* Ambassadors of the United States and Iran have met in Iraq to address sensitive Middle East issues in talks marking the first high-level contact in nearly 30 years
* Russia proposed conducting an urgent conference of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty member states in Vienna June 12-15, the Russian Foreign Ministry said
* Russia's Foreign Ministry confirmed it had received a request from the British authorities to extradite Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoi in connection with the murder of ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko
* A senior member of the State Duma said if a former FSB guard accused of murdering former Russian secret service officer Alexander Litvinenko stands trial, British investigators could participate in the proceedings
* Russia's opposition nominated Vladimir Bukovsky, a former Soviet dissident living in London, as its single candidate to run for president in Russia next year
* Russia's industrial safety watchdog is preparing to withdraw a license from Yuzhkuzbassugol, which owns Siberian coal mines where methane explosions have killed about 150 people in the last three months, its spokesman said
* Poland has no intention of conducting a discussion with Russia on the proposed deployment of a U.S. missile defense base on its territory, Poland's president said in an interview
* The organizing committee for the opposition March of Dissent has applied to stage political actions in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the committee said
* Iran's Foreign Ministry said that U.S. political pressure on the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) director general undermines the position of the international body
* A delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has begun talks with Georgian officials, set to address upcoming loans and economic programs, an IMF representative in the South Caucasus country said
* New human outbreaks of the deadly bird flu virus are highly probable in Southeast Asia and Egypt in 2007, an infectious diseases specialist with the World Health Organization (WHO) said
* The Kazakh president's son-in-law, the Central Asian nation's former ambassador to Austria, was put on an international wanted list, the Interior Ministry said
* Japan's agriculture minister died after hanging himself hours before he was to face questioning in parliament over a political scandal, officials said
* A Eurasian security bloc comprising five former Soviet republics and China begins joint counterterrorism exercises at a lake in eastern Kygryzstan
* The U.S. administration plans to implement drastic cuts in financial aid to rights groups in Russia and Ukraine next year, The Washington Post said, citing a Freedom House report.
* Russia's MICEX bourse suspended trade in common stock of Russia's second largest bank VTB after the share price leapt up on the first day of trade, a spokesman for the exchange said
* Cuba expects to import $1.6 billion worth of food in 2007, the country's foreign trade company head said ahead of talks called to secure the daily food supply for the population
* A British gay rights activist kicked and beaten by extremists at a gathering in central Moscow urged British nationals to send letters of protest to the Russian ambassador in London, a UK-based gay news service said
* The Kazakh president's son-in-law, the Central Asian nation's former ambassador to Austria, was put on an international wanted list, the Interior Ministry said
* Armed robbers broke into a bank in West Siberia, killing a security guard and making off with more than $600,000, a source in the local interior department said
* A Japanese trawler captain charged in March with poaching off Russia's Pacific Coast has been handed over to Japanese officials, the head of a company arranging visa-free travel from Japan to Russia's Kuril Islands said
