* The head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova said internationally brokered talks on the breakaway Moldovan region of Transdnestr originally slated for May 17-18 would not be held
* Telecommunications company AFK Sistema (RTS: AFKS, LSE: SSA) reported an 86% year-on-year slump in net profit calculated to Russian accounting standards for 1Q06, to 1.25 billion rubles ($46.4 million)
* Metals giant Norilsk Nickel (RTS: GMKN, LSE: MNOD) announced Monday its net profits for 2005 calculated to Russian Accounting Standards had risen 13.7% year on year to 58.159 billion rubles ($2.16 billion).
* Georgia and Abkhazia praised the results of UN-sponsored talks held Monday in a bid to break a long-standing impasse over the status of the self-proclaimed republic
* Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov said:
- Russia welcomed the Palestinian president's decision to resume talks with Israel and hoped that Tel Aviv would reciprocate
- Moscow was ready to consider appeals for additional help to the Palestinian authority
* Lawyers acting for a Moscow notary acquitted of murdering Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov but re-arrested on fraud charges said they had filed an appeal against his detention
* Moscow City Court ruled that a decision by a district court to extend the detention of former nuclear minister Yevgeny Adamov until next month was legal
* Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said organized crime, much of it involving state and law-enforcement bodies, was still a major problem for Russia
* An Iranian government spokesman said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad planned to attend a five-year jubilee summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Shanghai on June 15
* Kirill Androsov, a deputy economics minister, said an oil-product exchange would start operating in Russia by the end of 2006
