WORLD
* Russian forces will not take part in a possible military operation against Libya, First Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin said
* Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will visit Russia between on March 22-24, the Kremlin said, although it is not clear if he will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, who is due to visit on March 24
* The confirmed death toll from the earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan has risen to 6,405, police said
* Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan urged his nation to unite to rebuild their earthquake-ravaged country
* Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he wished that all of the opposition leaders who ran for the presidency in 2010 would leave the country
* The head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service proposed expanding the UN anti-drug mission in Afghanistan
RUSSIA
* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will meet his Polish counterpart, Bronislaw Komorowski, in Smolensk on April 11, a year after the previous Polish president died in a plane crash near the western Russian city.
* A meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant would pose no radiation threat to Russia, the state-controlled nuclear corporation Rosatom said
* Norway deported to Russia a Russian former fighting-without-rules world champion who is charged with armed robbery, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office said