Main News of October 28

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* New International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach visited next year’s Winter Games host city Sochi on Monday for the first time since taking office and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin

* An opponent of outgoing Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has won the South Caucasus nation’s presidential election, electoral authorities said

* Belarus’ state security service has dismissed as absurd media reports saying it had been keeping tabs on Russian fertilizer giant Uralkali’s executives in Moscow and had tried to detain one of them

* Threats of violence by Syrian opposition groups against participants of an upcoming peace conference on Syria are “outrageous and unacceptable,” Russia’s top diplomat said

RUSSIA

* Moscow City Hall gave the green light Monday to the Russian March, an annual gathering of radical nationalists that takes place on the city’s outskirts on Russia’s Unity Day public holiday on November 4

* A petition to repeal a new anti-piracy law signed by more than 100,000 people was dismissed by the Russian government

* Russian authorities on Monday pressed hooliganism charges against three more Greenpeace activists detained last month during a protest at a state-owned oil rig in Arctic waters

* A senior member of Russia’s nationalist LDPR party expressed concern Monday for the safety of the party’s Chechen division head, who pledged to dissolve the branch over disparaging comments made about the region by the party’s outspoken leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky

* The sale of a 16 percent stake in Russia’s state-controlled diamond miner Alrosa being floated as part of a long-delayed privatization program Monday raised $1.3 billion

* Belarusian authorities have extended a criminal investigation into the chief executive of Russian potash giant Uralkali by another two months, a representative of Belarus’ Investigative Committee said

* Russia’s consumer rights watchdog set out conditions Monday for lifting a controversial ban on imports of Lithuanian dairy products

POLITICS

* A Moscow district court issued an international warrant for a 22-year-old student wanted in connection with violence at an opposition rally last year, the court’s press service said

DEFENSE

* Russia’s new nuclear-powered submarine, the Alexander Nevsky, has completed sea trials, a shipbuilder said

* Russia has given tentative approval to a deal with Kazakhstan to merge air defense capabilities as part of a greater defense network for ex-Soviet republics, the Russian government said

BUSINESS

* Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom was picked on Monday as the preferred candidate to build Jordan’s first nuclear power plant, expected to cost $10 billion and supply 12 percent of the kingdom's energy needs by 2020, media reports said