Main news of August 28

WORLD

* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told a regional summit on Friday that there would be no Russian military bases on his country's territory

* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for severe punishments for those behind the unrest that followed the June 12 presidential election, Press TV said

* The Russian Federal Security Service's coast guards will work with Abkhazia's border service to protect ships passing through Abkhazia's territorial waters from Georgian forces, the FSB border service said

* In the latest move to rebuild ties with Seoul, North Korea has announced that it will free on Saturday four South Korean fishermen detained last month in its territorial waters

* Moldova's parliament elected on Friday the leader of a pro-Western party to the post of parliamentary speaker, despite objections from the Communist Party

* Delegations from North and South Korea agreed at talks on Friday to hold reunions in late September of families separated by the Korean War more than half a century ago

RUSSIA

* President Dmitry Medvedev met on Friday with the leader of the south Russian republic of Ingushetia, who has returned to work after surviving an assassination attempt

* Russia rejects all attempts to hold it responsible for the tragedies of World War II, the head of a presidential commission said

* The head of the Russian Orthodox Church held a liturgy in the Assumption Cathedral at the Moscow Kremlin on Friday as Russia marked the Dormition of the Theotokos

* The board of directors of Russian auto concern AvtoVAZ have appointed Igor Komarov as the company's new president, AvtoVAZ said in a press release

* A Russian military court on Friday sentenced an officer to six years in prison for high treason and espionage and stripped him of his rank

* Three police officers and three civilians were injured early on Friday when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in Chechen town of Shali, a Chechen police spokesman said

BUSINESS

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a government resolution on Friday increasing from September 1 Urals oil export duty to $238.6 per metric ton from the current $222