Main News of December 26

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* The first stage of the destruction of the Syrian government’s chemical arsenal has been completed, the head of the Russian Security Council said

RUSSIA

* Russia's presidential administration has decided to cancel its traditional New Year's party this year, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said

* Members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance of former Soviet states, are planning to allocate some 33 billion rubles ($1 billion) to procure new weaponry for its joint rapid reaction force, a senior CSTO official said

* Russian President Vladimir Putin was the country’s most popular politician in 2013, a recent survey showed

* An Antonov An-12 transport plane crashed on the outskirts of the eastern Siberian city of Irkutsk on Thursday afternoon, killing everyone on board, Russian officials said

* The Russian government will allocate $450 million from its 2014 budget as part of a $2 billion loan to Belarus announced Wednesday by President Vladimir Putin, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said

* Russia has started issuing exit visas for the crew members of a Greenpeace protest ship after dropping legal cases against all of them, the environmental organization said

* A Russian Proton-M heavy-lift rocket put a government communications satellite into orbit on Thursday in the final launch of the year for the Russian space industry

* The Russian government has put a ban on purchasing foreign-made equipment for its defense industry if there is a locally-made equivalent, according to a statement posted on the government website