Main News of December 9

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has decided to annul his constitutional declaration expanding his powers, a spokesman for a meeting between Morsi and the country’s political leaders said on Sunday

* Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti announced on Saturday his plans to resign after former premier Silvio Berlusconi's center-right People of Freedom (PdL) party withdrew its support for the government, media reported

* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced on national television late on Saturday he was flying to Cuba for a new cancer surgery and named Vice-President and Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro as his possible successor

* Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych nominated his longtime ally Mykola Azarov to head the government on Sunday, the vote to be the first serious test for Ukraine’s recently elected and bitterly divided parliament

RUSSIA

* Russia will take retaliatory measures after the United States replaced the Soviet-era Jackson-Vanik amendment hampering Russian-US trade with new anti-Russian laws related to the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian presidential aide said on Sunday

BUSINESS

* The Russian Finance Ministry slashed its annual capital outflow forecast to $60 billion, the ministry’s head Anton Siluanov said in Moscow on Sunday

SCIENCE

* Russia has failed to put the Yamal-402 communications satellite in the desired orbit as it separated from the upper stage four minutes prior to the calculated time, Russia’s Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said on Sunday