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Main news of September 20

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RUSSIA * Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said: - Russia still wants to join the WTO and step up economic ties with the EU, backtracking... 20.09.2008, Sputnik International

2008-09-20T15:04+0000

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Main news of September 20

15:04 GMT 20.09.2008

RUSSIA

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said:

- Russia still wants to join the WTO and step up economic ties with the EU, backtracking on the statement made amid strains with the West over the Georgia conflict

- Abkhazia and South Ossetia will decide on Russian troops' further deployment on their territories

* The European Union could restart in October talks on a comprehensive cooperation treaty with Russia suspended over the country's conflict with Georgia, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said

* Russia's space agency and French satellite launch firm Arianespace signed a contract on Saturday to launch 10 Russian Soyuz-ST carrier rockets from the Kourou space center in French Guiana

* Political squabbles between Russia and the United States should not affect their trade, Russia's deputy foreign minister, Andrei Denisov, said

* Russia is opposed to any new United Nations measures against Iran over its disputed nuclear program for now, the Foreign Ministry said

* A Russian carrier rocket Proton-M has successfully orbited Canada's Nimiq-4 telecommunications satellite, a spokesman for the rocket's producer said

* A mutual visa free regime came into force between Russia and Israel

WORLD

* NATO defense ministers considered at a meeting in London the creation of a rapid-response force to be sent into a country that feels threatened by Russia, the Los Angeles Times said

* The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest particle collider, will be stopped for at least two months due to a "large" helium leak into its tunnel, CERN's press service said

* Egyptian authorities temporary reopened the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, the MENA news agency reported

* South Ossetia celebrated its independence day with a military parade on Saturday driving Georgian jeeps and tanks, seized during last month's conflict, on a central square of the regional capital Tskhinvali

BUSINESS

* Inflation in Russia in 2008 is likely to exceed the Central Bank's official forecast of 11% and approach 15%, the bank's first deputy chairman, Alexei Ulyukayev, said