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Main news of May 18

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RUSSIA * Russia intends to reach an "acceptable" arms reduction agreement with the U.S., Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on the eve of Moscow... 18.05.2009, Sputnik International

2009-05-18T18:00+0000

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Main news of May 18

18:00 GMT 18.05.2009

RUSSIA

* Russia intends to reach an "acceptable" arms reduction agreement with the U.S., Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on the eve of Moscow nuclear talks

* The Interstate Aviation Committee has concluded that last week's fatal helicopter accident involving a Siberian governor was due to a collision with a tree

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a package of measures to fight corruption, the Kremlin said

* Russia must strengthen its competitive positions on the global commercial space launch market by expanding its launch facilities and developing new types of carrier rockets, the prime minister said

* Europe will need not just one but several new gas pipelines, Russia's EU envoy Vladimir Chizhov said on Monday ahead of a Russia-EU summit, but questioned the objectivity of the EU's Eastern Partnership project

WORLD

* South Ossetia has joined Abkhazia in pulling out of the fifth round of Geneva talks on security in the Caucasus, the head of the South Ossetian delegation said

* Latvia is pressurizing the European Court of Human Rights over the case of Soviet World War II veteran Vasily Kononov, the 85-year-old former partisan's lawyer said

* Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said again on Monday that there would be no early presidential or parliamentary elections in the country

* Lithuanian voters have elected Dalia Grybauskaite, the EU budget commissioner, as their new president, according to preliminary results released on Monday

* Russia is ready to participate in and partially finance the modernization of Ukraine's natural gas pipeline system, the Russian energy minister said

* Georgian opposition parties are to continue their protests against President Mikheil Saakashvili this week, an opposition spokesman said

* Russian citizen Irina Belenkaya has lost her appeal in a Hungarian court against being extradited to France to stand trial for kidnapping her daughter, her lawyer said

* German prosecutors have decided not to investigate allegations of a drunken brawl in Frankfurt airport involving the Ukrainian interior minister, the Ukrainskaya Pravda web site said

* Six people have died after a road bridge collapsed in central China's Hunan Province, Xinhua said

* The Sri Lankan military said on Monday that the Tamil Tiger separatists have been defeated and their leader killed in a battle in the northeast of the country, bringing an end to 25 years of civil war

CULTURE

* Armenia has lodged a complaint against its neighbor Azerbaijan over what it calls a "gross violation" of Eurovision regulations, regional media said

BUSINESS

* Farimex, a minority shareholder in Russia's second largest mobile operator VimpelCom, has initiated an investigation by Ukraine's Anti-Monopoly Committee against Telenor, Norway's telecoms giant said

SPORT

* Russia's Dinara Safina continued her recent dominance of women's tennis with victory at the Madrid Open over the weekend cementing her position atop the WTA rankings, published on Monday