A journalist friend of mine was filing a piece on Ukraine's political crisis for a major Western news outlet - and his editors made him re-do the part about Yushchenko accusing the parliamentary majority of buying up votes of the opposition factions. An allegation, according to them.

Last night, this same journalist friend of mine was swamped with messages from a friend in Italy, who was really worried after hearing on TV that Ukraine was on the verge of a civil war. Not an allegation, obviously.

In the middle of this imaginary civil war yesterday, Kyiv residents spent a whole hour admiring the really splendid fireworks - with lightning bolts having "a show of their own in the background" all over the horizon.

"People applauded," my friend wrote me.

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Enidd has mixed a BBC report on Ukraine's political crisis with her own photos from Kyiv - an awesome illustration of how the reality presented in the news diverges from the reality of the street.

And here's a comment from Little Miss Moi (and a longer post on civil war, Ukrainian-style):

[...] I celebrated the civil war by going to Hidropark and meeting some civilians, getting caught in a thunderstorm and eating shashlyk... [...]