Main news of December 17

RUSSIA

* The pro-Kremlin United Russia party officially nominated First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as its presidential candidate during its congress

* Strategic Missiles Forces (SMF) commander Colonel General Nikolai Solovtsov said Russia will double its test launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles after 2009

* The first shipment of nuclear fuel has been delivered to Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, Russia's state nuclear agency said

* The Moscow City Court has referred the 2004 murder case of Russian Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov back to prosecutors due to the absence of the key defendant, a court spokeswoman said

* A nuclear submarine of Russia's Northern Fleet successfully test-launched a ballistic missile from the Barents Sea in the Arctic toward a site in the country's Far East, the Navy said

* All traces of November's environmental disaster in the Sea of Azov have been eliminated, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said

* Russia's Foreign Ministry said external interference has caused a stalemate in talks between Serb and Kosovo Albanian leaders on the breakaway province's status

* Russia began a scheduled rotation of its second peacekeeping contingent in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict zone, an aide to the commander of the CIS peacekeeping forces said

* An oil slick which has formed on Poland's Wisla River after damage to an oil pipeline could reach the Baltic Sea by the weekend, a highly-placed official from Russia's environmental watchdog said

* Nikita Belykh, the leader of the SPS party said he was resigning over his liberal opposition party's crushing defeat in the Russian parliamentary elections earlier this month

* A record 26,000 Russians are taking part in the hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which began at dawn and is expected to attract 2 million pilgrims, a head of the Russian mission said

* Armenia and Ukraine have banned Russian poultry imports following a bird flu outbreak at a poultry farm in the Rostov Region, south Russia, local officials said

WORLD

* The EU is to allocate $650 million in aid to the Palestinians, a senior European Commission official said at a Palestinian donors' summit in Paris

* Russia has pledged financial aid to a Palestinian National Authority development program, including $10 million in 2008, its foreign minister told an international donor conference in Paris

* At least 10 people were killed in a bomb blast in the town of Kohat, northwest Pakistan, national media reported

* Japan will be unable to purchases state-of-the-art U.S. fighter aircraft before 2010, and will prioritize instead the upgrading of the Air Force's 40 F-15 Eagle jets, a Defense Ministry source said

* The Kyrgyz president's Ak Zhol party won 48.82% of the vote in Sunday's parliamentary elections, giving it all the seats in the legislature, according to the Central Election Commission

* Televised campaign broadcasts for candidates in Georgia's upcoming January 5 presidential elections began on Monday, national media reported

BUSINESS

Gazprom and Germany's BASF AG closed a deal on an asset swap in the natural gas production and trade sphere, the Russian energy giant said

* Gazprom said the company could receive electric power plants in Europe in an asset swap with Germany's E.ON

* Oil output in Russia increased 2.4% year-on-year in January-October 2007 to 408.9 million metric tons (9.86 mln barrels per day), the country's top statistics body said

* South Korean auto giant Hyundai has signed a deal with St. Petersburg authorities to build a $400 mln car factory in the northwest Russian city, a spokeswoman for the governor said

* Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest steel producer, intends to build a metals plant near Tver in central Russia, the Tver Region's deputy governor said