Main News of October 18

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

RUSSIA

* Russia sharply criticized Saudi Arabia for refusing its non-permanent membership in the UN Security Council on the grounds that the international body had been inefficient in handling the Syrian crisis and other global conflicts.

* Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will travel to Moscow next week to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks expected to focus on cooperation in the defense sector, the Kremlin said.

* A Russian court in Murmansk denied bail to a two more Greenpeace activists detained last month while mounting a protest against offshore oil drilling in the Arctic Sea.

* Russia plans to spend 2 trillion rubles ($63 billion) by 2020 on a strategic program to develop the Arctic, a senior government official said.

* Moscow police is to hold weekly operations to round up unauthorized migrants, the city’s head of police said, unveiling a strategy apparently aimed at alleviating discontent over growing numbers of foreign workers in the city.

* Russia said that it expects the Netherlands to take “exhaustive” measures to find burglars who broke into the apartment of a Russian embassy official in The Hague in an incident that has become the latest flashpoint in recent diplomatic bickering between the two countries.

* Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who is serving a two-year jail sentence for an anti-Kremlin stunt in a Moscow cathedral, restarted a hunger strike.

* A gold coin weighing three kilograms and dedicated to the 2014 Sochi Olympics was purchased by an unnamed buyer in Russia’s Far East for $232,200, according to a spokeswoman for a bank where the coin was sold.

 

WORLD

* A bill submitted to Ukraine’s parliament may enable jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to seek medical treatment abroad – a development that would lead to a boost in relations between Kiev and the European Union.

* Police in Azerbaijan broke up a picket in front of the Russian Embassy held by a group angered by what it says was the rough treatment by Russian police of an Azerbaijani citizen suspected of murder.

 

DEFENSE

* Russia will strengthen its air contingent at the Erebuni air base in Armenia with a helicopter squadron in the next few months, the base commander said.

* A naval task force from Russia’s Pacific Fleet will depart Saturday on a two-month tour of duty in the Pacific Ocean, a navy spokesman said.

* Russia’s Defense Minister gave a dressing-down to defense officials for using the media to anonymously express concern about conditions in the army, suggesting they played into the hands of journalists seeking to sensationalize the issue.

 

SPORTS

* The World Boxing Association has stripped Guillermo Jones of the cruiserweight title after the Panamanian tested positive for a banned diuretic, handing it back to the man he defeated in May, Russian fighter Denis Lebedev, specialist site fightnews.com reported.

* Svetlana Kuznetsova trounced second seed Roberta Vinci to reach the semifinal of the Kremlin Cup tennis tournament in Moscow.

* World No. 19 Sam Stosur edged past fourth seed Ana Ivanovic and into the semifinals of the Kremlin Cup.