Excerpt:  Russia halted supply of natural gas to Ukraine yesterday after the two ex-Soviet neighbors failed to agree on payment terms, sparking fresh concerns about the security of energy resources controlled by Moscow.

State-run gas giant Gazprom confirmed that supply to Ukraine had been shut off at precisely 10am as planned following the expiry at midnight New Year’s Eve of the old contract.

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Excerpt:  An Israeli jet dropped a one-tonne bomb on the home of a senior Hamas leader in Gaza yesterday, killing him and six members of his family in the first high-level assassination in six days of intensive bombing.

Nizar Rayan, 49, a Hamas hardliner who was close to the group’s military wing, was one of the few senior figures in the movement not to go underground when the latest conflict began. The four-storey building where he had his apartment in the Jabalia refugee camp was destroyed and neighbouring buildings badly damaged.

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Excerpt:  Russia cut off the gas to its neighbour Ukraine on Thursday after a contract dispute but increased supplies to other European states to try to reassure customers worried about possible disruption.
The European Union, which receives a fifth of its gas from pipelines crossing Ukraine, and the United States urged further negotiations to resolve the dispute and said all supply commitments must be met.

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Excerpt:  A fierce fire ripped through a popular nightclub in the Thai capital Bangkok early Thursday as people were celebrating New Year, killing at least 60 people and injuring 212, rescuers said.

The blaze broke out after a pyrotechnic display at the Santika club in the city’s Ekkamai district, a thronging entertainment area frequented by locals and tourists. It was not clear if any foreigners were among the dead.

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Excerpt:  The Taipei District Court yesterday sentenced Gary Wang (王令麟), former chairman of the Eastern Multimedia Group, to 18 years in prison and a fine of NT$700 million (US$21 million) for his involvement in the Rebar Asia Pacific Group (力霸亞太企業集團) embezzlement scandal.Gary Wang, the son of Wang You-theng (王又曾), the fugitive founder of the Rebar Asia Pacific Group, embezzled money from various subsidiaries of the Rebar Group and had played major roles in the scheme, the verdict stated.

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Excerpt:  Russia will suspend gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday morning, Russia’s state gas monopoly Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller said on Wednesday.

Talks on natural gas exports from Russia to Ukraine in 2009 “ended fruitlessly” and Gazprom will completely cut off gas supplies to Ukraine at 10:00 Moscow time (0700 GMT) on Jan. 1, Miller said.

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Excerpt:  Cuban pitcher Yadel Marti and outfielder Yasser Gomez have departed their Communist island homeland in a bid to launch Major League Baseball careers, ESPN reported on Monday on its website.

Citing unnamed sources, the US sports telecaster reported that relatives and friends of the players in Cuba confirmed the duo had departed and were in an unknown location but attempting to reach the Dominican Republic.

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Excerpt:  One of the three survivors of Sunday’s avalanches near Fernie, B.C., fought back tears Wednesday as he recounted his “gut-wrenching” decision to leave eight friends who died under the snow.

Four avalanches struck while Jeff Adams and the others were snowmobiling in the Flathead Valley, in the southeast corner of B.C.’s Rocky Mountains.

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Excerpt:  The decision becomes effective as of Thursday January 1, 2009 and also includes a reduction in monthly cash advances to USD 250, that is, half of the current amount.

The government announced on December 31st the reduction of the annual allowance of dollars that the Foreign Exchange Administration Committee (Cadivi) authorizes for travelers going abroad, from USD 5,000 to USD 2,500, under a decree published in the country’ Official Gazette No. 39,089.

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Excerpt:  Police in Reykjavik today used pepper spray against protesters attempting to prevent Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde appearing on a television show being broadcast from Hotel Borg on Austurvollur Square in central Reykjavik.

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Excerpt:  The Brazilian company CSN (Companhia Siderurgica Nacional) is ready to invest almost USD 400 M in Bulgaria’s steel mill Kremikovtzi in the next four years.

The news was announced Monday night by the leader of the Kremikovtzi unit of the Podkrepa Labor Confederation Lyudmil Pavlov, who has attended a meeting with CSN’s director Eneas Garcias Dines.

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Excerpt:  Ukrainian gas company Naftogaz said Tuesday it would pay $1.5 billion to settle its debt for Russian gas imports and avoid a threatened New Year’s cutoff of natural gas deliveries.

But it was unclear whether this would satisfy Russian gas company Gazprom, which says Ukraine owes significantly more.

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Excerpt:  Bad weather interfering with tanker loading combined with full storage tanks at Valdez forced a shutdown of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline Monday night.

Operators stopped pumps along the 800-mile pipeline at 8 p.m.. and planned to hold the line idle for six hours, until 2 a.m., in hopes the wind and waves abate around the tanker dock, said Michelle Egan, spokeswoman for Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., which runs the pipeline.

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Excerpt:  Tokyo stocks rose Tuesday in the year’s final, half-day session on optimism about the impact of economic stimulus measures in 2009, but the key Nikkei index ended 2008 with its steepest one-year percentage drop of 42.1 percent, reflecting investor sentiment battered by a string of macroeconomic and corporate woes.

The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average advanced 112.39 points, or 1.28 percent, from Monday to 8,859.56, recovering the 8,800 level for the first time since Nov. 11 on a closing basis.

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Excerpt:  Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, has delayed signing a trade deal with Australia and New Zealand, due to be inked this month, until March next year, a senior official said Monday.

The deal is under the framework of the ASEAN free trade agreement (FTA) with Australia and New Zealand (AANZ-FTA), which was successfully negotiated on Aug. 28 in Singapore.

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