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Main news of June 26

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RUSSIA * Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may pay an official visit to Russia in late July, the country's vice president said * Russian President Dmitry... 26.06.2008, Sputnik International

2008-06-26T18:07+0000

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Main news of June 26

18:07 GMT 26.06.2008

RUSSIA

* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may pay an official visit to Russia in late July, the country's vice president said

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged Georgia and its breakaway republic of Abkhazia to honor terms of a 1994 ceasefire deal, as well as UN Security Council resolutions on the conflict

* Russia's Foreign Ministry confirmed the June 24 release of a Dutch-owned ship and its four Russian and five Filipino crew seized by Somali pirates

* The Russian delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has denied media reports that the organization has included Russia on a 'democracy blacklist'

* The EU believes Russia's stance on Kosovo is not constructive enough, said the head of the EU delegation to Moscow, Marc Franco

* A Proton-K/DM-2 heavy carrier rocket will launch a Cosmos-series military satellite from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan early on June 27, Russia's space agency said

* Scientists gathered in Siberia to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska Event June 26-28, one of the world's most mysterious explosions which flattened 80 million trees but largely went unnoticed at the time

* Russia's Sverdlovsk Region has allocated 1.3 million rubles ($55,000) to continue excavations at the purported burial site of the last tsar's family, regional authorities said

WORLD

* North Korea has handed over details of its nuclear activities to China, breaking a six-month deadlock in talks on the denuclearization of the secretive communist state, South Korea's foreign minister said, as quoted by the Yonhap news agency

* U.S. President George W. Bush said Washington would lift unilateral trade sanctions against North Korea and remove it from a terrorism blacklist

* Under no circumstances will Iran give up its peaceful nuclear program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said

* China has allowed foreign tourists to visit Tibet for the first time since violent anti-government rallies in March in the restless autonomous region, the China Daily newspaper reported

* Afghan farmers earned around $1 billion from growing heroin last year, a head of a UN agency's regional office said

* Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova was sensationally defeated by fellow Russian Alla Kudryavtseva and failed to make it into the third round of Wimbledon

BUSINESS

* Moscow's arbitration court upheld a 230 million ruble ($10 million) tax claim against German airline Lufthansa AG's Russian operator

* Russia has completed the shipments of nuclear fuel for the first unit of India's Kudankulam nuclear power plant, a source in the Indian nuclear power sector said

* Russia's leading mineral fertilizer producer Akron said it had paid about $60 million for 98% in Canada's 101109718 Saskatchewan Ltd., which owns the rights to vast potassium salt deposits