Main News of October 12

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* The laptop computers that fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden took to Hong Kong and Moscow after he fled the United States were mere decoys containing no classified data, an ex-Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official who met with Snowden in Russia this week told the Reuters news agency

* Anti-secrecy organization Wikileaks released five video clips of Edward Snowden on Saturday that were taken at a closed dinner in Moscow last week, the first footage of the fugitive US leaker to surface since he was granted asylum in Russia

* The United States said it has captured a senior commander with the Pakistani Taliban inside Afghanistan, a move that reportedly enraged Afghan President Hamid Karzai amid negotiations between Washington and Kabul over the presence of American troops in the war-torn nation

* Russian billionaire Gennady Timchenko was awarded one of France’s highest civil honors Saturday in a ceremony in St Petersburg, according to his spokesperson

* Azerbaijan’s main opposition candidate Jamil Hasanli has called for the results of Wednesday's presidential election in the oil-rich ex-Soviet republic to be cancelled over alleged voting violations

RUSSIA

* A senior Russian diplomat in Panama has been injured in a knife attack by a Ukrainian man, according to the local Russian ambassador

* Russia on Saturday welcomed the decision to award the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is currently destroying chemical stockpiles in Syria in line with an agreement reached by Russia and the United States

* The Russian government will not revise its policy of investing almost half of the country’s foreign exchange reserves in US Treasury securities despite growing fears of a looming US debt default, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said

* The statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Bolshevik secret police, may be restored to its "rightful" place in Lubyanskaya Square in downtown Moscow, a senior Moscow lawmaker said

* The Sukhoi aircraft maker will deliver a total of 30 Su-34 Fullback strike aircraft to the Russian Air Force by the end of 2014, the Defense Ministry said

* Russian officials said Saturday that they were checking information that a prominent Russia traveller, who recently hitchhiked around the world in 777 days, had been seized by Syrian rebels

* Sixty-seven people were detained at a gay pride gathering in St. Petersburg on Saturday as gay rights supporters clashed with anti-gay campaigners, a local police spokesman has said

* Police in Moscow detained a total of 87 migrants on Saturday while searching for a suspected killer of a young man, a police spokesman has said

* A jailed Pussy Riot rocker who was hospitalized two weeks ago amid a hunger strike over prison conditions has accused Russian authorities of an “information blockade” imposed on her, suggesting that this was a “political” decision"

SPORT

* Russia are on the brink of qualifying for their first World Cup in 12 years after beating Luxembourg 4-0 on Friday to take a four-point lead over Portugal in Group F