Main news of September 6

WORLD

* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez arrived on Sunday in Turkmenistan's capital Ashgabat on a first official two-day visit, local media reported

* The president of Transdnestr voiced fears Sunday that political instability in Moldova could cause provocations

* Tanks, rocket launchers and armored personnel carriers moved on Sunday along the streets of China's capital Beijing to practice a military parade to mark the country's 60th anniversary due October 1

* A Russian delegation headed by Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko and comprising representatives of Russia's largest independent producer LUKoil will head to Iraq on Monday, the LUKoil CEO said

* Talks on an exchange of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, abducted three years ago by the Palestinian radical Islamist group Hamas, to Palestinian prisoners kept in Israel are far from over, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said

* The authorities of northwestern China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have sent 1,500 officials and police to communities densely populated by Uygurs to resolve disputes, Xinhua quoted a senior Communist Party official as saying

* Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has canceled a planned visit to Israel, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Sunday, amid a scandal over a Swedish newspaper article

* The number of children hit by food poisoning in Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea has risen to 192, local health authorities told RIA Novosti

* Three Russian tourists were killed in Ukraine's Crimea after their car collided with a minivan, the Crimean emergencies center said

* NASA astronaut Danny Olivas and ESA astronaut Christer Fuglesang concluded the third and final spacewalk of the STS-128 mission to the International Space Station, NASA said

* Two people have been killed and 832 rescued from a listing ferry off the Philippines' easternmost island of Mindanao, the Philippine Star said on Sunday

* At least 15 people, all of them Bulgarian tourists, drowned when a boat sank on Saturday morning in Lake Ohrid, Macedonia's popular tourist destination, local media reported

BUSINESS

* LUKoil is interested in implementing joint projects with France's Total in Colombia and Kazakhstan, the head of Russia's largest private oil company said

SPORT

* World No. 1 Dinara Safina of Russia was beaten by Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (5) in the third round of the U.S. Open