Oslo  - High metal prices have fuelled interest in breaking up a Russian cruiser that sank off northern Norway in 2004, reports said Tuesday.

"We have been approached by some eight, nine serious Norwegian and foreign companies that want to break up the ship," Kjetil Aasebo of the Norwegian Coastal Administration told the Aftenposten newspaper.

The Coastal Administration has been put in charge of getting rid of the wreck, and hopes to have selected a bidder by December with the aim of removing the ship by next summer.

Moscow  - Russian prosecutors launched a flight safety inquiry on Tuesday into flagship carrier Aeroflot after a crash that killed 88 people, the general prosecutor's office said.

The Aeroflot Boeing 737 crashed near Russia's Ural mountains as it readied to land in the city of Perm on a flight from Moscow. Twenty-one foreigners and seven children were among the dead.

Aeroflot said nationals of Germany, France, Switzerland, Turkey and Italy were among the victims.

London, Sept. 16 (ANI): NATO has reportedly served notice on the Kremlin that it would offer every support to Georgia''s ambitions to join the Western Alliance despite the continued presence of Russian troops in the country''s breakaway regions.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO''s Secretary General, condemned the Russian occupation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, even as Moscow continued to insist that both regions were no longer part of Georgian territory.

The Telegraph quoted him as saying that the launch of a new NATO-Georgia commission to co-ordinate Georgia''s bid would "function to enhance and accelerate our co-operation and integration."

Washington - The International Monetary Fund on Monday approved a 750-million-dollar emergency loan for Georgia to help stabilize the Caucasus republic's economy following last month's conflict wi

Amman- Jordan and Russia on Monday urged Israel to stop all practices that could "derail" the peace process, including settlement activity in the Palestinian territories, an official statement said.

The remark came during a meeting between Jordanian Foreign Minister Salah Bashir and the Russian Middle East envoy Alexander Saltanov.

London/Moscow - NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Monday said Russian plan to keep troops in Georgia's breakaway regions was "unacceptable" and "hard to swallow."

He blamed oversights in an EU-brokered peace deal for not demanding the full withdrawal of troops to their bases in Russia before the war with Georgia last month.

The NATO secretary-general made the comments in an interview with the Financial Times shortly before he travelled to Tbilisi on Monday to show the alliances openness to including Georgia.