Main News of November 24

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* The construction of the Serbian leg of the Russia-initiated South Stream gas pipeline, designed to diversify Moscow’s energy supply routes, was launched Sunday as a steel pipe was symbolically welded north of Belgrade

* Ukraine’s riot police used tear gas and batons against pro-European integration protesters when some of them tried to break through a police cordon to the central entrance of the Cabinet’s building in downtown Kiev, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported

* An influential council of Afghan elders known as the Loyal Jirga approved on Sunday a deal on basing of American troops in Afghanistan after the official pullout of foreign forces in 2014, local media said

* Iran and the so-called Group of Six nations holding talks over Tehran’s nuclear program clinched a last-minute agreement Sunday morning following four days of talks, apparently resolving the decade-long dispute over the issue

POLITICS

* Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Sunday his country had secured Moscow’s pledge to review a gas contract Kiev believes to be unfavorable

* Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday praised a last-minute agreement between Iran and the six international negotiators on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program

CRIME

* A man who was blown up by his own bomb in Russia’s North Caucasus on Saturday was responsible for preparing a terror attack on a bus in the south Russian city of Volgograd in October, Russia’s Anti-Terror Committee said