BANGKOK, Sept.

Following the decision of the Icelandic government to start tendering exclusive licences in January 2009 for oil exploration in the Dreki area (in the Atlantic, northeast of Iceland on the Jan Mayen Ridge, between Iceland and Jan Mayen Island), an international conference has been announced in Reykjavik on 4-5 September.

More than 500 workers of a defence plant in Dagestan's Buynaksk rallied on 29 May to protest against a group of shareholders trying with the help of the town's prosecutor to oust the plant's director and seize control over the plant recovering from its 10-year crisis, Timur Markov reports.

According to "VoV", the Ministry of Industry has officially approved a report on the pre-feasibility study for the iron ore mining project at the Thach Khe mine in central Ha Tinh province.