Main news of November 17

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

 

RUSSIA

* A Russian shipyard will float out the first of three frigates for India's Navy November 27, a company spokesman said

* Russia is close to finishing the construction of Iran's first nuclear power plant and is currently making final adjustments, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said

* Russia's foreign minister said there was no connection between the ongoing international dispute over Iran's nuclear program and a delay in launching the country's first nuclear power plant

WORLD

* Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said Tehran sees a U.S.-backed plan over nuclear fuel swaps as positive, provided that the exchange of enriched uranium takes place inside the country

* Somali pirates have seized a chemical tanker in the south Somali basin, some 180 nautical miles northwest of Seychelles, the EU NAVFOR Somalia said in a press release

* Arab countries support the Palestinian National Authority's bid to unilaterally seek recognition at the United Nations as an independent state, President Mahmoud Abbas said

* The European Union will select a president and foreign policy chief from among some 20 candidates at a special summit later this week, a EU official said

* A new nuclear arms reduction treaty between Russia and the United States may yet be signed by December 5, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said

* The Czech Republic marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the Velvet Revolution that overthrew the communist regime in then Czechoslovakia

* China agrees with the U.S. that Iran must prove its nuclear program is of a peaceful nature and not aimed at producing an atomic bomb, U.S. President Barack Obama said in Beijing

* Regular transit of U.S. military cargo and personnel to Afghanistan over the Russian territory will start soon after the final logistics issues have been resolved, a U.S government official said

* The United States has said it will continue to press Iran to fulfill its international obligations in the nuclear sphere after the UN nuclear watchdog had reiterated its suspicions over the nature of Tehran's nuclear program

* The Cuban Defense Ministry has announced that large-scale military exercises will take place in the country on November 26-28

 

BUSINESS

* The Nord Stream pipeline operator building a gas pipe to Europe along the Baltic Sea will obtain 3.9 billion euros ($5.8 bln) in bank loans by late 2009, managing director Matthias Warnig said

* Russia and Slovakia have signed a deal on long-term cooperation in nuclear power engineering, Russia's state nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly AtomStroyExport said

 

CULTURE

*Bookstores in New York and London will start the sales of Vladimir Nabokov's final unfinished novel, 'The Original of Laura

 

SCIENCE

* NASA has successfully launched space shuttle Atlantis on an 11-day supply and crew rotation mission to the International Space Station