Main news of October 15

RUSSIA

* Russian strategic bombers will conduct October 16-30 a series of long-range training flights, with simulated bomber raids and missile launches, an Air Force spokesman said

* Russia's Foreign Ministry said it wants U.S. plans to deploy components of its global missile defense system in Europe to be tabled for Russia-NATO Council discussions

* The construction of nuclear power plants is of one of the top and most important priorities for the Russian nuclear energy system, Sergei Ivanov, a Russian first deputy prime minister, said

* A declaration expected to be signed at the Caspian summit in Tehran on October 16 will act as a guideline until the approval of a convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said

* Russia will launch four U.S. Globalstar satellites into orbit on board a Soyuz-FG carrier rocket from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on October 21, Russia's space agency said

* The Russian government agreed to stabilize prices with associations representing food producers, the agriculture minister said

WORLD

* Russian President Vladimir Putin said:

- he confirms his country's plans to build the Nord Stream gas pipeline on time

- he confirms plans to pay a two-day official visit to Iran despite an alleged assassination plot against him

- an investigation into the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya was proceeding successfully

- he pledges the continuity of relations with Europe after parliamentary and presidential polls in Russia

* Chinese leader Hu Jintao said in Beijing that his country posed no military threat and strived to maintain friendly relations with other nations

* Speaking ahead of a U.S.-hosted Mideast conference, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Israel and Palestine to settle their differences and reach a solution over Palestinian nationhood

* Some 40 EU military representatives arrived in Chad's capital N'Djamena to lay the ground for the deployment of EU peacekeepers in areas bordering Darfur, a western province of Sudan

* The UN Security Council unanimously approved an extension of the mandate for its observer mission in Georgia by another six months, until April 15, 2008

* Americans Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson won the 2007 Nobel Prize for economics for extending the range of tools for economic analysis

* The leaders of the pro-presidential bloc Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense and the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc initialed a coalition agreement

* Major General Waheed Arshad, the chief spokesman of the Pakistani Army, said:

- The Pakistani Army supports General Pervez Musharraf's decision to become a civilian president if elected to a new term

- Pakistan has no information on where terrorist No. 1 Osama bin Laden, the head of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, is hiding

* The talks between Russian and Iranian experts on the Bushehr NPP construction, in south Iran, are at the final stage, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said

* The death toll following Saturday's household gas explosion in Dnepropetrovsk in south-central Ukraine has risen to 15, the Ukrainian emergency situations ministry said

* Kazakhstan has completed decontamination work at the site where a Russian Proton rocket crashed last month, the Central Asian country's emergencies ministry said

* The founding congress of Kyrgyzstan's newly created Ak-Zhol (Bright Path) party elected the country's president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, as its leader

BUSINESS

* Poland could block Russia's entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO) if Moscow fails to lift the 2005 embargo on imports of agricultural products, a deputy agriculture minister said

* The Moscow Arbitration Court ruled to add 217.2 billion rubles (about ($8.69 billion) to the back tax bill of the bankrupt oil company Yukos

* Nikolai Tokarev, formerly head of a state-owned oil company, has been elected president of Transneft, the state-controlled pipeline monopoly said 

* Swedish car maker Volvo announced the beginning of the construction of a truck plant in the Russian region of Kaluga, southwest of Moscow

* Uralkaly, Russia's biggest producer of potassium fertilizers, said it had raised $947.97 million from an initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange and Russian bourses

* Russia's largest car manufacturer AvtoVAZ and Italy's Fiat Group signed a memorandum on mutual understanding and cooperation, the Russian company said