Main news of December 29

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Lithuania has set up a new working group to continue an investigation into crimes allegedly committed by Soviet servicemen against Lithuanian citizens in January 1991

* Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko was questioned at the Prosecutor General's Office for six hours

RUSSIA

* Belarus has released all the Russian nationals detained in the country's capital of Minsk during a protest rally against the reelection of President Alexander Lukashenko, the Russian Foreign Ministry said

* The Russian government has managed to keep almost all of the promises it gave to the country's citizens in 2010, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said

* Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport said it was working as normal after days of chaos caused by an ice storm

* An Antonov An-22 military transport aircraft crashed on the border of the Tula and Oryol Regions in central Russia, the Defense Ministry said

* A flight recorder and body fragments have been discovered at the central Russian crash site of an Antonov An-22 Cock heavy transport aircraft, investigators said

* The Russian Prosecutor General's Office said it had launched legal proceedings against two airlines suspected of violating federal aviation rules

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin handed out blistering criticism to airport and airline officials who have failed to adequately deal with passengers during mass flight delays in Moscow in the last few days

* President Dmitry Medvedev dismissed two senior space industry officials and reprimanded the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, Anatoly Perminov over the recent loss of three Glonass satellites

* Jailed ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky "lied" to the shareholders of his oil firm Yukos, a judge said

BUSINESS

* Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev urged the government to take systemic measures to improve the country's investment climate and provide better conditions for initial public offerings

* Russia's Foreign Investment Commission has approved PepsiCo's purchase of a 66% stake in Wimm-Bill-Dann, one of the country's leading dairy producers, Igor Artemyev, head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service and commission member, said

DEFENSE

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called a new strategic arms reduction treaty with the United States a foreign policy victory for President Dmitry Medvedev