Viktor Yanukovych has resigned his post as Ukraine’s Prime Minister. He is still refusing to acknowledge Victor Yushchenko’s victory in the presidential election.

Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovich said on Friday he was resigning as prime minister, though he refused to concede defeat in a presidential election, while the liberal winner of the poll prepared a momentous New Year celebration.

Yanukovich has denounced rival Viktor Yushchenko’s victory in the re-run of last month’s rigged election and has vowed to press on with legal challenges to overturn the outcome.

But in a televised New Year’s address, he acknowledged the appeals to election authorities and the Supreme Court stood little chance of success.

“In view of this, there is no point in staying on as prime minister. The political role of the Yanukovich government as a factor of stability in the past year is all but exhausted,” he said. “I have taken the formal decision to resign.”

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yanukovych’s challenge of the Ukrainian presidential election result has been rejected by the Ukrainian Supreme Court. Although, he seems committed to further legal action.

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich’s bid to overturn his liberal rival’s victory in a presidential election lay in tatters on Thursday after Ukraine’s Supreme Court threw out his complaints.

With West-leaning Viktor Yushchenko already discussing his post-election program, Yanukovich suffered a further blow when the Central Election Commission threw out his objections about voting irregularities.

Yet he has refused to bow to opponents’ demands to quit. Although, Yushchenko holds a lead of about eight percentage points in the preliminary count, a Yanukovich aide said new legal challenges were planned once the poll’s result is officially published.

As the article states, the Central Election Commission has also rejected a complaint by Yanukovych over voting irregularities.

The death toll from the tsunami has passed 120,000 people. As it continues to climb, aid continues to increase as well. Amazon has raised over $8 million for the American Red Cross, the World Bank has offered $250 million in tsunami aid to the UN, and members of Congress are preparing an aid package, in addition to the $35 million already pledged by the President.

Sadly, fears of another tsunami from a false warning created panic in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Tsunami relief scams have already started to appear. Captain Ed points to a New York Sun article which reports that bogus websites claiming to collect aid for the victims of Sunday’s disaster and other scams on the internet have begun to spring up.

On eBay, sellers are hawking Pez dispensers, a gold necklace, a stuffed mouse, and a “hand-carved” Buddha statue with the promise that proceeds from the auctions will go directly to charities assisting the victims of the tsunami in Asia.

Visitors to tsunamireliefaid.com are directed to a crudely constructed Web site with photographs of those who appear to be tsunami victims and instructions urging users to send relief packages and $10 checks to a P.O. box in Germantown, Md.

Donald Sensing also posts that a scam email is making the rounds asking for donations from an anonymous relief organization.

If you wish to donate, be sure that you are donating to a reputable organization. As I have mentioned before, Amazon.com is collecting donations for the American Red Cross. Hugh Hewitt and several others are recommending World Vision, and Rev. Sensing also points to the United Methodist Committee on Relief which has set up a specific fund to direct monies to the relief efforts. USAID, the U.S. government agency responsible for economic and humanitarian assistance around the world, has compiled a list of the agencies USAID works with that are accepting donations for the earthquake/tsunami victims.

Don’t be afraid to give; just make sure the organization you give to is going to get the aid to the victims. And when you give, please be generous.

MORE: The Command Post has a roundup of links to aid agencies accepting donations to support disaster relief efforts. Lots of helpful information in the comments to that post, as well.

It can’t be done. There is no way to prevent an upheaval of the earth like the one which caused Sunday’s earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Some people would like to make the argument that the blame for this tragedy lies with global warming. The case these editorials in the New York Times and the London Telegraph present is that the best we can do is detection and warning to minimize the loss of life and the impact that is felt by nature’s destructive forces. The Telegraph editorial even goes so far as to point out other areas in which we could through application of preventative measures mitigate other potential calamities.

The appliance of science has seen a huge surge in the Earth’s population, lifespan and in the extent of civilised society. The tsunami has taught us humility, once again underlining how nature, and not mankind, is still the real master. The plates that slide, shift and grind under our feet, the viruses that multiply in our bodies and objects in orbit are indifferent to our plight. The chances of a natural Armageddon might be remote, but the destruction of human life and impact on modern lifestyles would be so extreme that we should use science to defend ourselves better.

None of the potential disasters the Telegraph warns us of would be stopped by an increased focus on global warming.

