Main news of October 14

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

A deal between Israel and Hamas on the exchange of over 1,000 jailed Palestinians for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit will begin on Tuesday, a spokesman for the militant group Committees of People’s Resistance that was involved in Shalit’s seizure along with Hamas said

* There is no need for individually-tailored assistance to debt-hit European states since collective support is more efficient, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said

* British Defense Secretary Liam Fox resigned, following a scandal with his close friend, Adam Werritty, who was involved in ministerial affairs despite having no official government role, the Defense Ministry said in a statement

* Mykola Melnychenko, a former security officer who claims to have secretly recorded conversations that implicate Ukrainian ex-president Leonid Kuchma in the murder of an opposition journalist, is currently in the United States, his lawyers said

* Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi won a confidence vote, the 51st since he took office in 2008.

* The Ukrainian Security Services (SBU) resumed questioning former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Friday in a new criminal investigation in which she is accused of attempting to embezzle $405 million, prosecutor’s office spokesperson Yury Boichenko said

RUSSIA

* There is no need for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to participate in primaries to be nominated for president, his spokesman said

* St. Petersburg's Severnaya Verf shipyard will deliver a new stealth corvette to the Russian Navy at an official ceremony

BUSINESS

* European Central Bank Executive Board member Juergen Stark said he considered it necessary to establish a European budget office as part of the euro zone Finance Ministry, the establishment of which was first proposed by ECB President Jean- Claude Trichet

* Software giant Microsoft has bought Internet communications company Skype for $8.5 billion in its largest ever acquisition deal, Microsoft said

* Fitch international rating agency downgraded Swiss bank UBS AG over lower government support and put seven large U.S. and European banks on credit watch negative, the agency said