- Russia and the U.S. are discussing the details of U.S. plans to deploy parts of its missile shield in Central Europe
- The commissioning of the Bushehr nuclear power plant will be postponed, but Iran and Russia have partly resolved the payment crisis
- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will soon pay official visits to Moscow
- There is no political force in Russia that could support refugee oligarch Boris Berezovsky
* A short circuit caused the explosion at a Siberian mine in March that killed more than 100 people, the head of Russia's technical standards body said
* Ukraine's Constitutional Court decided to study a presidential decree ordering the dissolution of parliament continuously, from April 17 through 27, until a final ruling is passed, a court resolution said
* Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko described a Constitutional Court session reviewing President Yushchenko's decree dissolving parliament as "a farce," and urged the president to recall the judges appointed on his quota
* Preparation for talks on a new cooperation agreement between Russia and the European Union could start before the Russia-EU summit scheduled for May, President Vladimir Putin's special envoy on relations with the EU, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, said
* Russia and India will conduct joint naval counter-terrorism exercises in the Sea of Japan on April 24-26, the press service of Russia's Pacific Fleet said
* Hundreds of Palestinian reporters stormed the Gaza legislature in protest of the government's failure to secure the release of a kidnapped BBC reporter after leaflets claiming he had been executed were discovered Sunday
* The fifth auction for assets of the now bankrupt oil company Yukos will be held April 18, Russia's federal property fund said
* Senior Russian MP Konstantin Zatulin said he will sue Ukraine in the European Court for refusing to allow him entry to the country
* The Council of the European Union decided to grant Moldova 45 million euros to support the country's balance of payments and implement a governmental reform program, a EU spokesman said
* Ukraine's premier said hope remains that the political crisis in Ukraine can be resolved through talks and that the conflicting parties can reach a compromise soon, but said he did not rule out the possibility of impeachment if the Constitutional Court found the presidential decree to dissolve parliament illegal
* Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said the political crisis in Ukraine was unlikely to be solved through the use of force following negotiations with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso
* The landing of the 14th Expedition crew has been postponed for one day to avoid early spring flooding on the Kazakh steppe, a Russian space official said
* Altimo, the telecoms arms of financial holding Alfa Group, said Tuesday it has demanded the repayment of its $1.35 billion loan from Turkey's Cukurova Group
* Hans-Gert Pottering, the chairman of the European Parliament, said he was seriously concerned by the human rights situation in Russia and accused the country of violating fundamental democratic principles
* Greek's unicameral parliament ratified Tuesday an agreement on the construction of the one billion-euro Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline
* Russia and members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) had the highest rate of airplane accidents in the world in 2006, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in its 2006 Safety Report
