Ukraine opposition urges fresh polls amid pro-EU rallies

Opposition parties in Ukraine have called for early elections amid ongoing protests at the government's refusal to sign an EU association agreement.

A "national resistance" HQ is to be set up, they said, followed by a nationwide strike. Thousands have regrouped in Kiev after being forcefully dispersed.

A big rally is expected on Sunday. Jailed ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko has urged people to overthrow the government.

Ukraine refused to sign the EU deal after apparent pressure from Russia.

At the end of a summit in the Lithuanian capital on Friday, EU leaders warned they would not tolerate Russian interference in the bloc's relations with former Soviet republics.

The summit reached provisional accords with Georgia and Moldova.

Several Western countries have condemned Saturday morning's intervention at about 04:30 (02:30 GMT) to disperse protesters gathered in Independence Square.

A number of people were hurt.

Police said they had decided to clear Independence Square after "a number of incidents", Interfax Ukraine news agency reported.

It was not clear what incidents they were referring to.

"It was horrible. We were holding a peaceful demonstration and they attacked us," said protester Lada Tromada.

"They threw us away like garbage."

One activist, opposition MP Andriy Shevchenko, said at least 33 taken into police custody.

Members of the political opposition met for emergency talks after the dispersal.

"We have made a joint decision to form a national resistance taskforce and have begun preparing for an all-Ukrainian national strike," former Economy Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters.

"Our demands are the resignation [of Interior Minister Vitali] Zakharchenko, an investigation of his actions and his trial, the resignation of the government and the president and early presidential and parliamentary polls.

"We... are calling on all civic activists, civil society and all those who care about Ukraine's future to fight the Viktor Yanukovych regime together."

A big rally has been announced for Sunday.

Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has urged protesters not to give in "until the regime is overthrown by peaceful means".

In a message read by her daughter, Ms Tymoshenko urged Ukrainians: "Fly, drive, walk to Kiev from all parts of Ukraine, but gather everyone on 1 December."

'Foreign pressure'

Last week, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said he was suspending preparations for signing an EU association agreement that would have opened borders to goods and set the stage for an easing of travel restrictions.

He said pressure from Russia had led him to make his decision. Mr Yanukovych argued that Ukraine could not afford to sacrifice trade with Russia, which opposed the deal.

EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy said the parties had been "really close" to signing the association agreement in Vilnius, but added: "We need to overcome pressure from abroad."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the door would always remain open for Ukraine.

Independence Square was the scene of the Orange Revolution in 2004, which saw Mr Yanukovych ousted and a Western-leaning government brought to power.

Mr Yanukovych was elected president five years later, narrowly defeating then-Prime Minister Tymoshenko, a leading figure of the Orange Revolution.

In 2011 she was sentenced to seven years in jail for abuse of office - a case widely criticised in the West as political revenge.

Ms Tymoshenko has been on hunger strike since Monday over the failure to sign the EU agreement.

Leading Egyptian activist turns himself in

The protest law, passed a week ago by the army-backed interim government, has provoked an outcry among rights groups. The army deposed elected Islamist president Mohamed Mursi on July 3, following mass protests against his rule, and the country has seen widespread unrest since.

Maher and around 100 supporters made their way to the Abdeen court, chanting: "Down, down with military rule! I'll write on the prison wall that army rule is shameful and a betrayal!"

Clashes broke out between security forces and activists outside the court after Maher turned himself in. Police fired tear gas and used their batons to disperse the crowd.

Maher will be detained for at least a day one day while his case is investigated, prosecution sources told Reuters.

On Thursday, police arrested activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, also known for his role in the anti-Mubarak uprising. Arrest warrants had been issued for both men after they joined demonstrations outside parliament to defy the protest law.

Liberals and activists who backed Mursi's overthrow are becoming more vocal against the military, which has pursued a crackdown against Islamists in which hundreds have been killed and more than 2,000 arrested.The new law gives the Interior Ministry the right to ban any meeting of more than 10 people in a public place.

