* Russian President Vladimir Putin compared U.S. plans to deploy its missile defenses in Europe to the deployment of Pershing cruise missiles in the 1980s but said there would be "no hysteria" about it
* The Saudi police arrested over 170 people, suspected of preparing suicide attacks on planes and oil facilities, the Arab satellite television station Al Jazeera reported
* Ukraine's Constitution Court said it received lawmakers' request to examine the legality of a new presidential decree to disband parliament and postpone early elections until June 24
* President Putin ordered the government to set up a nuclear energy corporation by July 1, 2007 and transfer the stock of the industry's enterprises to its charter capital, a presidential decree said
* The U.S. missile shield should cover all of Europe, the Greek foreign minister said at an informal ministerial meeting in Oslo
* A controversial Soviet-era WWII monument in central Tallinn has been cut up and removed from the city center following protests Thursday that left one person dead, the Estonian government press service said
* The Russian Armed Forces were never planned to be all-volunteer, the top general in charge of mobilization said
* A Russian first deputy prime minister said a situation in which 96% of Russian cargo is transported by foreign shipping is an outrage
* World-famous cellist-conductor and rights advocate Mstislav Rostropovich died Friday at the age of 80, his press spokeswoman said
* A direct path to Kosovo's independence will be opened next month, the president of the breakaway Serbian province said after talks with UN ambassadors
* Russia's upper house submitted to the president a resolution to break off diplomatic ties with Estonia following the removal of a Soviet World War II monument in Tallinn
* Russia's president approved amendments to the Russian Budget Code envisaging a transition to mid-term budget planning, the Kremlin press service reported
* Three Kyrgyz opposition figures arrested Wednesday for allegedly provoking civil unrest have been released following the intervention of Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev, a government source said
* The Supreme Court of Kyrgyzstan rejected an appeal against a lower court ruling, thereby conclusively barring the ex-president's daughter, Bermet Akayev, from running in a by-election for parliament slated for Sunday
* The Russian Prosecutor General's Office filed new charges against a former senator of a regional parliament in the southwest Urals, who is already facing murder charges, a source close to the investigation said
