Main news of September 19

RUSSIA

* A militant on the federal wanted list has been killed during a shootout with police in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Daghestan, a local police source said

* Russia's science and education minister, Andrei Fursenko, said plans to build a particle collider near Moscow were pointless, calling on Russian scientists to join in large-scale international projects

* Russia's 2x2 channel that airs U.S. adult animated comedies said:

- it has filed a suit at an arbitration court against allegations of promoting extremism

- viewers will hold sanctioned rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg to protest against charges of promoting extremism

WORLD

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said: 

- tensions with the West over the Georgia conflict do not mean Russia wants to isolate itself behind a new Iron Curtain

- Russia will do everything possible to restore regular relations with Georgia

* Russia wants to maintain cooperation with the United States and will not succumb to its rhetoric and enter a new spiral of confrontation, the Foreign Ministry said in response to the U.S. top diplomat's speech on the Russia-Goergia conflict 

* NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the alliance will not consider adopting a new policy toward Russia despite Moscow's 'aggressive stance' on Georgia and uncertainties over Moscow's intentions

* A senior North Korean diplomat said preparations are underway to re-start the country's nuclear reactor due to failure by the U.S. to fulfill its part of a denuclearization deal

* Russia has urged Iran to comply with all UN Security Council resolutions and UN nuclear watchdog rulings on its nuclear program, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said 

* The death toll from the landslide in a densely populated Cairo shanty town has reached 101, with dozens of people still buried beneath the debris, the al-Masry al-Youm newspaper said

* Australian troops from NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) may have accidentally shot dead an Afghan district governor on September 17, the Bahtar news agency said

* The U.S. State Department said if Russia passes a new law defining its Arctic boundaries, this will have purely domestic consequences and no international legal significance

* Mikhail Gorbachev criticized the readiness of political leaders to resort to armed conflict to resolve their problems in a Liberty Medal acceptance speech in the U.S. 

* Two Russian Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bombers returned to their base in central Russia after a 15-hour flight home from Venezuela, a Russian Air Force spokesman said 

BUSINESS

* Gazprom and Total have signed a memorandum with Bolivian company YPFB on gas exploration and extraction, and the possible creation of a joint venture in Bolivia, the Russian energy giant said

* Gazprombank, the banking arm of Russian energy giant Gazprom, said it had lent 22.5 billion rubles ($880 million) to investment brokerage Kit Finance, currently experiencing liquidity problems

* Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service has stopped proceedings against oil company Surgutneftegaz because competition violation has not been confirmed, the service said

* Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service fined two of Russia's major coal producers, Evraz and Mechel, a total of $10.6 million for abusing their dominant position in the market and pursuing uncompetitive practices

* Russian transportation group Fesco is bidding in a tender announced by U.S. oil major Exxon to build icebreakers worth a total of $300 million, Fesco's president said 

* Russia's flagship national air carrier Aeroflot said it does not plan to withdraw from its subsidiaries or sell stakes in them after a plane owned by Aeroflot Nord crashed in the Urals at the weekend killing all 88 people on board