Main News of October 27

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

RUSSIA

* Russian Protest Leaders Alexei Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov were detained at a central Moscow demonstration against the alleged torture of a political activist by security forces

* Billionaire tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov announced that he has joined the Civic Platform party he founded in July and will henceforth engage in politics full time

* A Just Russia party leader Sergei Mironov called on his party members to dissociate themselves from the anti-Putin protest movement

* A Yakutia man faces charges of illegally mining gold after a police search of his premises netted more than $3 million worth of the precious metal

WORLD

* Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he intended to stay in politics, a day after receiving a four-year prison term for fraud

* Indonesian police detained 11 people, suspected of planning terrorist attacks on the US embassy and other targets, in four provinces in Java, the Jakarta Post reported

* With the US presidential election just 12 days away, several new polls show Republican challenger Mitt Romney either even or slightly ahead of President Barack Obama, who appears to be slipping with white male voters

* A delegation of the European Parliament cancelled its visit to Tehran after the Iranian authorities refused to let them meet with two dissidents awarded with the Sakharov Prize, the parliament’s press service said

* The UN Security Council rejected a Russian initiative to condemn the recent terrorist attack in Damascus that killed nearly 50 people following the announcement of a ceasefire across Syria

* A Russian woman vacationing in Crimea is being celebrated as the six millionth tourist to visit the region so far this year, more than in any full year since Ukrainian independence, the head of the Crimean parliamentary commission on tourism said

* Tajikistan has officially opened a three-mile-long tunnel that will lop 11 hours off the travel time between the capital and the nation’s northern regions