A picture taken on July 4, 2004 (before ilness)
A picture taken on October 10, 2004
Posted on 10/12/2004 10:26:52 AM PDT by lizol
Ukraine's main opposition chief back in race
Reuters
Kiev : Ukraine's main opposition leader, still undergoing treatment for a mystery ailment, has rejoined a campaign to overturn the scandal-plagued legacy of outgoing President Leonid Kuchma in a presidential election this month.
Viktor Yushchenko, looking haggard and flushed, flew back to Kiev on Sunday after a second stay at an Austrian clinic where doctors failed to confirm his team's suspicions that he was poisoned to knock him out of the October 31 election.
His main rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanuko-vich, is backed by Kuchma, whose decade in office has been marked by allegations of corruption and by clampdowns on independent media.
Yanukovich is also supported by neighbouring Russia and received what Moscow dailies described as a clear endorsement at weekend talks with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.
Appearing at Kiev airport, Yushchenko said: "I came to tell you I am alive and well and have returned home. I still need a few days of intensive treatment."
The former prime minister and central banker spoke without difficulty and seemed no longer to be suffering from his facial paralysis of recent weeks. But he was a shadow of the dashing liberal standard-bearer when he announced his candidacy in July.
Stopping in western Ukraine on Sunday, Yush-chenko renewed charges that Kuchma and top officials had plundered Ukraine.
"The criminals will never decide the fate of this country. That will be decided by you," he told up to 50,000 supporters outside Lviv's ornate opera house.
Yushchenko calls for closer ties to the West and points to his year in office in 2000-2001 as laying the foundation for projected growth of more than 12 per cent this year.
Yanukovich, a former governor in industrial eastern Ukraine, pledges further growth and stronger links with Russia, Uk-raine's colonial master for three centuries before independence in 1991.
Meeting Kuchma and Yanukovich to mark his 52nd birthday, the Russian leader proclaimed neutrality in the Ukraine campaign. "Ukraine is standing on the threshold of a very important internal political event," Putin told his guests at his suburban residence. "We will respect any choice of the Ukrainian people."
A picture taken on July 4, 2004 (before ilness)
A picture taken on October 10, 2004
Ping
Which Ukranian candidate was backed by George Soros?
I know when you run a search on Soros you come up with a long article about Soros' dealings in the Ukraine.
Whether or not is up to his doctors to decide and they have stated that it is not. Your collective bias is showing again. Maybe the Russians did it, maybe the Jews did it maybe the Poles did it (after all Poland still wants western Ukraine back). Or maybe he's just a sick man and as a politicians in a dirty political system is capitalizing on his illness by spreading rumors. No, couldn't be, all EU backed politicos and judges are just the empitomy of honoesty.
bump
The same one backed by the EU, Soros' friends. The same one our Polish friends here back.
"Which Ukranian candidate was backed by George Soros?"
No idea.
It was me, not Lukasz, who sais anythig about looking "poisoned".
I've just read today an article in Polish newspaper (those pictures are taken form it) about Yushchenko being poisoned. The author quoted some Austrian doctor, who supposed, that Yushchenko might have been given some kind of biological weapon, that had acclerated process of destruction of his organism (just like cancer does).
I'm not saying this is truth, as it sounds like some kind of conspiracy theory, but almost everything is be possible if great power and future of a huge country is at stake.
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