The European Union has imposed sanctions on the organizers of rebel elections in eastern Ukraine this month, the bloc said on Saturday, hitting the separatists and their organizations with asset freezes and travel bans.
Ukraine's parliament approved Arseny Yatseniuk for a new term as prime minister on Thursday in a ceremony that countered reports of high-level disunity in a message to Russia over its backing of separatists in the country's east.
After nine months of non-stop German diplomacy to defuse the crisis in Ukraine, Chancellor Angela Merkel decided in mid-November that a change of tack was needed.
Iranian officials say they can turn to Beijing and Moscow if talks in Vienna fail to end Western sanctions, but with oil prices falling, China's economy slowing and Russia in its own sanctions-induced slump, Tehran's "plan B" hardly looks ideal.
