The Ukrainian government, prevented from meeting at its headquarters by protesters, held a session elsewhere Wednesday but without Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich. 

Finance Minister Mykola Azarov, who also serves as first deputy prime minister, chaired the session at a ministry building in another district of Kiev, his press secretary said.

"A government meeting took place and nearly all ministers were present. Yanukovich was not there," Vitaly Lukyanenko said. "More than 60 social and economic issues were discussed."

Yanukovich lodged complaints with the election commission and the country's top court detailing violations during a rerun of a presidential poll, officials said yesterday.

Yanukovich had said he would challenge the results of Sunday's rerun of the rigged presidential election that handed victory to liberal rival Viktor Yushchenko. And he has vowed never to acknowledge Yushchenko's victory.

A spokeswoman for the Central Election Commission said it had received the complaint late on Tuesday. The complaint listed violations of election law in all of Ukraine's 225 electoral districts.

Yanukovich's aides also lodged complaints at the Supreme Court, a spokeswoman said.

In another development, Ukraine will withdraw its 1,400-strong military contingent from Iraq by the end of next year, said Defense Minister Oleksander Kuzmuk yesterday.

"Next April we will be sending only a reinforced battalion rather than a brigade and by the end of 2005 we will complete our pullout of the contingent," Kuzmuk's press service quoted him as saying.

(China Daily December 30, 2004)