Main news of December 25

RUSSIA

* A Moscow court on Thursday found Alexei Kurtsin, a former manager of now bankrupt Yukos oil company, guilty of abuse of office and embezzling 74 million rubles ($2.6 million)

* This year Moscow bailiffs prohibited to leave Russia some 6,600 residents of the Russian capital, who failed to repay their debts, the head of the federal baliff service said

* Russia's president said Thursday he had signed a package of anti-corruption laws

* More than 1,000 people took to the streets of Grozny on Thursday protesting a Russian court's decision to grant parole to a former Russian military officer guilty of murdering a young Chechen woman

* Twelve militants were killed during a special counterterrorism operation in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia, a spokesman for the local police said

* Russia will start off its new space year in January by launching an orbital laboratory to study the sun's activity, a spokesman for Russia's space agency told RIA Novosti

* Russia's WBA Heavyweight World Champion Nikolai Valuev has no plans of a rematch with defeated former U.S. champion Evander Holyfield, the Russian fighter's manager said

* Russia launched a Proton-M carrier rocket on Thursday with three Glonass navigation satellites on board from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, a space agency spokesman said

* Some 50% of all sexual crimes in Russia are committed against children, the head of Russia's Investigation Committee said on Thursday, urging measures to prevent such crimes

* Police have detained three suspects for the brutal murder of five homeless people in the town of Zvenigorod near Moscow, a Moscow Region police source said

* A court in Vladivostok handed Yury Kopylov, the former mayor of the Russian Far Eastern city, a three-year suspended sentence for abuse of power, a spokesman for the local judicial department said

WORLD

* The death toll from a gas explosion in an apartment building in the southern Ukrainian resort of Yevpatoriya late on Wednesday has risen to 20, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported from the scene

* Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert issued a personal "last-minute" appeal to Palestinians in Gaza on Thursday to stop rocket fire at Israel and promised to use "Israel's might" to strike Hamas

* Russia hopes the new U.S. administration will be more ready to listen to Russia's position regarding a replacement for a strategic weapons treaty, a deputy Russian foreign minister said

* Russia's deputy foreign minister on Thursday denied claims that Russia had supplied S-300 air defense systems to Iran

* The Israeli authorities are preparing a military response to Palestinian rocket attacks in Gaza, the country's leading papers reported on Thursday citing military sources

BUSINESS

* Russia's federal mortgage agency said on Thursday it had received 60 billion rubles ($2 billion) from the state

* Russia's GDP will grow about 2% in 2009 while inflation will be 10-12%, presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said