* A Russian emergencies official said Dutch nationals were onboard the plane, which crashed in stormy weather in Ukraine while flying from Russia's resort city on the Black Sea to St Petersburg
* Preliminary reports suggest that a lightning strike caused the Russian plane crash, emergency services said; human negligence is also a focus of investigations
* Two explosions hit an oil pipeline in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia, causing an oil spill and fire, local police said
* Charges of premeditated murder of two or more people on grounds of ethnic and racial hatred have been brought against three suspects in Monday's Moscow market bombing that killed 10 and left 49 injured; the suspects confessed to the attack, a prosecutor said
* A Moscow court returned the case of ex-nuclear minister Yevgeny Adamov to prosecutors to eliminate shortcomings in the investigation
* Armed people seized a Russian tanker with 19 Russians on board in Guinea, a shipping company said
* Iranian officials met with foreign ambassadors to give an answer to proposals from six world powers aimed at resolving the longstanding nuclear dispute
* The director general of the MiG aircraft maker said the United Russian Aircraft Corporation would be registered in September
* Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Russia's government would use economic measures to hold back the ruble's further rise and intends to keep the national currency's appreciation within 4.7% of its average effective rate this year
* Valery Yegoshkin, Russia's Ambassador to Kenya, who was hospitalized after two unidentified robbers stabbed him on a highway, will remain at his post after he recovers, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said
* Naftogaz, Ukraine's national oil and gas company, will pay off its remaining gas debt of over $250 mln to trader Rosukrenergo by mid-October, the Ukrainian fuel and energy minister said
* Negotiations on the price Belarus will pay next year for Russian natural gas will be held in the fall, the Belarusian ambassador to Russia said
* Nizhny Novgorod regional authorities said Switzerland-based manufacturer Liebherr Group would invest more than $250 million in new facilities in the central Russian region
* Russia could join a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon to enforce a ceasefire after hostilities between Hizbollah militants and Israel, but it should not send troops until the formalities are settled, a senior Russian MP said
* A Moscow court rejected an appeal from organizers of a picket in support of sexual minorities against a ban imposed by authorities in central Moscow
* The Russian Federal Space Agency has decided to send a U.S. woman of Iranian descent into space, instead of a Japanese space tourist who failed a medical test, an agency spokesman said
