Main News of May 18

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* North Korea launched three short-range guided missiles into the waters off its eastern coast on Saturday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing its country’s Defense Ministry

* The United States’ top military officer and leading US lawmakers on Friday criticized Russia’s delivery of advanced anti-ship cruise missiles to the Syrian government, as first reported by The New York Times

* Russia’s decision to publicly identify a purported top US spy in the country is an “unprecedented” move in relations between Moscow and Washington going back back to the Soviet era with no clear indication of how the United States will react, former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers and security experts told RIA Novosti

* Peru is interested in buying 700 Kamaz trucks and a new batch of Mi-8/17 helicopters from Russia, as well as testing the T-90S tank that is currently on display at a defense technology exhibition in Lima, the head of Russia’s delegation to the show said

* Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is expected to visit Russia in July to attend the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), a spokesman for Iran’s Embassy in Moscow said on Saturday

* Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt is due to arrive in Moscow in June to promote his new film World War Z at the Moscow International Film Festival, the festival’s general producer has said

* Gay rights supporters and opponents gathered in downtown Tbilisi on Saturday, a day after the first-ever march of gay activists in the Georgian capital ended in a scuffle

RUSSIA

* Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin wished singer Dina Garipova success and victory at the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden

* Russia's children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said on Saturday Russia may change its adoption agreement with France in response to the country’s new gay marriage law

* Russia will actively seek new deals on the Latin American arms market, which it expects to reach a value of $50 billion in the next ten years, the head of a Russian Technologies (Rostec) high-tech state corporation delegation said

* Russian authorities have launched a criminal case into the suspected beating of children by teenage caretakers in a Far Eastern orphanage on Friday, a day after a video sparked internet outrage

* Construction of a helicopter pad for President Vladimir Putin’s Mi-8 in the Kremlin cost almost 200 million rubles (about $6.4 mln), the Kremlin chief property manager, Vladimir Kozhin, said

* Russia’s new super-heavy class Angara carrier rocket will be delivered to the Plesetsk space center for further testing by June, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said

* Russia and France will carry out seven Soyuz-ST carrier rocket launches from the Kourou space center in French Guiana by the end of 2014, Russia’s Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said

* Rosbank board chairman Vladimir Golubkov, charged with bribery, has been put under house arrest until July 16 despite his plea to be released on 50-mln-ruble ($1.6 mln) bail

* Russia will maintain its peacekeeping contingent in Moldova’s breakaway Transdnestr region until Chisinau and Tiraspol agree on the status of the disputed self-proclaimed republic, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said

* Moscow's Vnukovo Airport was temporarily closed on Saturday morning after a plane carrying about 140 people from the southern Russian city of Stavropol caught fire upon landing, a law enforcement source said. No one was reported injured in the incident

* Filming of a thriller starring the legendary French actor Gerard Depardieu and the British actress Elizabeth Hurley began in Russia’s Chechen republic on Saturday, a representative of Chechnya’s Culture Ministry told RIA Novosti

* Russia’s General Staff is opposed to military intervention in Syria, saying this would be meddling in the war-torn country’s domestic affairs, Deputy Chief of the Russian General Staff, Col. Gen. Alexander Postnikov said

* Four inmates jailed for murder and burglary have escaped from a prison in the Irkutsk Region, East Siberia, by digging a tunnel, local investigators said

* Russia’s opposition and human rights activists plan to stage a rally in Moscow on June 12, Russia Day, Ilya Yashin, a member of the opposition's Coordination Council said

SPORT

* Sweden reached the world hockey championship final on Saturday as two goals from Dallas Stars wing Loui Eriksson propelled the eight-time champion to a 3-0 semifinal win over an ill-disciplined Finland

* Hours after winning the World Boxing Association cruiserweight title, Guillermo Jones was plunged into scandal when a former champion accused him of doping to give himself unnatural stamina in Friday’s knockout win over Denis Lebedev

* CSKA Moscow secured the Russian Premier League title with a game to go Saturday after a goalless draw at home to FC Kuban

* World No. 1 Serena Williams set a searing pace Saturday as she reached the final of the Italian Open with a straight-sets thrashing of Romania’s Simona Halep

* Russian pole vault queen Yelena Isinbayeva won her first competition of the season on Saturday by jumping 4.70 meters at the Diamond League meeting in Shanghai