Main news of January 25

RUSSIA

* The Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church announced a shortlist of three candidates to elect a new leader following the death of Patriarch Alexy II last year

* Russian energy giant Gazprom hopes to sign gas supply contracts with Ukraine for 20-30 years to ensure stable gas transit to Europe, Gazprom Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev said

* Russia welcomes the resumption of gas transits to South Ossetia from Georgia disrupted by a five-day war between Moscow and Tbilisi in August, the Russian Foreign Ministry said

* Two girls aged 8-10 drowned after they went under ice in a pond in south Russia, the regional investigators' committee said

WORLD

* Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will arrive in Tehran in February to discuss Iran's controversial nuclear program, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported

* A Hamas delegation is meeting with Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to discuss ways to achieve a lasting truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip, Egyptian news agency MENA reported

* Ukraine is drifting towards default as Ukrainian authorities' actions are only deteriorating the situation in the ex-Soviet republic amid the ongoing global financial crisis, said Oleksandr Holub, a member of the Communist faction in Ukraine's parliament

* A 29-year-old man from southwest China's Guizhou province was diagnosed with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, the sixth human case of the virus in China this year, Xinhua reported

* Iran executed six people convicted of drug trafficking and other crimes in a prison in the northeastern province of Khorasan Rasavi, local media reported

* Five policemen were killed and one captured after Taliban militants attacked a police post in southern Afghanistan