Main news of February 21

RUSSIA

* Russia's president warned his Georgian counterpart of potential damage to bilateral relations if the South Caucasus country joins NATO, the Russian foreign minister said

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said:

- Talks on Kosovo should be resumed

- Russian-British relations can be improved if London reverses the steps it has taken that have strained ties

* Russia's Sukhoi aircraft manufacturer has successfully tested engines on its first SuperJet-100 regional aircraft, the company said

* The Russian Foreign Ministry said:

- Russia hopes the parties that won Pakistan's parliamentary election this week will be able to tackle terrorism and improve socio-economic conditions

- Moscow is concerned by the situation in Kenya and it urges political forces in the country to prevent another outbreak of violence

- It refused visas for the leaders of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, as they gave false information on the purpose of their visit

* Russia's final pre-election opinion poll has shown that Kremlin front-runner Dmitry Medvedev enjoys the support of 72.9% of voters, the state-run VTsIOM pollster said

* Terminally ill former Yukos executive Vasily Aleksanyan, moved from jail to hospital in early February, is chained to his bed but only when necessary, the Russian Penitentiary Service said

* Russia's population declined by 237,800 (0.17%) last year to reach 142 million as of January 1, 2008, the State Statistics Service announced

* China has built a domestic copy of the famed Su-27 Flanker fighter and may compete with Russia on third-party markets if it sets up the full-scale production of the plane, the Vedomosti daily said

WORLD

* A total of 75 people have been injured in street protests against Kosovo independence in Belgrade, including 15 policemen, doctors said

* Turkey may carry out a military operation against Kurdish insurgents based in northern Iraq in the second half of March, a national daily reported

* Over 30 Taliban militants have been killed and 12 captured in an army operation in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand, an Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman said

* Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni warned the international community against any attempts to review the policy of boycott and isolation with respect to the Islamic Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip

* Belarusian Defense Minister Leonid Maltsev said:

- The United States used the destruction of a defunct NASA satellite to test a new space weapon

- Belarus is negotiating the purchase of advanced S-400 air defense systems from Russia

* A man died of the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain in southern China in the second confirmed case in a month, China's Xinhua news agency reported

* The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announce that it had chosen Singapore as host city for the 2010 Youth Summer Olympic Games

BUSINESS

* Gazprom, Total and StatoilHydro signed a deal on a joint venture to develop the Shtokman gas field in the Barents Sea

* A civil nuclear cooperation deal between Russia and India has been drawn up and could be signed in the nearest future, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said

* Metalloinvest, a leading Russian mining and ferrous metals company, is ready to merge with metals giant Norilsk Nickel, Metalloinvest's general director said

* Norway is to provide 58 million rubles ($2.4 million) for the overhaul of a nuclear waste storage facility in northern Russia, a spokesman for the Murmansk Region governor said

* Gazprom's CEO Alexei Miller and Ukraine's prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, have failed to agree on the details of bilateral gas relations but talks will continue, Russia's energy giant said