Main news of May 14

RUSSIA

* The man who killed a Swiss air traffic controller after his family was wiped out in a mid-air crash has called for the pilot, involved in a near miss in April over the Moscow Region, to be disqualified from flying

* The Russian foreign minister has made a protest to his Finnish counterpart after a Russian boy was illegally taken out of Russia by his Finnish father, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement

* Russia will continue to assist South Ossetia in all areas, including military assistance if required, the chief of the Russian presidential administration said

* The head of the IOC coordination commission in charge of preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the resort city of Sochi praised Russia's progress on Thursday, after a two-day visit to check proposed sites

* Two Russian passenger airliners carrying some 300 passengers between them were seconds away from colliding in midair near Moscow, a paper said on Thursday, citing the state air navigation service

WORLD

* The European Court of Human Rights ordered Russia on Thursday to pay 104,000 euros ($141,000) in compensation to the relatives of two people who were abducted or killed in Chechnya

* Three people are reported to have died in a fire that broke out at a rubber plant in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Thursday, an emergencies ministry official said

* The Abkhaz president said he believes Russia and Abkhazia will sign an agreement on the deployment of a Russian military base in the former Georgian republic within the next two weeks

* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez approved on Thursday a list of books for schools to educate young people on socialist ideology, local media said

* A Georgian opposition leader denied on Thursday President Mikheil Saakashvili's allegation that opposition members were receiving funding from Russia

* U.S. President Barack Obama has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to "surprise the U.S. with an Israeli military operation against Iran," an Israeli newspaper reported

* The World Health Organization said on Thursday 33 countries have confirmed a total of 6,497 cases of swine flu, including 65 deaths

* More than 160 people have been hospitalized in northeast China after apparently being poisoned by an unidentified gas from a chemical plant, Xinhua said

EX-SOVIET STATES

* Ukraine has received $2.8 billion as a second tranche of a stabilization loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the press service of the country's finance ministry said

* Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has signed a decree approving a project to transit Caspian oil to Europe bypassing Russia, the presidential website said