A round-up of today's other stories in brief...
Death of former Russian PM Chernomyrdin
MOSCOW – Viktor Chernomyrdin, who founded the world’s biggest gas company, Gazprom, and helped steer Russia through the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, died yesterday aged 72.
The longest-serving prime minister in post-Soviet Russia, Mr Chernomyrdin played a decisive role in supporting former president Boris Yeltsin during some of the darkest moments of the 1990s, negotiating with Chechen rebels and even holding the reins of power while the president underwent heart surgery in 1996. Friends said his health had deteriorated sharply after the death in March of his wife of 50 years, Valentina. – (Reuters)
Police arrest 22 in raids on neo-Nazis
BERLIN – German police said yesterday they had arrested 22 people suspected of spreading neo-Nazi ideology in a move against far-right internet radio station Widerstand-Radio (Resistance Radio).
In an operation involving some 270 officers, police raided 22 premises, confiscating computers and telephones, the Federal Crime Office (BKA) said.
In October, the BKA said the number of people in Germany with the potential to carry out far-right violence had almost doubled since the 1990s to about 9,000 in 2009. – (Reuters)