Main news of December 29

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

*Washington considers reports from other countries on the situation with human rights in the United States as useful and is always open for them, a U.S. Department of State spokesman said commenting on a report from Russia.

*Hollywood’s top star and famous comedian Jim Carrey has been spotted dating “pretty blonde” Anastasia Vitkina from Russia.

*Police officers accused of shooting at a crowd of protesters during unrest in southern Kazakhstan were charged with abuse of office and face up to ten years in prison.

*More than 20 alleged diesel smugglers have been killed in an overnight air raid by Turkish Air Forces on a predominantly Kurdish-populated area at the Turkish border with Iraq.
*The head of Russia's Orthodox Church urged the Greek President, Karolos Papoulias, to release from jail Abbot Efraim, the head of the Vatopedi Monastery in Mount Athos, suspected of fraud in a land swap deal.

*Cyprus has received the first 590 million euro tranche of a 2.5 billion euro loan pledged by Russia.

*Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev described Russia as a key strategic partner but claimed that Moscow had not paid rent for military installations on the country's territory for the past four years.

 

RUSSIA

*A fire broke out at the Yekaterinburg nuclear submarine on Thursday during repairs at a shipyard in northern Russia.

*The ongoing shifts in the Russian presidential administration and the government reflect a short-term mobilization of Russia’s top establishment to guarantee a victory for Vladimir Putin in the upcoming presidential elections.

*Russia’s space agency Roscosmos has been given until January to rectify security at its plants or face the consequences, after a reported penetration of its rocket plant in northern Moscow.

BUSINESS

*The shareholders in Shtokman Development AG (SDAG), the project to develop the big Shtokman gas condensate field in the Russian sector of the Barents Sea, agreed to postpone the final investment decision until March 2012.

*The supervisory board of Russia's national development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) approved a $1 billion loan to the Sukhoi aircraft building firm to develop its Sukhoi Superjet 100.

*Russia's direct investment fund, set up to lure foreign investment to modernize the Russian economy, is examining projects worth a total of 180 billion rubles ($5.6 billion), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.