| LOCAL leaders from Ukraine's eastern regions voted unanimously today in favour of holding a referendum on their "regional status", a euphemism for autonomy from the capital Kiev. Delegates at a regional congress all raised their hands in favour of "a referendum to be held in December this year to determine the status of the region". Any move towards autonomy for the east is anathema to nationalists and liberals 13 years after the country won independence from the Soviet Union. Ukraine's pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko earlier today demanded that prosecutors open a criminal inquiry into the heads of pro-Russian eastern and southern regions for threatening to declare autonomy. "We demand the opening of a criminal inquiry against the separatist governors," Mr Yushchenko told a crowd of more than 100,000 supporters massed in Kiev's central Independence Square. "The idea of creating an autonomous territory comes from the governors of regions where there was a record amount of (electoral) fraud," in the presidential election contested on November 21, he added. |