Main News of August 28

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Russia's Admiralteiskie Verfi shipyard has launched a new Kilo-class Project 636 diesel-electric submarine for Vietnam, a military-industrial complex sources said

* The Syrian Support Group (SSG) called on the United States for the first time since the 18-month-old uprising to immediately establish a no-fly zone over Syria

RUSSIA

* Russian human rights figures on Tuesday condemned an eight-year prison sentence for opposition activist Taisiya Osipova as disproportionate and inhumane while some said it was a frame-up

* A spiritual leader of Dagestan Muslims, Sheikh Said Afandi, and five other people were killed in a blast carried out by a female suicide bomber in the Dagestan settlement of Chirkey, a spokesman for the regional Investigation Committee said

* Russian women can be included into the country’s cosmonauts team if they successfully complete all selection stages, Sergei Krikalev, head of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, said

* The head of Russia's troubled southern republic of Ingushetia has said plans by neighboring Chechnya to revise their mutual border could ignite conflict

* Two more people have been hospitalized in Russia’s Altai Territory over suspected exposure to anthrax, bring to 13 the number of people in hospital, including three confirmed cases of anthrax poisoning, deputy governor of the Altai Territory Daniil Bessarabov said

BUSINESS

* Russia will diversify its currently-Eurocentric foreign trade to ensure 50 percent of it comes from countries of the Asian-Pacific region, Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said

SPORTS

* Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova has said she feared she was pregnant when she contracted a stomach bug earlier this month