Main news of August 2

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* The United States has not ruled out a possible military strike on Iran, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said in an interview with NBC television

* Cuba will start slashing one million excess jobs in the public sector, Cuban President Raul Castro said

RUSSIA

* Russia's Federal Antitrust Service (FAS) found no violations in the traffic restrictions imposed by the Moscow government on the main road to Moscow's largest international airport in June, the service reported

* President Dmitry Medvedev appealed to Russians to help the victims of a number of deadly wildfires that have engulfed the country's central regions since Thursday

* The heads of Russian regions will be held personally responsible for building new homes for victims of wildfires, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the governors of 14 Russian regions affected by wildfires that have killed at least 34 people to hand in lists of casualties and reconstruction plans

* Russia's naval supply and maintenance site near Syria's Mediterranean port of Tartus will be modernized to accommodate heavy warships after 2012, the Russian Navy chief said

* The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has placed an order for purchase of two Apple iPad 3G tablet computers which are not certified by the FSB itself and are imported into Russia illegally, business daily Vedomosti reported

* Russia's largest airline, Aeroflot, has introduced to passengers the use of a mobile phone to register for flights, the company announced in a press release

* Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin dove to the bottom of the world's deepest freshwater lake, Lake Baikal, and took soil samples, the Irkutsk regional government's press service said

DEFENSE

* Russia's contract to buy Mistral class helicopter carriers from France should be signed in Paris at the Euronaval 2010 defense show in October or Russia may lag behind in the ship building industry, Russian Navy commander Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky said

* A technical design for a new-generation aircraft carrier will be ready by the end of the year, the head of the Russian Navy said

BUSINESS

* Plans for a swap deal between Russia and France involving shares of the Russian Avtovaz car maker and the French company Renault have been put on hold, the Vedomosti daily said

* The ninth Moscow arbitration court has dismissed an appeal by Russia's largest advertising operator, News Outdoor, against a ruling ordering the company to pay 1.341 billion rubles ($45 million) in taxes and penalty fees, the court said