Main news of September 11

RUSSIA

* Russia has tested a vacuum bomb that is the most powerful in the world, a top military official said

* The Moscow District Military Court ruled again that the arrest of Federal Security Service (FSB) Lt. Col. Pavel Ryaguzov, a suspect in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, was unlawful

* The recent crash of a Russian Proton-M rocket will not affect the launch of a Foton bio-satellite piggybacked on a Soyuz rocket, since the two rockets are entirely different, a spokesman for the Federal Space Agency said

* Semyon Vainshtok, who heads state-run Russian oil transporter Transneft [RTS: TRNF], agreed to President Putin's proposal to head the state corporation for the 2014 Winter Olympics preparations in Sochi

* About 4.3 billion rubles ($168 million) will be allocated for the December 2 polls to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, Vladimir Churov, the head of the Central Election Commission said

* Russia plans to allocate 140 billion rubles ($5.5 billion) - 150 billion rubles ($5.8 billion) to develop its electronics industry through 2025, the Industry and Energy Ministry said in a press release

* A family of three was shot dead early on Tuesday in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia, a volatile region bordering on Chechnya, local security officials said

* This year could be the warmest on record since climate monitoring in the Arctic Ocean began, a meteorological official said 

WORLD

* Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif has filed a petition with the country's Supreme Court protesting his deportation, local media quoted Sharif's lawyers as saying

* Iran has strengthened its defense capacity and is capable of decisively repelling any attack against it, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Iranian TV

* India could soon test its first submarine-launched ballistic missile, the Press Trust of India quoted the Defense Ministry as saying, denying that it has already test-fired an SLBM

* At least 69 Israeli soldiers have been injured, some seriously, as a result of a rocket attack on a military training base, an Israeli Army spokesman said

* New York has marked the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in which almost 3,000 people lost their lives

* U.S. Time magazine has been ordered to pay former Indonesian dictator Suharto $106 million in damages for an article published eight years ago

* At least 18 people have been killed and 10 wounded in a terrorist bomb attack in the Pakistani city of Dera Ismailkhan, a police spokesman said

* The Bushehr nuclear power plant being built by Russia in Iran is 95% complete, and Tehran is not delaying its completion, the country's Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh said

* Indonesia, which accounts for over 40% of global deaths from avian influenza, hopes for Russia's assistance in the fight against the disease, Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie said

* The trial of a famous Texas businessman, Oscar Wyatt, charged with paying some $4 million in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime as part of the oil-for-food program, has started in Manhattan's federal court

* Georgia's self-proclaimed republic of Abkhazia has demanded $13 billion in compensation from Tbilisi for damage caused during the 1992-1993 war and ensuing blockade, Abkhazia's Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba said, in an interview broadcast on the Georgian Rustavi-2 TV channel

* Ruhnu, a small Estonian island in the Gulf of Riga, in the Baltic Sea, has been deluged by a rain of stink bugs, the Eesti Paevaleht newspaper said 

BUSINESS

* The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is to increase oil production by 500,000 barrels per day from November 1, Qatar's Energy Minister said at the 145th OPEC session

* Gazprom plans to pick another partner in a project to develop the Shtokman natural gas field in the Arctic, a top manager of the Russian energy giant said

* Kazakhstan is ready for dialogue to resolve issues over the development of the country's largest oil field on the Caspian shelf, the Kazakh energy minister said

* Power Machines, Russia's leading heavy machinery manufacturer, said it won a tender to supply equipment worth $200 million for a hydroelectric power plant to be built in Mexico

* Russia plans to spend $1.1 billion on offshore oil and gas prospecting by 2020, in addition to $11 billion to be spent by companies, the Natural Resources Ministry said

* Polyus Gold, Russia's leading gold producer, said it has become the world's fourth largest, with 2,100 metric tons of proven and probable gold reserves

* Russia's cash budget surplus in the first eight months of 2007 reached some 1.4 trillion rubles ($56 billion), the Finance Ministry said in preliminary figures on the budget implementation