Main News of May 29

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* The United Nations’ Human Rights Council a resolution condemning the participation of foreign combatants on the side of the Syrian regime

* The Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan supports Ukraine’s bid to acquire observer status in the Moscow-based trade bloc, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said

* Construction of barbed wire fences on the administrative border between Georgia and its breakaway republic of South Ossetia is unacceptable and may destabilize the situation in the region, EU observers said

* Russia and the United States split starkly over the EU move to end its ban on arms sales to Syria, with Moscow denouncing it as a violation of international law and Washington applauding the move while repeating its aversion to Russian weapons sales

RUSSIA

* Russia is disappointed with the EU move to end the ban on arms sales to the Syrian opposition and may reconsider its own commitments to restrictions on weapons deliveries to the war-torn country, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said

* Vladimir Fortov, a prominent Russian physicist, was elected on Wednesday as the new head of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Sergei Guriev, a leading Russian economist, has been questioned in connection with the Yukos case, the Investigative Committee’s press office has confirmed to RIA Novosti

* Billionaire Andrei Guryev, one of Russia's richest senators, stepped down, the latest in a string of resignations from parliament in the wake of new laws aimed at keeping business and politics apart