Main News of August 30

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

*The pirates who hijacked an oil tanker with a Russian crew in the Gulf of Guinea in western Africa left the vessel after pumping out 3,000 tons of petrol, the crewing company said.

*The Free Syrian Army (FSA) claimed on Thursday that it had shot down a government MiG-23 fighter jet in the northwestern Idlib Province, Al Arabiya TV reported.

 

RUSSIA

*An elderly woman and her daughter have been found dead in the Volga city of Kazan under a “Free Pussy Riot” slogan written in what appears to be their blood, investigators in Russia's Republic of Tatarstan said.

*The Chechen capital of Grozny is the happiest city in Russia, a new study has found.

*A special services officer convicted of organizing the kidnapping of Russian software tycoon Yevgeny Kaspersky’s son was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison, the RAPSI news agency reported.

 

BUSINESS

*Moscow’s oldest hotel, the Metropol, was sold for 8.874 billion rubles ($275 million) at an auction organized by the Moscow city government as part of the national privatization program.

 

SCIENCE

*Russia's NPO Molniya design bureau and the Myasischev Experimental Factory (EMZ) are designing a space-plane for sub-orbital "space tourism" and small satellite launch flights, according to a company specialists' report seen by RIA Novosti.

*Russia's aging Antonov An-2 biplanes may get a new lease on life thanks to trials of the plane fitted with a modern U.S.-made turboprop engine by a Siberian research institute.