Main news of June 16

RUSSIA

* Russia's president called for legal action to be taken against those contractors who failed to meet their deadlines under a project to build an oil pipeline from East Siberia to the Pacific

* Russia's Zvezdochka shipyard in the town of Severodvinsk on the Barents Sea could scrap Britain's decommissioned nuclear submarines, a company official said

* Two Moscow police officers were arrested on suspicion of attempting to extort a 1.5 million euro ($2.3 million) bribe from a bank in the Russian capital, investigators said

* A Russian court acquitted three suspects accused of the 2005 assassination attempt of Anatoly Chubais, head of the UES electricity giant and architect of radical post-Soviet reforms

WORLD

* Britain will increase its military contingent in Afghanistan, by sending an extra 230 personnel to the country, Defense Secretary Des Browne said

* Tehran will respond to new incentives, proposed by the EU and world powers in exchange for halting its uranium enrichment program, at a convenient time for Iran, the country's Foreign Minister said

* Kosovo's new constitution is in violation of a UN Security Council Resolution, Russia's Foreign Ministry said

* A Harrier military jet of Britain's Royal Air Force crashed near the town of Oakham, Leicestershire police said

* Most of the 150 illegal migrants on board a ship that recently sank in the Mediterranean have died, Egyptian media cited the Egyptian embassy in Libya as saying

* Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez is set to meet with former Cuban leader Fidel Castro in Havana

* The Israeli Defense Forces shot dead three Islamic Jihad militants near a security fence in southern Gaza, a Hamas medical official reported

* A U.S. delegation from a NATO group arrived in Abkhazia on a two-day visit to try and restart talks between the breakaway region and Georgia, broken off in 2006, Abkhazia's Foreign Ministry said

BUSINESS

* Sakhalin Energy said it had signed a $5.3 billion deal to finance the 2nd phase of the Sakhalin II oil and gas project off Russia's Pacific Coast

* Russian energy giant Gazprom intends to invest between 8 and 10 trillion rubles ($338-422 billion) in a range of projects between 2009 and 2020, a company spokesman said

* Four Russian billionaire shareholders in TNK-BP sought to swap their 50% in the joint oil venture for a 7.6% stake in the British oil major, the Kommersant business daily said