Main news of June 30

RUSSIA

* Moscow is deeply concerned over a series of explosions in Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said

* The Russian government approved major points of the federal budget for 2009-2011, a deputy finance minister said

* Russia's electricity monopoly will cease to exist on Tuesday when wide-ranging reforms to the electricity market come into effect

* Defense lawyers for the jailed founder of bankrupt oil firm Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said that new charges had been filed against their client

* The former head of a subsidiary of Russia's largest shipping company has been extradited from Switzerland to face fraud charges, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will pay a visit to Turkey on July 2, a Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said

* A total of 108 people in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in East Siberia have been diagnosed with yersiniosis, a stomach infection, a spokeswoman for the local consumer rights watchdog said

* An outbreak of anthrax has been registered among the livestock at Russia's southern republic of Kalmykia, a police source said

* A Russian Orthodox bishop, who was expelled from Holy orders on Friday and barred from giving services for provoking a schism, has appealed the decision with a church court, a church official said

WORLD

* Enemies of Iran attempted to kill President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with high-intensity X-ray radiation during his recent trip to Italy, Iran's former ambassador in Rome said

* The next round of six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear problem will take place in the near future, the U.S. secretary of state said

* The unrecognized republic of Abkhazia will close its border with Georgia on Tuesday, Abkhaz president Sergei Bagapsh said

* China's worst earthquake in three decades has inflicted damage on country's agricultural sector totaling around $6 billion, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said in its report

* The United States intends to set favorable conditions for investment, including from Russia, the U.S. treasury secretary said

* Zimbabwe's newly re-elected president, Robert Mugabe, joined his fellow African leaders for a two-day African Union summit in Egypt amid protests from the West over unfair elections

* At least 16 people have been killed after the deadly typhoon Fengshen hit southern China, China Daily reported

* Experts from the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), a civil aviation body for ex-Soviet states, will take part in a probe into recent crashes of Soviet-made transport planes in Sudan, the IAC said

* A lawyer for a Georgian opposition leader has asked France to give political asylum to her 15-year-old son, who she says is being persecuted at home

* International researchers investigating the Tunguska Event, an explosion exactly 100 years ago in central Siberia, say acid rain traces in the region back up the theory that the blast was caused by a meteorite

* Wanted, an American studio movie directed by Russia's Timur Bekmambetov and starring Angelina Jolie, beat box office records at its worldwide premiere, Universal Pictures said

BUSINESS

* Russia's crude oil exports fell by an estimated 5.3%, year-on-year, in January-May 2008 to 103.3 million metric tons (757 million barrels), the Economic Development Ministry said

* Gazprom [RTS: GAZP] said its consolidated net profit to International Financial Reporting Standards increased 7.3% year-on-year to 658 billion rubles ($27.8 billion) in 2007

* Russia's largest diamond producer Alrosa [RTS: ALRS] plans to sell two oil and gas assets in Western Siberia worth $400-700 million, business daily Vedomosti reported

*  MegaFon [RTS: MEGF], Russia's third largest mobile operator, said its US GAAP net profit grew 50.8% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2008 to 9.26 billion rubles ($392 million)

* Russia's state-controlled oil producer Rosneft [RTS: ROSN] is considering setting up a full-cycle joint venture in Eastern Europe, Rosneft CEO Sergei Bogdanchikov said

* Net capital inflow into Russia may increase threefold in the next three years, to reach $95-105 billion in 2011, the government said in its budget policy guidelines through 2011

SPORTS

* Spain lifted the European Championship trophy Sunday night, their first major soccer title for 44 years in a deserved 1-0 win over Germany in the Euro-2008 finals at the Ernst Happel Stadion in Vienna

* Four Russian players were included in the Euro 2008 Team of the Tournament, with only winners Spain better-represented, UEFA announced on its web site

* Russia's Elena Dementieva and Nadia Petrova both clinched straight set victories in the fourth round of the women's singles at Wimbledon, and will meet in the quarter finals