Main news of September 3

WORLD

 

* Russia and the U.S. are making headway on work to have a new nuclear arms reduction deal in place by the time the current treaty expires on December 5, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said

 

 

* Chilean police have arrested some two dozen former officials accused of purging critics of former dictator General Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s, Latin American media reported

 

* Iranian lawmakers elected the country's first female government minister since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, in a vote to approve President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's new cabinet

 

* Iran's controversial nuclear program will be discussed on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York on September 15, a Russian deputy foreign minister said

 

* Polish parliamentarians from the Law and Justice Party proposed to adopt a special resolution condemning the invasion of Poland by Soviet troops in September 1939

 

* A British court has issued an arrest warrant for businessman Yevgeny Chichvarkin, wanted in Russia on kidnapping and extortion charges, a spokeswoman for the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said

 

* Russia and Saudi Arabia are holding talks on military-technical cooperation, which may include sales of military equipment to the Arab country, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said

 

* Ukraine and Libya have agreed to draft and sign contracts on military-industrial cooperation, the Ukrainian government's press service said

 

* U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer will have to pay over $2 billion for fraudulent marketing of its products, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement on its website

 

* Hurricane Jimena has destroyed several dozen houses in Mexico's Mulege and Comondu municipalities, the country's civil defense service reported

* Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has set early parliamentary elections for October 4

* The death toll after a powerful earthquake struck Indonesia has risen to 57 with hundreds of others injured, local media reported

 

* Indian surgeons successfully carried out a life saving operation for the first time on a 10-day-old baby boy, diagnosed with a fatal heart defect, a hospital spokesman said

 

* Russia had mixed fortunes at the U.S. Open in New York with Elena Dementieva becoming the first top player to crash out, while world No. 1 Dinara Safina had to dig deep to overcome her opponent

RUSSIA

* The lack of a genuine threat from Russia makes it far harder for NATO to decide on its polices than during the Cold War, a Moscow-based analyst said

 

* The Russian Foreign Ministry said Georgia's attempts to seize ships off the Abkhazian coast could lead to new armed conflicts

 

* Russia's Supreme Court has ruled legal the annulment of a not guilty verdict in the case of the 2006 murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a defense lawyer said

 

* The mostly Russian crew of a vessel stranded in Dubai have asked for international aid as they are running out of food and water, an International Transport Workers' Federation official said

 

* Gazprom expects Ukraine to increase gas transit fees by up to 58% in 2010, a spokesman for the Russian energy giant said

 

* Gazprom's board approved a 17% cut in the gas giant's 2009 investment program and a $6.8 bln increase in borrowing this year

 

* A Russian cab driver admitted spying for Georgia during his trial at a Supreme Court in Russia's southern republic of North Ossetia, a source in the court said