Kiev - New loans to Ukraine's cash-strapped government remain difficult to approve, despite recent attempts at market reforms in country, a senior fund official said Tuesday. "We are continuing our discussions... but at this point is is premature to say, when it might be possible," said Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission head in Ukraine.

Kiev - Cash shortages have left Ukraine's military unable to feed peacekeeping troops deployed overseas, Sehodnia newspaper reported Friday. Ukraine's Ministry of Defence for peacekeeper troop maintenance has thus far been budgeted 9.2 million dollars, against a planned 40 million dollars, said Viktor Korendonovych, an Army spokesman.

"At this rate, we will not be able to feed out troops past May," he said.

Peacekeeping operations affected by the shortage would include Ukrainian troop deployments to Liberia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.

Kiev - Ukraine's parliament has voted to hold presidential elections in the country in October, earlier than expected in a further sign of resistance to the government of incumbent Viktor Yushchenko.

In the Ukrainian parliament, the Rada, 401 of 422 representatives voted on Wednesday for the presidential poll to be held on October 25, earlier than a previously suggested date in January 2010, the end of Yushchenko's mandate.

Kiev - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on Tuesday proposed a massive overhaul of the country's constitution, an idea rejected almost immediately by opposition leaders.

The proposal includes making Parliament bicameral, with a national assembly of short-term members of parliament (MPs) responsible for day-to-day legislation, particularly fiscal policy. A long-serving senate would be responsible for most official appointments of, among others, judges and ministers.

Kiev  - Hundreds of striking Ukrainian bus drivers blocked key roads in Kiev to protest against increased licensing fees and allegedly oppressive city government regulations, snarling traffic and stranding thousands of motorists.

More than 700 privately-owned buses were parked on Kiev's main thoroughfare the Khreshchatyk by early morning, causing commuter delays of up to an hour.

The bus drivers were demonstrating against transportation licensing fees hikes newly-enacted by Kiev city mayor Leonid Chernovetsky.

Brussels  - The European Union and Ukraine on Monday are set to agree on a programme of political reforms and physical repairs to the former-Soviet state's giant gas network, EU officials said.

One fifth of all the natural gas consumed in the EU flows through Ukraine's 13,500-kilometre network of gas pipelines, but experts say that that network will need some 2.5 billion euros (3.4 billion dollars) in investment over the next six years just to keep pipes and pumping stations in running order.