Main news of January 12

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Iranian Acting Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Tehran will not discuss its controversial nuclear program at talks with the Group of Six in Istanbul on January 21-22

* The European Union will toughen measures against Belarus officials responsible for a crackdown on opposition protesters in Minsk in December, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said

* European Parliament chairman Jerzy Buzek said the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, who secured a fourth term in last month's presidential polls in Belarus, has no democratic legitimacy.

* Pilot error was the main cause of the plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 other top officials in April 2010, a Russian investigative team said in a new report 

* Iran's oil minister and OPEC President Seyed Masoud Mirkazemi arrived in Azerbaijan to sign a long-term contract for import of up to 5 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas to Iran annually

* The Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) has sent Poland its final report on the plane crash that killed then Polish President Lech Kaczynski

* Prominent Belorusian opposition activist Alexander Milinkevich will call on European parliamentarians to freeze relations with Belarus over the recent crackdown on opposition protesters during December's presidential elections

RUSSIA

* Russia will construct new shipyards near St. Petersburg designed specifically for the building of Mistral class amphibious assault ships under a French license, a defense industry source said