Kiev - Ukraine's new ruling majority in parliament hit a glitch on Wednesday with one member party declaring a formal coalition agreement on the deal is yet to be signed.

MP Ksenia Liapina speaking for the Our Ukraine People's Union party (OUPU) said parliament leaders had four days to hammer out a common platform and get it approved by party rank and file, or the country's long-running political crisis would continue as before.

Kiev - Ukraine's top diplomat on Wednesday tried to put the best face possible on NATO's refusal to invite Kiev to join any time soon, instead saying his government "had achieved everything we wanted."

Volodymyr Ohryzko, Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs, called a Tuesday decision by NATO headquarters not to offer Ukraine and Georgia fast-track membership "The result that we were working for: We have de facto received an action plan for the preparation of Ukraine to join NATO."

Kiev - The Ukrainian government worsened official predictions for the economy on Wednesday, halving expected annual GDP growth for 2009 to between 3 and 4 per cent.

The former Soviet republic's economy already has moved into a full recession, with GDP contracting 2 per cent during December alone, and annual inflation standing at 21 per cent, a Ministry of Economy official said.

Ukraine's Ministry of Economy as recently as June had been estimating that the country would over the course of 2008 see 7 per cent annual GDP growth, and 15 per cent inflation.

Kiev - Bad weather forced Greek football side Olympiakos to make an unscheduled landing and an unplanned 500-kilometre journey by bus ahead of a UEFA Cup match on Wednesday, Korrespondent magazine reported Tuesday.

The Athens club had been en route to the city Kharkiv to play Metalist when fog closed in on the east Ukrainian city's airport.

Olympiakos players and staff landed at the main airport of the Ukrainian capital Kiev in the early afternoon and, after delays, continued on to Kharkiv by hired bus.

Kiev - Somali pirates holding the crew of a Ukrainian cargo ship loaded with tanks and munitions reduced their ransom demand to a cut-rate three million dollars, Sehodnia newspaper reported Wednesday.

The seventeen officers and crew of the MV Faina, carrying an arms shipment from Ukraine to Kenya, have been in pirate custody since September. The vessel was anchored near the Somali port Hobyo at last report.