Security forces accuse Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters of promoting terrorism and violence. Many of the group's leaders including Mursi have been put on trial.

The group says it rejects violence and accuses the army of staging a military coup against a democratically elected government.

R.I.P. Actor Paul Walker, Dead at 40

Walker was reportedly taking friends for test rides in his new Porsche GT in Santa Clarita, when the driver lost control and slammed into a tree that sent the car bursting into flames, killing Walker and one other passenger. It's still unclear who was driving at the time.

The 40-year-old actor had been appearing in various movies and TV shows since the mid-80s but his real breakthroughs came in the early 00's when he was teamed with director Rob Cohen, first for The Skulls and then the first The Fast and the Furious. Walker returned for the sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious, but then bowed out of the series, returning six years later for Fast & Furious 4. That movie relaunched the series to the blockbuster status that it's enjoyed for the last three movies, while Walker has appeared in smaller, independent projects in between.

Walker was in the middle of shooting Fast and Furious 7 with Vin Diesel and new director James Wan and it's undetermined how much more Walker had to shoot on the film or whether rewrites and changes will have to be done.

Walker will next appear in the indie thriller Hours, a passion project of his written and directed by Eric Heisserer, that premiered at the SXSW Film Festival and was due for a limited release on December 13.

This may be one of the most shocking deaths in recent memory, reminding us of the death of Heath Ledger months before he would achieve his greatest success playing the Joker in Christopher Nolan'sThe Dark Knight. It's a huge loss to the industry, especially the popular "Fast and Furious" franchise, which he helped to nourish.

Ukraine unrest: PM warns against 'escalating tensions'

Ukraine's Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has called on the opposition to stop escalating "political tensions".

He warned protesters that anybody found guilty of violating the constitution and laws would be punished.

Mr Azarov was speaking in a live broadcast from the first cabinet meeting since mass street protests began just over a week ago.

The de

monstrations were sparked by the government's decision not to sign an association deal with the EU.

The protests are the largest since the pro-democracy Orange Revolution in 2004.

'Dangerous situation'

With the help of police, government ministers managed to bypass a blockade of protesters outside government buildings to hold their regular cabinet meeting.

In his address, Mr Azarov called on opposition parties to end the "escalation of political tensions" following his government's survival of a no-confidence vote in parliament on Tuesday.

He told protesters: "Your leaders are putting you up to a crime. They will try to hide behind lawmaker immunity. But you will have no-one to hide behind."

He said "the reasons for the street protests have been exhausted".

Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara accused "mostly" right-wing European politicians of "inspiring their political partners" in the Ukrainian opposition to continue the protests.

He called on those European politicians to urge the Ukrainian opposition "to sit together with the government to look for ways out of this extremely dangerous situation".

Mr Azarov said earlier this week he would send a delegation to Brussels on Wednesday to renew talks on the deal Ukraine had been expected to sign with the EU.

The office of the EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, could not on Tuesday confirm the visit. In a statement, it said it was "ready" to discuss various aspects of the agreement with Ukrainian officials but would not "reopen negotiations on the text".

Ukraine is also reportedly sending a delegation to Moscow, whose customs union it has agreed to join instead.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian and Russian energy firms have reportedly agreed to defer until next spring Kiev's payments for Russian gas imported from October to December.

Russia has in the past cut Ukrainian gas supplies in mid-winter.

Leaving behind his troubles at home, Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych has begun a three-day official visit to China in what is reported to be a bid to forge closer economic ties.

Both he and Mr Azarov are facing calls for their resignation from the protesters.

Mr Yanukovych has called for peaceful protests and both sides to observe the law after violence broke out over the weekend. "Any bad peace is better than a good war," he said.

Before Tuesday's emergency session of parliament Mr Azarov apologised for the use of police force against protesters at the weekend.

Ukraine protesters topple Lenin statue in Kiev

Ukrainian opposition protesters toppled a statue of Lenin in central Kiev as hundreds of thousands took to the streets in the latest display of anger at the government's rejection of closer ties with Europe.

A group of protesters dragged down the statue on Sunday evening, taking turns to beat the fallen landmark.

