Main news of March 16

RUSSIA

* Foreign direct investment into Russia this year could exceed last year's figure of $28 billion, Arkady Dvorkovich, a senior economic adviser to the Russian president, said

* Russian female super middleweight world champion Natalya Ragozina added the seventh world title to her collection in Magdeburg, Germany, after beating Teresa Perozzi from Bermuda

* Two girls aged 6-7 drowned and a boy of the same age was rescued after they went under ice in northwestern Russia, the regional emergencies center said

WORLD

* U.S. Endeavour space shuttle astronauts completed their second spacewalk to attach a pair of arms to a Canadian-built robot designed for maintenance of the international space station (ISS), NASA said

* Large police and army forces locked down Tibetan capital Lhasa after week-long protests by Buddhist monks against Chinese rule, British TV channel Sky News said

* Residents of Ukraine's Black Sea autonomy of Crimea held a rally to protest the country's move towards NATO membership

* About 3,000 supporters of the Georgian opposition held a rally in the capital to demonstrate against the country's January 5 presidential polls, which returned President Mikheil Saakashvili to office

* Moscow held a parade to celebrate the Irish national holiday, St. Patrick's Day

* Hundreds of Latvians marched through the capital under tight police security to commemorate countrymen who fought for the Nazis during WWII

* Twenty-two Iranian students were burnt to death after their bus crashed with a fuel tanker and went ablaze in western Iran, Iranian media reported