Main news of October 3

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

*Latvia's conservative Vienotiba (Unity) bloc is leading in presidential elections in Latvia, according to preliminary results published by the country's central election commission

*About 20 Russian tourists were injured after their bus overturned near the Thai resort city of Pattaya, the Russian embassy in Bangkok said

* The radical Islamic group Hamas backed a decision by Palestinian leaders to suspend peace talks with Israel, if it continued settlement construction on occupied land

* Iran has detained several people on suspicion of spying over the country's nuclear facilities, Iranian media said citing Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi

* Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to stay at the negotiating table despite the resumed settlement construction in the West Bank

*Palestinians and Israelis want direct peace negotiations to continue and call on the United States to bridge the dispute over West Bank settlements, the U.S. Middle East Envoy George Mitchell said

*Egyptian archeologists have unearthed a 3,000-year-old piece of a statue of Amenhotep III, believed to be the grandfather of the famed boy pharaoh Tutankhamun

*Polish archaeologists will conduct excavations near the western Russian city of Smolensk where a Polish presidential plane crashed in April

*Caches of arms and meds were uncovered in the Kamarob Gorge in East Tajikistan, interior ministry Chief of Staff Major General Tahir Normatov said

* At least eight people were killed and several other were injured after a residential building under construction collapsed in northwest China, local media reported

RUSSIA

*A Yak-42 Clobber airliner with 73 passengers onboard flying en route Moscow-Grozny made an emergency landing in the city of Volgograd after receiving an explosion threat, a spokesman for the Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency Rosaviatsia said

* Special services have not uncovered any bomb on board of the Yak-42 Clobber airliner that made an emergency landing in the southern city of Volgograd over an explosion threat on its way from Moscow to Grozny, a spokesman for the Federal Security service said

*The Belarusian leadership is trying to pass Russia off as the country's main enemy, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said