Main News of March 11

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

WORLD

* All personnel and Mi-8 helicopters from the Russian air group in South Sudan have left the country, RIA Novosti correspondent reported.

* Pavel Khodorkovsky, the eldest son of the jailed Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was one of the main speakers at a rally in New York in support of the Russian opposition.

* A Palestinian youth was killed on Sunday after Israeli military aircraft carried out airstrikes on suspected rocket launch sites near the town of Jabaliya in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Army radio reported.

* Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan have criticized EU-backed sanctions against Belarus, saying they could pose a threat to the Customs Union, which includes Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, the states said in a joint statement.

* Ukraine wants to purchase three million cubic meters of gas from German's RWE energy firm per day to reduce its dependence on Russian gas supplies, Ukraine's Zerkalo nedeli weekly newspaper reported on Sunday.

* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday rejected Western threats against his country, as well as Washington's statement that "all options are on the table" to deal with Iran, the state run Press TV reported.

 

RUSSIA

* Russia's former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Saturday he was going to set up a fund in support of civil initiatives and democratic reforms in the country.

* President-elect Vladimir Putin, dissatisfied with the results of checks in state companies concerning contract parties and managers, called for more information from companies within five days, Kommersant business daily reported.

* St. Petersburg’s Governor Georgy Poltavchenko on Sunday signed off a law penalizing "the propaganda of homosexuality and pedophilia among minors."