- Ukraine's president calls efforts to push him from office a 'coup 
CNN Feb. 22, 2014
Ukrainian opposition leader wants justice
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Russia's U.N. ambassador says the West doesn't understand what's at stake
- President Viktor Yanukovych stopped at airport, a security official says
- Yanukovych calls action a "coup," says "I am the legitimate president"
- Opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko has been released from prison
Kiev, Ukraine (CNN) -- Freed from prison, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko returned Saturday to the battleground capital the same day the country's president said he left Kiev because of a "coup."
Tymoshenko's release was the latest in a day of dramatic, fast-paced developments that saw Parliament vote to remove President Viktor Yanukovych from office and call for new elections.
"Today, Ukraine has finished with this terrible dictator, Mr. Yanukovych," Tymoshenko told a cheering crowd of thousands in Kiev's Independence Square, the scene of deadly demonstrations.
Just hours after her release from a prison hospital, Tymoshenko called for justice for protesters killed in demonstrations sparked by the President's decision to scrap a trade deal with the European Union in favor of one with Russia.
"You were able to change Ukraine, and you can do everything," she told the crowd. "Everyone has a right to take part in building a European, independent state."
Photos: Unrest in Ukraine
But Yanukovych took to television airwaves, saying he had been forced to leave Kiev because of "vandalism, crime and a coup."
"I don't plan to leave the country. I don't plan to resign. I am the legitimate president," he said in an interview from Kharkiv, a pro-Russian stronghold near Ukraine's border with that nation.
"...What I am going to do next is to protect my country from the split, to stop the bloodshed. I don't know how to do it yet. I am in Kharkiv and I don't know what I am going to do next."
He did not address reports that he attempted to leave the country by airplane.
According to the head of Ukraine's Border Guard Service, Sergei Astakov, Yanukovych and his entourage attempted to board a charter flight without proper documentation in the eastern city of Donetsk. He was on the tarmac when he was turned back by security forces, Astakov told CNN, confirming an account he gave to Ukraine's Interfax news agency.
In that account, Astakov said border security had approached the plane to check paperwork, and an armed group of people on the plane attempted to offer money to the inspectors to allow the flight to take off.
When the inspectors refused the money, Yanukovych and others in his entourage exited the plane and got into two vehicles that drove up on the tarmac, Astakov is quoted as saying.
Ukraine's dismissed interior minister, Vitaliy Zakharchenko, also was refused exit from the country in a similar incident at the same airport, Astakov said.
The events of the day raise questions about just who is in control in Ukraine, with Parliament voting to oust Yanukovych and hold new elections on May 25.
The vote came just 24 hours after Yanukovych signed a peace deal with the opposition intended to end days of bloody protests.
2. A shocker from figure skating judges?
CNN February 22, 2014
Kim, left, and Sotnikova were accompanied by bronze medalist Carolina Kostner of Italy during the flower ceremony.
Controversy on ice
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Amy Bass: Questions over fairness of figure skating judging at Sochi likely unfounded
- Bass: Controversy surrounds the event due to odd scoring and a history of shenanigans
- The judging lineup this time also is questionable, Bass says
- Bass: If skating wants a credible scoring system, it should use credible judges
(CNN) -- Oh, figure skating. Not again. Didn't anyone tell you? The Cold War is over. You are supposed to be reformed.
At the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, on Thursday, South Korea's Yuna Kim, a 2010 Olympic gold medalist, skated an ethereally beautiful and outwardly perfect long program in the ladies free skating competition. She then lost gold to Russia's Adelina Sotnikova. Few saw that coming.
On paper, Sotnikova had one more triple jump than Kim, including the triple loop, which Kim does not do. Although Sotnikova had an awkward moment on her own double loop, her spins were faster, her jumps higher, and unlike Kim, who looked exhausted at the end of her gorgeous skate, Sotnikova flew across the ice with great speed and then looked like she could do it all again.
It should have been a great moment in Olympic sports: champion dethroned by a rising star, an upset, a shocker. Instead, it was controversial water cooler fodder the next day because the results raised so many questions: Did the youngster, a bit rough around the edges, deserve such high marks? Was she really better in just about every element, including her components mark, which was an astonishing 4.81 points higher than at the European championships last month?
