Moscow/Kiev - Customs formalities at the Russo-Ukrainian border have delayed a camel shipment for days and killed one animal, news agencies reported Tuesday.

The lorry-load of 19 surviving Bactrian (two-hump) camels had been en route from Russia's Caspian Sea autonomous republic Kalmykia to a Bulgarian zoo, only to be halted by Ukrainian border guards near the Russian city Rostov.

One camel died waiting as Russian and Ukrainian border officials wrangled for close to two weeks over the animals' further transit.

Kiev  - A high-powered delegation from UEFA arrived in Ukraine on Monday to inspect the former Soviet republic's preparations to co-host the Euro 2012 football championship.

The team led by UEFA General Secretary David Taylor was scheduled to tour three of the four Ukrainian cities set to be game sites, and two alternate game venues as well, during the four-day visit.

Euro 2012 director Martin Kallen and the tournament's commercial director Phillipe Margraff also were members of the traveling panel.

Kiev - The Ukrainian heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko on Wednesday accused US boxing promoter Don King of blocking an undisputed world heavyweight title bout against Russian Nikolai Valuev.

Klitschko, 33, holds the IBF, WBO, and IBO world heavyweight titles. A fight between Klitschko and Valuev, holder of the WBA heavyweight belt, would arguably make the winner the world's unchallenged top heavyweight fighter.

Wladimir Klitschko's older brother Vitali, holds the WBC belt, but both Klitschkos have rejected the idea of their ever fighting each other.

Kiev - The international financial crisis and its devastating impact on Ukrainian state revenues has stranded a 40- metre Christmas tree in the central square of the capital Kiev, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday.

Near-empty city hall accounts and outstanding debt have left the Kiev city government without funds to dismantle the evergreen erected for end-of-the-year holidays, said Oleksandr Brihinets, a Kiev city deputy.

"The tree could be still standing until St. Valentines' Day... and maybe even until May," Brihinets said. "The city has no money."

Kiev - Murdered Russian journalist, Anastasia Baburova, was buried in Ukraine on Monday, with family and friends attending a ceremony in the city of Sevastopol.

Unknown assailants gunned down Baburova in Moscow a week ago as she attempted to prevent the shooting of an associate, Russian human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov.

Markelov died immediately in the apparent contract hit. Baburova was shot while attempting to apprehend one of his attackers, and died hours later in a Moscow hospital.

Ukrainian police presence was heavy at the funeral in the Black Sea port city in Ukraine's ethnically-Russian Crimean peninsula.

Kiev - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko rejected as "illegal" parliament's sacking Monday of the head of the country's national bank, marking a worsening political deadlock in the former republic.

Ukraine's national legislature, the Verhovna Rada, in a morning session voted no confidence in Volodymyr Stelmakh, director of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), citing a fall by nearly half in the value of the Ukrainian currency the hryvna since November, a shrinking economy, and rising government deficits.