KIEV, Feb. 13 – The state budget's deficit, monetary policy, and the restructuring of the banking sector are major issues an International Monetary Fund mission is planning to discuss during another visit to Ukraine, as part of the first review of the stand-by credit, said David Hawley, senior advisor in the IMF External Relations Department.

KIEV, Feb. 13 - Twenty joyful but exhausted sailors stepped off a plane and into the arms of their loved ones Friday -- a happy ending to a four-month hijack drama off the coast of Somalia, The Associated Press reported.

KIEV, Feb. 13 – Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is scambling to find a replacement for Viktor Pynzenyk, who has quit the job of finance minister earlier this week amid disagreement over Ukraine’s widening budget deficit, people familiar with the situation said.

KIEV, Feb. 12 - Ukraine is to hold talks with several countries and international financial organizations on possible financial aid for anti-crisis measures.

The director of the economic cooperation department of the Foreign Ministry, Pavlo Sultansky, told this to the press on Thursday.

KIEV, Feb. 12 – The plans of the Ukrainian cabinet to allocate UAH1 billion each to the State Mortgage Institution, OJSC State Savings Bank of Ukraine (Oschadbank) and OJSC State Export-Import Bank (Ukreximbank) to credit the completion of the construction of buildings with a readiness of over 70% will not save the construction sector, according to CEO of Kiev-based Prostobank Consulting, Olha Onufriychuk.

KIEV, Feb. 15 ??“ President Viktor Yushchenko on Thursday backed plans for setting up a system for alternative to Russian oil supplies in Eastern Europe by involving terminals and pipelines in Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus.

KIEV, Feb. 15 ??“ President Viktor Yushchenko will soon appeal to the Constitutional Court seeking to obtain the right to dismiss the Cabinet of Ministers, Ihor Pukshyn, the president??™s top legal advisor, said Thursday.

KIEV, Feb. 14 ??“ The pace of growth in the credit portfolios of Ukrainian banks in 2007 will be lower than last year, according to Deputy Head of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Oleksandr Savchenko.

KIEV, Feb. 14 - Ukraine's Audit Chamber said the country made ineffective use between 2001 and 2006 of loans from international financial organizations and that as a result it received $1.9 billion less in that period in loans than it parted with as loan repayment and servicing.

MOSCOW, Feb. 12 - The involvement of Ukrainian companies in the extraction of natural gas in Russia won't entail lower prices for them, head of the Duma Energy, Transportation and Communications Committee Valery Yazev has said.