Main news of December 17

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* The World Wildlife Foundation has welcomed a Russian climate doctrine signed by the president earlier on Thursday

* The United States is ready to participate jointly with other countries in programs to reduce damage from the global warming in developing countries, the state secretary said

* NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed hope on Thursday that the alliance and Russia would establish a joint missile defense system by 2020

* Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was discharged from the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan after recovering from a recent attack with a souvenir statue by a mentally ill man, local media reported

RUSSIA

* Russia remains on schedule in fulfilling its commitments under the chemical weapons convention, and has met the end-of-year deadline for reducing its stockpiles by 45% from the 1990s level, a government official said

* UN sanctions against North Korea must continue until it halts its nuclear program, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin said on Thursday

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a national climate doctrine, Kremlin aide Arkady Dvorkovich said

* The United States has slowed down talks on a nuclear arms reduction deal with Russia in the last few days, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said

SPORT

* Leonid Tyagachyov was reelected president of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) for the second time on Thursday, making this his third consecutive term in office

* CSKA Moscow defenders Sergei Ignashevich and Alexei Berezutsky were found not guilty of doping by a UEFA disciplinary committee on Thursday, the Sovetski Sport paper said