Main news of December 13

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours.

WORLD

*Supporters of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko clashed with police outside a Kiev appeals court.

*The Western powers will impose a fresh round of sanctions against Iran early next year, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said during his visit to the United States.

*A gun-and-grenade attack in the eastern Belgian city of Liege left four people dead and 75 injured, local media reported.

 

RUSSIA

*Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will hold his tenth annual televised Q&A session on December 15.

*Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reiterated his pledge to carefully investigate all alleged violations in the December 4 parliamentary elections and take “fair decisions” based on probe results.

*Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov, the owner of Russia's major Kommersant publishing house, has fired the holding's CEO Andrey Galiev and editor-in-chief of Kommersant Vlast magazine Maxim Kovalsky after they published photos with offensive remarks targeting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

*The new State Duma, the lower house of Russian parliament, will have its first meeting on December 21, President Dmitry Medvedev said.

*Russia's ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) nominated its outspoken leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky as a candidate for the presidency.

*Russia plans to place Eurobonds on foreign markets in early 2012 in a bid to finance its budget deficit, a Finance Ministry official said.

*Lawyers of anti-corruption activist and top blogger Alexei Navalny and opposition leader Ilya Yashin, detained during protests last week, lodged their complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).