed by the president.
Under the law, up to one million public servants, including cabinet ministers will be screened for loyalty to root out the corrupt practices of previous pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych's administration.
The law is expected to purge officials linked to the pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine's east and other Russian structures.
Officials unable to explain their sources of income and assets will be banned from public office for five to 10 years.
Poroshenko said he signed the bill with the aim of "restoring confidence in [Ukraine's] authorities."
Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said earlier on October 9 that he would start the lustration process within his ministry as soon as the law was signed by Poroshenko.
(UNIAN, Interfax)
Reuters has an interesting feature on women fighting on both sides of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
It includes this frightening quotation from a Cossack separatist commander in Luhansk: "I had doubts before allowing women in. But now I actually have more trust in them then in men. Women don't drink and I am sometimes seriously worried seeing my men's condition when they are relaxing after a mission."
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed into law a new lustration measure aimed at cleaning the new government of corrupt officials and of those with links to separatists in the east of the country.
In recent days, Ukrainians who were frustrated at the failure to bring the bill to law have been tossing suspect officials in trash cans and, in some case, beating them up. RFE/RL's Tom Balmforth wrote this feature last week.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin met in Brussels today with EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fuele and EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht in Brussels.
Here are some sound bites from Klmkin's post-meeting presser:
"We agreed that we would arrange and we would agree, during the next meeting of the association council in December, on our vision but also on the exact practical plan for the implementation of the Association Agreement. We will also agree on the instruments on how to effectively implement the Association Agreement."
"The key red line here, the absolute red line is not to make any sort of changes to the text of the agreement but to explore the possibilities and flexibilities within the regulatory framework."
"The timing for the donors' conference [for Ukraine] is dependent on the most effective way to get a result out of it. We need to be prepared. We discussed this issue for a considerable time today and as you know I wold prefer to call it a 'donors' and investors' conference' because it is not just about donor pledges."
BBC correspondent Steve Rosenberg is at a briefing at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow. Official there has said Russia continues to be concerned by the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and says OSCE mission in Ukraine is not paying enough attention to the "alarming events" in western and central Ukraine.
Russia's state-controlled Vesti TV is reporting that Natalya Poklonskaya, the de facto prosecutor in the Ukrainian region of Crimea that was annexed by Russia in March, has a new hair color:
Time for some cross promotion. If you haven't been checking out RFE/RL's "The Power Vertical Blog" live feed on Russia, you should give it a try. There is a lot there with a bearing on the situation in Ukraine, of course.
Some more photographs, this time from RIA-Novosti, of the airport in Donetsk:
Russian rocker Andrei Makarevich, who has been under assault in Russia for giving concerts for displaced persons in eastern Ukraine earlier this year, will not be able to give a scheduled lecture at Novosibirsk's Akademgorodok later this month.
The event organizer cited being "under pressure" to cancel Makarevich's lecture, which was ironically titled "What Is Beauty? How To Help People Whose Opinions Differ From Yours."
UPDATE: Makarevich has announced he will (try to) give this lecture in St. Petersburg on October 28 and 29.
