Main news of February 10

A roundup of what happened in the past 24 hours.

WORLD

* Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will address the nation later on Thursday, Egyptian state TV said

* Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz is alive, a source close to the monarch said denying reports of his death

* NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance could send peacekeeping forces to Israelis and Palestinians if both parties agree on a peace deal

* Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara repeated before his visit to Moscow that the four South Kuril Islands belong to Japan, Kyodo news agency reported

RUSSIA

* Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev believes that Russia's powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin, will not run for a third presidential term in 2012

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will meet with Pope Benedict XVI for the first time during his two-day visit to Italy next week, his office said

* Russia has decided to buy Mistral ships from France because it would have taken at least 10 years to develop a similar domestic model, Chief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Nikolai Makarov said

* Construction to build a much debated highway through the Khimki Forest near Moscow will begin in March, a building company said

BUSINESS

* The unprecedented share-swap between the Russian and British oil giants Rosneft and BP signals that Russia is open to foreign investment, the International Energy Agency has said

* Bank of Moscow, Russia's largest bank, must be privatized via an auction, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina said

* Japanese car-making giant Toyota, Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co and Russian automaker Sollers will launch joint car production in the far eastern city of Vladivostok in 2012, Japanese business daily Nikkei said

* Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service said it has launched a formal investigation into fuel price fixing by Russian oil companies