KIEV, March 14 – Ukraine has decided to introduce special duties on imports of new passengers cars with engines from 1,000 to 1,500 cubic centimeters at a rate of 6.46% and cars with engines from 1,500 to 2,200 cubic centimeters at a rate of 12.95% irrespective of the country of origin and export, reads an official report in the government's Uriadovy Kurier newspaper issued on Thursday.

KIEV, March 15 – MP Viktor Yanukovych, the younger son of the country's president and vice president of the Automobile Federation of Ukraine, has tilted on his Facebook page against a decision of the interagency commission for international trade to introduce a 6.5-13% duty on imports of new passenger cars with 1,000-2,200 cubic cm engines.

ODESSA, March 15 - An oil spill in the Black Sea off the coast of Odessa region should disappear soon all by itself, according to Oleh Zolotariov, the head of the department for environmental and radiation monitoring at the checkpoints of the State Environmental Protection Inspectorate of the North-Western region of the Black Sea.

DNIPROPETROVSK, March 17 –Turkey is reported to have discovered high levels of radiation in scrap metals supplied from Ukraine.

The director general of the Dnipropetrovsk-based Metallurgprom association of metal companies of Ukraine, Vasyl Kharakhulakh, said at a meeting of representative of mining and metal companies in Dnipropetrovsk on Wednesday that the report has not been confirmed.

KIEV, March 15 – The National Environmental Investment Agency of Ukraine says that the country's sale of greenhouse gas emissions units could double in 2011 compared to last year.

KIEV, March 16 – The monetary emissions of central banks of the United States and European Union (EU) could prompt the hryvnia exchange rate to strengthen, according to Petro Poroshenko, head of the Council of the National Bank of Ukraine.

KIEV, March 16 – The World Bank supports the idea of setting up a bank for non-performing loans (NPLs) in Ukraine, according to Marius Vismantas, World Bank Financial Sector Coordinator for Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova.

KIEV, March 17 – Naftogaz Ukrayiny plans to refine up to one million tons of Russian Urals crude oil at Lysychansk oil refinery (private JSC LINIK, Luhansk region) in 2011.

DNIPROPETROVSK, March 17 – International organizations such as the World Trade Organization are calling on Ukraine to cancel existing export duties on ferrous and nonferrous scrap metals.

KIEV, March 17 – Over CHF 5 million will go to funding the second stage of a Ukrainian-Swiss project aimed at improving the provision of public utility and social services in three regions of Ukraine – Vinnytsia, Sumy and Crimea, the head of the project in Ukraine Oksana Harnets, said during a conference devoted to decentralization in action held in Kiev on Tuesday.