Good morning. We'll get the live blog rolling today with a couple of items that were filed overnight by our news desk:

Court Gives Green Light For Ukrainian Ex-President To Take Lie-Detector Test

A Kyiv court has granted permission for authorities to administer a polygraph test to former President Petro Poroshenko in a tax evasion case, a spokeswoman for the State Bureau for Investigations (DBR) told Interfax on August 13.

Angelika Ivanova said the Kyiv Pechersk District Court’s decision was applicable only with Poroshenko's consent.

The former president told reporters on August 12 that he was ready to answer questions during a polygraph, but only in the studio of the Pryamiy (Direct) television channel.

During his unsuccessful re-election bid earlier this year, Poroshenko enjoyed enormous coverage on Pryamiy and local media have reported that he is the ultimate owner of the channel.

"I do not trust the DBR and its leadership," Poroshenko said. "I do not believe that investigators are objective and unbiased…I am ready to pass a polygraph test in the Pryamiy channel's live broadcast."

In the same briefing on August 12, Poroshenko accused a former official in ex-President Viktor Yanukovych's administration of trying to take over Pryamiy.

However, he denied ownership of the channel, saying "I do not have any property relations or ownership relations with Pryamiy TV."

The DBR has twice questioned Poroshenko as a witness in recent weeks over the sale of Pryamiy and alleged tax evasion during the transaction.

Volodymyr Makeyenko, a former lawmaker from the pro-Russia Party of Regions, is officially listed as the TV channel's owner. He was also the head of the Kyiv city state administration for just over a month toward the end of Yanukovych's truncated presidency in early 2014.

A billionaire confectioner, Poroshenko and his party successfully ran on a pro-European, anti-Russia ticket in the July parliamentary elections, winning 25 seats.

Based on reporting by Interfax

National-Security Council Chief: Ukraine's Spy Agency Is Top Reform Priority

The reform of Ukraine's SBU security service was high on the agenda at the August 13 meeting between the head of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) and an international advisory group composed of representatives of the European Union, NATO, and the United States.

NSDC secretary Oleksandr Danylyuk said the group supports "the Ukrainian authorities' stance on the need to urgently reform the Security Service of Ukraine,” according to a statement on the NSDC website.

Acting SBU chief Ivan Bakanov and Ruslan Ryaboshapka, deputy head of the presidential office, also attended the meeting.

Danylyuk, a former finance minister and McKinsey & Company consultant, told the BBC's Ukrainian Service on August 13 that a law is being finalized to revamp the SBU in order to "make its core functions of counterintelligence and combating terrorism stronger, not weaker."

The SBU is the nation's least reformed security or law enforcement agency. It employs more than 30,000 people and is considered continental Europe's largest intelligence service.

It has little civic oversight and has powers far beyond what its Western counterparts have. Unlike other public officials, the SBU's staff is exempt from having their asset declarations accessible to the public.

Danylyuk said he wants to either shift or take away the agency's investigative powers on anti-corruption as well as economic and foreign intelligence -- functions that are duplicated elsewhere.

"It’s paramount that, this time, reform will be successful and effective," Danylyuk said.

New laws and amendments to existing ones should accompany the makeover, he said, to eliminate legislative overlaps and for functions to coalesce across different agencies.

When asked to address the SBU's reputation for shaking down businesses and the documented lavish lifestyles of some of its high-ranking officers, Danylyuk said changes should take place in a such away that the "public trusts it, so that all its actions are understood."

To succeed in the makeover, the NSDC chief said "we [must] act as one team upon the instructions of the president of Ukraine."

With reporting by the BBC’s Ukrainian Service

That ends the live blogging for today. See you again tomorrow.

Global Measles Crisis Continues To Grow, With Ukraine Hit Hard

Measles outbreaks are continuing to spread around the globe, with Ukraine among the nations reporting the highest number of new cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.