News of the Day, 15:00 Moscow time

* The Kyrgyz parliamentary committee on defense and security issues approved the closure of the Manas U.S. military airbase

* Russia will pay 25 billion rubles ($690 million) for 24 fighters that Algeria has refused to accept under a contract due to their "inferior quality," a Russian deputy prime minister said

* Measures to adapt the world economy to new challenges amid the global financial crisis could be prepared before the G20 summit in April, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said

* The Russian prime minister will receive a document on $55.3 million worth of subsidies to Russians buying domestically made cars today, a deputy premier, Igor Sechin, said

* The death toll from unprecedented bushfires that have been raging in southern Australia over the past two weeks has risen to 131 people, the media said referring to local authorities

* The Ukrainian cargo ship released by Somali pirates last week will arrive in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on February 11, a Russian maritime news website editor said during a radio interview

* Russia's Sukhoi aircraft maker opened a representative office in the capital of India, New Delhi, the company's press service said in a statement

* The South Ossetian authorities have accused Georgia of firing two rocket-propelled grenades at one of the most populated residential areas in the capital of Tskhinvali

* A Moscow court has remanded in custody a former high-profile investigator Dmitry Dovgy, suspected of taking bribes, a court spokesperson said

* Russian police have identified two girls, aged 18 and 19, who were brutally murdered on Sunday west of Moscow, a local police spokesman said