News of the Day, 15:00 Moscow time

* Russia is ready to extend the transit of military cargoes through Russia to other key member nations of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said

* Pilot error has been identified as the cause of a crash involving a Su-24 Fencer tactical bomber in mid-June, a flight service official said

* Israel has intensified its efforts to prevent deliveries of Russian S-300 air defense systems to Iran under a 2007 contract, an Israeli newspaper said

* A natural gas exchange will start operating in Russia later in 2009, the president of the Russian Natural Gas Society, Valery Yazev, said

* Iranian authorities have begun a partial recount of the fiercely disputed June 12 presidential vote, national media said

* Honduran interim President Roberto Micheletti promised that presidential polls would go ahead as scheduled on November 29, a Venezuelan paper said

* Russia's unmanned Progress spacecraft, due to undock from the International Space Station (ISS) on June 30, will be used as a technical space platform before being dumped in the Pacific, mission control said

* Investigators confirmed that Anatoly Kekin, a mayor from a town in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, has died in a boating accident

* GM's car plant near St. Petersburg will suspend production from July 1 to August 31 over declining demand on the Russian market, the factory's press secretary said

* A lawyer for Michael Jackson's personal doctor denied claims that the cardiologist had injected the pop legend with a powerful painkiller prior to his death