Main news of August 4

RUSSIA

* TNK-BP Chief Financial Officer James Owen has resigned amid an ongoing shareholder dispute, the Russian-British oil company said

* Russia's prime minister has approved a 90 billion ruble ($3.83 billion) federal program to train scientists in Russia from 2009-2013, the government's press service said

* Russia will launch on August 6 a converted RS-20 Voyevoda intercontinental ballistic missile to put a Thai earth observation satellite into orbit, the Strategic Missile Forces said

* A ceremony to pay tribute to Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn will take place at the Academy of Sciences on Tuesday, the Solzhenitsyn foundation has said

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday that although significant progress has been made in counter-terrorism efforts, the country still faces a major terrorist threat

* Russia may resume a military presence in Cuba in response to growing military-political pressure from the West, a Russian political analyst said

* Russia counts on the United States to exert a positive influence on Georgia following the latest surge in violence in the breakaway province of South Ossetia, a Russian diplomat said

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev started a week's vacation on Monday, his press secretary said

* General of the Army Vladimir Boldyrev has been appointed commander of Russia's Ground Forces, the Defense Ministry announced

* A regional court will consider the parole application of jailed Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, currently serving an eight-year term for fraud and tax evasion, on August 21, a judge said

* Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian novelist and historian who told the world about the horrors of Soviet labor camps, died at 89 in Moscow Sunday morning

* A group of Russian Air Force personnel will fly to Sudan later Monday as part of a scheduled rotation of Russia's contribution to the UN mission in Sudan, a service spokesman said

* Five people were killed and three others injured in a road accident in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in East Siberia, a local police spokesman said

WORLD

* Georgian authorities are concealing the deaths of 29 servicemen during recent clashes, a source in the South Ossetian defense ministry said

* A total of 38 people, including eight children, are dead or listed as missing following devastating floods in western Ukraine in late July, the health ministry said in a statement

* The death toll following a stampede at a Hindu temple in northern India has reached almost 150, police and local media said

* Iran's top nuclear negotiator and the European Union's foreign policy supremo talked by telephone Monday about the country's controversial nuclear program

* Spanish police detained on Monday a local man on suspicion of killing his 24-year-old Russian wife, national media said

* The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Monday it would conduct a thorough investigation into a plutonium leak at one of its labs in Austria

* A Belgian prisoner escaped from a jail in the northern Belgian city of Ghent and was recaptured a day later on one of the country's North Sea beaches, national media reported

* Russia counts on the United States to exert a positive influence on Georgia following the latest surge in violence in the breakaway province of South Ossetia, a Russian diplomat said

* Total investment in the 2008 Beijing Olympics has hit 295 billion yuan ($43.13 billion) since 2001, a city administration spokesman said

* Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio could take on the role of Soviet revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin in a new black comedy, a Russian screenwriter has said

* More than 2,000 homes remain flooded in the six worst-hit areas in western Ukraine, the country's Emergency Situations Ministry said

* Iran's top nuclear negotiator will speak to the European Union's foreign policy chief over the phone on Monday to discuss further negotiations on the country's nuclear program, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said

* President Hugo Chavez said Venezuela had taken delivery of 24 Russian Sukhoi fighter jets, and warned the U.S. Fourth Fleet that his country is ready to defend itself

* An attack on a paramilitary police compound in China's far western Xinjiang province early Monday left 16 troops dead and a similar number injured, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported

BUSINESS

* Metalloinvest, a leading Russian mining and ferrous metals company, said on Monday its consolidated audited net profit to International Financial Reporting Standards grew 140% in 2007 to 29.47 billion rubles ($1.3 billion)

* Rostelecom [RTS: RTKM] said on Monday that its net profit calculated to Russian Accounting Standards increased 6.2% year-on-year in January-June to 4.98 billion rubles ($212 million)

* Russian wholesale power generating company OGK-6 said on Monday its net profit calculated to Russian Accounting Standards fell 66.6% year-on-year in January-June to 500 million rubles ($21 million)

* Russia's largest diamond producer Alrosa [RTS: ALRS] sold diamonds worth more than $31 million at a special international auction Monday, the auction's organizers said