Main News of March 22

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Turkey over a 2010 commando raid on a Gaza aid flotilla that killed nine Turkish activists, the White House said, in a phone call brokered by US President Barack Obama and confirmed by Israeli and Turkish officials

* Several high-ranking military officers in the Baltic nation of Estonia have been exposed as members of a Knights Templar-style order

* At least 42 people were killed, including a pro-government senior Muslim cleric, and over 80 were wounded in an explosion at the Iman Mosque in downtown Damascus, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported

RUSSIA

* Russian President Vladimir Putin and newly elected Chinese President Xi Jinping met at the Kremlin to discuss bilateral relations and give new impetus to the strategic partnership between Russia and China

* Talks between Russia and Cyprus on Moscow’s possible bailout of the island nation’s economy have ended, with Russian investors rejecting Cypriot proposals, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said

* Russia inched closer to completing a 30-year agreement to supply energy-hungry China with natural gas after a meeting in Moscow between the two nations’ leaders

* The unprecedented posthumous trial of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky for tax evasion began as investigators denied he was arrested for uncovering major corruption by state officials

* A state-owned miner in Russia said that it has unearthed a unique emerald weighing 5,000 carats at a deposit in the Urals