Main news of March 9

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

 

WORLD

 

* UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will be in Moscow on March 19 for the Mideast quartet meeting before heading to Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, a spokesman for the UN Secretary General said

 

* Israel announced plans to build a new nuclear reactor to reduce the country's dependence on imported hydrocarbons, raising the specter of increased international scrutiny of Israel's nuclear program

* A key Ukrainian politician, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, declined President Viktor Yanukovych's proposal to hold a high post in the new cabinet, the presidential press office said

* The Palestinians may unilaterally declare statehood if resumed peace talks with Israel fail, an advisor to the Palestinian National Administration said

* The U.S. Embassy in Kyrgyzstan denied that Washington was seeking to establish a military base in the south of the Central Asian state, saying it was funding a training center for Kyrgyz troops

 

RUSSIA

 

* In a rare albeit implicit criticism of its U.S. counterparts, Moscow indicated that a new Russian-U.S. arms reduction deal could have been prepared earlier if negotiators had followed the principles laid out by the two sides

* Iran's first nuclear power plant, Bushehr, will be launched in 2010, RussianForeign Minister Sergei Lavrov said

* The Russian parliament could pass legislation restricting hours for selling alcohol, a deputy prime minister said

* Finnish police have provided Russia with "important documents" allowing it to identify the mastermind of an attempt to hijack the Arctic Sea cargo vessel, Russia's top investigator said

* The Russian Public Chamber  asked Moscow city authorities to abandon plans to decorate the city with Joseph Stalin billboards for the 65th Victory Day celebrations

* Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov proposed that senior officials of the North Caucasus Republic wear traditional garments on national holidays

 

 

BUSINESS

 

 

* Argentina plans to open a Russian-sponsored sturgeon farm to produce black caviar within the next two weeks, according to a press statement released by the Argentinean province La Rioja