Main news of December 3

RUSSIA

* Preliminary results show that the ruling pro-Kremlin United Russia party has emerged with a massive 64.1% of the vote after Sunday's elections to the lower house of parliament, the election commission said

* Russian President Vladimir Putin said:

- Russia will resume its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty if the West starts observing its provisions

- The weekend's parliamentary elections were a demonstration of confidence in his rule

* Top international observers said elections to Russia's lower house had failed to meet European standards

* Russia's law suspending its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty officially came into force

* Russia's environmental watchdog applied for the suspension of operations at a Baikal pulp and paper plant, saying it was guilty of polluting Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake

* Britain's main suspect in the November 2006 murder of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko said he does not need parliamentary immunity to avoid extradition to the U.K.

* The Moscow City Court remanded in custody a deputy finance minister, Sergei Storchak, accused of attempting to embezzle $43 million, while prosecutors launch a new investigation against him

* Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill on the formation of a Russian state nuclear energy corporation, to be named Rosatom, the Kremlin press service said

* With more than half of the vote counted in Russia's Chechen Republic, the ruling United Russia party leads the polls with over 99%, the head of the republic's election commission said

* Sergei Mironov, leader of the loyalist A Just Russia party, which received 7.8% of the vote at Sunday's polls, again proposed to the Communist leadership that they join forces

* A Moscow court sentenced a Russian academic to 11.5 years in prison for passing dual-purpose technology to China

* Russia will continue its efforts to help Lebanon to overcome a political crisis in the country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said

* Britain and France voiced concerns about violations during the weekend's parliamentary polls in Russia reported by international monitors and urged they should be investigated

WORLD

* Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher jailed for 15 days in the Sudan for naming a teddy bear Muhammad, has been pardoned by Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir

* A man in China's eastern province of Jiangsu died from bird flu, bringing the total number of deaths from the disease in China to 17, the Xinhua news agency reported

* Israeli authorities released 429 Palestinian prisoners in amnesty that followed last week's U.S.-sponsored peace conference, local radio said

* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lost a referendum on abolishing presidential term limits and removing the Central Bank's autonomy, the Venezuelan electoral authority reported

* Israel has postponed supplies of 25 armored vehicles to Palestinian security forces scheduled for this week, over concerns the hardware could end up in the hands of radical groups, local radio reported

* The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) has opened in Bali, Indonesia, amid high security with thousands of police and even UN peacekeepers guarding the event

* At least six students have died and four have been injured in a blast at a religious school in Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province, local officials said

* The third blast in just over two weeks ripped through the Zasyadko coal mine in eastern Ukraine, killing five people and injuring 66, the regional administration said

* An expert board at the coal mine in east Ukraine hit by three blasts in the past two weeks leaving 106 miners dead said Monday the disaster-hit sector should be flooded, a rescue service spokesman said

* Albania's premier said that a report on Kosovo due to be presented to the UN secretary general December 10 is not a cause for making unilateral decisions on the province's status, Italy's APCom reported

* Russia will present its new-generation Amur-1650 class submarine at an international maritime exhibition in Malaysia, Russia's state-controlled arms exporter said

* Washington welcomed Hugo Chavez's defeat in a referendum which would have made him Venezuelan president for life

BUSINESS

* LUKoil said it plans to boost crude refining at its enterprises by 34% to 65.7 million metric tons (482 million barrels) per year by 2017 compared with 2006

* A Gazprom subsidiary has registered a new operator to develop oil fields owned by the Russian energy giant and its subsidiaries, Gazprom Neft said

* Russia's Stabilization Fund went down 3.6% in November to 3.517 trillion rubles ($144 billion), the Finance Ministry said

* Six Apart, a blogging software and services company, announced that SUP, a Moscow-based international media company, had acquired internet service LiveJournal

* Electricity monopoly Unified Energy System (UES) of Russia finalized a deal to sell a blocking stake of 25% plus one share in Power Machines to Highstat Ltd