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.

Kiev - An underground explosion killed five Ukrainians attempting to remove coal and scrap metal from an abandoned mine, a Ministry of Emergency Situations official said Monday.

The blast took place in a locked-down shaft near the village Trubne, in the eastern Luhansk province.

It was not immediately clear whether the victims died in the explosion or the ensuing below-ground fire, Channel 5 television reported.

Investigating police said a methane gas buildup and unsafe use of metal objects was a probable cause of the explosion.

Kiev - Ukraine's decision to honour millions of people who died of famine in the 1930s has drawn cries of historical revisionism from Russia, which disputes claims that the Stalin-era government targeted Ukrainians with policies that allowed the famine.

Historians generally agree that the famine was a side effect of a campaign by dictator Josef Stalin's communists against rich farmers in the former Soviet Union.

Moscow  - Russian energy company Gazprom on Saturday threatened to cut off gas deliveries to Ukraine starting January 1 unless Ukraine pays 2.4 billion dollars of debt and finalizes new contracts for future deliveries.

Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov, quoted by the Interfax News Agency, dismissed arguments from Kiev that payments had been delayed due to the ongoing financial crisis.

"If the Ukrainian economy were really in a crisis, they would need less energy from us. There has been no sign of that," he said, adding that Ukraine cannot expect to receive billion-dollar bail- outs from the International Monetary Fund on the one hand and refuse to pay its debts to Russia on the other.

Stockholm - The prime ministers of Sweden and Ukraine Friday discussed Ukraine's efforts to form closer ties with the European Union.

Sweden hoped to see an association agreement in place between the 27-nation bloc and Ukraine during Sweden's six-month presidency of the EU next year, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said.