Main news of January 19

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

 WORLD

 

* Opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko face a February 7 runoff in Ukraine's presidential polls after neither of them was able to secure victory in the first round of voting

* U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in Delhi on a two-day visit, is looking to forge closer military links with India, national media reported

* Palestinian unity is of paramount importance if a repetition of the 2008-09 Gaza War is to be avoided, the Palestinian National Authority's ambassador to Russia said

* The Turkish Foreign Ministry said a formal blessing by the Armenian Constitutional Court for last year's historic accord aimed at ending a century of hostility between the two nations contained preconditions which could hamper its realization

* NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has condemned a series of attacks by Taliban militants in the Afghan capital of Kabul that killed at least five civilians and police officers and wounded over 70 others

* Greece has canceled the remaining order for about 8 million batches of the vaccine against the deadly swine flu, local media said citing the government sources

 

RUSSIA

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he hoped the new Ukrainian president would opt for better relations with Russia

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev named Krasnoyarsk governor and former business executive Alexander Khloponin as deputy prime minister and his envoy to the volatile North Caucasus

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who launched a campaign to fight pervasive alcohol abuse in Russia earlier this year, pledged measures to battle the national woe would not be extreme

* Iran has issued permission for a Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter to overfly its territory en route to an international air show in Bahrain, an Iranian embassy official said

* Moscow police detained tens of people at a march to mark the first anniversary of the murders of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova, who were gunned down by neo-Nazis

* Russian-U.S. talks on safety standards for American poultry imports may last until the end of the year, the president of Russia's Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs said

* Russia's most controversial factory, the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill, which has worried environmentalists for 25 years, could restart operations within a month, a business daily said