Main news of July 30

RUSSIA

* Russian railroad troops held a ceremony to open a repaired section of railroad in Abkhazia, before heading for home after a two-month deployment in the separatist Georgian republic

* The RS-20 Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan) intercontinental ballistic missile, brought into service exactly 20 years ago, will remain in service until 2014-16, Russia's Strategic Missile Forces said

*  Russia's fugitive tycoon Boris Berezovsky could face fresh charges of embezzling funds from Russia's flagship airline Aeroflot, a Russian business daily said

* Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has denied rumors about an assassination attempt on him, calling them "provocations" aimed at destabilizing the situation in the Russian North Caucasus republic

* Russia's Yelena Isinbayeva cleared 5.04 meters in the pole vault competition at the Monaco Super Grand Prix, breaking her own world record and setting herself up as clear favorite for Olympic gold 

* Zenit St. Petersburg star Andrey Arshavin is "due in London" to hold talks with Tottenham Hotspur over a possible move to the English Premier League side, the British media reported

* Russia has joined the World Wildlife Fund's Polar Bear Patrol project, an attempt to count the number of polar bears in the wild, the WWF said on its website

WORLD

* Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised to resign in September, after his Kadima party chooses a new leader

* Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic arrived in the Netherlands and is being held in UN custody at a detention center, where he will await his trial in The Hague for war crimes

* Turkey's Constitutional Court rejected a demand to close the ruling AK Party, led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

* An explosion hit a Hamas training camp in southern Gaza injuring at least five people, Palestinian health officials said

* Libya has resumed oil supplies to Switzerland, which were suspended during a diplomatic row sparked by the arrest of the Libyan leader's youngest son, the Swiss Oil Association said

* Tajikistan's Supreme Court sentenced two men found guilty of killing a Russian journalist earlier this year to 21 years each in a high-security prison

* Russian-born billionaire Arkady Gaidamak has put forward his candidacy for the November mayoral elections in Jerusalem, a source close to the candidate said

* DNA tests have confirmed that remains found on July 4 in the Atlantic Ocean belong to a Brazilian priest who went missing in April during an attempt to set a new helium balloon flight record, police said

* Over 450,000 people have been affected by a powerful typhoon in eastern China, the eighth to hit the country this year, Xinhua news agency reported

 

BUSINESS

* Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service has launched a probe into the activities of the coal mining company Raspadsky Coal and the steel and coal mining business Evraz Holding, the service said

* LUKoil, Russia's largest independent crude producer, could invest $3 billion in the construction of an ethylene plant in south Russia's Stavropol Territory, the regional governor's press office said

* Russia's metals giant Norilsk Nickel said Wednesday its net profit calculated to Russian Accounting Standards dropped almost 95%, year-on-year, in the first half of 2008 to 4.1 billion rubles ($175.7 million)

* Russia's largest diamond producer, Alrosa, said Wednesday its net profit calculated to Russian Accounting Standards fell 41% year-on-year in the first half of 2008 to 3.43 billion rubles ($147 million)