*A passenger plane with 152 people on board en route from the Pakistani city of Karachi to Islamabad crashed on Wednesday, national media said.
*A nun injured in a blast at a church in south Ukraine on Wednesday has died in hospital, local media said
*At least 9 people were injured as a blast ripped through a church in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, the UNIAN news agency said, citing emergencies officials
*Transits via Ukraine remain the most reliable means of transporting Russian gas to Europe, EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger said
RUSSIA
*A Russian pilot is missing in Sudan, the Russian embassy in Khartoum said on Wednesday, rejecting earlier reports that all crewmembers of a helicopter seized by insurgents had returned safely to their base in Darfur
*Russia's Mir deep submersibles made a series of dives in the world's deepest freshwater lake to inspect crystals containing natural gas on Wednesday, the Fund for the Protection of Lake Baikal
*The Central District Court of Russia's Far East city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur has ordered a local Internet provider to block access to five websites, including Youtube, for spreading extremist materials, a court spokesman said
*The pollutant concentration in Moscow's air due to fires raging in nearby regions increased on Wednesday by 50%, exceeding tenfold the normal levels in the capital, a state environmental agency expert said
*The Russian research vessel Akademik Fedorov left Arkhangelsk on Wednesday for a three-month expedition to the Arctic to ascertain the borders of Russia's continental shelf
*International Space Station (ISS) Commander Alexander Skvortsov responded to a love letter he received in space from a 17-year-old girl from Moscow
BUSINESS
*The Russian government has approved a list of 11 state-controlled companies whose stakes are to be privatized in 2011-2013, an Economic Development Ministry official said
*Severstal, Russia's largest steelmaker, has suspended production at its Sparrows Point plant in the United States due to falling prices and low demand for steel in the U.S., the company said on Wednesday.
*Russia's largest private oil company, LUKoil, is to buy back 7.6 percent of its shares from U.S. oil and gas company ConocoPhillips for $3.44 billion,LUKoil said
*Sales of luxury cars in Russia increased by 30.5 percent in the first half of 2010, despite a rise of only 3 percent in the Russian car market as a whole, Russian business daily Kommersant said
*Russia's Masshtab Company, which manages the real estate assets of senator Vadim Moshkovich, may force Swedish furniture retailer IKEA to buy the land plot that hosts its Mega Teply Stan shopping mall in Moscow for $125 million, Kommersant business daily said
*The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill, has denied rumors that he came to Ukraine in order to stifle the power of Metropolitan Vladimir, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
*Acclaimed Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato, who earlier headed the National Spanish Dance Company, says he will become the new director of the Mikhailovsky Theater ballet troupe in St. Petersburg starting January 1, 2011
SPORTS
*Russian athletes took all three medals in the Women's 20 km Walk event on Wednesday at the 2010 European Athletics Championships in the Spanish city of Barcelona
