Main News of October 18

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Tbilisi has called Moscow's removal of troops from a village bordering South Ossetia "a step in the right direction," the Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement

*Units from the Baltic states, Poland and the United States started joint military exercises at the Adazi Training Area in Latvia, the Latvian Defense Ministry said

* Saudi Arabia special services warned Paris that Al-Qaeda may be plotting a terrorist attack in France

* Poland's special envoy to the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), Edmund Klich, will visit Moscow  to study the committee's probe into the April crash of a Polish presidential plane in western Russia.

* Ukraine plans to launch oil and gas extraction in Venezuela in the near future, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said

* Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev, who was once a KGB agent stationed in London and bought Britain's The Independent newspaper in March, is launching a new paper, called "i," the Independent website said

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has arrived in the French city of Deauville to discuss a range of international issues with the leaders of France and Germany.

RUSSIA

* An Italian military delegation has arrived in Moscow to hold talks on bilateral military-technical cooperation, the Russian Defense Ministry said

*Russia's TNK-BP, half-owned by British oil giant BP, will buy BP's producing and pipeline assets in Vietnam and Venezuela for $1.8 billion, TNK-BP said

*Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Sobyanin, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's nominee for the new Moscow mayor,  said he had plans to work out his own city development program

*The prosecution has reduced by 131 million tons the volume of oil that former Yukos oil major CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev are charged with stealing

*A man, suspected of shooting a Russia Today TV channel journalist in the foot, has confessed his guilt, a Moscow police spokesman said

*A Moscow city court found two Chechen natives guilty of the 2008 murder of Russian politician Ruslan Yamadayev

*The 21st Russian Fashion week gains momentum in Moscow with a flamboyant shows from Russian and foreign fashion designers and a special exhibition by fashion photographer Dylan Don

*Russia is ready to strengthen cooperation with Iraq, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said

*Russia will finalize setting up its military police force by 2012, the Defense Ministry said

*Russian bank profits in 2010 could hit the record-high level of 500 billion rubles ($16.4 bln) registered in 2007 before the global financial crisis struck Russia, central bank chief Sergei Ignatyev said

*Russia's 2010 federal budget deficit may turn out to be much lower than the forecast of 5.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said

*The number of Russian children adopted by foreigners has almost halved over the past five years, an official with the Russian Ministry of Education and Science said

* A recent incident when a man shot a Russia Today TV channel female journalist in the foot with a non-lethal handgun shows that such arms should be prohibited, Russian Federation Council's First Deputy Speaker Alexander Torshin said

*Three Russian cosmonauts currently on a mission at the International Space Station (ISS) took part in the all-Russia census

 

SPORT

* Russian tennis star Nikolay Davydenko has lost his place in the world top-10, according to the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) rankings