Main news of November 17

RUSSIA

* In addition to deploying tactical missiles near the Polish border, Russia could use precision-guided air-based weapons to counter U.S. missile defense plans, a Russian military expert said

* Police killed four militants in a gunfight in Makhachkala, the capital of the Russian North Caucasus republic of Daghestan

* The deaths of 20 people on board the Russian nuclear submarine the Nerpa were caused by a crew member entering the wrong data into a temperature sensor, the Kommersant paper said

* Russia will implement the decisions adopted at the recent G20 summit, but will also take measures to protect its national interests, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at a cabinet meeting

* Former Yukos executive Svetlana Bakhmina was transferred from a prison in Central Russia to a maternity clinic near Moscow, her lawyer said

* Russia's Energia space corporation received a long-awaited loan worth 2.9 billion rubles ($106 million) from state-run savings bank Sberbank for spacecraft construction, the company said

* A corpse with occult symbols carved into it was discovered in Russia's second city of St. Petersburg, the Fontanka Internet portal reported

WORLD 

* Moscow dismissed reports by Georgia's Interior Ministry that a Russian drone had crashed on Georgian territory killing two and wounding eight service personnel

* The suspected military head of the Basque separatist group ETA was arrested in southern France in a joint operation with Spanish police, local authorities said

* Georgia claims that pipeline damage is responsible for the suspension of natural gas deliveries to its breakaway province of South Ossetia, a Gazprom spokesman told a radio station

* Turkish border guards seized 575 kg (1,268 lbs) of heroin bound for the European Union, police reported

* The U.S. introduced a visa-free regime for citizens of six countries that joined the EU in 2004, as well as for South Korea

* Israel agreed to open a border crossing with Gaza for UN humanitarian cargo for the first time in two weeks, a Gaza border official told a local radio station

BUSINESS

* Russia's TVEL signed a 500 million-euro ($630-mln) contract with Slovenske Elektrarne on fuel supplies to Slovak nuclear power plants, Russia's civilian nuclear chief said

* Russia will help Venezuela build its first nuclear reactor in the northwestern province of Zulia, President Hugo Chavez said

* Polyus Gold, Russia's largest gold mining company, said it had received approval from Kazakhstan's government to buy 50.1% in KazakhGold