PRESS-DIGEST - Ukraine - Dec 16

KIEV, Dec 16 (Reuters) - The following are the leading stories in Ukrainian newspapers on Tuesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

HOLOS UKRAINY

- New parliamentary chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn urges the president and government to cooperate with the assembly.

- Local authorities in eastern Donetsk region say 200,000 people will lose their jobs in 2009.

URYADOVIY KURIER

- The government discusses new macroeconomic indicators for the 2009 budget.

- The foreign ministry says negotiations on freeing hostages aboard the vessel Faina, held by pirates off east Africa, have been completed.

KOMMERSANT Ukraina

- The bloc of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and President Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party have agreed on the text of an agreement to formally underpin a new, expanded coalition.

- Prime Minister Tymoshenko believes parliament should examine the "old" 2009 Draft budget with changes submitted by the budget committee.

- Kiev consumers face new threats of disrupted heat supplies.

DELO

- The hryvnia has slipped below 8.0 to the dollar on Ukraine's interbank currency market.