Main news of September 22

A roundup of what happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday called for an early resumption of Middle East peace talks

* The number of swine flu cases worldwide has passed 308,000, with almost 4,200 deaths, Russia's consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said on Tuesday citing World Health Organization regional bureaus

* Georgia on Tuesday accused Russia of ignoring international law over Russia's deployment of a coast guard ship in Abkhazian waters and its intention to station border guard vessels there

* At least 15 people died and eight were injured east of Duesseldorf in western Germany when a bus came off the road and crashed down an embankment, German TV reported, citing local police

* The highest-level conference on climate change opened on Tuesday at the United Nations to negotiate a new deal on how to combat global warming

* Iran's first nuclear power plant is 96% complete, and final testing will begin in the near future, the state IRNA news agency reported

* Iran has developed a new generation centrifuge for enriching uranium, the state IRNA news agency reported

* Former Czech president Vaclav Havel has been joined by a number of other ex-European leaders in urging the EU to stand up for Georgia in its territorial dispute with Russia

* Thousands of fish were killed in the southern German city of Eisleben after farmers dumped milk to protest EU quota policies, the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper said

* At least 15 passengers were killed and 16 others injured when an overloaded ferry sank off Halmahera Island in eastern Indonesia, regional media said

* The U.S. will continue its efforts to prevent international recognition of former Georgian republics, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Philip Gordon said

* The Honduran Foreign Ministry has demanded that the Brazilian embassy hand over ousted president Manuel Zelaya, who returned to Honduras on Monday

RUSSIA

* Westminster Magistrates' Court on Tuesday set December 1 as the date for a hearing into an extradition request by Russia for a businessman wanted on kidnapping and extortion charges

* The next Russia-EU summit will be held in Stockholm on November 18, Sweden announced on Tuesday in its role as EU president

* Russia's launch of a Proton-M carrier rocket from the Baikonur space center has been delayed due to a problem with one of Glonass-M satellites, a source at the launch facility in Kazakhstan said

* A Moscow court on Tuesday sentenced a group of ultranationalist youths to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years for attempted race-hate murders

* A batch of low-enriched uranium was shipped to the United States on Tuesday, bringing to 11,000 tons the total exported under a 1993 bilateral agreement, civil nuclear-power corporation Atomenergoprom said

BUSINESS

* Russia's Central Bank said on Tuesday it expected net capital outflow in 2009 to hit $42 billion and inflation to come in below 12%

SPORT

* Russian chess legends Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov have each played 20 simultaneous chess matches in Spain, including with an Arab billionaire who said his childhood dream had come true