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Main news of May 20

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A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours 20.05.2010, Sputnik International

2010-05-20T19:59+0000

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Main news of May 20

19:59 GMT 20.05.2010

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

RUSSIA

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his French counterpart Nikolas Sarkozy may discuss the purchase by Russia of a French Mistral-class warship at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on May 17-19, a Kremlin aide said

* Russia will invest some $1 billion in uranium deposits in Namibia, Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian State Atomic Energy corporation Rosatom said

* Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom has applied to develop Namibia's Rossing South uranium deposit, according to briefing materials issued by the Russian government

* At a meeting with the Presidential Council on Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for people to speak civilly about the courts in the North Caucasus

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged the government to improve tax administration to make tax breaks efficient for high-tech projects

* Russian legislators are preparing amendments to a draft law on insider information to tighten the rules of nonpublic information disclosures by government officials and regulators, the chairman of an influential parliament committee said

* Italy hopes a decision on exchanging secret information needed for combating terrorism will be made during the forthcoming Russia-EU summit in Rostov-on-Don, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said

* Russia and the EU should speed up the process of abolishing visa requirements, the Russian envoy to the EU said

* A special investigations committee officially ordered criminal charges brought against the ex-director of the Raspadskaya coalmine, where an accident killed at least 66 miners, a Russian Investigation Committee spokesman said

* The Russian captain abducted from his ship in Cameroon was allowed by his captors to get in touch with the vessel's owner, the Russian Sailors Trade Union said

* The eldest son of jailed ex-Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky said in a video interview on Wednesday that he was afraid of returning to Russia over possible political pressure

* Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov was elected head of the Russian Olympic Committee, and former committee head Leonid Tyagachyov was elected committee honorary president

WORLD

* Seoul announced that a North Korean submarine sank a South Korean warship in March

* Experts from the Interstate Aviation Committee presented three flight recorders from Lech Kaczynski’s Tu-154 aircraft, which crashed near Smolensk on April 10

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that UN Security Council talks on new sanctions against Iran should not hamper the implementation of an uranium swap agreement signed by Iran, Brazil, and Turkey

* Russia and the EU should speed up the process of abolishing visa requirements, the Russian envoy to the EU said

* A referendum on June 27 on the adoption of a new constitution in Kyrgyzstan will be a test of public confidence for the interim government, a senior Kyrgyz official said

* The Pakistani authorities have blocked access to the popular website YouTube over its "growing sacrilegious content," national media said, citing officials

BUSINESS

* Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom has applied to develop Namibia's Rossing South uranium deposit, according to briefing materials issued by the Russian government

* International foreign exchange markets will remain strongly volatile in the next few years, Russian Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina said

* Russian oil and gas companies are ceding their dominance on the domestic stock market, with their capitalization plunging below 50% of the value of all traded shares in January-March 2010, a business paper reported

* Russian-Chinese trade could exceed pre-crisis levels in 2010-2011 to reach $60 billion, the speaker of the lower house of Russia's parliament said in Shanghai

* Russian authorities are wrapping up talks with Cisco and Nokia over their engagement into the Russian high-tech research Skolkovo project, presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said