Costas Synolakis provides a brief history of tsunamis, particularly those which led to the development of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, and provides one account that illuminates why education about the danger of tsunamis can alter the potential human loss due to a devastating tsunami.

The images from Sri Lanka, India and Thailand that have filled our screens–and the descriptions from survivors–are sadly all too familiar, at least to those of us who have conducted tsunami field surveys. At times, some of us thought that we were revisiting images from Flores in 1992, or East Java in 1994, Irian Jaya in 1996, Papua New Guinea in 1998 and Vanuatu in 1999–to just mention catastrophes in countries with similar landscape and coastal construction.

The response of local residents and tourists, however, was unfamiliar, at least to tsunami field scientists for post-1990s tsunamis. In one report, swimmers felt the current associated with the leading depression wave approaching the beach, yet hesitated about getting out of the water because of the “noise” and the fear that there was an earthquake and they would be safer away from buildings. They had to be told by tourists from Japan–a land where an understanding of tsunamis is now almost hard-wired in the genes–to run to high ground. In another report, vacationers spending the day on Phi Phi were taken back to Phuket one hour after the event started. In many cases tsunami waves persist for several hours, and the transport was nothing less than grossly irresponsible.

Contrast these reactions with what happened in Vanuatu, in 1999. On Pentecost Island, a rather pristine enclave with no electricity or running water, the locals watch television once a week, when a pickup truck with a satellite dish, a VCR and a TV stops by each village. When the International Tsunami Survey Team visited days after the tsunami, they heard that the residents had watched a Unesco video prepared the year before, in the aftermath of the 1998 Papua New Guinea tsunami disaster. When they felt the ground shake during the 1999 earthquake, they ran to a hill nearby. The tsunami swept through, razing the village to the ground. Out of 500 people, only three died, and all three had been unable to run like the others. The tsunami had hit at night.

Another OpinionJournal editorial (From Dean’s World) shows that those with a political agenda will persist in making their case:

One might think that a disaster of this scale would transcend normal national or political considerations. But in the world of environmental zealotry, even an event such as this is seen as an opportunity to press the agenda. Thus, the source of the South Asian tsunami is being located in global warming.

In an interview with the Independent newspaper in Britain, Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “No one can ignore the relentless increase in extreme weather events and so-called natural disasters, which in reality are no more natural than a plastic Christmas tree.” Speaking to the same newspaper, Friends of the Earth Director Tony Juniper pressed the argument home: “Here again are yet more events in the real world that are consistent with climate change predictions.”

But as the same editorial makes clear the argument for prevention is solid:

It is preposterous to blame the inexorable forces of nature on the development of industry and infrastructures of modern society. The more sensible response to natural disasters is to improve forecasting, put in place efficient communications and evacuation procedures and, should the worst arrive, conduct relief efforts and rebuild what nature has destroyed. Those cautionary measures, as is now clear, cost money. The national income necessary to afford them is made possible only by economic growth of the sort too many of environmentalists retard with their policy extremism.

Rich countries suffer fewer fatalities from natural disasters because their prosperity has allowed them to create better protective measures. Consider the 41,000 death toll in last December’s earthquake in Iran compared with the 63 who died when a slightly stronger earthquake hit San Francisco in 1989.

The answer doesn’t lie in less industry, but in more; so that, developing nations can afford the infrastructure to prevent such horrible loss of life as we have seen this week. And also in creating a robust infrastructure to rebuild and replace what nature destroys.

Peggy Noonan reminds us that 2004’s biggest story is full of small stories that encourage us that all is not as bleak as the escalating death toll would indicate.

“Did you hear about the baby they found floating on a mattress?” “Did you hear about the 2-year-old Swedish kid they found wandering down a street?” “Did you hear about the guys who floated on a refrigerator?” Did you hear about the model, the surfer, the snorkelers?

People are fascinated by these stories, and so am I. It’s a little like the first days after 9/11 in New York: “Did you hear about the guy in the wheelchair on the 91st floor?” Soon we will be hearing about massive relief efforts and individual acts of heroism and sacrifice, and those stories will be a relief, and maybe even in some cases an inspiration.

