Main News of March 4

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* An opposition candidate who was running in Armenia’s recent presidential election plans to appeal the vote results in the country’s Constitutional Court on Monday, the Novosti-Armenia news agency reported Sunday citing the headquarters of the candidate, Raffi Hovhannisyan

* British Queen Elizabeth II was hospitalized Sunday with symptoms of gastroenteritis, British media reported citing Buckingham Palace

* A 2-year-old girl from the US state of Mississippi born with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the first child to have been “functionally cured” of it, American media reported

* Russia will deliver attack helicopters and air-defense systems to Iraq before the summer, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said

* Ukraine is considering leasing out a carrier-deck pilot training site in Crimea to other countries, Ukrainian First Deputy Defense Minister Oleksandr Oleinik said 

* On Monday the crew of the 35/36th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS) spent six hours in a simulation module waiting for things to go wrong – and they did

RUSSIA

* For the second year running, Russia’s mining magnate Alisher Usmanov retained his position as Russia’s wealthiest man on the Forbes magazine's 2013 list of the world's richest people

* A court in the Amur Region in Russia’s Far East, has annulled a sentence handed down by a judge who fell asleep during a trial last year, a defense lawyer said

* Russian President Vladimir Putin said there are no “closed issues” on the agenda of the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine

* The Russian Navy’s Udaloy-class destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov has completed an anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden and set course for its Vladivostok base, where it should arrive in April, Fleet spokesman Capt. First Rank Roman Martov said

* A new ranking of the 100 most influential women in Russia was released Monday, with senate speaker Valentina Matviyenko topping the list for the second year in a row

* Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych will meet in Moscow on Monday to discuss energy cooperation but do not plan to sign any documents, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said

* A military court in Russia’s westernmost Kaliningrad exclave ordered a border guard officer to pay a fine of 110,000 rubles (about $4,000) for running a prostitution business, an Investigative Committee spokesman said

* A teacher who worked for an Islamic school in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan has been shot to death, regional investigators reported

*A snowfall followed by a rapid thaw has damaged buildings in the city of Novosibirsk, including a local Catholic cathedral, a church representative said 

* Russian police have opened a criminal case against the head of a defense enterprise suspected of embezzling over 21 million rubles ($700,000), the latest in a series of frauds uncovered in the domestic defense industry, the Interior Ministry reported

* A builder died after a piece of metal fell on him at Zenit St. Petersburg’s new soccer stadium, investigators said

* General of the Army Nikolai Makarov, dismissed last year as chief of the General Staff, has been appointed as an advisor to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, a Defense Ministry representative told RIA Novosti

* Former-mixed martial arts champion Alexander Emelianenko has been fined after pleading guilty to harassing passengers and crew on an airplane, Russian prosecutors said

* Russian food safety and sanitary watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor has seized several dozen tons of rotten food at a military unit on the Kuril Islands in the Russian Far East, some of which contained insects, the agency said

* Last weekend, the city of Nadym hosted the 18th Open Traditional Competitions of reindeer herders for the Yamal Governor’s Cup

* A former Russian Defense Ministry financial administrator has been sentenced to five years in prison on fraud charges, the Investigative Committee’s Chief Military Directorate said

* Russian investigators in East Siberia's Buryatia republic have launched a criminal investigation against a woman who allegedly killed her husband after he threatened her cat

* Three political activists were detained on Moscow’s Red Square on Monday for attempting to hold an unauthorized protest, city police said

* The pilot issue of a glossy magazine for lesbians has gone on sale in Russia this month, in the face of escalating anti-gay sentiment and a new nationwide law against "homosexual propaganda" expected soon

* Russian annual inflation could bounce back to 15 percent if world oil prices sink sharply, given Russia's balance of payments and a high propensity to import goods, former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said

* A military court in Russia’s westernmost Kaliningrad exclave ordered a border guard officer to pay a fine of 110,000 rubles (about $4,000) for running a prostitution business, an Investigative Committee spokesman said

* A new Russian team under the name Russian Time have joined the grid of the GP2 series, organizers said

* The threat of another avalanche is interfering with the search and rescue effort in Russia's East Siberian republic of Tyva, where six teenagers have been trapped under a large pile of snow, Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said

* A poll published by the Levada Center on Monday showed that most Russians are against the idea that the Russian city of Volgograd could again bear Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's name