Main News of November 14

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* The Israeli army said it had started a large-scale operation aimed at eliminating key militant commanders and “terrorist infrastructure” in the Gaza Strip controlled by radical Islamist group Hamas

* Israel will consider pulling out of the Oslo Accords and overthrowing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas if the UN upgrades the status of Palestine to a non-member observer state, Israeli media reported

* Poland does not finance the Belarusian opposition, Polish Ambassador to Belarus Leszek Sherepka said

RUSSIA

* Three people were killed and 20 injured in a gas leak at a metals plant in the Urals, the Emergencies and Civil Defense Ministry said

* A severed communications cable in the Moscow region has rendered Russian specialists unable to control most of the country's civilian satellites, a source in the space industry said

* A controversial law on state treason that critics fear could be used to stamp out political dissent came into force in Russia, two days after President Vladimir Putin told human rights workers he was ready to “review” it

* Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed that the country’s supreme courts be relocated to St. Petersburg

BUSINESS

* Russian energy giant Gazprom and Germany’s BASF have signed a basic agreement on an asset swap as part of a project for joint development of the Achimov deposits in Western Siberia, the companies said