* Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov:
- said long-running talks to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear program were halted after Pyongyang refused to continue discussions until money had been transferred from its unfrozen bank accounts
- warned Russian banks against assisting in the transfer of funds from North Korea's frozen accounts in Macao
- blamed the failure of the sixth round of talks on the North Korean nuclear problem on the U.S. position
* Chinese negotiators at nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea proposed transferring Pyongyang's unfrozen funds from a Macao bank to a branch of a South Korean bank located in the Communist nation
* Pakistan carried out a successful launch of a cruise missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the country's television channels reported
* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticized the UN Security Council's work saying the international body was ineffective at protecting the legal rights of countries
* Transport ministers from 27 European Union member states have spoken out in favor of signing an agreement with Russia on Trans-Siberian over-flights,
* The United Nations Security Council should provide guarantees that its new resolution on Iran will not undermine Russia's contracts with the Islamic Republic, the Russian envoy to the UN said
* Russian prosecutors moved to ban a radical nationalist party involved in a series of anti-government protests recently, the top prosecutor's office said
* Pilot error may have been to blame for the crash of two MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters that collided in the Rostov area Wednesday, an Air Force spokesman said
* Russian paratroopers will double their combat capabilities following modernization of current weaponry, the defense minister said
* Four international negotiators on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have approved an initiative to extend aid to the Palestinians for another three months, a statement by the Quartet said
* Ukraine's parliament issued a statement expressing concerns over the possible deployment of U.S. missile defense elements in Central Europe
* The crew of the 15th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS) was approved and the fifth space tourist was cleared to fly. The launch of the Russian Soyuz-TMA 10 spacecraft, carrying the 15th expedition and tourist Charles Simonyi, an American of Hungarian origin, to the ISS from the Baikonur space center was scheduled for April 7, 2007
* Russia's environmental and technological watchdog said France's Total oil company had failed to meet the terms of a licensing agreement on a lucrative oil field in northern Russia and threatened to revoke its license for the Kharyaga field
* The Russian government adopted as a starting point the basic parameters of the 2008-2010 budget at a meeting
* Russia's defense spending in 2008 will grow 16.3% on 2007, to 956 billion rubles ($36.8 billion), the finance minister said
* Police detained six suspects in last month's bomb attack in a fast food restaurant in Russia's second city, a police source said
* The Russian Prosecutor General's Office appealed a Moscow district court's ruling that a new investigation into Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev cannot be conducted in Siberia, a spokesman for Moscow's City Court said
* Russia's largest air carrier Aeroflot agreed with Airbus to buy 22 A350 planes, Airbus's Moscow office said
* Russia's Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev proposed developing an international convention for the protection of witnesses and victims in criminal cases
* Russia's state arms seller Rosoboronexport and the country's largest investment company Troika Dialog have started restructuring the authorized capital of the Russian carmaker AvtoVAZ, Rosobornexport's press service reported
* Oil output in Russia increased 4.7% year-on-year to 37.8 million metric tons (277 million barrels) in February, the main statistics body said
* Europe's unmanned cargo spacecraft ATV (automated transfer vehicle) will lift off for the international space station (ISS) in November instead of July, Russia's senior space official said
* A large part of the aircraft fleet and all airfields under Russia's Missile Forces need an immediate overhaul, said Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces
* The aerospace and defense group EADS and Russia's aerospace holding signed four deals, promising the Russians a 5% stake in the A-350 airliner project, the European company said
* Customs officers at the St. Petersburg seaport have prevented an attempt to smuggle 1,500 tires for Russian-made fighters to a country in Asia, a spokesman for the local customs office said
