Main News of June 13

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

RUSSIA

* Russia has every possibility to provide a proper response to the projected deployment of a U.S. missile shield in Europe, though Moscow would like to see the U.S. plans revised, Russian President Vladimir Putin said

* Russia must start development of a long-range bomber aircraft, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting on defense orders

* Russians consider Georgia the most hostile towards Russia, a poll run by Russia's largest independent pollster Levada Center has revealed

WORLD

* The State Department acknowledged that the Russian helicopters Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier claimed would “escalate quite dramatically” the Syrian conflict were actually returning to Syria after being refurbished

* U.S. President Barack Obama has extended by one year sanctions on Belarus for what he said are the Minsk government's steps backward in the development of democratic governance and respect for human rights, the White House said

* Syria is not witnessing a "civil war" but rather a struggle to uproot the plague of terrorism, abduction and payment of ransoms, aggressions and explosions,” the Syrian Foreign Ministry said  in the wake of recent claims by UN officials

* British Foreign Secretary William Hague reiterated his welcome in principle for the Russian suggestion of an international conference on Syria, but warned that Iranian attendance at any such meeting was probably unworkable, the Foreign Office said

*Egypt's Constitutional Court rejected on Thursday the so-called political isolation law barring ex-president Hosni Mubarak’s associates from politics, Nile TV reported

* Iran's intelligence ministry announced the capture of a number of prime suspects in the killings of two of the country’s nuclear scientists, and claimed the detainees were linked to Israel, IRNA news agency reported

* The Pentagon is buying ten more Mi-17 helicopters for the Afghan military from Russia's state-run weapons broker Rosoboronexport, the company confirmed

SPORTS

* Russia’s Ekaterina Makarova reached the quarterfinals of the AEGON Classic in Birmingham after a comeback win over Marina Erakovic of New Zealand.

* A Mario Mandzukic equalizer 18 minutes from time gave Croatia a 1-1 draw against Italy in their Euro 2012 group stage game