Russia is still delivering military hardware to the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad including air defense systems, the head of Russia's arms export agency said Wednesday.

"We are continuing to fulfill our obligations on contracts for the delivery of military hardware," Rosoboronexport chief Anatoly Isaikin said quoted by the Interfax news agency. He said the deliveries included anti-missile air defense systems and repair equipment but not attack weapons or aircraft.

Russian lawmakers on Tuesday passed on third and final reading a bill banning smoking in public places, a major pillar of a Kremlin drive to improve health in the nicotine-addicted country.

In the State Duma lower house, 441 deputies voted for the measure with one against, Russian news agencies reported.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon condemned Tuesday North Korea's nuclear test as "deeply destabilizing" and U.S. President Barack Obama called for swift and credible international action.

Ban condemned the nuclear weapons test as a "deeply destabilizing" provocation, his spokesman said Tuesday.

The head of Syria's opposition coalition, Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, said Monday he had received "no clear response" from the regime of President Bashar Assad over his offer of dialogue.

Khatib said in late January he was prepared to hold direct talks with regime representatives who did not have "blood on their hands," and so long as the discussions addressed replacing Assad.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi will head to Iraq and Russia soon after he made a short visit to Syria over the weekend.

According to An Nahar newspaper published on Monday, al-Rahi will head to Iraq during the upcoming two weeks to attend the enthronement of Louis Sako, the new patriarch of the Chaldean church.

At least 16 miners were killed Monday when a methane explosion tore through a coal mine in the remote Russian Far North within the Arctic Circle, in the latest disaster to hit the country's mining industry.

Two miners were still missing after the explosion at the Vorkutinskaya mine controlled by Russian steel-making giant Severstal in the Komi region town of Vorkuta, the emergencies ministry said in a statement.

U.S. President Barack Obama will use his State of the Union address on Tuesday to call for dramatic cuts in nuclear arsenals around the world, The New York Times reported late Sunday.

Quoting unnamed administration officials, the newspaper said that in recent months Obama had secured agreement with the U.S. military that its nuclear force can be cut by roughly a third.

The rebels France is battling in northern Mali are some of the very same fighters it helped arm in Libya, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Sunday.

"In Mali, France is fighting against those it armed in Libya against (Moammar) Gadhafi's regime in violation of the U.N. Security Council (arms) embargo," Lavrov said in extracts of a television interview published by Russian news agencies.

Russian police detained nearly 300 Muslims from several countries in Saint Petersburg as part of a probe into suspected calls to terrorism, investigators said Saturday.

They said in a statement that "271 people including citizens of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, nationals of Russia's North Caucasus and an Egyptian and an Afghani were detained to verify their suspected involvement in terrorist activity".

A Canadian navy officer was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Friday and ordered to pay a steep fine for leaking secrets to Russia.

Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Delisle pleaded guilty in October to breach of trust and passing information to a foreign government, but it is still not known what if any damage was caused to Canada or the United States by the security lapse.