Main news of January 4

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

RUSSIA

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accepted Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to go skiing together

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has canceled a visit to Israel later this month over strike actions by the country's foreign ministry staff, his press service has said

* Vladimir Putin, Russia's action man prime minister, has had a 4,500-meter mountain named after him in the former Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan

* The 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi will leave local residents with state-of-the-art infrastructure, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said

 

* Over 30 people were detained in southern Moscow after staging a rally in protest at the jailing of a prominent Russian opposition leader, a police spokesman has said

WORLD

* Iran has invited foreign diplomats to tour its nuclear facilities, ahead of fresh talks with six world powers

* Ukraine's embattled opposition leader, Yulia Tymoshenko, has said she is "tabooed" from the country's state-controlled TV, as critical media faces growing pressure from President Viktor Yanukovych

* The United States has criticized Belarusian authorities for terminating the OSCE mission in the country and called the decision "a step backwards" in the development of democracy in Belarus