Main news of August 3

WORLD

* Uzbekistan is against the deployment of a new Russian military base in southern Kyrgyzstan, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said

* At least 46 journalists have been killed in 21 countries since the beginning of 2009, the International News Safety Institute (INSI) report said

* A Tokyo court saw the start of Japan's first trial by jury for over 60 years following radical changes to the country's justice system, national media reported

* The number of confirmed deaths from swine flu in the world has risen to 1,247, Russia's consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said

* Egypt opened the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on Monday, beginning a three-day break in the Palestinian enclave's isolation, the MENA news agency reported

* Twelve people died and more than 20 were wounded in a terrorist attack in western Afghanistan on Monday, a local police spokesman said

* More than 2,500 lawsuits have been filed in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the UN International Criminal Court in The Hague by residents of the former Georgian republic of South Ossetia

* Anders Fog Rasmussen, who was inaugurated as NATO's new secretary general on Saturday, started work on Monday in the alliance's headquarters in Brussels

* Chinese authorities have quarantined a town in the northwest of the country over an outbreak of pneumonic plague which has killed one and infected another 11 people, regional media said

RUSSIA

* Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, has been replaced by his deputy, Lt. Gen. Andrei Shvaichenko, amid media speculation over failed missile launches

* A Finnish court is considering the case of a Russian mother accused in Finland of kidnapping her son, who has both Russian and Finnish citizenship, Finland's charge d'affaires in Russia said

BUSINESS

* Russia's state savings bank Sberbank has issued a 11.9 billion ruble ($382.6 million) loan to oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, the bank said

* Japanese carmaker Toyota has suspended production at its plant near St. Petersburg until August 16 for planned employee vacations, a company spokeswoman told RIA Novosti

RELIGION

* The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, on a 10-day visit to Ukraine, has called on Orthodox priests to accept everyone with love

* The head of the Russian Orthodox Church continued his tour of Ukraine on Monday when he visited Rovno in the west of the country, despite warnings from Ukrainian authorities not to travel there