| January 2012 |
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Syrian mass protests started in Daraa on the border with Jordan on
March 18. They were prompted by the arrest of a group of school students
who wrote anti-government mottos on walls. The unrest later spread to
other Syrian regions.
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The crewmembers of the Maltese-flagged cargo ship on fire off Crimea in the Sea of Azov are Russian nationals, the Ukrainian Emergencies Ministry said on Sunday.
Russia's Fed Cup captain Shamil Tarpishchev opted to rest Maria Sharapova for the second day of their Fed Cup quarterfinal against Spain on Sunday, with Nadia Petrova taking the place of the Australian Open finalist.
A magnitude 5.0 earthquake struck near the Bushehr nuclear power plant in south Iran, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its website on Sunday.
Over 6,000 individuals have applied for joining NASA’s astronaut corps, which is twice as many as the U.S. space agency typically receives, NASA said in a statement on Sunday.
Russia will build a reliable aerospace defense system to effectively counter NATO missile threats, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Sunday.
Tens of thousands people are expected to brave the bitter cold at two major rallies in downtown Moscow on Saturday as a power play between champions of political liberalization and supporters of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin continues to unfold.

At least 73 people were killed and up to a thousand injured following clashes and a stampede at a football stadium in the Egyptian city of Port Said on Wednesday, February 1, night.

Demonstrations against alleged electoral fraud by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party have taken place in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities. A protest on December 5 saw the largest opposition demonstration in Moscow for a decade. A second night of protests followed on December 6. A mass rally has been called for downtown Moscow on Saturday.

The current temperatures in Russia are 7-12 degrees below normal. Freezing temperatures also reign in most of the European countries, particularly the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Ukraine and others, where extremely low temperatures killed scores of people.

A rally in support of Putin is taking place on Poklonnaya Gora. Numerous media and blog reports said many of its participants were state employees who were forced to attend, though authorities denied all these allegations.
The organizers of a new mass opposition protest in Moscow urged on Friday a nationwide voting campaign to prevent Prime Minister Vladimir Putin from returning to the Kremlin next month.
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The upper chamber of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, set March 4 as the date of the 2012 presidential elections.

RIA Novosti’s International News Service will cover Saturday’s march and a rally demanding fair presidential elections and a rally by supporters of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow in English, Chinese, German, French, Spanish, Arabic and Persian languages.
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The Phobos-Grunt probe was launched from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, but its engines failed to put it on course for the Red Planet.

Russia's largest oil company, Rosneft, saw 2011 net profit jump 19.7 percent year-on-year to $12.452 billion to US GAAP, the company said in a statement on Friday.



