Main news of November 30

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* The UN Security Council extended on Monday the mandate of an international anti-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia for another year

* Serbian poet, novelist and historian Milorad Pavic died on Monday of heart failure at the age of 80

* An Indian Su-30MKI fighter jet crashed on Monday near Jaisalmer in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, but both pilots survived, an Air Force spokesman said

* Switzerland's decision to ban the construction of mosque minarets has sparked criticism from politicians and religious figures worldwide

* The council of EU interior ministers decided on Monday to end visa requirements for Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia, the vice president of the European Commission said

* Tehran is still seeking a diplomatic solution to the dispute over its nuclear program, following a resolution passed by the UN nuclear agency against Iran, the parliament speaker said

* The trial of Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, charged with involvement in the murder of 27,900 people during World War II, started in Munich on Monday, a court spokesman said

* Jose Mujica won the runoff election to become Uruguay's president, and has been congratulated by the incumbent, Tabare Vazquez

* Porfirio Lobo of the Honduran opposition National Party leads the country's presidential election, the Central Election Commission said

RUSSIA

* Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called on Monday for improved security and preventive police measures on Russia's rail network to prevent further terrorist attacks

* A Moscow court on Monday ordered an opposition leader and a business daily to pay a total of 1 million rubles ($34,000) to Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov in a libel suit

* Two missing people in the recent train derailment that left 26 people dead were located on Monday, with the whereabouts of two more people yet to be established, a Russian emergencies spokeswoman said

* Russia's envoy to NATO said on Monday that he had handed a new treaty on European security drafted by Russia to the alliance's secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen

SCIENCE

* The Large Hadron Collider set a new world record on Monday, accelerating its twin beams of protons to unprecedented energy levels, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on its website

SPORT

* Nikolai Davydenko, Russia's top men's tennis player, inched up to sixth place in the rankings on Monday after his victory in the yearend ATP World Tour Finals in London

* The launch of a Zenit carrier rocket with a U.S. telecommunications satellite originally scheduled for Sunday midnight has been delayed for technical reasons, a spokesman for Russia's space agency Roscosmos said