Main News of January 13

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

 

WORLD

 

* The foreign ministers of Iran and Syria will visit Moscow later this week ahead of upcoming peace talks about the Syrian conflict in Switzerland, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry called for a partial ceasefire in Syria and an increase in the flow of international aid to the embattled nation during a meeting in Paris.

* Fugitive Russian property tycoon Sergei Polonsky has been freed after Cambodia denied a Russian request for his extradition, RAPSI legal news service cited his lawyer as saying.

* Hundreds of protesters demanded the resignation of Ukraine’s Interior Minister at a demonstration in Kiev, a news agency reported.

* Kyrgyzstan accused neighboring Tajikistan of threatening regional stability after an armed clash that injured eight border guards.

 

RUSSIA

 

* A Russian court has declared brochures produced by the Jehovah’s Witnesses to be extremist, the Prosecutor General’s Office said.

* Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny rejected an allegation from investigators that he had breached a court order not to leave Moscow.

* A new criminal case has been opened against Russian opposition activist Sergei Mokhnatkin, who was arrested last month for allegedly striking a police officer during an anti-government rally in Moscow, his lawyer said.

* Investigators said that they have searched the apartment of a prominent lawyer currently representing the suspected killers of crusading reporter Anna Politkovskaya over accusations that he bribed witnesses in an unrelated trial.

* A Russian fishing vessel has been detained by a Norwegian coast guard ship on suspicion of illegally dumping fish, the Russian Fisheries Agency said.

* The owner of a Russian fishing trawler detained on suspicion of illegal fishing by Senegal 10 days ago said he is prepared to pay a security deposit to free the vessel.

* Police have arrested a group of fraudsters suspected of stealing 70 million rubles ($2.1 million) from Russian bank accounts, the Interior Ministry said.

 

BUSINESS

 

* Russian energy giant Gazprom said that the supply of natural gas to Europe grew 16 percent last year to 162.7 billion cubic meters while overall gas production increased to 487.4 billion cubic meters.

* Russia’s Kalashnikov gun maker is planning to sell up to 200,000 hunting and sporting rifles and shotguns in the United States every year, the company said.

* Russia said that it has discovered unacceptable levels of a cancer-causing chemical in sprats imported from Latvia and plans to prevent sales of the oily canned fish around Moscow.

 

DEFENSE

 

* A pair of new missile corvettes have completed acceptance trials and will enter service in Russia’s Caspian Flotilla in the first quarter of this year, the Southern Military District said.

 

CRIME

 

* A lawmaker in Russia’s eastern port city of Nakhodka has been shot dead by hunters after an argument over a killed boar, officials said.

* A man suspected of killing and dismembering his girlfriend has been detained by authorities in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek police said.

 

SPORTS

 

* Alex Bogomolov Jr.'s Australian Open ended abruptly as the Russian tennis player retired hurt midway through his first-round match against Fabio Fognini.