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Main news of December 23

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RUSSIA * A Russian cargo spacecraft, Progress M-62, lifted off for the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan... 23.12.2007, Sputnik International

2007-12-23T16:32+0000

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Main news of December 23

16:32 GMT 23.12.2007

RUSSIA

* A Russian cargo spacecraft, Progress M-62, lifted off for the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, Russia's mission control said

* Three Russians detained by Georgian military police in western Georgia are not peacekeepers and were earlier discharged from the Russian Armed Forces for breaching the terms of their contracts, said Sergei Chaban, commander of the CIS peacekeeping force in the Georgian -Abkhazian conflict zone

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov began his two-day working visit to Libya to discuss closer bilateral cooperation, including oil and gas projects, and also regional and international issues

* About 200 Communist supporters rallied in Russia's second largest city against what they called rigged parliamentary polls

* Russia's Constitutional Court will begin its work in St. Petersburg on May 21, 2008, following a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin

WORLD

* At least eight people were killed and seventeen others wounded in a terrorist attack in northwestern Pakistan, local TV channels said, referring to police sources

* Georgia's defense ministry said three Russian peacekeepers had been detained in the country's west

* Uzbek citizens went to the polls in elections widely expected to extend the 18-year rule of Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov

* Georgian billionaire businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili who lives in Britain told the Sunday Times he feared that he might be targeted in an assassination plot being prepared in Georgia

* Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ruled out talks with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and vowed to continue army operations against militants

* Iran will soon announce a tender for the construction of 19 nuclear power plants with a capacity of 1,000 MW each in the Islamic Republic, said Kazem Jalali, a spokesman for Iran's parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy