Main news of September 19

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

*London police released six men who were detained on Friday on suspicion of plotting an attack on Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to the U.K.

*A woman had opened fire at a hospital in southern Germany, at least four people including the woman died, the German N-24 TV channel reported

*Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has arrived in the UN headquarters in New York for talks over Iran's nuclear program with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon

 

* Over forty delegations are to visit South Ossetia on September 20 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the republic's declaration of independence, South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity said

*Despite low harvest, Ukraine is ready to render food aid to Georgia and Armenia, who were affected by Russia's grain export ban

*NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen welcomed parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, despite violence which left at least 10 people dead and 20 injured

*A pilot was killed in a mid-air collision during an air show of retro planes in southern Germany

*Swedes go to the polls  in a parliamentary election, in which the center-right coalition is expected to win narrowly

*At least 23 servicemen have died as assailants attacked by fire a military convoy on its way to the village of Garm, Tajikistan, a source from the Tajik law enforcement structures said

RUSSIA

*A car, apparently taking part in a street race, ploughed into a group of pedestrians in southern Moscow, killing one and injuring five

*Russian troops, deployed at a military base in South Ossetia, have conducted a battalion-level tactical exercise with live firing

*A spokesman for Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, whose possible dismissal has lately been in the center of Russian media attention, rejected as 'absurd' statements that the Moscow head might not return to Russia after his vacation abroad

* Moscow's Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, whose possible dismissal has lately been in the center of Russian media attention, has received a timeout to figure out his next moves, political analysts have said

* Participants of the international 2010 Silk Way truck and 4x4 rally raid completed the race  in the Russian 2014 Olympic host city of Sochi

*Only 15% of all construction projects for the 2014 Olympics have been completed so far in the host city of Sochi

*Russia's Orthodox Church priests will soon appear in the Russian army and navy to serve as military chaplains as Russian servicemen especially need spiritual support, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said

*A militant was killed in a special security operation in the Republic of Dagestan in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region, the republican interior ministry said

*Prosecutors have launched a probe into an acute intestinal infection outbreak among schoolchildren in the Ulyanovsk region in Russia's Volga area, the local prosecutor's office said