The Ukrainian presidency has said it has negotiated a deal intended to end violent battles between police and protesters that have killed scores and injured hundreds of people, but European mediators involved in the talks would not confirm a breakthrough.

There are reports a political deal to end the bloodshed in Ukraine has been reached following marathon crisis talks.

Defiant Ukrainian protesters have seized control of the capital Kiev’s central post office, a day after clashes that left at least 25 people dead.

The European Union has threatened sanctions against Ukraine following deadly violence between riot police and protesters in Kiev in which at least 25 people died and 241 were injured.

Ukraine’s parliament has offered amnesty to arrested protesters, but only if demonstrators vacate most of the buildings they occupy.

Ukraine’s embattled president has offered to make a top opposition leader the prime minister, but it is unclear whether the overture will mollify the radical faction of protesters who have clashed with police for much of the last week.

AN EXIT poll says opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych has been elected Ukraine’s next president, steering the country away from the pro-Western course set by the 2004 Orange Revolution.

Police commandos acting on a tip-off killed one militant and arrested five others today in a raid against a bombing cell accused in recent attacks around the north west Pakistani city of Peshawar, authorities said today.

THREE days of clashes between security forces and militants in north-west Pakistan near the Afghan border left more than 56 militants and six soldiers dead, the military said.

The Taliban today dismissed a peace deal with the Pakistani government as “worthless”.

Three months after South Asia’s monster earthquake, hundreds of thousands of survivors chilled by the first blast of the Himalayan winter face a fight for survival until spring, huddled in unheated tents and tin shacks erected by the ruins of their homes.

VIKTOR Yushchenko's triumphant announcement of a new democratic era in Ukraine was overshadowed last night by the mysterious death of a cabinet minister and the refusal of his opponent to accept the result.