* Russian President Vladimir Putin called for international AIDS monitoring standards to be introduced in Russia
* Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said one of the main tasks of the Russian delegation at the IMF's spring session would be the promotion of Russian ideas in the G8, including energy security, the fight against infections and the development of education.
* Anatoly Chubais, the head of Russia's electricity monopoly said Unified Energy System reform would be completed in 2008
* Belarusian President Leonid Maltsev said the first train with S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems had arrived in Minsk
* Iran's envoy to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh said his country was prepared to continue cooperating in full with the UN's nuclear watchdog and to clarify every aspect of its nuclear file
* Russian Foreign Ministry's official spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said sanctions against Iran could not be discussed until evidence is provided that proves Iran's nuclear activities are not exclusively for peaceful purposes
* German carmaker Volkswagen said its supervisory board had approved plans to set up an assembly plant in the Moscow Region
* Russia's emergencies officials said five people had died early Friday in separate fires at a Moscow University hostel in a Stalin-era skyscraper, and at a 16-store apartment bloc in the Khimki suburb of Moscow.
* Almazbek Atambayev, Kyrgyzstan's industry, trade and tourism minister, resigned from his post in protest against the policies of the country's top officials
* Ukraine's foreign minister Borys Tarasyuk said Kiev was not considering any changes in controversial customs regulations on goods bound for Ukraine from Transdnestr, Moldova's breakaway region
