Main news of December 17

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

*Over 400 people have been killed after tropical storm Washi hit the southern Philippines, BBC said, quoting a Philippines army official

*A famous Cape Verdean singer Cesaria Evora, internationally known as "the barefoot diva," died at the age of 70, Portuguese weekly, Expresso reported

*The Russian and U.S. presidents, Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama, are likely to meet in Seoul in March 2012, White House spokesman Jay Carney said

*U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev’s intention to investigate irregularities at the recent parliamentary elections in Russia, White House spokesman Jay Carney said

RUSSIA

*The ruling United Russia nominated Sergei Naryshkin, the former head of presidential administration, as the possible State Duma’s speaker, party’s press service said

*Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said at the meeting with the members of the ruling United Russia party that the party’s main task is to make Vladimir Putin a "worthy" winner of the 2012 presidential polls

*Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a Friday’s telephone conversation with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama said that Washington’s comments over Russia’s allegedly rigged parliamentary polls were inadmissible, Russian president said

*Protests over alleged mass electoral fraud at the December 4 parliamentary elections continued in Moscow as more than a thousand people attended a rally near the Kremlin

*The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has not backed a claim by jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky that his arrest and trial were politically motivated