Main News of August 15

RUSSIA    

 * Nineteen people are still in the hospital in St. Petersburg following Monday's train derailment in the Novgorod Region, in northwestern Russia, a hospital spokesman said

* Service on a section of the Moscow-St. Petersburg railroad, which was damaged when a passenger train was derailed by an explosion August 13, has been fully restored, the Russian railway monopoly said 

* Over $7.3 billion will be needed to completely modernize the transport infrastructure of Sochi by 2014, when the Russian Black Sea resort will host the Winter Olympic Games, transport officials said

* Russia is planning to manufacture more than 4,500 civilian and military aircraft by 2025, worth $250 billion, Alexei Fyodorov, head of the Russian aircraft manufacturing mega-holding said

* Russian state-owned military aircraft building corporation MiG will become a joint stock company in the next few months, a top manager said

* A Moscow court acquitted a businessman charged with selling pirated music files online, citing lack of evidence

* Moscow has broken the daily summer temperature record for the second time in a week Wednesday, when the mercury reached 30.5 degrees Celsius (86.9 degrees Fahrenheit) by midday, the meteorological service said

WORLD

* South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said a permanent peace treaty between the two Koreas would boost economic development on the Korean Peninsula, Seoul's Yonhap news agency reported

* Two loyalists of the radical group Hamas were killed in clashes with the notorious Doghmush clan, which stood behind the kidnapping of a BBC journalist, in Hamas-controlled Gaza, Palestinian radio said

* Four bombs exploded in two towns of northeast India's Assam state on the country's Independence Day, but no casualties were reported, the Indo-Asian News Service said

* Russian experts will take part in a probe into the alleged firing of a missile August 6 near Georgia's border with breakaway South Ossetia along with Georgia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said

* Georgia's Foreign Ministry said citing independent experts that an unidentified aircraft violated Georgian airspace from the Russian side August 6

* Kazakhstan will pursue the extradition of the former son-in-law and outspoken critic of the country's president, despite the decision of a Vienna court rejecting an earlier request, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said

BUSINESS

* A subsidiary of Russian state-owned crude producer Rosneft bought the overseas assets of bankrupt oil company Yukos for 7.8 billion rubles ($307 million) at a liquidation auction

* State-controlled crude producer Rosneft acquired the debt portfolio of bankrupt oil company Yukos at a liquidation auction for 11.55 billion rubles ($453 million)

* Ukraine's State Property Fund will hold an open tender for a 99.5% stake in state-owned chemicals factory Odessa Port Plant, a newspaper run by the fund said

* Accrued foreign investment in the Russian economy increased 39.5% to $178.5 billion from late June 2006 to late June 2007, the country's top statistics agency said