Kiev - Former French footballing great Michel Platini on Wednesday said a pair of Ukrainian sides had an edge over their French opponents in Thursday's UEFA Cup quarter-finals.

"I have to say the Ukrainians have a certain advantage," the European football boss Platini told a news conference in Kiev.

Shakhtar Donetsk visit Olympique Marseille with a 2-0 cushion from the first leg while Dynamo Kiev take on Paris St Germain after drawing 0-0 last week in Paris.

Kiev - Ukrainian border police have intercepted a record load of smuggled cigarettes, Korrespondent magazine reported Wednesday. Law enforcers at the Chop border crossing inspecting vehicles traveling from the former Soviet republic into the Czech Republic late Tuesday night discovered more than 220,000 packages of L&M cigarettes concealed in a rail car.

Kiev - New loans to Ukraine's cash-strapped government remain difficult to approve, despite recent attempts at market reforms in country, a senior fund official said Tuesday. "We are continuing our discussions... but at this point is is premature to say, when it might be possible," said Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission head in Ukraine.

Kiev - Cash shortages have left Ukraine's military unable to feed peacekeeping troops deployed overseas, Sehodnia newspaper reported Friday. Ukraine's Ministry of Defence for peacekeeper troop maintenance has thus far been budgeted 9.2 million dollars, against a planned 40 million dollars, said Viktor Korendonovych, an Army spokesman.

"At this rate, we will not be able to feed out troops past May," he said.

Peacekeeping operations affected by the shortage would include Ukrainian troop deployments to Liberia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.

Kiev - Ukraine's parliament has voted to hold presidential elections in the country in October, earlier than expected in a further sign of resistance to the government of incumbent Viktor Yushchenko.

In the Ukrainian parliament, the Rada, 401 of 422 representatives voted on Wednesday for the presidential poll to be held on October 25, earlier than a previously suggested date in January 2010, the end of Yushchenko's mandate.

Kiev - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on Tuesday proposed a massive overhaul of the country's constitution, an idea rejected almost immediately by opposition leaders.

The proposal includes making Parliament bicameral, with a national assembly of short-term members of parliament (MPs) responsible for day-to-day legislation, particularly fiscal policy. A long-serving senate would be responsible for most official appointments of, among others, judges and ministers.