An election campaign officially starts in Ukraine Thursday, 60 days before parliamentary polls fixed ahead of schedule in a bid to end a bitter political crisis in the ex-Soviet state.

Ukraine's president, by now well accustomed to the practice, today published his fourth decree in as many months scheduling early parliamentary elections.

EUR 200 million for the M-06 road from Kiev to Chop

The World Bank (WB) will issue a $200 million loan to Ukraine to rehabilitate its power system, a spokesman for the country's Finance Ministry said Friday.

The number of people hospitalized following a spill of highly toxic phosphorus in western Ukraine has reached 143, including 43 children.

Ukrainian officials say toxicity levels at the site of a train crash are much higher than the norm -- but that there is no threat to the public.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, has once again stated its opposition to giving Ukraine a concrete perspective for EU membership.

Ukraine lifted Monday its entry ban on a number of well-known Russians, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said, citing "a need for further development in Russian-Ukrainian relations."

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko today called on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to step up its work to help find peaceful solutions to frozen conflicts, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reported.

Ten parties backing Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko today agreed to join forces for the September parliamentary elections, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reported.

Ukraine and NATO are preparing to mark the 10th anniversary of the Ukraine-NATO Charter, which was signed on July 9, 1997. To mark the occasion, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer sat down with Ukrainian journalists in Brussels, including RFE/RL correspondent Natalia Vikulina, to discuss relations between Kyiv and the alliance.

Ukraine has substantially reduced its poverty rates, while the ongoing political crisis in the country has had a limited impact on the economy, two senior officials at the World Bank said Tuesday during a presentation of the bank's quarterly report.