Main news of September 16

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours.

WORLD

* The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 14-4 to recommend the Senate ratify a new strategic nuclear arms control treaty with Russia

* Minsk and Moscow have agreed to return to Russia several dozen kilograms of spent nuclear fuel, stockpiled in Belarus since the Soviet era, a Belarusian nuclear official said

* Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia will work together as part of the Cosmotrans space cooperation project, Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuyev said

* Kyrgyzstan will not increase the rent for Russian military facilities on its territory and wants to continue receiving payments in the form of military assistance, the Kyrgyz defense minister said

RUSSIA

* A man believed to be one of the most influential figures in the Russian criminal world was shot in downtown Moscow, police sources said

* The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 14-4 to recommend the Senate ratify a new strategic nuclear arms control treaty with Russia

* Russia sees no need for a NATO presence in the Arctic, Russian Foreign Minister said

* A coalition of Russian opposition groups plans to fight for official registration as a political party in order to compete in the 2011 parliamentary elections, a coalition leader said

* The wife of Moscow's long-serving mayor appealed again  against a court's ruling that statements by an opposition figure were not libelous

* The Russian Prosecutor General's Office will prolong a probe into the case of Russian lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, who died in custody last November, the Investigative Committee's chief said

BUSINESS  

* The Kremlin is set to cut funding to hundreds of Russian towns centered around a single industry, Vedomosti business daily quoted the Finance Minister as saying

* Russia's top energy official Igor Sechin who is also chairman of state-run major Rosneft has asked Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to extend tax breaks on the Vankor oil field for the oil giant until 2014, Vedomosti business daily reported