Main news of January 18

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Opposition Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych has a more than 10% lead over his closest rival Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in Ukraine's Sunday presidential election with 99.5% of the ballots counted

* The camp of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko accused the frontrunner in the Ukrainian presidential election, opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, of stealing 3% of the premier's votes

* UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said he asked the Security Council to beef up the peacekeeping contingent in quake-hit Haiti by 1,500 policemen and 2,000 troops

* A tight race with unpredictable results seems to be in store for arch-foes in Ukrainian presidential polls, Premier Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, when they face each other in a run-off vote on February 7, experts predicted

* PACE is to open hearings on pharmaceutical companies' possible influence on the global swine flu campaign and on the World Health Organization, a Russian daily reported

* Iranian Foreign Minister spokesman has blamed Western countries in unwillingness over the recognition of Iranian nuclear rights, Iranian official news agency IRNA reported

* A Turkish assassin who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981 was released from jail after almost 30 years in Italian and Turkish prisons

* Opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych and current Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are heading for a runoff on February 7 in Ukraine's presidential vote set to decide the future of a country torn between traditional ties with Russia and a post-Soviet drive westward

*Center-right candidate Sebastian Pinera is likely to get a historic win in the Chilean presidential runoff, with 99% of the ballots counted, the Spanish EFE news agency has said

* Ukraine's opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, supported by more than a third of the voters in the country's presidential election, has said Ukraine will never join a military alliance

* The Ukrainian Central Election Commission said no serious violations of the voting process were registered during Sunday's presidential polls in the ex-Soviet state

RUSSIA

* Some 107,000 people were left without gas due to a blast which occurred at a gas pipeline in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia, a local emergencies ministry spokesman

BUSINESS

* Russia and India are poised to sign a $1.2 billion contract for another 29 MiG-29K fighter jets for the Indian Navy, an Indian daily reported