Ukrainian president sacks Interior Minister

The Ukrainian President, Leonid Kuchma, has confirmed the dismissal of the Interior Minister whom the opposition accuse of involvement in the killing of a dissident journalist.

Mr Kuchma told the BBC Ukrainian Service that the Minister, Yuriy Kravchenko, had been replaced by his deputy Yuriy Smirnov.

Opposition activists, who have been staging anti-Kuchma protests for the past three months, have demanded Mr Kravchenko's dismissal over allegations that both he and the president were involved in the murder last year of a dissident journalist, Georgy Gongadze.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service