Main news of November 13

RUSSIA

* Russia and Belarus signed on Thursday an agreement to grant Minsk a $2 billion loan, and agreed to switch to rubles when trading in oil and gas, the Belarusian finance minister said

* The Russian General Staff has decided to buy unmanned planes from Israel over the next two to three years, a lawmaker in the lower house's defense committee said

* The Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier could be handed over to the Indian Navy in 2012 if Delhi provides sufficient funding for the project, the director of a Russian shipyard said

* Russia and Italy have signed a document restoring Russian ownership of the St. Nicolas Orthodox church in the southern Italian city of Bari, a Kremlin spokesman said

* A crew member activated without permission a fire safety system on board the Russian nuclear submarine Nerpa, causing the deaths of 20 people, investigators said

* The Moscow City Court on Thursday sentenced Alexei Frenkel to 19 years in prison for organizing the murder of a top Russian banking regulator

* Holy relics that were earlier stolen from the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow have been returned anonymously, a police spokesman said on Thursday

* Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will take to Portugal next week Russia's proposal to sign a pan-European security treaty, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday his proposal to extend the presidential term from four to six years, which will apply to the next president, did not mean he would resign ahead of time

* Russia could abandon its plans to place short-range missiles in the Kaliningrad Region if the new U.S. administration reverses its decision to deploy a missile shield in Central Europe, the president said

* Russia's population will decline by 34 million people by the middle of the century to 107.8 million, a UN population report has said

* Moscow does not expect any major decisions or breakthroughs to emerge from the upcoming U.S. financial summit of G20 leaders, a Kremlin source said on Thursday

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday he hoped to overcome ongoing disputes with Washington under the future U.S. president, Barack Obama, and that he looked forward to meeting him

* Russian international Roman Pavlyuchenko scored a goal in each half as his Tottenham side knocked Liverpool out of the Carling Cup on Wednesday evening

WORLD

* Russia will develop new mineral deposits if they are needed to meet energy supply commitments to Europe and Asia, President Dmitry Medvedev said

* The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine on Thursday of attempting to conceal the truth over Georgia's August 8 offensive on breakaway South Ossetia, and Kiev's role in the armed conflict

* The Rome Energy Meeting 2008, an international energy conference, opened in Rome

* Russia and Abkhazia are in talks on establishing a permanent Russian naval presence in the disputed Georgian republic, the Abkhazian foreign minister said

* U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates dismissed on Thursday Russia's proposal that the two countries abandon their plans to deploy missiles in Central Europe

* Ukraine's defense minister told a NATO gathering on Thursday that an action plan paving the way to alliance membership would help curb political instability in the country, Ukrainian media reported

* Russia is considering opening a base for its Black Sea Fleet in Abkhazia, a lawmaker and former fleet commander said

* A Kazakh national will fly to the International Space Station in October 2009, a spokesman for the Kazakh National Space Agency said

* Four police officers and two civilians were killed and three other police injured on Thursday in two explosions in south Afghanistan's Helmand province, local officials said

* Russia's foreign minister expressed his support on Thursday for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's announcement of a ceasefire in the restive Darfur region

* India's first lunar probe entered its final polar orbit around the Moon late on Wednesday and has now begun remote sensing of the surface, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said on Thursday

* South Ossetia will inform the European Parliament of the failure by EU observers to properly perform their duties in the buffer zone in neighboring Georgia, South Ossetia's envoy to Russia said on Thursday

* A U.S. gated resort community for billionaires has filed for bankruptcy, the Forbes magazine has said

* At least seven locals and one American soldier were killed and another 80 civilians wounded in a suicide attack on a U.S. convoy in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, an Interior Ministry official said

* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has admitted for the first time that the South American state could be affected by the global financial crisis, national media said

* At least 10 workers at an Indonesian gold mine have been killed by a landslide on the country's southeast Sulawesi island, national media said

BUSINESS

* The decision on Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization should be made as soon as possible, President Dmitry Medvedev said

* Shareholders of Russian-British joint oil venture TNK-BP will elect a new CEO by December 11, a Russian billionaire shareholder said

* Russian oil pipeline operator Transneft [RTS: TRNF] said on Thursday its net profit calculated to International Financial Reporting Standards grew 25.5% year-on-year in January-June to 42.97 billion rubles ($1.6 billion)

* Sintezmorneftegaz, a subsidiary of Russia's petrochemicals giant Sintez Group, signed on Thursday a contract with Indonesia's BP Migas on developing an oil deposit in the country's East Java province