Main news of January 15

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

Russia:

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will make an official visit to Jordan and the Palestinian Territory on January 18-19, the Kremlin press service announced

* Russia's Tourism and Sports Ministry has announced that all Russians located in Tunisia will be evacuated on a Transaero charter flight

* The Russian Embassy in Tunis has said some 500 Russians live in the North African country where President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled amid protests that turned violent

* A total of 19 participants of a rally to commemorate the death of football fan Yegor Sviridov were arrested in Moscow, a police spokesman Viktor Biryukov said

* Suggestions made by some European Parliament members in the case of Russian ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev are an attempt to put pressure on Russia, Russia's ruling party leader Boris Gryzlov said

* Moscow handed over to Warsaw all case materials into investigation of the Polish president's plane crash last year in Russia, an expert close to the investigation said

* Russian political opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was arrested after an anti-Kremlin rally in Moscow's Triumfalnaya Square on New Year's Eve and sentenced to 15 days in jail for "disobeying police instructions," was released 

* A lawmaker in Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has requested Prosecutor General Yury Chaika to investigate whether opposition leader Boris Nemtsov is being funded by foreign sources

* Russian investigators classified as a terrorist act an explosion near a cafe in the volatile North Caucasus republic of Dagestan in the city of Khasavyurt

 

World:

* Tunisia after overthrowing its president reopened passenger air corridors in three of the country's largest cities, national television stations have reported

* Russia's Tourism and Sports Ministry has announced that all Russians located in Tunisia will be evacuated on a Transaero charter flight

* The Russian Embassy in Tunis has said some 500 Russians live in the North African country where President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled amid protests that turned violent

* Moscow handed over to Warsaw all case materials into investigation of the Polish president's plane crash last year in Russia, an expert close to the investigation said

* Former Polish President Lech Walesa believes Russia deserves recognition and thanks and not "sputtering" over power in the investigations over the presidential plane crash in Smolensk that killed then Polish President Lech Kaczynski in April

* A referendum on South Sudan independence from the north of the country ended, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported

 

Sport:

* Russia's Vladimir Chagin, piloting a Kamaz truck, became seven-time champion of the 2011 Dakar Rally's truck class in Argentina

* Russia's national rugby team beat New Zealand local side Taranaki 33:24, in the first of a two game tour of New Zealand in the lead up to the Rugby World Cup Tournament there in the fall