WORLD
* The World Bank has granted Tajikistan $45.9 million to finance its second Public Employment for Sustainable Agriculture and Water Resources Management Project, the international lender said
* The United States is ready to share with Ukraine the technology behind environmentally friendly production of shale gas, the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said
* The United States has lifted a ban on Afghanistan’s biggest private airline, Kam Air, after the Afghan government pledged an investigation into US claims of opium smuggling by the carrier, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF) said in a statement
* Uzbekistan has made trading with foreign currency a criminal offense, Uzbekistan’s Tax Committee warned on Tuesday, the latest in a string of measures apparently aimed at preventing the global market slump from eating into the Central Asian republic’s reserves
* British oil major BP will get $700 million less for selling its 50 percent stake in TNK-BP to state-owned Rosneft, in consideration of dividends paid to BP in December last year, BP’s fourth quarter and full year 2012 statement said
RUSSIA
* Moscow has not witnessed such a snowy winter in the past 100 years, Deputy Mayor Pyotr Biryukov said on Tuesday, after heavy snowfall hit the Russian capital last night
* This year’s first space launch from the Baikonur space port has been postponed until Wednesday due to bad weather, the Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said
* The police detained at least 5,156 people at political rallies in Moscow and its suburbs in the past 13 months, during modern Russia’s most restive period since the end of the USSR, a new report said
* Russia has started large-scale military exercises in the disputed Kuril Islands in the country’s far east, a military official said
* Russian vehicle maker GAZ Group has launched assembly of Chevrolet Aveo sedans at its Nizhny Novgorod plant under an agreement with US car giant General Motors, GAZ said