Main news of October 2

RUSSIA

* A congress of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party has nominated President Vladimir Putin as the only leader on the federal party list, abandoning the "leading troika" practice

* Russia does not intend in the foreseeable future to bring in spent nuclear fuel from other countries for storage and subsequent reprocessing, a senior nuclear industry official said

* Gazprom could reduce natural gas supplies to Ukraine in October if the country fails to settle its $1.3 billion debt, the Russian energy giant said in a press release

* Russian experts have so far failed to trace the original source of the polonium believed to have been used in the fatal poisoning of ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, a top investigator said

* A total of 6 students died and 48 were injured in a fire that broke out in a university in southeast Moscow, a Russian emergencies ministry spokesman said

* The Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Alexy II said the world community should take into consideration the opinion of Serbs when determining Kosovo's status

* Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the facilities for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi should be constructed and tested two or three years prior to the event

WORLD

* With 98.17% of the vote counted, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions looks set to win parliamentary elections in Ukraine

* The president of North Korea has met his South Korean counterpart, who has arrived in Pyongyang for a three-day summit - the first time a South Korean leader has been in the Communist state since 2000

* Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has nominated a new Army commander, Pakistani television reported

* France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said additional sanctions should be imposed on Iran in connection with the country's nuclear program

* Japan intends to revise its plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 6% of 1990 levels by 2012, the chief Cabinet secretary said

* An inquest has opened in London into the deaths of the former Princess of Wales and her lover Dodi Al Fayed, killed in a car crash in Paris over a decade ago

* Pakistan authorities agreed in principle to lift corruption charges against exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, the country's railways minister said

* Twenty nine prisoners from the Gaza Strip were released by Israeli authorities, bringing the total number of Palestinian prisoners freed in the past two days to 86, the Prisons Service said

* Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura denied that a timeframe had been set for removing North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism at the latest round of disarmament talks with the country

* At least one person was killed and 11 injured in two blasts in Izmir, Turkey's third largest city, local TV said

* A second suspect in the attempted bombing of the U.S. embassy in Vienna has been arrested, a spokeswoman for the Viennese security and counter-terrorism bureau said

* Portuguese police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, a missing British girl, traveled to Huelva, in southern Spain, to continue their search, said the Mundo newspaper

BUSINESS

* LUKoil is set to hold talks in Venezuela this month on implementing projects in the Latin American country, the head of Russia's largest independent crude producer said

* Russian electricity monopoly Unified Energy System expects its five-year investment program to bring related industries, orders worth over 1.5 trillion rubles ($60 billion)

* Aeroflot's net profit calculated to Russian Accounting Standards declined 25.2% year-on-year in the first half of 2007, to 3.2 billion rubles ($130 million), the air carrier said