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Main news of April 14

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RUSSIA * Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Japanese counterpart Masahiko Komura agreed to continue negotiations on a bilateral peace treaty to... 14.04.2008, Sputnik International

2008-04-14T18:04+0000

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Main news of April 14

18:04 GMT 14.04.2008

RUSSIA

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Japanese counterpart Masahiko Komura agreed to continue negotiations on a bilateral peace treaty to formally end World War II hostilities

* The Kremlin-backed United Russia party plans to create a new post of party chairman and offer the position to outgoing president Vladimir Putin, party leader Boris Gryzlov said

* Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura reassured his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, that Tokyo's missile defense cooperation with the United States is not targeted against Russia

* Flight tests of the new-generation Russian space launch vehicle Angara will start in 2010, the director of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Center said

* The members of a doomsday sect still underground in central Russia resumed talks with authorities but did not indicate when they intend to leave their hillside dugout

* Russia's Constitutional Court ruled to allow Russians to register their homes built on allotments as their place of residence following appeals from a number of Russians

* U.S. film studio 20th Century Fox plans to sue its Russian partner Gemini Film International for alleged failure to pay revenue from films distributed in Russia and other CIS states in 2000-2006, the Kommersant business daily said

WORLD

* Billionaire and twice former premier Silvio Berlusconi is narrowly ahead in exit polls following Italy's weekend election for both houses of parliament

* The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) opened its 2008 spring session, to be addressed by Slovakia's president, Germany's chancellor, and Ukraine's prime minister

* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will discuss plans for a Middle East peace conference to be held in Moscow when he visits the Russian capital later this week, the Palestinian embassy said

* The Georgian Defense Ministry said it has decided to withdraw its peacekeeping contingent from Kosovo by the end of this week, and may send additional troops to Afghanistan

* Ukrainian peacekeepers serving as part of a joint Polish-Ukraine battalion in Kosovo will end their tour of duty and will be replaced by a new rotation, the defense ministry said

* Controversial Russian artist Anna Mikhalchuk, found dead in Germany, has been identified by her husband, a German police investigator said

* Belgrade intends to include Kosovo, which it still considers part of its territory, in Serbia's early parliamentary election, a Russian senator cited Belgrade's Election Commission as saying

* Russia's delegation to PACE has gathered sufficient signatures to force an investigation into controversial claims made by former Hague Tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte in her book

BUSINESS

* The Russian government has decided to give a major natural gas field in the country's northeast to energy giant Gazprom without a tender, Deputy Industry and Energy Minister Andrei Dementyev said

* Under a new scheme for Russia-Ukraine natural gas trade, Ukraine's state-owned oil and gas company will buy gas on Russian territory from trader RosUkrEnergo, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said

* A Moscow arbitration court upheld a ruling claiming over 260 million rubles ($10.8 million) in back taxes from auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers

* Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf proposed building an oil and gas pipeline to China during talks with Chinese leader Hu Jintao, the China Daily newspaper said

* Uzbekistan and China have established a joint venture to build a gas pipeline from the Central Asian state to its eastern neighbor, Uzbekistan's national oil and gas company Uzbekneftegaz said