Main News of January 20

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

WORLD
*Algerian troops have found five terrorists alive at a desert gas plant in eastern Algeria at the center of a deadly hostage crisis, private Algerian television station Ennahar said
* Protesters held a rally outside the Georgian president's residence in Tbilisi to demand the resignation of President Mikheil Saakashvili
* Venezuela’s cancer-stricken President Hugo Chavez is entering a new phase of treatment after finishing post-operative care, Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro said
* Twenty-five burnt bodies have been found inside a desert gas facility in eastern Algeria after a bloody raid ended a four-day hostage standoff, private Algerian television station Ennahar said
* The five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) agreed to expand tax policy cooperation and step up their fight against tax evasion, a joint communiqué said
*Afghanistan blasted Russia for what it said was inadequate assistance in Afghanistan’s fight against drugs production
*Catholicos Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II will arrive in Moscow on Sunday on a visit that could create a general background for progress in bilateral relations which have been almost non-existent since the two countries fought a brief war in August 2008
*Austria holds a national referendum to decide on whether to scrap conscription and move to a professional army or to keep the military draft and alternative civilian service
*Algerian forces brought an end to the hostage crisis after nearly a four-days standoff between Algerian security forces and an al-Qaeda-backed Islamist group, official said

RUSSIA

* Russia has started the largest naval exercises in the past few decades in the Mediterranean and Black Seas as a civil war in Syria continues to gain momentum

*At least four miners died as a result of smoke inhalation during an accident at a coal mine in southwestern Siberia’s Kemerovo Region, local emergencies services reported

*Investigators have launched a criminal probe into a fatal accident at a coalmine in southwestern Siberia’s Kemerovo Region that killed four and trapped another four miners underground, the regional Investigative Committee said

*Eight workers died in a fire that broke out in an administrative one-storey wooden building in Yekaterinburg in the Urals, the regional emergencies center reported

* A senior Russian lawmaker blasted the UK’s refusal to allow British World War II Arctic convoy veterans to be decorated with Russia's Ushakov medals

* Gay activists were beaten by an angry crowd during an authorized picket in the city of Voronezh in southeast Russia

* Police have killed a leader of an armed group in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, the local Interior Ministry said

* French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Moscow has offered its help to Paris in transporting French troops and supplies to crisis-hit Mali

SPORT

*Top Kamaz driver Eduard Nikolayev has won the 2013 Dakar Rally in the truck category while his two teammates, Airat Mardeyev and Andrei Karginov, took the second and third place, respectively

* Second seed Maria Sharapova delivered a crushing victory over Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open

* Jose Mourinho must repair his frayed relationships with the Real Madrid squad if the team are to have any hope of rescuing their season, former Real right-back Michel Salgado said

* Russia’s Terek Grozny said they had signed midfielder Facundo Piriz for €2.8 million from Uruguay’s Nacional on a four-and-a-half year contract