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Main news of January 21

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A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours 21.01.2011, Sputnik International

2011-01-21T20:59+0000

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Main news of January 21

20:59 GMT 21.01.2011

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Russian state-controlled power trader Inter RAO is ready to invest $500 million in a project to supply electricity to Afghanistan, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said

* Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg urged Armenia to free jailed opposition figures

* Russian businessman Viktor Bout was extradited from Thailand to the United States last year without the proper procedures being followed, so he was in effect kidnapped, his wife said

* Iran does not intend to abide by with the UN Security Council resolutions against the Islamic Republic, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said

* Alexander Lukashenko was sworn in as president of Belarus for his fourth five-year term after controversial elections in December

* Closed talks in Istanbul between the group of international mediators of Iran's controversial nuclear program, known as the Iran Six, and Iranian officials started in a "positive atmosphere", the IRNA news agency said

* A man believed to be Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden demanded France pull its troops out of Afghanistan, warning the country of a "high price" for its policies, in an audio message broadcast by Al-Jazeera

* Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano expressed deep regret over the visit of a Russian defense ministry commission to one of the disputed South Kuril Islands

RUSSIA

* Two children survived the slaughter of eight people in the southern Russian city of Stavropol, a police source told RIA Novosti

* The investigation into the plane crash in western Russia that killed the Polish president was a thorough and transparent probe that drew the correct conclusions, pilots and flight safety experts say

* Experts warned of declining secondary educational standards in Moscow after a school in the capital was closed over exam poor results

* The Moscow city government has approved a rally by human rights activists on downtown Triumfalnaya Square on January 31, rights veteran Lyudmila Alexeyeva said

* Moscow's Basmanny Court ruled to hold the head of the CIS anti-organized crime bureau, Lt.Gen. Alexander Bokov, who is suspected of embezzling $46 million

* The Expert Council for Financial Markets of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has decided that Sergei Mavrodi's new MMM-2011 project is a financial pyramid scheme

* Russian presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said some media sources misinterpreted his statement concerning foreign investment into Russia after a new jail term was handed to former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky

BUSINESS

* Russia's poor investment climate is a result of rampant state corruption, excessive red tape and an inefficient judicial system, presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said

SCIENCE

* Two Russian astronauts ventured outside the Russian Pirs compartment at the International Space Station (ISS) for the first spacewalk this year