Main News of September 24

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

RUSSIA

 

* Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Finnish counterpart opened a gas-fueled power plant built by Finnish energy company Fortum in the west Siberian town of Nyagan.

* Russian authorities made good on earlier threats to pursue legal action against Greenpeace activists on Tuesday, opening a criminal case into piracy against environmental activists who staged a protest at a Gazprom offshore oil platform in the Arctic Ocean last week.

* Russia’s parliament is planning to send a delegation of lawmakers to Syria for talks with their counterparts there, the speaker of the lower house said.

* Melting permafrost and warmer temperatures in the Arctic could trigger the release of both known and new infectious diseases in the region, a Russian scientist warned.

 

WORLD

 

* The terrorists who took control of a Nairobi mall and held off Kenyan security forces for four days have been defeated after killing at least 67 civilians and government troops, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said.

* US President Barack Obama told the United Nations General Assembly that the Syrian government must face “consequences” if it fails to adhere to a US-Russian plan to turn over its chemical weapons as Washington and Moscow remain deadlocked over whether the threat of military force should be used to enforce the deal.

* Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff delivered a scathing critique of the United States for spying on its allies, a practice unveiled in a wave of leaks by fugitive former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

* A single-engine aircraft that two Swedish PR executives used last year to drop hundreds of teddy bears with pro-democracy messages over Belarus was sold at an eBay auction for $11,700, Euroradio reported.

 

BUSINESS

 

* A Chinese sovereign wealth fund has acquired a 12.5 percent stake in Uralkali, the Russian fertilizer giant currently embroiled in a highly politicized dispute with its Belarusian counterpart, according to a statement released by Uralkali.

 

SPACE

 

* A Russian state commission approved the makeup of the main and backup crews of a new expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), to blast off on Thursday.

 

DEFENSE

 

* The pilot of a Soviet-era Su-25 fighter jet that crashed this week during a training flight in southern Russia has been found dead, the Defense Ministry said.

* An order for the delivery of BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles that the Russian Defense Ministry suspended three years ago over inferior quality will be completed, a defense industry official said.

* A Russian shipyard started work on a second pair of frigates for the Vietnamese navy, the shipbuilding company said.