Earlier, the opposition threatened to march on Viktor Yanukovych's presidential palace and seal him inside if he did not give ground in the deepening standoff between the people and the president over the country's future.

Hundreds of thousands of people crammed into Independence Square and the surrounding streets on Sunday, chanting "Ukraine is Europe!" and calling on Yanukovych to resign, in the biggest protest yet of a two-week movement to force the president to reverse a decision to halt European integration.

Addressing the crowds, opposition leaders said they gave Yanukovych 48 hours to sack his prime minister, or they would march on his palatial residence outside Kiev and shut him in.

The protesters carried the yellow-and-blue flags of both Ukraine and the European Union. Although some also waved flags of political parties, the majority of those on the streets were not supporters of particular parties.

One man wielded an effigy of the severed head of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi above a sign reading: "Vitya [Yanukovych], the game is over!"

"We do not want to be kept quiet by a policeman's truncheon," heavyweight boxer and opposition leader Vitali Klitschko told the crowd.

Since last Sunday, when protesters attempted to storm the presidential administration and riot police responded ruthlessly, there has been no violence. The government has so far taken a hands-off approach to the protests but resisted concessions. The prime minister, Mykola Azarov,survived a no-confidence vote in parliament on Tuesday and has branded those on the square "Nazis and criminals", but after previous attempts to clear the square with force increased the protest mood, police withdrew from the city centre.

However, on Friday, Kiev police said that if two occupied buildings in the centre, including the main City Hall, were not vacated within five days, they would be cleared with force.

On Sunday, Eduard Leonov, an MP from the nationalist Svoboda party, was sitting at a desk marked "Committee for the self-government of Kiev" inside City Hall, and described himself as the commander of the building. He insisted that protesters would not acquiesce to the police demands.

"First, it's an illegal order, as MPs have the right to hold meetings wherever they want," he said. "Second, it's an immoral order, as this is a humanitarian mission providing food and warmth to the protesters."

Hundreds of mattresses have been laid out on the floor in the City Hall's main colonnaded room, and different stalls hand out food, medicines and donated warm clothes to those who want them.

"It the government decides to storm the building, then of course we will resist," said Leonov.

Yanukovych has kept a low profile since the protests started, even flying to China for a three-day trip last week as the centre of Kiev remained under siege. He returned to Ukraine on Friday, stopping over in Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin, with rumours circling in Kiev that the pair had agreed for Ukraine to join the Russian-led Customs Union. The rumour sparked fury in Kiev but was denied by spokespeople for both presidents.

Russia and the west have traded allegations over which side is putting pressure on Ukraine. On Saturday, former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili told the crowd on Independence Square that Putin had performed a "raider attack on a whole sovereign country", attempting to steal Ukraine's fate from its own people.

Alexei Pushkov, the head of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, struck back: "Saakashvili is kind of right. There is an attempted raid on Ukraine, not from Moscow but Brussels, grabbing it by the neck and dragging it to paradise," he wrote on Twitter. "The word 'paradise' should be in inverted commas, of course. For Bulgaria, Greece and even for Serbia which is just an EU candidate country, the promised 'paradise' turned to hopeless gloom."

Yanukovych has insisted he still wants integration with Europe, but could not sign the EU deal as it would have caused further damage to Ukraine's suffering economy.

Catherine Deneuve accepts lifetime achievement award with cool aplomb

The wet snow that fell on Berlin on Saturday evening had nothing on thefroideur of Catherine Deneuve, in town to receive a lifetime achievement prize at the European film awards and not best pleased about it either. "Lifetime achievement – those are not good words," the 70-year-old French actor told the press before the ceremony. "To achieve life is to mean that you are dead. It's not an award you give to someone who is still alive."

Deneuve was honoured for an impressive 50-year back catalogue that stretches from roles in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Repulsion and Belle de Jour through to more recent work in the likes of Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark and François Ozon's Potiche. Along the way she has been the muse of the designer Yves Saint Laurent and served as the model for Marianne, the national symbol of France.

