Main news of February 18

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A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours.

WORLD

* Libyan security forces have killed at least 24 protesters and injured many others in a crackdown on peaceful demonstrations across the country, Human Rights Watch said.

* Russia's Foreign Ministry is greatly concerned by the wave of civil unrest which has swept across the Arab world, and believes that any interference in the tumult is inappropriate.

* Thousands of Egyptians again gathered at Cairo's central Tahrir square to mark one week since President Hosni Mubarak stepped down.

* Russia and Kyrgyzstan set up a joint venture to supply jet fuel to a U.S. military airbase outside the capital, Bishkek.

A second investigation into the plane crash in western Russia that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski said on Friday it had no evidence that would contradict the first probe's conclusion that the Polish pilots were to blame.

* Alleged Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout is looking for private lawyers to defend him in a trial in the United States instead of a federal lawyer provided by the U.S. authorities.

RUSSIA

* President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday told members of Russia's Security Council that they must deal with any attempts to disrupt the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

* Russia's permanent NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin said on Friday he expected progress in negotiations between Moscow and the alliance on the European missile shield issue by July.

BUSINESS

* Elena Baturina, the head of construction company Inteko and the billionaire wife of the former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov, said she would sue media that reported her bank accounts were found to contain dirty money.

* Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov, second in the Forbes rating of Russia's richest people, is to be awarded France's Legion of Honour, the French embassy in Moscow said.

* Norilsk Nickel has completed a considerable number of deals under its $4.5 billion buyback program in advance of a court ruling suspending the move, the company’s general director said.

* Russian industrial output may reach pre-crisis levels at the end of 2011 or the beginning of 2012, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said.

SPORTS

* Former Sale Sharks director of rugby Kingsley Jones will stand in as coach of Russia for four or five weeks from next month, the Russian Rugby Union said.

A senior official from the International Olympic Committee was pleased with a new center for Alpine Skiing in Russia's south that was built for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

* Police in Russia’s Urals have detained two teenagers on suspicion of torturing to death a 52-year-old former world champion weightlifter, media reports said.

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