* An expert involved in the preparation of President Vladimir Putin's recent visit to Algeria said the country's entire $4.7 billion debt to Russia would be written off after Algeria concluded and implemented contracts to buy Russian industrial products and military hardware
* A Russian negotiator said Russia considered a joint uranium enrichment venture with Iran impossible if the Iranian side failed to comply with IAEA demands
* Deputy speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, Lyubov Sliska said that by denying the former president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, the right to undergo treatment in Russia, the UN war crimes tribunal actually "denied him the right to life"
* The Emergency Situations Ministry said a Mi-8 helicopter crash had left one person dead and eight injured in the Arkhangelsk Region in European Russia's north
* Armenia's foreign minister ruled out a military solution for the breakaway region of Nagorny Karabakh
* The Emergency Situations Ministry said a Russian fishing trawler had sunk in the Sea of Okhotsk, off the Kamchatka Peninsula, no one was hurt
* The head of the Federal Agency for Special Economic Zones said first resident companies in special economic zones (SEZ) were to appear in late March