Not everyone distinguished himself. What to say of those who’ve latched on to the tragedy to promote their political agendas, from the U.N. official who raced to call the U.S. “stingy,” to the global-warming crowd, to administration critics who jumped at the chance to call the president insensitive because he was vacationing in Texas and didn’t voice his sympathy quickly enough? Such people are slyly asserting their own, higher sensitivity and getting credit for it, which is odd because what they’re actually doing is using dead people to make cheap points.

It is saddening to hear those critics make such noises at a time like this. Just as anti-war protestors seek to use the deaths of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to score quick, cheap political points against a war and a president they despise, so too these pundits and experts seek to promote themselves and their agendas in the midst of such sorrow and grief over this terrible tragedy and the deaths it has wrought. It is despicable; they are people without shame.

Citizen Smash also has a post on his own experiences with nature, past and present, and shares this gem of an observation:

NATURE HAPPENS – She doesn’t care whether you are an environmentalist or an industrialist, rich or poor, good or evil, black or white, Right or Left. She is neither vengeful nor forgiving. Elections, wars, and treaties do not constrain her.

I have survived earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires, hailstorms, and blizzards. I’ve lived on an active fault line, and in the shadow of a volcano. I’ve circled the globe, twice. I have witnessed blinding sandstorms in the Middle East, hurricanes in the Atlantic, and typhoons in the Pacific. I’ve backpacked across the Sierra Nevada, had my food stolen by a bear, and come face to face with a mountain lion.

The one thing I’ve learned from these experiences is that Nature is neither benevolent nor malevolent. Nature simply is.

Lastly, I have been reminded of my own experience with Hurricane Andrew in 1992. I can recall the sound of the wind, like shrieking cats, as it roared past my parent’s home. Or the explosive sound of our roof as it was ripped off by 200+ mile per hour winds. The rattling of the fan in our bathroom as my parents, brother and I huddled in the small room waiting for the dreadful storm to pass. I remember walking around my neighborhood later that day, and becoming lost because nothing was were it belonged. All of the homes in our neighborhood were damaged, ours less so than most. The scene was like something out of a war movie.

That afternoon we packed up our valuables and drove to my grandfather’s house a couple of miles away. A trip which the day before had taken minutes, now took almost a hour as we were forced to take detour after detour due to the debris blocking most of the roads. At one point, we drove on the sidewalk next to the road to avoid downed power lines. The next few days were full of daily trips for drinking water, as we queued up waiting upon the generosity of others. It was the simple gifts, things like a propane stove and bottled water which our co-workers and friends, who were more fortunate than we, were kind enough to spare, which got us through those first few terrible days.

Weeks of cold showers and no electricity followed. I remember my first hot shower a week after the hurricane struck. A friend invited my parents and I over for dinner and a shower. It was a much too brief return to normal life. For five weeks our neighborhood was pitch black night after night. In the distance we could see the glow of city lights – the lucky souls who had electricity – creeping ever closer, promising someday to come to us.

But, it all seems so small to me now, in retrospect. It was nothing in comparison with the present disaster. I knew my loved ones were safe. My younger brother was serving with the Marine Corps overseas and struggled to contact us. Even as my parents were trying to get word to him that we were alive and well.

But, soon enough life returned to normal. And that will happen with this tragedy, too. Life will go on, the dead will be buried, and buildings will be rebuilt. Once the initial disaster recovery is completed, the focus should be on preventing another tragedy, not placing the blame for this one.

Victor Davis Hanson takes a look ahead at the challenges which lie in our future.

Iran and Syria may sound defiant in the Islamic media; yet, the world around them in Israel, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq is either democratic or moving in that direction. Their support of terror and desire to acquire dangerous strategic weapons, in the President’s view, means that the larger war cannot be won unless both cease and desist or see their regimes changed – preferably through either diplomatic coercion and multilateral pressure or in extremis American force.

While the democratic stew brews in Afghanistan and Iraq, expect a number of Bush initiatives that will turn up the heat. The UN, reeling from the Oil for Food scandals, the Secretary-General’s nepotism, and the organization’s tolerance for mass murder in the Sudan, is under enormous pressure to democratize its membership, expand the Security Council, open its books – or face a de facto American disengagement. That is no longer a right-wing pipe dream, not when a majority of Americans now voices no confidence in either the efficacy or morality of such avatars of world governance.

