Main news of March 23

RUSSIA

* Police seized over 9 kg of heroin from a Tajik national in the Irkutsk Region in East Siberia, a local police source said

WORLD

* Two astronauts from the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour completed their fifth and final spacewalk of the current mission to the International Space Station (ISS) to attach an inspection boom to the outside of the ISS to enable the next shuttle crew to check their spacecraft for heat shield damage, NASA said on its website

* Russia and Egypt will sign an agreement on cooperation in the civilian nuclear energy sector next week, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said

* Egyptian-Russian trade grew 50% year on year in 2007 to $2.1 billion, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on the eve of his visit to Russia on March 24-25

* Nineteen sailors went missing after a Ukrainian ship sank off the southern coast of China, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said

* Afghan and NATO-led forces killed and wounded dozens of Taliban militants in a joint air and ground operation in the province of Uruzgan in south Afghanistan, the Afghan Defense Ministry said

* The militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, rejected by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that it was holding secret talks with Israel

* A South Ossetian national and a peacekeeper were badly wounded after a bomb went off in their car, the information and press department of Georgia's breakaway republic said

* The Dalai Lama is rejecting allegations in the Chinese official press that he was behind the recent violent demonstrations in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, TV channel EuroNews said