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RUSSIA * New and modernized aircraft will comprise 70% of the Russian Air Force by 2020, the Air Force commander said * Russia's General Staff suspects Georgia... 05.08.2009, Sputnik International

2009-08-05T18:00+0000

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Main news of August 5

18:00 GMT 05.08.2009

RUSSIA

* New and modernized aircraft will comprise 70% of the Russian Air Force by 2020, the Air Force commander said

* Russia's General Staff suspects Georgia of planning new military action, despite being incapable of any aggression at the current time, a senior Russian military official said

* Russia's deputy foreign minister said that Russia's military contingent in the former Georgian republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia will number 1,500 personnel in each republic by the end of the year

* The Moscow Military District Court opened a new trial of defendants in the 2006 murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya

* The head of the Russian Orthodox Church praised Ukraine for maintaining the Orthodox faith and said he could accept Ukrainian citizenship to strengthen spiritual unity between the two states

* A Russian Pacific Fleet task force escorted a convoy of commercial ships through a secure shipping lane in the Gulf of Aden, a Navy spokesman said

WORLD

* Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has secured the release of two American journalists detained by North Korea in March

* NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen made a surprise visit to Kabul and told a news conference that NATO forces would remain in Afghanistan for "as long as it takes"

* Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said during a press conference that Kiev has paid Moscow in full for gas pumped into its storage facilities in July

* Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in for his second term as Iran's president in a ceremony in the country's parliament

* Kyrgyzstan wants Russia to locate a new military base closer to its border with Uzbekistan, in the southern Batken region, the Kyrgyz ambassador said

* The parliament of South Ossetia confirmed Vadim Brovtsev, head of an Urals construction company, as the republic's new prime minister

* Some 202 people were reported to have been affected by an ammonia gas leak at a plant in northern China's Hongshan District, the Xinhua news agency said

* The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said that the cost of repairing the Large Hadron Collider, which has been out of operation since last September, will be $37.7 million

BUSINESS

* Investment in the Russian-Turkish joint metal processing factory MMK-Atakas, being built in Iskenderun in south Turkey, will reach $1.5 billion, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said

* Russia and Venezuela discussed prospects for building nuclear research reactors and distillation reactors, the Russian civilian nuclear power holding company Atomenergoprom said