Inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog on Monday began examining uranium fuel that Russia is likely to send to Iran’s first atomic power station, a Russian nuclear official said.

Lebanon’s opposition groups voiced strong opposition to the attendance of the country’s prime minister at the so-called Middle-East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, warning that Siniora’s participation in the US meeting would serve the interests of the Israeli regime.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa here on Monday, said Tehran believes that Sri Lanka’s progress and mightiness would serve interests of regional countries.

Russian opposition leader and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov failed on Monday in an appeal against his detention during a street protest at the weekend, one of his aides said.

Vowing to go on fighting the “Zionist enemy”, Hamas called Mahmoud Abbas the worst leader in Palestinian history on Monday and said he had no right to make concessions to Israel at the Annapolis peace conference.

Russian pollster FOM predicted on Monday that the pro-Kremlin United Russia party will win 60.1 percent support in a December 2 parliamentary election.

Serb and Albanian leaders clashed over the future of Kosovo on Monday even before sitting down to negotiations and mediators said compromise between the sides seemed impossible.

President Vladimir Putin said on Monday Russia had information suggesting the United States influenced a decision by OSCE international observers not to monitor the December 2 parliamentary election.

Israeli army reservist Haim Gottfried and Palestinian security officer Samir al-Shakhshir are committed to fighting for their people’s security but both long for the day they can lay down their arms.

Moscow is ready for dialogue on the latest U.S. proposals for a missile shield in Europe, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said during a radio interview on Monday.