UKRAINE….

Yulia Tymoshenko, former energy minister and a key leader of the opposition to President Leonid Kuchma, won her freedom when the Supreme Court overturned lower-court rulings and declared that the government had insufficient evidence to support corruption charges against her. The opposition to Kuchma is deeply divided, but Yulia Tymoshenko’s star quality–she has been called Ukraine’s Joan of Arc–could attract public support in this politically apathetic land. Indeed a number of polls indicate that over half the population does not trust President Kuchma, who has failed to refute allegations that he joined in planning the disappearance and murder of journalist Gyorgy Gongadze last year. Rising dissatisfaction has led Kuchma to dismiss the interior minister (who may have ordered Gongadze’s murder) and to offer a few other conciliatory gestures. But for now the president seems firmly in control, with parliamentary elections not scheduled until 2002 and presidential elections in 2004.