* The Interstate Aviation Commission probing the August 2006 crash of a Russian Tu-154 jetliner in Ukraine, which killed 170 people, blamed the accident on crew error
* Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin said:
- Aging medium-haul airliners Tu-154 and Tu-134 will be phased out of commercial use within the next five years;
- More stringent training and certification standards will be introduced for air pilots and co-pilots;
- The government may raise compensations to families of air crash victims up to $75,000 per each life lost
* Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said it found evidence proving that a warlord killed earlier this week in Chechnya as part of a mopping-up operation had been plotting to commit a series of terrorist acts targeting civilians in the republic's capital, Grozny