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Main News of February 18

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A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours 18.02.2013, Sputnik International

2013-02-18T20:31+0000

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Main News of February 18

20:31 GMT 18.02.2013

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Russia and the United States are trying to use all chances to launch political dialog in Syria, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said

* Mass violations have occurred during voting in Armenia's presidential election, a spokesman for one of the candidates claimed

* Following Finland’s seizure last week of tank parts reportedly bound for Syria from Russia, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow had not tried to smuggle arms components to Syria via Finland

* Reports that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has returned home after more than two months of cancer treatment in Cuba surfaced Monday via the president’s Twitter account and local media

RUSSIA

* Russia’s child rights ombudsman, Pavel Astakhov, writing Monday in his Twitter feed, accused a Texas woman of killing a toddler she and her husband had adopted from Russia, though he acknowledged later that no conclusive investigation had yet taken place

* Russia's Chelyabinsk Region has asked the federal government to provide 500 million rubles ($16.6 million) aid to help repair damage after it was struck by a meteorite on Friday, regional governor Mikhail Yurevich said

* Russia’s ruling party has called on businesses in the central Russian city of Chelyabinsk, hit by fragments of a massive meteorite on Friday, not to profiteer from demand for windows and building materials

SCIENCE

* Russia’s Bion-M satellite and a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket have been delivered to the Baikonur space launch center in Kazakhstan, the Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said

CRIME

* Lawyers for a former Russian military intelligence officer, sentenced earlier this month to 13 years in prison on charges of plotting an armed coup, filed an appeal against the verdict

* Russia’s state-run hydropower holding company RusHydro is to hold an internal audit into a 1 billion ruble ($33 million) fraud uncovered at the company, RusHydro CEO Yevgeny Dod said

BUSINESS

* Sollers-Bussan, a joint venture between Russian auto maker Sollers and Japan’s Mitsui & Co., has started series production of Toyota Land Cruiser Prado cars in Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, Sollers said

* The Russian government has approved amendments to a law lifting restrictions on foreign stakes in some domestic small and medium businesses, the government press office reported