Main news of November 24

RUSSIA

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed off on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance treaties with Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Kremlin press service said

* Russia has proposed that a new European security agreement reflect basic principles concerning arms control and a common security space, Prime Minister Putin said

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed into law the federal budget for 2009 and 2010-2011, the Kremlin press office said

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has expressed hope that the new Washington administration could abandon its plans to place elements of a U.S. missile shield in Central Europe

* Europe would be the worst affected by the deployment of a U.S. missile shield on its territory, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said

* Shots fired close to the Georgian and Polish presidents' motorcade on South Ossetia's de facto border with Georgia on Sunday were a "provocation", Russia's foreign minister said

* Russia's president told his Peruvian counterpart that Russia wants to develop joint bilateral energy and military cooperation

* A serving crew member on the Nerpa nuclear-powered submarine, on which 20 people recently died, has been charged with "criminally negligent homicide," a Russian top investigator said

* Australia has assured Russia that it will do everything possible to ratify a nuclear cooperation deal with Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said

* The theory that the Stalin-era famine in Ukraine was aimed against the Ukrainian people alone was developed in the U.S. as an anti-Russian propaganda tool, a Crimean legislator and historian said

* A build up of cargo trains waiting to be unloaded in Russian Far East ports is threatening to paralyze the Far Eastern section of the Trans-Siberian railway, a rail official said

* The flight of Russia's cargo spacecraft, equipped with a new on board digital control system, to the International Space Station (ISS) will take four days, a Russian space official said

* A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts

* Defense lawyers for banker Alexei Frenkel, recently found guilty of organizing the murder of a top banking regulator, said they had filed an appeal on behalf of their client with Russia's top court

WORLD

* North Korea said on Monday that cross-border movement with the South would be restricted as of next month, the rail link between the countries suspended, and that some South Koreans would be expelled

* President Hugo Chavez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has triumphed in the majority of states in nationwide polls to elect mayors and governors, election officials said

* Polish President Lech Kaczynski expressed concern on Monday over the presence of what he called a "pro-Russian lobby" in the country, that is siding with Moscow over the situation in the South Caucasus

* Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has accepted an invitation from his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul to visit the country next year, the Armenian foreign minister said

* Ukraine will ask Russia to defer repayment of its debt for Russian gas supplies, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said

* Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said he has no plans to run for a third presidential term after his tenure expires in 2013

* United States supports a peaceful settlement of the conflict between Moldova and its breakaway republic of Transdnestr, but demands that Russia withdraw its troops from the region, the U.S. ambassador to Moldova said

* More than two months of heavy rains in southern Brazil have claimed 44 lives and left more than 20,000 people homeless, the country's Civil Defense Service said

* Ukraine's government will hold a nationwide quiz via mobile phone text message this week on knowledge of NATO, as part of efforts to boost popular support for future membership of the Western alliance

* The government of Kazakhstan will allocate at least 1.2 trillion tenge ($10 billion) to implement an anti-crisis program to see the country through the global financial crisis, the prime minister said

* Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has signed an order to pardon or reduce terms for 365 prisoners, a penitentiary service spokesman said

* Somali pirates, who hijacked a Saudi supertanker earlier in November, have reduced their ransom demand from $25million to $12 million, a leading Arabic international daily said

* Despite the ongoing financial crisis, London's top auction houses are looking forward to setting new price records during Russian art week, which runs from Monday to Thursday in the British capital

BUSINESS

* Russia's Deposit Insurance Agency received 200 billion rubles ($7.2 billion) from the federal budget on Monday to rescue troubled banks amid the financial crisis, the head of the agency said

* Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has fined Gazprom Neft and TNK-BP tens of millions of dollars each for abusing their dominant market positions, the service said

* Gazprom has prepared documents to take legal action against Ukraine over its unpaid gas debt, a senior official at the Russian energy giant said, adding a compromise would be the better option

* The head of Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom has hit back at Ukrainian politicians' claims that Moscow uses gas exports as a political weapon, saying the company meets all its commitments in full

* Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russian energy giant Gazprom, said it planned to keep oil refining at 28.3 million metric tons (207 mln bbls) in 2009 to match this year's level

* Venezuela's Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) will sign a "strategic" cooperation agreement with Russian oil and gas companies to create a join energy consortium, the Venezuelan energy minister said

* Russia's mining and metals company Evraz Group, controlled by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, has received a $1.8 billion loan to refinance its foreign liabilities, a business paper reported

* Russian natural gas exports grew 9.4% year-on-year in January-October to 165.8 billion cubic meters, the Economics Ministry said

* A delegation from Russia's oil pipeline monopoly Transneft has arrived in China to continue loan talks, a Transneft spokesman said

* Norilsk Nickel Australia, a subsidiary of Russia's Norilsk Nickel, announced on Monday the suspension of work at the Waterloo and Silver Swan mines in western Australia amid falling nickel prices

SPORTS

* Russia's double Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva has been named IAAF 2008 World Athlete of the Year for a third time

* Russian striker Roman Pavlyuchenko scored the only goal as Tottenham Hotspur beat Blackburn Rovers 1-0 on Sunday to gain "three important points" and move out of the bottom three of the English Premier League