Main news of July 24

WORLD

* At least 17 people were killed and 19 injured as a passenger jet skidded off the runway during landing in northeast Iran, the IRNA news agency reported

* Belarus condemned on Friday what it said were attempts to cause a scandal over recent travel advice issued to nationals planning to travel to Abkhazia and South Ossetia

* Ukraine's Supreme Rada reduced the campaigning period for the country's upcoming presidential elections from 120 to 90 days

* At least six people died and 20 wereseverely injured when a train derailed in Croatia earlier on Friday, HRT TV-channel reported

* Turkish special forces detained some 200 suspected members of the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir group on Friday in simultaneous raids spread across 23 provinces in the country, Ankara's security forces said

* Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili welcomed on Friday Belarus's advisory for its citizens to enter the country's self-proclaimed republics via Georgia, not Russia

* OSCE election monitors in Kyrgyzstan said on Friday the country's presidential vote failed to meet the required international standards, with a number of irregularities observed during voting

* Election observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States said on Friday that the presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan had been "open and free"

* With 25% of the votes counted, incumbent President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has a vast lead in Kyrgyzstan's presidential elections, election officials said

RUSSIA

* Russia's Latvia-bound oil product supplies via Belarus, suspended by Minsk last week, resumed on Thursday, the state-run transit company Transnefteprodukt said

* Russian military ships will not be involved in anti-piracy operations under the command of NATO or the European Union, Russia's permanent envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said

* The death toll in the south Russian road accident involving a car and a tank truck has risen to 21, a spokesman for the region's health ministry said

* Construction of a second Project 885 Yasen (Graney) class nuclear-powered multipurpose attack submarine started on Friday at the Sevmash shipyard in northern Russia, the company said

* Russia will respond harshly to any actions by foreign countries that threaten the interests of its citizens, the Russian president said