Main news of October 5

RUSSIA

* Russia's Foreign Ministry confirmed that top Russian and U.S. defense officials and diplomats would meet in Moscow on October 12-13 to continue discussions on missile defense in Central Europe

* All 14 political parties running in the Russian parliamentary elections have filed registration documents with the Central Election Commission, bringing the latest stage of the election campaign to an end

* Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov signed a document defining the exact duties of his five deputy prime ministers, the government's press office said

* Russian businessman and politician Vladimir Gruzdev will be the first Russian space tourist, but his flight will not go ahead until 2009, Russian space agency (Roskosmos) head Anatoly Perminov said

* Russia will hand over military hardware to Tajikistan in preparation for the modernization of its 201st Russian military base, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said

* Scientists at the Russian virology and biotechnology Vector research centre in Novosibirsk, West Siberia, said they had developed a potential HIV vaccine

* A group of parliamentarians from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe proposed holding an international investigation into the murder of Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya

WORLD

* Iran would welcome foreign investment in its nuclear industry, but will not abandon its uranium enrichment program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said

* North Korea's leader called a proposal by South Korea's president to withdraw troops from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) running between the two states "premature," South Korea's Yonhap news said

* Indian strategic forces have successfully tested a nuclear-capable Agni A-I short-range ballistic missile, India's Defense Ministry said

* All 3,200 workers, trapped in Elandsrand mine, are now safe, the mine's owners, Harmony, said on their Web site

* Preliminary reports suggest that some 40 people were killed on board an aircraft which crashed in Congo, the Russian Embassy said

* Twenty people have died in floods caused by Typhoon Lekima in northern Vietnam, a representative from a local organization supervising the fight against floods and typhoons said

* The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was asked to prepare a report on the death of Zurab Zhvania, a former Georgian prime minister

* Egyptian authorities are to put on display the mummy of the boy pharaoh, Tutankhamen, in November, the head of the country's High Council for Antiquities said

* Police have killed a gunman who shot five people in a 10-hour standoff in a downtown Alexandria law office in Louisiana, the local media reported

* Proton launches from the Baikonur space center, suspended following a crash on September 6, can be resumed when Kazakhstan damages claims are met, a Kazakh emergencies spokesman said

* Russia's embassy in Lebanon said it was investigating reports that four Russian nationals had been charged with terrorism in the Middle East state

* Russia will return to Germany the last six of 117 stained glass window panels taken by the Red Army in 1945 from the church of Marienkirche in Frankfurt an der Oder

* Leaders of 12 former Soviet republics, in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe for a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit, agreed on Friday to develop further the post-Soviet alliance

* Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf signed a national reconciliation decree granting a full amnesty to exiled ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, the incumbent premier told the press

* The final votes in Ukraine's parliamentary elections were counted on Friday, with pro-West blocs gathering enough votes to form a coalition government

BUSINESS

* Mechel, a leading Russian steel and alloy producer, bought coal assets in the northeastern Republic of Yakutia for 58.19 billion rubles ($2.3 billion), the tender organizer said

 * Inflation stood at 0.1% in September 2006, and 7.2% in January-September 2006, the state statistics service said

* Ukraine's oil and gas company Naftogaz said a recent reduction in natural gas consumption was caused by nonpayment by power companies rather than a reaction to Gazprom's debt warning

* A spokesman for the Evraz Group S.A. said the company is considering the issue of Eurobonds to refund a $1.8 billion loan obtained for the purchase of Oregon Steel Mills

* Norilsk Nickel has closed a deal to purchase a 100% stake in Canada's nickel and gold producer LionOre, the Russian metals giant said