Thick ice has closed hundreds of kilometers of the Danube River in several countries and confined scores of ships to port on Europe's busiest waterway.

Romania's parliament has approved a new government led by former foreign espionage chief Mihai Razvan Ungureanu.

Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radicova has nominated the jailed Belarusian rights activist Ales Byalyatski for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has sacked Defense Minister Mykhailo Yezhel, replacing him with Dmytro Salamatin.

Ukraine's parliament has rejected two bills that would have secured the release of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was sentenced in October to seven years in prison in a process that rights groups and foreign governments have condemned.

The European Union has criticized Romania and Bulgaria for failing to reform their courts, reduce corruption, and fight organized crime. The Netherlands says it will continue to block their bids to join the Schengen travel zone.

Ukraine's energy minister, Yuriy Boiko, has said Ukraine is receiving less natural gas from Russia than required under current contracts.

Ukrainian officials say that at least 135 people have died as a result of the ongoing cold spell gripping Europe. Authorities have erected heated tents and provided food and warm tea to help residents cope with the subzero temperatures. But homeless people and social workers in the capital Kyiv say authorities are not doing enough to help the country's most vulnerable citizens find shelter from the cold.

In Ukraine, about a dozen parliamentary deputies from the party of jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko interrupted a speech by President Viktor Yanukovych, unfurling a banner with Tymoshenko's portrait and chanting for her to be freed from prison.