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UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT APPOINTS DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER. The Verkhovna Rada on January 12 appointed Volodymyr Radchenko as deputy prime minister, Interfax reported. Yevhen Kushnaryov, deputy chairman of the Party of Regions caucus, told reporters that Radchenko will be responsible for law-enforcement bodies. Prior to his appointment, Radchenko served with the Security and Defense Council, Security Service, and was the prime minister's adviser on a voluntary basis. With Radchenko's appointment, the Ukrainian government now has five deputy prime ministers: the others are Mykola Azarov, Andriy Klyuyev, Dmytro Tabachnyk, and Volodymyr Rybak. AM

UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT SIGNS MORATORIUM ON LAND SALES, VETOES BILL ON CABINET. President Viktor Yushchenko on January 11 signed into law a bill extending the moratorium on farmland sales in Ukraine until 2008, Interfax reported. Yushchenko recently vetoed the bill, but the ruling "anticrisis coalition," with the support of the opposition Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc, overrode the veto. Also on January 11, Yushchenko vetoed a bill on the Cabinet of Ministers, returning it to the parliament for further consideration. According to RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, Yushchenko proposed 86 amendments, but the Verkhovna Rada failed to incorporate any of them into the bill. AM