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Main News of March 18

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A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours. 18.03.2013, Sputnik International

2013-03-18T19:58+0000

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Main News of March 18

19:58 GMT 18.03.2013

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

WORLD

* The Republican National Committee (RNC) plans to spend $10 million this year in an outreach to minority communities, part of a comprehensive strategy unveiled Monday for putting the party back on track after a series of hard-fought recent election losses including the presidential race in November

* Two inmates have made a daring helicopter escape from a prison in Canada’s eastern province of Quebec but one was later arrested, local media reported

* China has become the world’s fifth largest exporter of major conventional arms, replacing the United Kingdom, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a report

* Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades says he is trying to convince creditors to soften bailout terms obliging Cypriot bank clients to pay a levy, media reported

* Venezuela’s Acting President Nicolas Maduro opened his official Twitter account on Sunday, gaining some 100,000 followers within the first hour

* Georgian ex-president Eduard Shevardnadze urged on Monday the country's current leader, Mikheil Saakashvili, to resign for the good of the country

* China's new president, Xi Jinping, will discuss energy partnership during his March 22-24 visit to Russia, his first overseas trip as leader of the world’s most populous country, the Kremlin said

* A Ukrainian journalist who last week fled from militants in Syria that had been holding her captive for five months has returned to her home country, Ukrainian officials said

* Cable television’s History Channel miniseries “The Bible” has created a social media firestorm in the United States after viewers of Sunday night’s episode took to Facebook and Twitter noticing an uncanny resemblance between the character Satan and US President Barack Obama

RUSSIA

* Washington’s decision to scrap plans to place missile defense elements in Poland does nothing to address Moscow’s national security concerns and will not affect its stance on the issue, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview

* Sea Launch AG plans to launch a satellite for US satellite services provider Echostar Corp. from its Pacific Ocean-based Odyssey platform in 2015, the companies said

* Work is in progress on the newest fifth-generation nuclear-powered and diesel submarines at Russia's Rubin Central Design Bureau, Rubin head Igor Vilnit said

* The Bolshoi Theatre said that it is undecided on how it will react to incendiary claims that it provides ballerinas as escorts to wealthy Russian businessmen

* Russia urged the international community to join it in condemning this weekend’s rally commemorating Latvian soldiers that served alongside the invading Nazi army in World War II

* Russian President Vladimir Putin believes the Cypriot government’s plans to impose a one-off levy on all bank deposits as part of a bailout deal to get much-needed loans from international creditors would be “unfair, unprofessional and dangerous,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said

* Investigators said Monday they were looking into a mysterious death of a beauty pageant winner in a Siberian region

* The Russian ruble and stocks plummeted at the opening of a trading session on the Moscow Exchange on Monday amid investors’ growing concerns over the Cyprus bailout deal and fears of an escalation of the eurozone debt crisis

* Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev dismissed the possibility of Ukraine joining the post-Soviet trade bloc of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan on special terms

* Russia will install Kalibr (SS-N-27 Sizzler) missile systems on three of its Project 11356 frigates, the Baltic shipbuilding plant said

* Russian military inspectors will make surveillance flights over the territories of Germany and the Benelux countries under the international Open Skies Treaty within a period starting Monday, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry said

* One person was injured as a train collided with a Lada car in Moscow on Sunday evening, a law enforcement spokesman said

* Russia’s consumer rights watchdog hit out at Google and YouTube on Monday over what it called online suicide instruction videos