Main news of December 3

RUSSIA

* Spartak Moscow are in danger of missing out on a place in the UEFA Cup play-off stages after losing 2-1 in Moscow to Dutch minnows NEC Nijmegen on Wednesday evening

* Moscow welcomes the Ukrainian president's decision to attempt to improve relations with Russia, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said

* Russia is ready to restart dialogue with NATO, frozen after its brief war in August with Georgia, but will not forget that the alliance backed Tbilisi in the conflict, its NATO envoy said

* Russian prosecutors said on Wednesday that the gun used to kill investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was linked to a car used by suspects in the case

* Moscow City Court sentenced the ex-director of the Moscow Art Theatre on Wednesday to six years in jail for attempting to organize the murder of his ex-wife and family to get his hands on a five-room apartment

* Relations with Russia are currently more important for NATO than membership for Georgia and Ukraine, Russia's envoy to the 26-member alliance said in an interview with Kommersant

* Four police officers were injured in a powerful explosion as they attended to a fellow officer who had been shot in Makhachkala, Daghestan's capital, a police source said

WORLD

* Ukrainian Defense Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov said on Wednesday that the planned redeployment of troops closer to the country's borders did not threaten Russia

* Iran has conducted the second stage of a four-stage, six-day naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman, a top military commander said

* Iraq is in talks with Russian power plant builder Technopromexport on completing the construction of a thermal plant near Baghdad, an Iraqi Energy Ministry spokesman said

* Foreign ministers of the 26 NATO member-countries urged Russia on Wednesday to lift its moratorium on a major arms reduction treaty in Europe

* NATO called upon Russia on Wednesday to refrain from "confrontational statements" that could further harm relations between the military alliance and Moscow

* Egypt's labor ministry has lifted a ban on doctors working in Saudi Arabia, imposed after two Egyptian doctors received 1,500 lashes and prison sentences, Egyptian media reported

* NASA has signed a $141 million modification to the current International Space Station (ISS) contract with the Russian space agency for crew transportation services planned through the spring of 2012

* A third military plane carrying personnel and goods has left Russia en route to Chad to take part in a joint EU mission to support the UN in the Central African country, an Air Force spokesman said

* Georgian and Ukrainian officials welcomed on Wednesday NATO's decision to boost ties with the countries, despite the alliance's refusal to admit them to the Membership Action Plan (MAP), seen as a vital step toward membership

* Pakistan refuses to turn over suspected terrorists to India, but could try them in its own courts, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said

BUSINESS

* Fitch said on Wednesday it had affirmed Russia's MDM Bank's Long-term Issuer Default rating of 'BB' with a Stable Outlook and placed URSA Bank's Long-term IDR of 'B+' on Rating Watch Positive

* Russia's Severstal has won a lawsuit against U.S.-based Massey Energy Company and its subsidiary Central West Virginia Energy Company, and will receive $267 million in compensation, the Russian steelmaker said

* Gazprom's investment program in 2009 will be worth 920 billion rubles ($33 billion), the state-run energy giant's CEO said