Main News of November 5

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Amnesty International has condemned US officials for flatly rejecting the possibility of clemency for fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden

* Russia has "made progress" in improving the quality of life of its citizens over the last decade, though the country’s scores in some areas are lower than the international average, a new study by an international economic organization says

RUSSIA

* Russia's largest carmaker, AvtoVAZ, said Tuesday that a former General Motors executive had been appointed as president of the iconic company, the first foreigner to fulfill the role

* Ukraine is far from paying off hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom despite several payments, a company spokesman said

* Russia is unprepared for a war in the Arctic, a government report says

* The safety system at a nuclear power plant in a remote Russian Arctic region automatically shut down one of its reactors on Tuesday, Russia's nuclear utility said

* Ukraine signed a $10 billion shale gas deal Tuesday with US energy giant Chevron on Tuesday as part of Kiev's ongoing efforts to diversify its energy supplies and reduce dependence on Russia

* Activists and journalists detained aboard Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise icebreaker remain in detention in the Arctic city of Murmansk, despite a decision being made to take them to St. Petersburg, a defense lawyer said

POLITICS

* Russian prosecutors said Tuesday that they had asked Belarus to send them the chief executive of a Russian fertilizer giant who was detained in Minsk soon after ending a cartel agreement

DEFENSE

* Russia and Italy are holding naval drills in the Mediterranean to improve interoperability in joint operations, a spokesman for Russia's Black Sea Fleet said

* Two Russian Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bombers returned on Tuesday from a tour-of-duty in South America, where they carried out a series of patrols in line with a combat training program

SCIENCE

* India launched its first ever probe to Mars on Tuesday, joining the major space powers in the race to develop advanced technologies for future interplanetary flights

CRIME

* Russian businessman and convicted weapons-trafficker Viktor Bout, who is currently serving a 25-year jail term in the United States, has withdrawn an appeal against his sentence, his wife said

SPORTS

* Ukraine confirmed Tuesday that it plans to bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics, with officials publicly signing a formal declaration of intent

SOCHI 2014

* A global human rights group on Tuesday called on the International Olympic Committee to take action over the alleged mistreatment by Russian police of two Norwegian journalists on a reporting trip in Sochi, which is set to host the Winter Games in February