On stage at the 26th European film awards, the guests lined up to eulogise her. "You are without doubt one of the greatest actresses in the world," said Wim Wenders, president of the European film academy. "You are the queen of European cinema, if we had royalty, and at the same time the most beautiful woman on earth."

Deneuve suffered the tributes with an air of pained good grace. Following an extended montage of her greatest roles, she confessed that she rarely looked back on her early work because she is too busy working or watching new films. She is a big fan of the US actor Jennifer Lawrence and cited the acclaimed coming-of-age love story Blue is the Warmest Colour as one of her favourite recent films. "It's a very effective and powerful film," she said. "And the two main actors are just incredible."

Despite winning the Palme d'Or award at Cannes, the film came up short at the ceremony in Berlin. Instead the night was dominated by The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino's opulent satire on Rome's cultural elite. His drama won four awards, including best film, best director and best actor for its star, Toni Servillo. The best actress prize went to Veerle Baetens for the Belgian film The Broken Circle Breakdown, while Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing was named best documentary. Ari Folman's European co-production The Congress took the animation award. Susanne Bier's Love is All You Need scooped the inaugural comedy prize. Sarah Greenwood, production designer on Anna Karenina, was the evening's lone British winner.

Picking up an honorary award for "European achievement in world cinema", Pedro Almodóvar paid tribute to embattled film-makers in his native Spain, where government cuts has led to a 28% drop in domestic movie production. "This has been one of the worst years for our industry," said the director. "And it is caused by the awful cultural policy of our government."

The financial crisis was the great uninvited guest at this year's European film awards, which were described by Marion Doring, director of the academy, as being "poor but sexy". The presenters fluffed their lines and tripped over their dresses, while the event unfolded in a spirit of mordant humour and merry disarray.

Conceived as a riposte to the Hollywood-dominated Oscars, the 26th EFAs contrived to make a bonus of its ramshackle, unorthodox nature. "Turn on your cellphones really loud," the event's host, Anke Engelke, told guests inside the auditorium. "Smoke and drink in your seats."

Deneuve, a defiant smoker who nursed a cigarette throughout the press conference, may have been mollified by that sentiment.

US attempts to halt Paris auction of sacred Native American artefacts

International campaigners are making last-minute efforts to halt the sale in Paris of sacred ceremonial masks and headdresses from Native American tribes.

The US embassy appealed to the auction house to delay the sale, due to be held on Monday and Tuesday, so the 25 items from the Hopi and San Carlos Apache tribes can be identified to see whether they can reclaim them.

The battle follows attempts to halt an auction of 70 Hopi masks in Paris in April. Even the intervention of the Hollywood actor Robert Redford, who described the earlier sale as a "criminal act … that could have serious moral consequences", was not enough to halt the €930,000 (£780,000) sale.

On Friday, Survival International, which campaigns for the rights ofindigenous peoples, lost a legal challenge over the latest auction. The French judge, Claire David, said neither moral nor philosophical considerations could justify preventing a legal sale.

On Saturday, Mark Taplin, the US charge d'affaires in Paris, delivered a letter to the EVE auction house asking for the sale to be delayed.

"The embassy made this request on behalf of the two tribes so that they might have the opportunity to identify the objects, investigate their provenance and determine whether they have a claim to recover the items under the 1970 Unesco convention on the export and transfer of ownership of cultural property, to which France is a signatory, or under other laws," the embassy said in a statement.

US diplomats emphasised the "great importance" of the objects to the Native Americans and said they should not be sold "precipitously and in the absence of consultation" with the two tribes.

The sale of sacred Native American artefacts was banned in the US in 1990 but there is no similar legislation in France.

The EVE auction will sell more than 100 Amerindian artefacts, but the rare masks, described as "exceptional" are the most contested. Among them, is a version of the Tumas Crow Mother mask dating from the 1860s and given a catalogue price of between €60,000 and €80,000.

EVE auctioneer Alain Leroy said: "Never has a sale of Amerindian art gathered together as many ancient and rare objects."