Main News of March 13

WORLD

* Argentina’s Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, was elected new Pope Wednesday, a cardinal announced from the Sistine Chapel

* The world opinion of American leadership has sunk to its lowest level in four years according to a new poll released Wednesday by the Gallup research firm

* A Ukrainian journalist who escaped from captivity in Syria has been handed over to Ukrainian officials in Damascus by the Syrian authorities

RUSSIA

* Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, on Wednesday adopted in the first reading a bill to toughen responsibility for drunk driving in addition to driver’s license suspension

* Russia is taking no sides in the Syrian conflict and hopes that the Syrian opposition will soon form a team to negotiate with government representatives, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said

* Russia’s transport minister asked the government Wednesday to speed up legislation allowing Russian airlines, plagued by pilot shortages, to hire foreign staff

* Georgian wine and mineral water producers cannot supply specimens of their products to Russia due to difficulties in obtaining visas for company representatives, Georgia’s National Wine Agency said

* Russia’s former Defense Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, has been cooperating for the first time in an investigation into his alleged complicity in misusing Defense Ministry assets to carry out expensive renovation work at a luxury summer house belonging to his brother-in-law, and has testified as a witness, Kommersant reported

BUSINESS

* Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and top officials from state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) held talks on Wednesday, the Russian energy giant said, as part of an effort to finally conclude by the end of 2013 a long-delayed 30-year deal for Russian gas deliveries to China

SPORTS

* Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday labeled the decision to exclude wrestling from the Olympics “unjustified”

* Russian President Vladimir Putin and action movie star Steven Seagal teamed up Wednesday to open a new martial arts center in Moscow