Main news of August 27

RUSSIA

* Russia's prosecutor general said the Chechen-born leader of a Moscow organized crime group was behind the murder of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and that ten people had been arrested in the case, including law enforcement officials 

* Russia's Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said fugitive tycoon Boris Berezovsky, wanted in Russia, could be extradited from the U.K. to Brazil, where he also faces a criminal probe

* One Russian and two Ukrainians were among those killed when an Antonov cargo plane crashed in eastern Congo on Sunday, an official with the Russian Embassy in Kinshasa said

* President Vladimir Putin accepted the resignation of the Samara Region's governor, Konstantin Titov, and appointed the head of local auto maker AvtoVAZ as acting governor, the Kremlin said

* Baltiisky Zavod, a state-controlled shipyard in northwest Russia, will manufacture ship components for India's Navy worth over $20 million, the company said

* Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has withdrawn charges against two Novosibirsk scientists Oleg and Igor Minin earlier accused of revealing state secrets, the FSB press service said

WORLD

* Greece has asked Russia to send additional aircraft to fight the country's worst forest fires in decades, which have killed 63 people in the past three days, Russia's Foreign Ministry said

* Radical elements in the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas may attempt to undermine Palestinian-Israeli dialogue by staging a series of high-profile terrorist attacks, Israeli security services said

* Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe named several members of a new Cabinet in the wake of a crippling defeat of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party in recent parliamentary elections, local media reported

* At least 23 people died over the past 24 hours in some of the worst floods to hit north India, the country's media said

* A Russian found transporting explosives was detained in southeast Afghanistan near the Pakistani border on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack, according to the official news agency of neighboring Iran, IRNA

* Kazakhstan has put Alnur Musayev, former head of the national Security Committee, on a wanted list on abduction charges, the Interior Ministry said

* A Mauritanian national accused of illegally seizing Russian fishing trawlers in Spain will be extradited to Russia following charges from both Moscow and the northeast African country, a Russian lawyer said

BUSINESS

* Duty on Russian oil exports could rise by up to $26, reaching $248-250 per metric ton as of October 1, in keeping with world market trends, a Finance Ministry official said

* The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) will finance the construction of a pipeline across the country, to supply Central Asian gas to China's south and east, the company said

* The government of Kazakhstan has suspended for three months a license held by Italy's Eni to develop the country's largest oil field on the Caspian shelf, the Kazakh environment minister said