Main News of August 31

A roundup of what has happened in the last 24 hours

WORLD

*The Free Syria Army has warned airlines to suspend service to Damascus and Aleppo, saying rebel forces could begin attacking airports in the two cities as early as next Tuesday, the London-based daily Asharq Alawsat reported on Friday, citing the FSA's high command.

*Iran's first nuclear power station has begun operating at full capacity, a Russian firm said.

*Germany's largest air carrier Lufthansa canceled more than 100 flights because of a strike of its flight attendants, the company said in a statement published on its website.

*It is unacceptable for U.S.-Russian relations to fall hostage to U.S. election debates, Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in comments on Mitt Romney’s presidential nomination acceptance speech.

 

RUSSIA

*Police in Russia's Volga city of Kazan have arrested a man on suspicion of the murder of two women whose bodies were found beneath a scrawled message demanding the release of three jailed members of the anti-Putin punk group Pussy Riot.

*Russia needs a civil society, but one where gays are put in rehab and the opposition is locked in a political ghetto, said Christian activists who tear “blasphemous” T-shirts off people and barge into theaters and museums to preach.

 

BUSINESS

*Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich emerged triumphant from a UK court battle with exiled tycoon and Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky.

*Russian state officials might serve on several proposed committees to advise the board of directors at gas giant Gazprom, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said.

 

POLITICS

*Moscow’s opposition has applied to hold the third “March of Millions” on September 15 that will be held under the slogan for “Snap Elections! and Against Repression!” opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov said.

 

DEFENSE

*Two Borey class strategic nuclear-powered submarines, the Yuri Dolgoruky and the Alexander Nevsky, will enter service with the Russian Navy, one with the North Fleet and the other with the Pacific Fleet, Anatoly Shlemov, head of defense contracts at the United Shipbuilding Corporation, said.

 

SCIENCE

*Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin to draft proposals for restructuring the national space industry after a string of mishaps that he said have compromised Russia’s image as a leading space power.