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Main news of November 26

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RUSSIA * Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, has officially set presidential elections for March 2, 2008, Speaker Sergei Mironov... 26.11.2007, Sputnik International

2007-11-26T19:10+0000

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Main news of November 26

19:10 GMT 26.11.2007

RUSSIA

* Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, has officially set presidential elections for March 2, 2008, Speaker Sergei Mironov said

* Russian President Vladimir Putin said:

- Russia will need a strong and efficient army to ensure national security, but it should not be oversized

- The refusal of the OSCE's election monitoring body to dispatch observers to Russia's parliamentary elections was made on recommendations from the U.S.

* Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said:

- Russian energy giant Gazprom will not be split into several companies to produce, transport and distribute natural gas

- Moscow is seeking new contracts to continue nuclear construction work in India

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergeii Lavrov:

- accused Georgia of being anti-Russian, after the Georgian president slammed alleged Russian interference during mass street protests in the capital in early November

- accused Western countriesof fueling Kosovo's drive for independence by neglecting Pristina's violations of a United Nations resolution

* Lawmakers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have begun monitoring the run-up to December 2 parliamentary elections in Russia, the organization announced

* Russia may set a new record in sales of military equipment to foreign states, with exports estimated at over $5.5 billion in 2007, state-controlled arms exporter Rosoboronexport said

* Gennady Onishchenko, Russia's chief doctor, said he disagreed with figures published by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), which reported that around one million Russians were infected with HIV

* The leader of the Union of Right Forces (SPS), Nikita Belykh, said he expected parliamentary elections on December 2 to bring his party far more votes than opinion polls suggest

* Andrei Lugovoi, Britain's main suspect in the November 2006 murder of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko dismissed a BBC claim that he may have been tricked into the poisoning of the Kremlin critic

WORLD

* Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei predicted that the U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace conference due to take place in Annapolis on Tuesday will be a failure

* Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who returned to the country on Sunday after eight years exile, has applied for registration to run in the upcoming parliamentary elections

* The situation in Sudan's war-torn province of Darfur has worsened "radically" over the past year and continues to deteriorate, the International Crisis Group think-tank said in a report

* President Hugo Chavez announced that his country would freeze relations with Colombia following its leader's move to end the Venezuelan president's role in negotiating the release of hostages

* The U.S. State Department denied being behind a refusal by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's election monitoring body to attend Russia's December 2 parliamentary elections

* Badri Patarkatsishvili, a fugitive Georgian tycoon, accused of organizing a coup attempt in Georgia, has applied to be registered as a candidate for early presidential elections January 5, election authorities said

* At least seven Brazilian soccer fans have been killed and 30 injured, after a concrete floor collapsed at the Fonte Nova stadium in the city of Salvador in Bahia, northeastern Brazil

* Eight people died and two others are missing after Typhoon Mitag slammed into the Philippines, local media said

* At least three people have been killed and 45 injured in an earthquake in eastern Indonesia, the head of the republic's emergencies center said

* International talks on the future of Serbia's breakaway region of Kosovo opened in Austria with no sign of a compromise in sight

* President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met on Monday shortly before a crucial international conference to revive the peace process in the Middle East

* Warsaw is seeking three-way talks on Russia's embargo on Polish meat in December, which would also involve the European Commission, the country's new Agriculture Minister Marek Sawicki said

* A Russian fishing vessel has been detained by Norway's coastguard for illegal fishing in the Scandinavian state's economic zone in the Barents Sea, a Russian fishery official said on

* The Russian Progress M-62 cargo spacecraft is to make a flight to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur launch center in Kazakhstan on December 23, Russia's space agency said

* Georgians will have the chance to express their views on the country's mooted NATO membership while simultaneously voting for a new president on January 5, the presidential press secretary said

BUSINESS

* Russian energy giant Gazprom said it does not intend to review the timeframe for the Nord Stream pipeline being built under the Baltic Sea to pump Russian natural gas to Germany

* The price of natural gas for Ukraine could rise to $200 per 1,000 cubic meters from 2008, if Turkmenistan hikes its gas export price by 30%, a Ukrainian newspaper said

* Atomstroyexport, Russia's nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly, has begun talks on building a nuclear power plant in Belarus, the company's first vice president said

* Russia will start supplies of up to 5 million metric tons (36.7 million barrels) of oil per year to China via Kazakhstan from 2008, Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said