WORLD
* The US Northeast is bracing for a massive blizzard expected to blast several states Friday evening, with thousands of flights already grounded and millions of people scrambling to stock up on food, water and supplies to last through the weekend
* A US federal court in New York City on Friday sentenced an alleged member of the notorious fraternity of Eurasian crime bosses known as “thieves-in-law” to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges
* Moscow believes that the 2006 agreement between the Russian and Libyan Defense Ministries on the military education of Libya’s cadets in Russia remains in force, Russian Ambassador to Libya Ivan Molotkov said
* Kyrgystan border guards have opened up a corridor for delivery of humanitarian aid to residents of the Uzbek enclave of Sokh, located in the southwest of the country, the border guard service said
* A small tourist plane crashed at Belgium’s Charleroi airport, near Brussels on Saturday, killing five people, Belgian media have reported
* A Cairo court ordered the YouTube popular video sharing site to be blocked for hosting the controversial film Innocence of Muslims, Egypt’s state media have reported
* Thousands of supporters of Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party took to the streets on Saturday, a day after mass anti-government demonstrations across the country
* The Our Ukraine party’s political council confirmed that Ukraine’s ex-president Viktor Yushchenko will remain the party’s chairman
RUSSIA
* Moscow’s Basmanny court has sanctioned the house arrest of Sergei Udaltsov upon a request by investigators who suspect the Left Front leader of plotting new mass disorder
* The government must take into account the opinions of Russian society when considering introducing a special juvenile justice system, President Vladimir Putin said at a congress of the Russian Parents Opposition group
* Russia is ready to meet with heads of the Syrian opposition offices, which are planned to be set up in Washington and New York, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said
* St. Petersburg law enforcers held a special operation on Friday detaining about 300 people suspected of distributing terrorism- and extremism-related information and violating migration laws, the Russian Investigative Committee said
* A Moscow court ruled to extend until July 1 the arrest of a former Moscow Region Deputy Prosecutor, Alexander Ignatenko, who was extradited from Poland
* The Russian Emergencies Ministry issued a warning of emergency situations this year connected with the collapse of buildings and other facilities in various federal districts of the country
* Police in the Russian city of Voronezh are investigating claims by the director of a geological prospecting firm that he was beaten by eco-activists on Friday while trying to start work at a nickel deposit in the area, the police said
* Russian airlines Aeroflot and Transaero plan to maintain scheduled flights to New York’s Kennedy Airport on Saturday despite anticipating huge snow falls from snow-storm Nemo, Prime News reported
* Two Russians and a Romanian crew member who were on a British-owned ship seized by pirates on Thursday night off Cameroon, have been taken off the vessel as hostages, the ship’s operator said
* Fragments of Russia’s Progress M-16M cargo spacecraft that did not burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere splashed down in a non-navigational area of the Pacific on Saturday, Mission Control said
SPORT
* Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov vowed to step down from his position as head of the country’s biathlon federation in the event of a flop at the Sochi Olympics next year
* President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman rejected claims that an official who was fired after criticism from Putin is merely a scapegoat for problems at the world’s most expensive Olympics