- Iran started industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel
- Iran will not succumb to pressure from the international community and will keep implementing its nuclear program
* A current round of negotiations on the construction of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant to break a stalemate over the project's financing will continue until April 13, Atomstroyexport said
* The recent visit by General Baqer Zolqadr, Iran's first deputy interior minister, to Russia was not a violation of a UN Security Council resolution restricting Iranian officials' movement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said
* Russian Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said:
- A forum of the world's leading gas producers in Doha set up a high-level coordination committee for gas pricing, but did not form a gas cartel
- The next, seventh forum of gas exporters will be held in Moscow in 2008
* Ukraine's parliament, the Supreme Rada:
- voted to ask for international mediation in an ongoing standoff with the president, who ordered the dissolution of the Supreme Rada and early elections
- adopted an address to the nation, calling for simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections and a referendum on Ukraine's accession to NATO
* The Moscow branch of U.K.-based PricewaterhouseCoopers won a tender to audit Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom, the energy giant said
* Russia's state-run foreign trade bank Vneshtorgbank (VTB) will hold an initial public offering (IPO) on the London and Russian bourses, a source in VTB said
* President Vladimir Putin instructed a presidential council to specify funding for welfare projects in 2008-2010 and to work on measures to improve the demographic situation in the country
* Russia's chief WTO negotiator Maxim Medvedkov said the Russian Economic Development and Trade Ministry does not expect Ukraine to impede Russia's WTO accession bid should it be admitted to the organization before Russia
* Russia will increase the number of satellites comprising its Glonass navigation system to 18 by the end of 2007, the head of Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos), Anatoly Perminov, said
* Russia's truck maker Kamaz said its sales in the first quarter of 2007 grew by 40.7% on the same period last year, to 16.73 billion rubles ($645.2 million)
* Major opposition parties in Kyrgyzstan started mass rallies in the provinces in an attempt to force President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to implement constitutional reform or step down
* Kyrgyzstan's united opposition finalized its draft of the country's Constitution and presented it to the authorities along with a list of demands, which include early presidential elections and reform of the Constitution without the president's participation, an opposition spokesman said
