Main news of December 9

RUSSIA

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov began his two-day visit to Cyprus to discuss key regional problems, the situation in the Middle East, Iraq, the Mediterranean region and in the Balkans

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that a unilateral solution to the issue of the future status of Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo could provoke further interethnic violence in the region

* A Russian Proton-M carrier rocket, launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, put a military satellite into orbit, Russia's space agency (Roskosmos) said

* Two persons were killed and four others injured after a bus exploded in Nevinnomysk in southern Russia, the regional emergencies center said

WORLD

* A new center of H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in central Poland, the country's chief veterinary doctor said

* Fugitive Georgian tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili, accused of organizing a coup attempt in Georgia, was registered as a candidate at the early presidential elections in the South Caucasus republic

* NASA has cancelled its second attempt to launch the Atlantis shuttle for technical reasons, the space agency's website said