Main News of February 28

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* European Union states have reached an agreement to recall all their ambassadors from Belarus after Minsk requested the EU and Polish ambassadors to leave the country, Reuters reported citing diplomatic sources

* Belarus has told the head of the EU delegation to Belarus, Ambassador Maira Mora, and Polish Ambassador Leszek Szerepka to leave the country, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said

* A strike in India involving at least 800,000 people protesting rising prices and proposed sales of stakes in state-run companies began

* Syrian President Bashar al-Assad signed a draft Constitution that was approved a day earlier by nearly 90 percent of voters amid ongoing bloodshed in the opposition stronghold city of Homs

RUSSIA

* The death toll in Monday’s blast in a residential building in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan has reached 10, a spokesman for the emergency headquarters said

* The lower chamber of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, approved in the first reading the sweeping political reforms proposed by President Dmitry Medvedev

* Russian opposition leaders are planning to hold a 10,000 strong demonstration near the Kremlin in the heart of the capital Moscow on March 5, the day after the presidential election

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin paid a surprise visit to the southern Russian city of Astrakhan, where a house partially collapsed after a household gas blast

* The suspects in an alleged plot to assassinate Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who were detained in Ukraine, will not be extradited to Russia until they serve prison time for crimes committed in Ukraine, the Kommersant daily reported

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has not been affected by an alleged plot to assassinate him, his spokesman said

SOCIETY

* Russian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin said more than one attempt on his life has been prevented in the past decade and that he is not afraid of such threats

* The captain of a tugboat that failed to come to the rescue of a cruise boat that capsized and sank in a storm, killing 122 people, was ordered on Tuesday to pay a penalty of 190,000 rubles (about $6,000)

SPORTS

* Spartak Moscow striker Emmanuel Emenike has been summoned to a Turkish court hearing next month to answer match-fixing charges, Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman said

DEFENSE

* The crew of a Su-30 fighter that crashed earlier in Russia’s Far East reported an engine fire before the crash, a spokesman for the Main Military Investigative Directorate said

* Officials embezzling Russia's state defense funds are traitors, the deputy prime minister in charge of the military said

BUSINESS

* International ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Greece’s long-term sovereign credit rating from ‘CC’ to ‘selective default’ after the country launched a bond swap plan last week to ease its debt burden