Main news of March 19

A roundup of what happened in the past 24 hours.

WORLD

* Western aircraft are bombarding civilian objects in the Libyan city of Tripoli, the Libyan Al Jamahiriya satellite TV channel said

* Moscow regrets the attack from a range of European countries on Libya which is being conducted "with reference to the hastily adopted UN Security Council resolution," official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander Lukashevich said

* A fresh tremor measuring 6.1 jolted eastern Japan , but no major damage was reported, Kyodo news said

* Trace amounts of radioactive iodine were discovered in tap water in Tokyo in the wake of the disaster at the crippled nuclear plant Fukushima, Japanese media said

 

RUSSIA

* Russia is ready to increase its gas deliveries to Europe by 6 billion cubic meters for 100 days in order to disengage volumes of liquefied gas for quake-stricken Japan, Russian Prime Minister Putin said

* Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the colorful and flamboyant leader of Russia's LDPR party, called on the Muslim world to unite and support Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi

* A legal feud between Russia and the U.S. over an old Jewish archive has resulted in the Russian Culture Ministry invoking a rare legal step of "force majeure" to order the immediate return of 37 icons and artifacts on loan at a local U.S. museum, the museum's website said