* Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said 15 British sailors detained for allegedly trespassing into Iranian waters March 23 had been amnestied after two days of discussions. Britain's Foreign Office said it would soon consider lifting its restrictions on Iran
* An escalating dispute between pro-presidential and premier-led factions in Ukraine persisted as:
- the Constitutional Court expected to rule on the presidential decree to disband parliament refused to accept the resignation of Court Chairman Ivan Dombrovskiy, the court's press service said
- Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych renewed his appeals to the president to cancel his order to dissolve parliament and call early elections
- the parliament (Supreme Rada) passed a resolution accusing President Viktor Yushchenko of an attempted coup amid
- the Supreme Rada voted against the president's decision to allow foreign troops to participate in multinational military exercises in Ukraine in 2007
- Yanukovych's Party of Regions said the president was preparing a decree to dismiss the government
* U.S.-based Chevron gave up plans to join the development of the vast Shtokman gas project off Russia's Arctic Coast, the press secretary for the company's Moscow office said
* Russia's envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin said only four of 15 UN Security Council members had given unconditional support for Marti Ahtisaari's plan on Kosovo during the first round of talks
* Tatneftand the National Oil Corporation (NOC) of Libya have signed an Exploration and Production-Sharing Agreement (EPSA) on three large areas covering some 16,000 square kilometers (10,000 square miles) in Libya, the Russian oil company's press service reported
* Legislators in Transdnestr, a self-proclaimed republic in Moldova, appealed to the Russian parliament for financial aid, the parliamentary press service said
* The European Commission said Poland had agreed to lift its veto of talks on the Russia-EU cooperation pact
* Moldova started selling off its vineyards amid the market crisis caused by a Russian ban on the impoverished post-Soviet nation's key export, a leading local businessman told a business forum
* Russian economics minister, German Gref, said Moscow had completed a key round of talks with Vietnam over its accession to the World Trade Organization, and would negotiate a final deal within a month
* A court in West Siberia remanded Yukos co-founder Platon Lebedev in a local pre-trial detention center as part of a new money laundering investigation against the businessman, a lawyer said
* The lower house of Russia's parliament proposed that Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov divide the Health Ministry into two state structures over its "unsatisfactory" activity
* Russia's Transportation Ministry said it had allowed a Georgian airline to make three charter flights from Tbilisi to Moscow during the Easter holiday season
* Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was inviting the EU and CIS countries to conduct a joint assessment of potential missile threats, and hoped to resume missile defense dialogue with NATO
* Armenian President Robert Kocharyan appointed Serzh Sarkisyan to the post of the country's prime minister to replace his late predecessor, the presidential press service said
* The Republican Party of Russia appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg against its dissolution last month, a high-ranking party official said
* The Hague Tribunal sentenced Bosnian Serb war criminal Dragan Zelenovic to 15 years in prison after finding him guilty of crimes against humanity
