Main news of October 24

RUSSIA

* One Russian serviceman has been killed and ten others injured in a series of explosions across the troubled Russian North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, a police source said

* Militants in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia have abducted around 15 civilians and police officers from a slot machine arcade, a police spokesman said

A passenger who threatened to blow up a plane flying from south Russia to Moscow has been detained, and is known to have a criminal record and a history of mental illness, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said

* The case file in the investigation of the death in police custody of a prominent journalist from Russia's North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia has been sent to court, Russian investigators said

* The U.S. has imposed sanctions against the Russian state-run arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, in connection with the alleged proliferation of weapons of mass destruction

* U.S. sanctions against Russia's state-run arms exporter are retaliation for Moscow's completely legitimate military-technical cooperation with Iran, a Russian lawmaker said

* A Russian Black Sea Fleet serviceman, who had been in a coma after being attacked near Sevastopol, on Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, last week, has died in hospital, a health official said

* A Moscow court has refused to exonerate Polish prisoners of war executed in western Russia's Katyn forest in 1940, a lawyer for the families of those killed said

* Russian economic crime police have detected over 4,000 intellectual property-related crimes so far this year, which inflicted damage exceeding $1 billion, an Interior Ministry official said 

* Sweeping reforms of Russia's military are to focus on reorganizing the rank of warrant officer in the country's Armed Forces, with proposals to be drawn up by the end of the year, a military source said 

WORLD

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the sanctions imposed by the United States on Russia's state-run arms exporter contravene international law, and will harm ties with Washington

* Chinese leader Hu Jintao urged European and Asian leaders to take coordinated efforts to tackle the global credit crisis

* A Soyuz-TMA-12 space capsule carrying two Russian cosmonauts and an American space tourist landed in north-central Kazakhstan at 9.37 a.m. (03:37 GMT)

* Russia's president appointed ambassadors to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, cementing support for the Georgian separatist regions Moscow recognized as independent states after the August conflict

* Russia had supplied arms to both Abkhazia and Georgia before a five-day conflict over South Ossetia in August, a spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign ministry said 

* Russia should start preparing to withdraw its Black Sea Fleet from bases in the Crimea now, because the process could take up to six years, a Ukrainian diplomat said

* The Group of Eight (G8) leading industrial countries should be expanded to a G14 format to deal with the current global economic crisis, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said

* Ilham Aliyev was inaugurated for his second term as Azerbaijan's president, just over a week after his re-election in a poll boycotted by some opposition parties 

* The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah denied rumors that its leader Hassan Nasrallah was poisoned 

BUSINESS

* The Russian government was forced to shut down the two main stock exchanges, after they shed over 13% as share prices tumbled in the United States and Europe

* Ministers of the 13 OPEC member states, who gathered in the Austrian capital Vienna, announced oil production cuts of 1.5 million barrels per day amid a global financial crisis and falling oil prices

* Bank Zenit, one of Russia's top 30 banks, said it had taken out a one-year syndicated loan for 95.75 million euros ($120 million) and $5 million from several European banks