From RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service:
The Ukrainian parliament has approved a new government to be headed by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
The cabinet was approved on December 2 with 288 votes, a majority in the Verkhovna Rada.
The vote came five weeks after early parliamentary elections won by pro-Western parties.
Five political parties agreed last month to form a coalition government that vows to pass an extensive program of reforms.
Yatsenyuk has served as prime minister since February, shortly after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country.
Parliament voted earlier to reappoint Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak.
Yatsenyuk's government includes Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, an American who previously worked at the U.S. State Department and received Ukrainian citizenship on December 2; Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius, a Lithuanian investment banker; and Health Minister Aleksandr Kvitashvili, who was health minister in Georgia under former President Mikheil Saakashvili.
From AFP on that nuclear "accident" in southeastern Ukraine:
Ukraine said Wednesday there was "no threat" from an electrical fault at a nuclear power plant last week and that it would would be fixed by Friday.
The short-circuit at the Zaporozhye plant in the southeast of the country occurred on Friday, leading to a partial shutdown and electricity shortages in the surrounding region.
"The accident happened in the third block of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in the power output section. This is in no way associated with the reactor," Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn told reporters.
Demchyshyn said tests would be run at the affected block over the next two days and "by Friday it will be working at full strength.
Nuclear power accounts for 44 percent of Ukraine's power production, according to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency.
A statement on the power plant's website had said that production unit three had been disconnected from the power network until December 5 and that radiation levels around the plant were "unchanged".
Ukraine was the scene of the worst nuclear accident in history in 1986, when an explosion at the Chernobyl power plant in the north of the country released radiation across large swathes of Europe and the then Soviet Union.
More from Brussels by AFP:
The European Union released 500 million euros in loans to Ukraine on Wednesday, the latest portion of a 1.6 billion ($2 billion) aid programme launched in March to rescue an almost bankrupt Kiev government.
The expected payout comes a day after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko unveiled a new government tasked with pushing through anti-corruption reforms, a key condition of the EU's loan programme.
From AFP on the cease-fire around the Donetsk airport:
Bursts of exploding shells echoed across the Ukrainian rebel-held city of Donetsk on Wednesday but a ceasefire at the disputed airport appeared to be holding one day into a tenuous local truce.
An AFP reporter said the calm was shattered just before noon by the sound of several Grad missiles that appeared to have been fired from rebel-held positions.
"We heard the shelling but we are not afraid -- we are used to it by now," said Oleksandr, 54, a resident of a partially-destroyed building next to Donetsk airport.
Local authorities reported no casualties and a pro-Russian rebel commander on the ground denied any involvement in the latest firing.
"Our side respected the ceasefire," the rebel told AFP without giving his name.
The latest truce in the nearly eight-month war went into effect late Tuesday after a round of negotiations between the visiting deputy head of Russia's ground forces and a senior Ukrainian general.
Donetsk rebel leaders signed up to the agreement at a separate meeting.
Another ceasefire for the entire neighbouring pro-Russian region of Lugansk is due to go into effect on Friday.
The two deals are meant to reinforce a comprehensive ceasefire signed by all sides on September 5 that was supposed to establish a 30-kilometre (18-mile) buffer zone and grant limited self-rule to the separatists.
But hostilities only intensified after the two rebel regions held their own leadership polls on November 2 that were denounced by both Kiev and the West.
Pro-Russian militias had been attacking the Donetsk hub -- once eastern Ukraine's most modern and busiest airport -- since May in order to prevent Kiev from using it to funnel soldiers and supplies into the war zone.
The structure and its landing strip have been devastated by constant shelling and no planes will be able to land there without a complete overhaul of facilities.
Truce agreements have been broken on repeated occasions with both rebel and government forces unable to control hardline fighters who reject the compromises of their leaders.
But Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko -- a pro-Western leader elected in May on a vow to quickly reunite his country -- has faced growing criticism over the human and financial cost of the war.
Battles between government forces and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine have killed more than 4,300 people and displaced 930,000 since mid-April.
From AFP:
Pro-Russia rebels violating Donetsk airport truce: Ukraine
New Ukraine talks possible next week, former president says
Moscow (dpa) -- Fresh talks aimed at settling the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine might begin next week, former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma said Wednesday.
The meeting would be of the so-called contact group, Kuchma said in Kiev, according to the Interfax Ukraine news agency.
Kuchma, who was president from 1994 to 2005, acts as Kiev's
representative at the group, which consists of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
The contact group brokered the ceasefire in two meetings with
separatist leaders in September in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.
The talks are in the works as efforts are renewed to enforce the
fragile ceasefire.
An agreement to stop firing at the Donetsk airport was broken less than half an hour after it came into force Tuesday, the Ukrainian military said.
Ukraine's National Security Council claimed Wednesday that the
separatists suffered heavy losses after launching attacks on the
airport.
"This object remains under Ukrainian forces' control," council
spokesman Andriy Lyusenko said.
A second regional ceasefire is to be introduced in the neighbouring Luhansk region Friday.
Ukraine and West countries accuse Russia of supporting the
separatists with heavy weapons and fighters - charges which Moscow denies.
The conflict has led to the worst crisis between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.
However, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said
Wednesday that NATO should open a fresh channel of communication with Russia.
NATO foreign ministers agreed to ask Secretary General Jens
Stoltenberg to find ways to restart talks between both sides'
military experts, Steinmeier said in Brussels.
"We should have a minimum level of exchange with Russia in these critical times," he said.
Ukraine to prepay for Russian gas today or tomorrow-energy minister
KIEV, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Ukraine will make a prepayment for 1 billion cubic metres of Russian gas on Wednesday or Thursday, Ukrainian Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said, as the deepening winter forces the country to rely for energy on its powerful neighbour.
Russia, which cut off supplies to Ukraine in June because of a standoff over prices, has insisted that Ukraine pay for supplies in advance. So far, Kiev has not committed to new orders as a separatist conflict weighs on its flagging economy.
However, increasingly cold weather is forcing the country to turn to Russia as it draws down its severely depleted reserves.
"The prepayment will take place today or tomorrow, I hope today ... We've started drawing on reserves more aggressively," Demchyshyn said at a briefing.
Since the start of the heating season in late October, reserves have fallen 17 percent to 13.9 billion cubic metres as of Dec. 1, according to data from Ukrtransgaz, the state-run gas transport monopoly.
State energy firm Naftogaz declined to comment when it planned to send the payment.