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Main news of December 20

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RUSSIA * Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said he will resign as chairman of the Gazprom energy giant's board if he wins presidential... 20.12.2007, Sputnik International

2007-12-20T19:01+0000

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Main news of December 20

19:01 GMT 20.12.2007

RUSSIA

* Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said he will resign as chairman of the Gazprom energy giant's board if he wins presidential polls in March 2008

* President Vladimir Putin said Russia and Kazakhstan had pledged to carry on cooperating in the peaceful use of nuclear power

* There are no technical obstacles to the continuation of long-distance patrols by Russian strategic bombers, the commander of the Air Force's strategic aviation said

* Russia has defined the terms of meat product supplies from Poland, following Moscow's decision to lift a two-year ban on Polish meat, the Russian agricultural watchdog said

* Iran's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr will not be commissioned before the end of 2008, the Russian contractor building the $1 billion plant said

* Russia's Culture Agency said Britain has not provided sufficient guarantees against potential legal claims to allow an exhibition of paintings from Russian museums to go ahead in London next month

* Russia's Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev demanded that the Baikal pulp mill stop dumping unpurified waste into Lake Baikal immediately, the ministry said

* The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is prepared to send its observers to monitor Russia's presidential elections scheduled for March 2, 2008, PACE President Rene van der Linden said

* Manana Aslamazyan, the head of a U.S.-funded NGO, has been put on the Russian federal wanted list, a law enforcement source said

* Alexander Ponosov, a Russian provincial school head accused of pirating Microsoft software, said he will appeal a guilty verdict in Russia's Supreme Court and in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg

* A third outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus has occurred in south Russia, regional veterinary officials said

WORLD

* North Korea is sticking to its denuclearization commitments made at six-nation talks in October, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said

* Almost 2.5 million pilgrims are completing their hajj in Mecca, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said

* The Georgian authorities are determined to arrest opposition presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili should he arrive in the country, the head of the tycoon's staff said

* Russian nuclear fuel supplies and the construction of an atomic power plant in Iran aid the Islamic Republic in its attempts to develop nuclear weapons, an Israeli government minister said

* The world's two most populous nations China and India, who have held each other at arm's length since the 1962 Sino-Indian war, began their first-ever joint military exercise

* Israel is against a Russian proposal to hold a Middle East peace conference in the coming months as a follow up to a summit hosted by the U.S. in November, the Haaretz newspaper reported

* The great-grandson of the late British prime minister Winston Churchill has been sentenced to three years in an Australian prison, British media reported

* At least six Palestinian militants were killed and five Israeli soldiers wounded during clashes in the Gaza Strip, local officials said

* Police in Kyrgyzstan's capital have arrested about 20 people protesting against the results of Sunday's early parliamentary elections that saw a landslide victory of the pro-presidential Ak Zhol party

* A Russian national was caught red-handed at Cairo International Airport with hundreds of exotic reptiles in his baggage, national media reported

* The captain of a Japanese fishing trawler, detained last week for illegally entering Russian territorial waters but later released due to health problems, has arrived home, Kyodo said

* Britain's Queen Elizabeth II has become the oldest living monarch in the country's history, national media said

BUSINESS

* Russia and Belarus signed an intergovernmental agreement to grant Minsk a $1.5 billion stabilization loan

* Russia and the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan signed an agreement to build a natural gas pipeline along the Caspian Sea coast

* The Murmansk Shipping Company is set to sign contracts with Chinese shipbuilders on the construction of 12 ice-class bulker ships, the company's general director said

* Russia could ban Japanese vessels from fishing near the South Kuril islands if the Southeast Asian country continues to violate fishing rules, the Foreign Ministry said