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Main News of June 21

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A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours 21.06.2013, Sputnik International

2013-06-21T20:09+0000

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Main News of June 21

20:09 GMT 21.06.2013

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

POLITICS

* Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited an exhibition on Friday, contrary to earlier press reports that the event had been canceled due to a controversy over artworks that the Soviet Union took from Germany during and after World War II

WORLD

* At least 600 people from Russia and Europe are fighting for the rebels in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday at a plenary meeting of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum

RUSSIA

* The United States needs to choose between its support for an international conference designed to end the civil war in Syria and unilateral steps to support the armed opposition, Russia’s foreign minister said

* Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that he had no recollection of the owner of an American football team who claimed that the Russian leader pocketed his Super Bowl ring

* Police dogs have helped uncover about 1,500 crimes, including thefts, attacks, burglaries and murders, in Moscow so far this year, said the local chief of the Interior Ministry’s canine handler service

* Russia’s lower house of parliament has given its final approval for a bill to ban adoptions of Russian children by same-sex couples abroad

* Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday urged the lower house of parliament to pass a bill pardoning first-time violators of financial laws before the legislature goes on summer vacation

* Russian lawmakers fast-tracked a bill on Friday which will allow courts to order the blocking of websites hosting suspect pirated movies, despite an outcry from the internet industry

* Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday proposed merging the Supreme Court with the Supreme Commercial Court, and amending the constitution to match

* Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, was granted the honorary title of surgery professor on Friday by one of Russia’s leading surgical academies, adding medicine to his already extensive list of formal titles

* Latvia’s parliament has approved in the third and final reading amendments to legislation that ban the display of Soviet and Nazi symbols at all public events

BUSINESS

* The St. Petersburg administration has signed investment agreements worth 130 billion rubles ($4 billion) at the international economic forum that the northern capital is currently hosting, the governor said

* The Russian government will invest up to 450 billion rubles ($13.7 billion) in infrastructure projects from its sovereign wealth fund together with private capital, President Vladimir Putin said

* Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft signed deal completion agreements on Russian shelf projects with Italy’s Eni and Norway’s Statoil on Friday, the company said

* Russia’s state-owned oil giant Rosneft will supply $270 billion worth of crude oil to China, the company said on Friday, after clinching a deal likely to make Moscow China’s biggest energy supplier

SPORTS

* Russia's lower house of parliament Friday passed measures to ban convicted hooligans from sports events for up to seven years in the bill's crucial second reading