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After the revolution, Ukraine finally to sign EU trade agreement that set it off
• KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- On Friday, Ukraine will sign a sweeping economic and trade agreement with the European Union, a 1,200-page telephone book of a document crammed with rules on everything from turkeys to tulips, cheese to machinery.
• Yet the agreement is far more than just fine print for experts -- it was the catalyst of a revolution that killed scores of Ukrainians and toppled a president. The hope now is it that it will spark another kind of revolution, this one in Ukraine's corrupt, underperforming economy.
• The deal holds out the promise of sweeping change in a country rich in people and resources, but which has lagged behind many of its former Soviet peers.
• Consider: When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Ukraine and Poland were roughly on par economically. Ukraine's economy is still based largely on privatized Soviet enterprises in mining, steel and machinery. By contrast, Poland created better conditions for business and new industries arose. Poland joined the European Union in 2004 and is now roughly four times richer than Ukraine, measured in economic output per person.
• The deal offers "potentially as great a transformation as in Poland," said Nicholas Burge, head of the trade and economic section at the EU's delegation in Kiev. "That is what is potentially on offer for Ukraine, if they can sustain the pace of reform."
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Militants mount fresh attack on Iraq refinery as US troops arrive in Baghdad
• BAGHDAD (AP) -- Sunni militants launched a dawn raid Wednesday on a key Iraqi oil refinery they have been trying to take for days but were repelled by security forces, a commander on the scene said, as dozens of newly arrived U.S. military advisers and special operations forces began assessing the Iraqi forces in an effort to strengthen Baghdad's ability to confront the insurgency.
• Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government is struggling to repel advances led by militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a well-trained and mobile force thought to have some 10,000 fighters inside Iraq.
• The response by government forces has so far been far short of a counteroffensive, restricted mostly to areas where Shiites are in danger of falling prey to the Sunni extremists or around a major Shiite shrine north of Baghdad.
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