The Palestinians likewise are facing an impending dilemma. Either with American support and aid they embrace real democracy and give up tribal Arafatism to negotiate as a legitimate interlocutor with the Israelis, or they will face a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the completion of a security fence, continued destruction of extremists and the recognition that they will lose their window on the West through Jerusalem, and instead stew in their own juice with their like brethren in Syria and Egypt.

Nor will the Bush administration cease its reexamination of its superpower responsibilities. The American people believes that there is no longer any strategic or political logic in stationing thousands of soldiers in Europe, but plenty of reasons – economic, political, and psychological – to remove the vast majority of them at a time of troops shortages closer to the front. NATO has become as impotent as it is widely praised, especially when it fails to honor commitments in Afghanistan and abhors involvement with Iraq. This obstructionism is in sharp contrast to the prior European desire of American-led military intervention – without UN or Congressional sanction – to remove Slobodan Milosevic. Having learned belatedly the wisdom of talking more quietly while carrying an even bigger stick, America may continue to offer praise for the status quo trans-Atlantic relationship, while unobtrusively promoting wider bilateral relationships – like those with Australia – based on shared commitments to freedom and the need for collective security against statism and totalitarianism in all its many guises.

It seems that the Orange Revolution may not be over yet. President-elect Yushchenko’s supporters blockaded the government headquarters to prevent Yanukovych, who was fired as prime minister by Ukraine’s parliament, from entering the building to attend a cabinet meeting. The demonstration was successful, although the Cabinet of Ministers did convene in another building without Yanukovych.

Yanukovych, however, remains defiant and has filed several legal appeals over the election’s result.

Ukraine’s defeated presidential candidate on Wednesday made a last-ditch but seemingly hopeless attempt to challenge the victory of his liberal opponent, Viktor Yushchenko.

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, already forced by the opposition to pull out of his own cabinet meeting, has lodged complaints with the Supreme Court and the election commission over last Sunday’s presidential poll.

“These legal challenges are an attempt to draw the Commission out of its impartial stand and into politics. And that is impossible,” Central Election Commission head Yaroslav Davydovich said.

Yanukovich – clinging to his prime minister’s post by a technicality – has refused to concede defeat in the re-run of the Nov. 21 poll, when his victory was overturned by the Supreme Court because of massive fraud.

And in a news conference, a defiant Yanukovich also said he would not quit as premier even though it had become difficult to do his job and said his opponents were “quaking in their shoes.” We will soon say what we have to say.”

Asked by a reporter why he had not attended Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, he replied: “I am not obliged to account to you where I was or was not at any given moment.” he said.

Yanukovych sounds a bit defensive. My advice to him would be to get used to it. Having reporters nosing around in your business is a hallmark of democracy.

Ben Kepple, meanwhile, has compiled a list of arguments for Yanukovych to use before the Ukrainian Supreme Court. (From Dean’s World)

The death toll in Asia from the earthquake and tsunami has risen to almost 77,000 lives. The sheer mass of dead bodies is making identification difficult.

For search and rescue teams in Khao Lak – where a four-year-old fisherman’s son survived for more than two days after being swept into a tree top – the problem is not finding bodies. The smell of rotting corpses is too strong to miss.

But identifying them may take a long time and one top government forensic scientist said some may never be named.

Pornthip Rojanasunant told Reuters at a Khao Lak Buddhist temple acting as a temporary morgue for 300 bodies – about a fifth of them foreigners – that she was collecting DNA samples of all the corpses by swabbing mouths or taking hair.

The samples could be matched to relatives later, she said.

President Bush responds to his critics after America’s contribution to the disaster relief was labeled, “stingy.”

“The United States will continue to stand with the affected governments as they care for the victims. We will stand with them as they start to rebuild their communities,” he said, adding that he had spoken by phone to the leaders of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia.

“I assure those leaders that this is just only the beginning of our help,” he said.

At a briefing with reporters at an airport hangar near the ranch, Bush displayed pique at a comment by a U.N. official that rich countries had generally been “stingy” in aid to poor countries.

“I felt like the person who made that statement was very misguided and ill-informed,” he said.

“In the year 2004, our government provided $2.4 billion in food and cash and humanitarian relief. … That’s 40 percent of all the relief aid given in the world last year,” he said.

