WORLD
*Deep Space Industries, a newly established US space exploration company has announced plans to create the world’s first fleet of commercial asteroid-mining spacecraft
*A district court in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek turned down a request on behalf of opposition leaders, who are on trial on attempted coup charges, to be taken out of prison and be put under house arrest, judge Adylbek Subankulov said
*Israeli election officials published the final tally in the country’s parliamentary elections, giving right-wing forces supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a narrow majority in the 120-seat Knesset
*The number of children adopted from abroad continued to decline in the United States last year, reaching its lowest level for years, according to a recent State Department report
*The Syrian Interior Ministry called on all citizens, who fled the country amid the ongoing bloody conflict, to come back and pledged to help with formalizing documents
*Yemeni authorities announced again that the second in command of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was killed in a counterterrorism operation, Al Arabiya reported
* The Czech Republic begins on Friday the second and final round of the country’s first direct presidential vote that will last into Saturday
*A free speech battle is brewing in Washington after a local judge banished from the US capital an anti-abortion protester who scaled a tree and shouted repeatedly during US President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony this week
*US President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the next US Secretary of State, Sen. John Kerry, told a Senate panel that the United States must find a way to work with Russia
RUSSIA
*Russia and Georgia held their first unmediated meeting in five years this week, after the two sides attended the winter session of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) to discuss a report on humanitarian issues arising from the war fought between them in 2008
*Russian steelmaker MMK has signed a deal to sell its 50-percent stake in the Kazankovskaya coal company to rival Evraz, MMK said
*Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has announced a tender for the delivery of fine bone-china tea and coffee sets at a cost of 2.1 million rubles (about $70,000), according to the state procurement agency website
*The United States has no place in any dialog between Russia’s government and opposition movements opposed to President Vladimir Putin’s rule, Putin’s spokesman has told a US journal
*Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attempted to play down a dispute between Russia and Kazakhstan over terms for use of the Baikonur space center, after Russian media reports the previous day claimed the two states were on the verge of breaking off joint cooperation at the site
*The Supreme Court of Russia’s northwestern Republic of Karelia upheld a lower court verdict denying Sergei Timonen, a Finnish resident, custody over his children who have Russian citizenship
*The Novosibirsk aircraft plant, part of the Sukhoi holding, delivered five multirole Su-34 strike aircraft to the Russian Air Force, the manufacturer said
*A skyscraper caught fire in the Moscow City business complex in Russia’s capital, injuring at least one construction worker
*A fraud in Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN) has cost the state over 90 million rubles (about $3 million), the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) said
* A son of jailed ex-Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky said he would like to return to Russia, but will not do this while his father is serving a sentence
SPORT
