Main news of February 25

RUSSIA

* Russia's top investigator said the Makhmudov brothers, acquitted of the 2006 murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, were involved in her death, but the prosecution had failed to convince the jurors of this

* Russia will continue developing and modernizing its nuclear triad in 2009 despite the current global economic crisis, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said

* A group of Russian Navy officials are suspected of attempting to smuggle 30 anti-submarine missiles and 200 airplane bombs worth a total of $18 million to Tajikistan for sale to China, Russia's chief military prosecutor said

* One in four crimes involving the Armed Forces and other security departments in Russia was committed by officers last year causing over 2 billion rubles ($55.8 million) in losses, the chief military prosecutor said

* A Moscow court rejected a gay compensation claim made by the former cellmate of jailed Yukos ex-head Mikhail Khodorkovsky

* The Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, the Admiral Chabanenko destroyer and the Nikolai Chiker salvage tug are returning to their home port after a tour of duty in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, a spokesman for the Russian Northern Fleet said 

WORLD

* At least nine people died and over 80 others were injured when a Turkish Airlines plane crashed at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, Dutch authorities said

* A bus carrying dozens of passengers plunged into a river in India's state of Jammu and Kashmir killing at least 33 people, a local police chief said

* The Israeli Air Force has bombed several tunnels used by Palestinian smugglers between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, a military spokesman said

* Bangladeshi border guards mutinied, taking senior officers hostage at their headquarters in the capital, Dhaka, local media reported

* Russia has completed the construction of Iran's first nuclear power plant at Bushehr and is launching start-up operations, the head of Russia's state nuclear power corporation, Sergei Kiriyenko, said

* Iran's nuclear chief, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, said the Islamic Republic had 6,000 operating centrifuges at a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and was planning to install a total of 50,000 over the next five years

* Israel's Foreign Ministry said the completion of Iran's first nuclear power plant is "bad news" for the whole world, Haaretz daily reported 

* Turkmenistan will open its airspace for the transit of non-lethal cargo to a U.S. military contingent in Afghanistan, the Central Asian state's president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, said

* Ukraine's first president Leonid Kravchuk has urged the current president, Viktor Yushchenko, to step down as head of the country on Ukrainian television

BUSINESS

* Russian authorities have invested almost 400 billion rubles ($11.2 billion) in the financial recovery of domestic banks to date, a Central Bank senior official said

* Foreign direct investment in Russia dropped by 14.2% to $103.8 billion in 2008, the Russian state statistics service said

* Russia's federal budget deficit will amount to 8% of GDP in 2009, including spending from the National Wealth Fund, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said