Main news of September 27

a roundup of what happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced victory for a new coalition of her conservative Christian Democrats and pro-business Free Democrats after Sunday's general election

* Pope Benedict XVI urged the Czech Republic and all Europe on Sunday to remember their Christian roots

* France's culture minister said on Sunday he was shocked by Roman Polanski's arrest in Switzerland and regrets the famed film director had to undergo a new 'ordeal'

* European ambassadors have returned to Honduras to demonstrate support for ongoing talks to reinstate ousted leader Manuel Zelaya, the EU presidency Sweden said

* Israeli police used stun grenades on Sunday to disperse Palestinian rioters at a Jerusalem sensitive religious site, a police spokesman said

* Iran test-fired short-range missiles as its elite Revolutionary Guards began missile defense drills on Sunday aimed at bolstering the Islamic Republic's defense capabilities, official media reported

* At least four people have been killed and another 17 injured in a suicide blast targeting Afghanistan's energy minister in western Afghanistan, a police spokesman said

* Medical tests have shown that over 120 children are suffering from lead poisoning in southeast China, the official news agency Xinhua reported

* The total number of arrests in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the G20 summit that ended Friday has reached 193 people, Pittsburgh Tribune-Preview reported

* Honduras's de facto government led by Roberto Micheletti, parliamentary speaker turned interim leader, briefly reintroduced curfew in the country in response to ousted leader Manuel Zelaya's calls for civil disobedience actions

* Cuba and the Palestinian National Authority have signed agreements on cooperation in education, sport and culture during PNA leader Mahmoud Abbas's first official visit to Cuba that started Saturday

RUSSIA

* Moscow police confirmed reports that a senior official from the southern Russian republic of Dagestan was murdered in the capital on Sunday

* The number of people diagnosed with the swine flu in Russia has risen to 457, 76 cases more than a week ago, Russia's top sanitary official said

* The head of the Russian Orthodox Church paid tribute on Sunday to more than 100,000 people killed in a Nazi death camp in the Belarusian city of Vitebsk during WWII

* Russia's last space freighter with an analogue control system will reenter the Earth's atmosphere on Sunday before plunging into a "spaceship cemetery" in the southern Pacific, the Russian Mission Control said

SPORT

* Ukraine's Vitali Klitschko retained his WBC heavyweight title on Saturday night after beating previously undefeated challenger Cris Arreola with a technical knockout in the 10th round

RELIGION

* The head of the Russian Orthodox Church on Sunday called on believers in Belarus, where he is on a visit, to venerate the Cross as a symbol of true love