America year after year proves to be one of the most charitable nations in both government and private aid. So far Amazon is reporting over $2 million in donations and that number continues to rise. Granted, there’s no way to know where all the donations are coming from, and I suspect a fair number of them are from outside our borders, but still it is staggering that as private citizens, we can raise over $2 million dollars. This just proves that when private citizens are free to choose where to put their money, they will choose to do the right thing with it.

Power Line has links (and commentary) on some efforts to pin the blame for the tsunami catastrophe. Shame on Rueters and Agence France-Presse for using this horrific human tragedy to promote a political agenda.

UPDATE: Sortapundit rebuts the inane AFP article.

UPDATE II: I have some more thoughts on this.

The Huygens probe was successfully launched from the Cassini spacecraft on Christmas Day.

Cassini used springs to gently push the 705-pound probe away late Friday at a rate of one foot per second, sending it on a three-week free-fall toward Titan. Cassini will make a course change next week to avoid following the probe into the moon’s atmosphere.

The probe’s successful launch from Cassini put smiles on the faces of scientists in the control room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

“This was a big one partly because we had to do this right or no mission at all,” said David Southwood, the European Space Agency’s science program director.

A detailed analysis of the release was under way, but there were no indications of any problems, said Earl Maize, the Cassini deputy program manager at JPL. “We are quite confident we had a very clean release,” he said.

Titan is the only moon in the solar system known to have a significant atmosphere. Rich with nitrogen and containing about 6 percent methane, the atmosphere is 1 1/2 times thicker than Earth’s.

The Huygens probe will arrive at Titan on January 14, 2005, where it will begin a 2 1/2 hour descent through Titan’s murky atmosphere before landing on the surface of Saturn’s mysterious moon. I posted about the Cassini mission to Saturn earlier this month, including some amazing images captured by the spacecraft’s cameras. The following photo was taken on Christmas Day.

Cassini’s Holiday Greetings
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Here is an image of the Huygens probe (closeup view) that was taken about 12 hours after the launch. (From UnSpace)

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog has links to aid agencies and information on the recovery work occurring in the region.

The death toll has surged past 50,000 lives. The tragedy could grow worse as there is a lack of uncontaminated drinking water, and the risk of disease from so many decomposing bodies.

Many of the bodies were already decomposing in the heat, underlining the growing health risk.

“Rescuers are holding their breath and using their bare hands, axes, or shovels to dig through piles of wrecked buildings and debris at Khao Lak,” said a senior provincial official, Chailert Piyorattanachote.

“We don’t have enough coffins and those that we have are too small for the bloated bodies of foreigners.”

…

For the most immediate needs, hundreds of relief planes packed with emergency goods were due to arrive in the region from about two dozen countries within the next 48 hours.

But authorities waited in trepidation for the outbreak of diseases caused by polluted drinking water and the sheer scale of thousands of putrefying bodies, lying in mud or being washed onto beaches.

The U.N.’s Egeland said there could be epidemics of intestinal and lung infections unless health systems in the stricken countries got help.

A top World Health Organization expert, David Nabarro said there was “certainly a chance that we could have as many dying from communicable diseases as from the tsunami.”

In Aceh, Lieutenant-Colonel Budi Santoso said: “Many bodies are still lying on the streets. There just aren’t enough body bags.”

“I’ve never buried so many in a single day in my life,” said Shekhar, an Indian gravedigger.

Eleven Americans are listed among the dead with hundreds more listed as missing.

On a brighter note, a Swedish child was reunited with his uncle after the uncle saw a picture of the boy posted on a web site.

A blond two-year-old Swedish boy, Hannes Bergstroem, found sitting alone on a road in Thailand was reunited with his uncle, who saw the boy’s picture on a Web site.

“This is a miracle, the biggest thing that could happen,” said the uncle, who identified himself as Jim, after flying from his home country to Thailand to reach Hannes at the hospital were the boy was being treated. The boy’s mother and grandmother were missing, while his father and grandfather were reportedly at another hospital.

The power of the Internet at work!

UPDATE: From the SEA-EAT blog: satellite images are showing the changes the tsunami caused to the Indian coastline and outlying islands. More on the regional changes in geography and on tsumanis in general. (From The Moderate Voice)

UPDATE II: The New York Times has an article on the role blogs have had both in reporting about this catastrophe and in promoting disaster relief efforts. (From Instapundit)

UPDATE III: The death toll has climbed to over 59,000.