Main News of September 9

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* The United States and its allies should “expect everything” if military strikes are launched against Syria, as the Middle East teeters on “the brink of explosion,” Syrian President Bashar Assad warned in excerpts of an interview with a veteran US journalist

* Russia threw its backing behind a proposal that Syria’s chemical weapons be put under international control, leading Damascus to say it “welcomes the … initiative” if it would indeed help prevent a US strike on the war-torn country – a suggestion floated by Washington earlier in the day

* The head of the United Nations’ nuclear energy watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that his agency was divided about nuclear risks from a potential US airstrike in Syria

RUSSIA

* A Russian diplomat working at Moscow’s embassy in the breakaway republic of Abkhazia was shot dead, according to local law enforcement officials

* A controversial anti-drug crusader and opposition candidate has declared victory in the mayoral election in Russia’s fourth-largest city Yekaterinburg, in a rare upset for the ruling United Russia party

* Moscow's pro-Kremlin incumbent mayor has officially won the election to keep running Russia's capital with more than 50 percent of the vote, the Moscow election commission, meaning there will be no runoff with his main rival, opposition activist Alexei Navalny

* Presidential aide and former health minister Tatyana Golikova was nominated by President Vladimir Putin to head Russia’s Audit Chamber, the Kremlin said

* A Russian court sent to prison for life a man who shot dead six of his colleagues last year

* The trial of the men charged with killing journalist Anna Politkovskaya was postponed until the following day after a key witness had an epileptic seizure in the courtroom

* Russia has become a relatively happier country, but it still ranks below its autocratic neighbor Belarus, according to a UN-sponsored study released by Columbia University