Main News of February 20

WORLD

* The French-led consortium Novarka resumed work on the construction of a new confinement dome over the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) press service said on its website

* Crew members of a ship hijacked three days ago off the Nigerian coast have not been hurt, the Russian Foreign Ministry said

* The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) will conduct a three-day-long exercise over the weekend, IRGC Ground Forces Chief Brigadier Gen. Mohammad Pakpour said, Iran’s Press TV reported

* Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office has enough evidence pointing to former president Leonid Kuchma’s involvement in the murder of opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze, First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin said

RUSSIA

* Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an official invitation to the G20 heads of state and government to participate in the St. Petersburg Summit, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said

* A woman identified as the mother of a Russian child who officials in Moscow say was “brutally killed” by his adoptive US parent has appealed to President Vladimir Putin to bring her second son home

* Russia’s Investigative Committee (IC) initiated criminal proceedings against more than 800 state and government officials last year, including about 600 lawmakers on different levels, committee chief Alexander Bastrykin said

BUSINESS

* Inflation in Russia is unlikely to stay within the targeted range of 4-5 percent by the end of 2014, IMF chief for Russia Odd Per Brekk said

* Illegal money transfers from Russia reached $49 billion in 2012 or 2.5 percent of the country’s GDP, with almost half of that sum sent out by a single group of “well-organized” people, central bank chief Sergei Ignatyev said

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