Main News of August 14

WORLD

* The situation in Syria is causing a propaganda war, the Russian Foreign Ministry said after a Saudi newspaper claimed a Russian diplomat had said in an interview that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is ready to resign

* The Swedish organizers of a stunt to parachute teddy bears over Belarus rejected a summons from the country’s KGB in an open letter to the Belarusian president

* The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has lost control of two-thirds of the country and is on the verge of collapse, the BBC quoted ex-Syrian premier Riyad Hijab as saying

* A Ukrainian appeals court ordered the extradition to Russia Adam Osmayev, suspected of attempting to kill then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin earlier this year

* Iran accused the international media of exaggerating tensions between Russia and Iran in order “to damage bilateral relations between the two countries” over a cancelled 2007 contract for Russian-made S-300 air defense missile systems

* The former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic has asked the Hague Tribunal to start a new trial over his alleged war crimes and genocide citing numerous flaws in the work of UN prosecutors, Serbian media said

RUSSIA

* Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered the government to work out a plan to improve Russia’s space industry organizations, after a string of mishaps that he said have compromised Russia’s image as a leading space power

* The Russian government will not cut financing for its rearmament program for the armed forces, President Vladimir Putin said

* Russian physicist and popular science TV show host Sergei Kapitsa died in Moscow at age 84

BUSINESS

* Greece auctioned 4.063 billion euro in short-term debt to repay its 3.2 billion euro debt due on August 20 and stave off a sovereign default, the Public Debt Management Agency reported

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