Russia's giant state-run natural gas monopoly Gazprom is threatening to cut off supplies to Ukraine next week.

SIMFEROPOL, January 4 (RIA Novosti) - Ukrainian rescue services have resumed search for eight missing crewmembers of a Bulgarian cargo ship that sank Thursday in the Azov Sea between Ukraine and Russia, an emergencies service spokesman said Friday.

Yatsenyuk's candidacy was put forth by the factions of Yulia Tymoshenko's Bloc and the Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense Bloc. The two parties formed a majority coalition in parliament on Nov. 29.

The planet's oldest living person, Grigoriy Nestor, died at the age of 116 in the Lvov Region in western Ukraine on Sunday.

As a reminder today, VRU chairman Arseny Yatsenyuk informed that according to agenda of the parliament, on December 18 People’s deputies must elect Prime Minister, dismiss Viktor Yanukovych from position of PM and current government, form new composition of the government, elect vice speakers and adopt a resolution of VR committees.

Ukraine goes into mourning for 88 coal miners who were killed by a methane blast underground, the most horrible mining catastrophe in the country since Soviet times.

Local prosecutors opened on Monday a criminal investigation into a mine blast in east Ukraine's Donetsk Region, as the death toll rose to 72, with 28 miners still missing.

The death toll in eastern Ukraine, following a methane explosion at a coalmine has risen to 33, and 77 miners are missing, Ukrainian Vice-Premier Andriy Klyuyev said on Sunday.

Ukraine has signaled it will be content with a Russian natural gas price of $160 per 1,000 cubic meters, a top manager of Russian energy giant Gazprom said on Friday.

Ukraine has paid for Russian natural gas supplies in 2007 in full, RosUkrEnergo, the sole gas supplier to the former Soviet republic, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Now that President Viktor Yushchenko has confirmed that he wants the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) and the Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense (NUNS) bloc to form a ruling coalition, the two Orange Revolution allies may have a second chance to deliver on the promises they solemnly made in 2004 and disappointingly failed to meet.

A gas explosion tore through an apartment building in central Ukraine, killing at least six people and injuring many others with the casualty toll likely to rise, officials said.