Surprising skating win spurs controversy
Setting aside her extreme margin of victory, there are reasons to think the judges got the podium right. Three-time world champion Elvis Stojko, for example, who had always accentuated an aggressive style over artistry, praised the marks, pleased that the judges rewarded Sotnikova's athleticism and degrees of difficulty over Kim's elegance. Figure skating is, after all, a sport.
But if it wants to be treated like one, it has to act like one.
There is a long history of controversy and scandal that continues to hang over the International Skating Federation, particularly as Russia's first individual female gold medalist (and on home ice, no less) brings familiar echoes of the Cold War. And during the team competition, there were murmurs, to be sure, overEvgeni Plushenko's high marks. It appeared to some that the judges bolstered his score based on his dynamic presence and the sentimental drama of the legendary champion's return to the ice to lead the home team to gold, rather than the difficulty of his program and his execution of it.
3. A new prime minister in Italy
A man needs a mandate
If Matteo Renzi is to clean up Italy’s mess, he needs to call an election
The Economist Feb 22nd 2014
LAST week we featured Argentina on our cover, as a formerly wealthy country undone by the weakness of its political institutions. Italy is in some danger of following down the same path. Its GDP has fallen in real terms by almost 10% since the financial crisis hit six years ago, more than in any other big rich economy; income per head in Italy is now lower than it was when the country joined Europe’s single currency in 1999; youth unemployment is running at 40%; and government debt stands at over 130% of GDP. Other euro-zone countries have been battered by the markets, but the fundamental reason for Italy’s decline is the failure of successive governments to run the place properly.
That explains why there is such excitement over the imminent arrival of Matteo Renzi as Italian prime minister. It also underlines the scale of the challenge he faces. There is plenty of reason to be enthusiastic. At 39, Mr Renzi will be Italy’s youngest-ever prime minister, a refreshing change from the country’s usual tired gerontocrats. He is an energetic and forceful outsider who is not tainted by long association with the discredited Italian political class. Moreover, he is fizzing with bright ideas for his first 100 days: a new electoral law to increase the chance that governments will be strong enough to implement their policies; labour-market liberalisation that helps create jobs; a shake-up of Italy’s sclerotic and dysfunctional public administration; constitutional change; and tax reforms. If such a hugely ambitious agenda could be realised, it would do much to restore the country (see article).
And yet Mr Renzi may not prove able to push these reforms through. Although he was elected the leader of Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party in December and has long been mayor of Florence, he has never been a member of the Italian parliament or even served as a minister. Mr Renzi has shown a ruthless streak in pushing aside his party colleague, Enrico Letta, who was picked to serve as prime minister after an inconclusive election less than a year ago. But he will be leading a baggy left-right coalition similar to Mr Letta’s and to the bipartisan group that backed his predecessor, the technocratic Mario Monti. Both these men tried their utmost to push through the radical reforms that Italy needs; both found it near-impossible, with such a set-up, to overcome entrenched opposition. Mr Renzi could have a hard time with his party’s left, with the unions, with his partners, with Silvio Berlusconi’s opposition party and with followers of the maverick Beppe Grillo.
It is possible that the new man could find reserves of resilience and toughness to succeed where his two respected predecessors did not, in which case more power to his elbow. But he is vulnerable, and not just to the usual difficulty of running a fractious government and coping with vested interests. He already faces sharp criticism for being the third man in a row to be made Italian prime minister without presenting himself to the electorate as a candidate. The polls say he is Italy’s most popular politician, but they also suggest that voters disapprove of his stabbing the decent Mr Letta in the back.
Ask the voters
The obstacles to change in Italy are gigantic. It would be easier to overcome them with a more cohesive government and a clear thumbs-up from the voters. Mr Renzi is talking of serving as prime minister until 2018, the end of the current parliament’s term. Instead, he should push through the electoral reforms that he has already agreed with Mr Berlusconi, and then call a snap election. Mr Renzi may be the right man to deal with Italy’s chronic economic problems, but he needs a proper mandate to change his country.
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