Main news of November 10

RUSSIA

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the country must develop a set of measures to influence world oil prices

* A commission investigating an accident on a Russian nuclear submarine that killed 20 people and injured another 22 said the probable cause was a malfunction in the vessel's fire safety system

* The Russian Defense Ministry denied media reports that the former commander of the Chechen Vostok battalion, Sulim Yamadayev, had been assigned to a new post

* A journalist was badly beaten up in Makhachkala, the capital of the Russian North Caucasus republic of Daghestan, one of his colleagues said

* A police officer was killed in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia when unidentified assailants opened fire at his car, a spokesperson for local investigators said

WORLD

* The European Union said talks on a new strategic partnership agreement with Russia would resume later this month, despite opposition from Lithuania

* Mayors of 15 Czech cities are to ask U.S. president-elect Barack Obama to abandon the Bush administration's plans to place a missile defense radar in the Czech Republic, a member of the European parliament said

* Lebanon wants to establish contacts with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and may consider recognizing the two Georgian separatist republics as independent, Russian daily Vremya Novostei reported

BUSINESS

* Fitch downgraded rating outlooks for 12 Russian banks to negative from stable, the international rating agency said

* Russian metals giant Norilsk Nickel and Cuba's Cubanique signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in geological prospecting in Cuba, the Russian company said

* Italian cement producer Buzzi Unicem S.p.A. will invest 12 billion rubles ($444 million) in the construction of a cement factory in the Orenburg Region in Russia's Urals, the regional government said