UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT CHALLENGES KUCHMA.

On June 21, the Ukrainian parliament voted 227 to 61 to dismiss Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Vladyslav Datsiuk for corruption, Kiev radio reported. Datsiuk sounded anything but repentent: “under present conditions,” he said, “it is hard to find a blameless person.” But this apparently normal action by the parliament sets up a potential constitutional crisis in Kiev. Under the existing constitution, the parliament has the right to do what it did; under the agreement concluded between the parliament and the president earlier this month, only the president can take this step. If Leonid Kuchma goes along with the parliament, he will have conceded an important political point. If the Ukrainian president does not, he will thus reignite the struggle between the two branches of government.

Massive Anti-Government Protests in Yerevan.