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Main news of August 6

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RUSSIA * The body of Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was laid to rest at Moscow's Donskoi monastery in a ceremony attended by hundreds of people... 06.08.2008, Sputnik International

2008-08-06T18:00+0000

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Main news of August 6

18:00 GMT 06.08.2008

RUSSIA

* The body of Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was laid to rest at Moscow's Donskoi monastery in a ceremony attended by hundreds of people

* Russia may review military cooperation with Belarus in response to U.S. missile defense plans in Central Europe, but will not return nuclear weapons to the country, the Russian ambassador to Minsk said

* The president of the All-Russian Athletics Federation dismissed media reports that a further 11 Russian athletes have tested positive for banned substances in the run up to the Beijing Olympics

* Russia's prime minister and former president, Vladimir Putin, will attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on Friday as well as meet with Russian athletes, a government source said

* The Russian national soccer team is in the top 10 of the FIFA rankings for the first time since 1997

* Sulim Yamadayev, former commander of the Russian Defense Ministry's Vostok battalion in Chechnya, under probe on murder charges has been put on a federal wanted list, the North Caucasus republic's interior minister said

WORLD

* A group of renegade army officers staged a coup, detaining Mauritania's president and prime minister, a Russian diplomat in the northwestern African nation said citing local media

* The European Union condemned the coup in Mauritania, demanded that the president be returned to power, and threatened to halt aid to the northwest African country

* The leader of Georgia's rebel province of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, said Georgia is planning a full-scale invasion of the region before the start of September

* The six countries trying to persuade Iran to halt its uranium enrichment will continue attempts to resolve the dispute over Tehran's nuclear program by diplomatic means, the Russian Foreign Ministry said

* India has completed the development of an anti-tank missile that has been in the works for 18 years, and will put it into service after field test trials in September, the Defense Ministry said

* Israel released five Palestinians ending the final stage of a prisoner exchange with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a spokesperson for the prison service said

* Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has asked that the UN war crimes tribunal to summon two diplomats at the heart of U.S. policy in the Balkans in the 1990s to testify in his genocide case

* An aftershock that hit China's southwest province of Sichuan on August 5 killed three people and injured 35 more, the Xinhua news agency said

* China will deport four foreigners who staged a pro-Tibet demonstration near China's main Olympic venue early Wednesday, the Xinhua news agency reported

* Oil supplies from Azerbaijan to Turkey have been cut following an explosion at the Turkish section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, Turkish media reported

* Russia has officially presented six Mi-17-B5 Hip H medium assault/transport helicopters to Indonesia, the Russian ambassador said

* The Belarusian Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. charge d'affaires to demand the swift return of a teenage Belarusian girl whose host family in San Francisco has reportedly refused to allow to return home

BUSINESS

* Russia's oil exports to countries outside the former Soviet Union declined 7.4%, year-on-year, in January-June to 102.8 million metric tons (754 million barrels), the Federal Customs Service said

* Russia's economics ministry said a best case scenario would see oil output grow slowly until 2020, with a projected 9% growth for 12 years to 535 mln metric tons (3.9 billion bbls) a year

* Russian Railways said its revenues calculated to Russian Accounting Standards increased 12.8%, year-on-year, in January-June to 529.3 billion rubles ($22.5 billion)

* The price of natural gas sold by Russia to Belarus will exceed $200 per 1,000 cubic meters in 2009, Russia's ambassador in Minsk said