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has a major naval base on the Black Sea.
• While the U.S. and the EU urged Russia to engage in dialogue with new Ukrainian authorities who came to power on the wave of protests that sent President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing to Russia, the Kremlin has refused to do so, denouncing the change of power in Ukraine as "unconstitutional coup."
• Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that Moscow sees no sense in having a dialogue with Ukraine's new authorities because, in his view, they kowtow to radical nationalists.
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Russia and Ukraine give different versions of sniper tragedy that drove Yanukovych from power
• KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- One of the biggest mysteries hanging over the protest mayhem that drove Ukraine's president from power: Who was behind the snipers who sowed death and terror in Kiev?
• That riddle has become the latest flashpoint of feuding over Ukraine -- with the nation's fledgling government and the Kremlin giving starkly different interpretations of events that could either undermine or bolster the legitimacy of the new rulers.
• Ukrainian authorities are investigating the Feb. 18-20 bloodbath, and they have shifted their focus from ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's government to Vladimir Putin's Russia -- pursuing the theory that the Kremlin was intent on sowing mayhem as a pretext for military incursion. Russia suggests that the snipers were organized by opposition leaders trying to whip up local and international outrage against the government.
• The government's new health minister -- a doctor who helped oversee medical treatment for casualties during the protests -- told The Associated Press that the similarity of bullet wounds suffered by opposition victims and police indicates the shooters were trying to stoke tensions on both sides and spark even greater violence, with the goal of toppling Yanukovych.
• "I think it wasn't just a part of the old regime that (plotted the provocation), but it was also the work of Russian special forces who served and maintained the ideology of the (old) regime," Health Minister Oleh Musiy said.
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Frustration hangs heavy over Afghanistan's women's rights struggle, 13 years after Taliban
• KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- In 2009, the United States gave Wazhma Frogh the (Continued on page 25)
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