WORLD
* Qatar officially recognized the Libyan National Council as the only legitimate governing body in the North African country, becoming the first Arab country to do so, the Qatar News Agency said
* The military intervention by the Western-led coalition force in Libya’s civil war is out of tune with the relevant UN Security Council resolution, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
* The extremely high level of radiation in water flooding the basement of reactor 2 at Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is due to a partial meltdown of the reactor core, top government spokesman Yukio Edano said
RUSSIA
* An anti-government protest later this week will be the last under the banner of Strategy 31, a civic movement bringing together human rights and opposition activists, a prominent anti-Kremlin activist said
* Seventeen militants were killed in combined air and ground strikes on a terrorist camp in Russia’s North Caucasus region, a spokesman for the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said
* An aide to the Moscow judge who imposed a jail sentence on former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky wrote her letter of resignation, Agora Human Rights Association representing the aide’s interests said
* More than 120 vessels have become stranded in ice in the Gulf of Finland, with their number growing by 20 ships every day, the St. Petersburg seaport administration said
BUSINESS
* Two of Moscow’s main airports, Vnukovo and Sheremetyevo, are to be merged and sold as part of the country’s privatization program, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said
* The conflict over control of Bank of Moscow between its management and Russia’s second largest bank VTB took a new turn after the bank’s board of directors planned to fire its Chairman and VTB head Andrei Kostin, a source close to a board member said
* Russia’s Energy Minister Sergey Shmatko said he expects a deal on the exchange of 9.5% of the shares of Russian state-controlled oil major Rosneft for 5.0% in British oil company BP to go through very soon
*Russia’s state-controlled oil pipeline monopoly Transneft will invest 161.59 billion rubles ($5.69 billion) in the construction of new facilities in 2011, Transneft said