Main news of January 9

 

WORLD

 

* China urged the United States to reverse its decision to sell arms to Taiwan, Xinhua reported

 

* Iran's top security official said regional security was interdependent and key to regional development

 

* Ukraine’s electoral commission has registered 1,583 foreign observers who will monitor the January 17 presidential election, Kyiv Post reported

 

* The Italian government has set up a task force after two days of rioting by African immigrants following a shooting incident in the Calabrian town of Rosarno, ANSA reported

 

* A send-off ceremony for Armenian peacekeepers in Afghanistan was held in Yerevan

 

RUSSIA

 

* The bodies of another three mountaineers caught in an avalanche in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria have been found, an emergency services spokesman said

 

* Russia's Air Force will develop a civil aviation safety program that should halve the number of air accidents, the Defense Ministry said

 

* Russia plans to launch its fastest train, Sapsan, between Moscow and the country's fourth largest city of Nizhny Novgorod in the summer, a railway official said

 

* Russia's Vladimir Chagin, piloting a legendary Kamaz Team truck, has finished the seventh leg of the 2010 Dakar Rally in Chile first, ahead of his countryman and teammate Firdaus Kabirov

 

BUSINESS

 

* Turkmenistan resumed natural gas supplies to Russia under a deal the parties signed in December to end a months-long dispute, a spokesman for energy monopoly Gazprom said

 

* German companies have won contracts worth more than 100 billion euros ($145 billion) to build Britain’s network of offshore wind farms in the North Sea, DDP reported

 

* Turkey and Iran plan to set up a joint industrial zone in a border area, Press TV reported