VIENNA, Nov. 8 - The Ukrainian government has abandoned its plans to reduce profit tax from 25% to 19% in one year, and is planning to extend the decline for three years with an annual reduction of 2%, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said.

KIEV, Nov. 8 - Ukraine will seek to join OPEC as an observer in order to get access to the oil organizations’ meetings and future oil price forecasts, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Monday.

KIEV, Nov. 8 - The Constitutional Court on Tuesday will begin deliberations on a bill that will eventually decide the date of the next parliamentary election.

KIEV, Nov. 5 – The International Monetary Fund may consider the possibility of providing Ukraine with the fourth tranche of the Stand-By Arrangement only after the country reaches a broad consensus concerning the implementation of its anti-crisis program, said Caroline Atkinson, the director of the IMF's External Relations Department.

KIEV, Nov. 6 – The office of the Kiev mayor is insisting on imposing a quarantine on the capital, Kiev Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky said at a briefing on Thursday.

According to Chernovetsky, the Health Ministry has refused to impose quarantine in Kiev.

IVANO-FRANKIVSK, Nov. 6 - The European Commission supports the idea of Ukrainian-Belarusian joint projects within the Eastern Partnership program, President Viktor Yushchenko said at a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Ivano-Frankivsk on Friday.

BRUSSELS, Nov. 6 – The final decision on Ukraine regarding its hosting of Euro 2012 will be taken in December, UEFA President Michel Platini said.

"We will take the final decision in Portugal during the sitting of the UEFA executive committee in December.

KIEV, Nov. 6 - President Viktor Yushchenko on Thursday asked the European Union for help to renegotiate its natural gas agreement with Russia amid concerns the agreement would drive the country into bankruptcy.

KIEV, Nov. 6 – Ukraine used Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, potential claims on the freely usable currencies of International Monetary Fund members, to pay for Russian natural gas imports in October, officials said Friday.

KIEV, Nov. 8 - President Viktor Yushchenko, in a television interview aired Sunday, said there was no reason for declaring an emergency in Ukraine in reaction to the swine flu epidemic that sweeps the country.