2007 Review: April

RIA Novosti looks back at the main events of the outgoing year; below the month by month review of 2007 continues, with April

April 2

* Ukrainian President signs an order to disband parliament and calls for new legislative elections

April 5

* Fifteen British naval personnel are released by Iranian authorities after almost two weeks in custody return to the United Kingdom

April 9

* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces his country has started industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel

April 10

* The 15th crew of the International Space Station begins settling in at the station after successfully docking with the ISS on board Soyuz TMA-10 space carrier

April 15

* A fourth-generation strategic nuclear submarine is launched during a special ceremony at a shipbuilding yard in northern Russia

April 16

* About 2,000 supporters of the United Front and the For Reforms movement start a protest rally outside the Kyrgyz parliament building in an attempt to force President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to implement constitutional reform or step down

* An armed student kills at least 32 and injures over 20 on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute in the U.S. before shooting himself

April 17

* Greek's unicameral parliament ratifies an agreement on the construction of the one billion-euro Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline that would deliver Russian oil to Europe across Bulgaria and Greece

April 18

* Gazprom finalizes a $7.45 billion deal to buy 50% plus one share in formerly Shell-led Sakhalin II with partners in the vast hydrocarbon project off Russia's Pacific Coast

* The U.S. administration discloses the technical parameters of a missile defense system to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic

April 19

* Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, the director of the U.S. missile defense program, says the United States could place a mobile radar station in the Caucasus region and several stationary radars in other regions in Europe in the next few years

* Police use tear gas and stun grenades against protesters gathered in front of the government building in Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek

April 20

* Iran's Vice President Gholamreza Agazade says Iran is installing uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear center under the supervision of international nuclear watchdog inspectors

April 21

* A Soyuz spacecraft carrying the 14th crew of the International Space Station returns back to Earth

April 23

* Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first ever democratically elected leader (1991-1999), dies at the age of 76 of heart trouble

April 26

* Russian President Vladimir Putin proposes that Russia unilaterally suspend the implementation of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe until other parties to the treaty ratify the document

* U.S. Senate approves a bill to pull American troops out of Iraq by April 2008 by 51 against 46 votes

April 27

* At least 20 people die in a Russian transport helicopter crash in southern Chechnya

* A controversial Soviet-era WWII monument in central Tallinn is cut up and removed from the city center following protests that left one person dead

* World-famous cellist-conductor and rights advocate Mstislav Rostropovich dies at the age of 80