Main news of December 21

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

WORLD

* Russia and the United States signed an intergovernmental agreement enabling the contract for uranium enrichment services in 2013-2022 to come into force

RUSSIA

* Newly elected deputies divided key posts in the lower house of Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, and appointed heads of parliamentary committees

* Sergei Naryshkin, the former head of the presidential administration, was voted in as the parliamentary speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, at its first session

* Police detained about 20 people during a rally in front of the parliament building in Moscow

* A Russian rescue helicopter has stopped searching for 39 men in icy waters off Russia’s east coast three days after an oil rig capsized amid a fierce storm

* Russian investigators have opened 53 criminal cases into irregularities in the run-up to and during the December 4 parliamentary elections, a report says

* Anti-corruption activist and top blogger Alexei Navalny and opposition leader Ilya Yashin, detained during post-election protests in Moscow, were released after serving 15-day administrative arrests

DEFENSE

* Russia’s Defense Ministry is ready to lend support to private manufacturers of arms, especially small arms and light weapons, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said

SCIENCE

* The Russian Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft carrying a new crew to the International Space Station separated from the Soyuz-FG rocket and entered an intermediary orbit

BUSINESS

* Ukraine still wants to create a trilateral gas consortium with the EU and Russia to manage its gas transportation system, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said