Main news of June 6

RUSSIA

* The state will not interfere in the conflict between Russian and British shareholders at joint oil venture TNK-BP, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said at a meeting with BP CEO Tony Hayward

* Moscow police have detained several people suspected of involvement in a widely-publicized series of arson attacks on vehicles in the Russian capital, a police spokesperson said

* Seven bodies have been recovered following an explosion and fire aboard a civilian cargo ship moored at a military dockyard in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, a navy spokesman said 

* Russia's foreign minister said Georgia's accession to NATO would cause a new spiral of confrontation in the Caucasus region

* The presidents of Russia and Georgia said on Friday they wanted to tackle controversial issues that have plagued bilateral relations in recent years

* A fire at an electric substation in northwest Moscow has been extinguished, a Moscow electricity distributor said

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told his Ukrainian counterpart on Friday that Kiev's plans to join NATO run counter to the bilateral treaty on friendship, Russia's foreign minister said

* Over a thousand bribery investigations were launched in the first three months of this year, a record figure for Russia, the chief investigator said

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will pay an official visit to the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan in early July

* A woman in the Sverdlovsk Region in Russia's Urals has admitted attempting to sell her nephew to a gang of organ traders, local prosecutors said on Friday

* The lower house of the Russian parliament ratified on Friday an intergovernmental agreement with Syria on settling the country's $3.6 billion Soviet-era debt to Russia

* Mikhail Pogosyan, general director of Russia's Sukhoi aircraft-manufacturing holding will present a new Superjet 100 medium haul passenger airliner at the June 6-8 international economic forum in St. Petersburg, the company said on Friday

* Six forest fires are currently raging on Russia's Far Eastern island of Sakhalin, of which some are near oil and gas pipelines, the chief engineer at the regional forest protection aviation base said on Friday

WORLD

* A recent gas leak in northeast China near the Russian border that killed three people contained phosgene, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday citing environmental experts

* Chinese authorities said the chemical spill in northeast China near the Russian border that killed three people was no threat to the environment, a Russian emergencies ministry spokeswoman said on Friday

* Georgia will not meet Abkhaz demands to withdraw its troops from a disputed region on the border with the breakaway republic, a Georgian state minister said on Friday

* EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived on Friday in Sukhumi, the capital of the breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia, for discussions with the Abkhazian president on the resumption of peace talks with Tbilisi

* Ukraine's state nuclear power utility Energoatom has admitted that a small leak occurred at water-moderated reactor in the country's northwest on May 29, but said no radioactive materials were released

* Up to 20,000 Russian fans are expected to cheer their side on at Euro 2008, to be jointly held in Austria and Switzerland this month, the head of the Russian Football Union said on Friday

* Russia is deeply concerned about rocket attacks on Israel launched from the Gaza Strip and the disproportionate response taken by the Israelis, Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday

* Russia could resume the construction of the Rogun hydropower station in Tajikistan, set to become the largest in Central Asia, the Kommersant business daily said on Friday

* Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has rejected a motion signed by 80 members of parliament requesting that the country's capital, Astana, be renamed Nursultan in his honor

* A informal summit of post-Soviet CIS countries and a three-day international economic forum will begin in St. Petersburg on Friday

BUSINESS

* Russian energy giant Gazprom and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) agreed to jointly build a unified pipeline system in Nigeria, the Russian company's press service said

*  Russia's international reserves have grown to $547.4 billion as of June 1, up $71 billion since the start of 2008, the Central Bank of Russia said on Friday

* Russian state-controlled bank Sberbank's net profit calculated to Russian Accounting Standards increased by 27.5% year-on-year in the first five months of 2008 to 56.5 bln rubles ($2.37 bln), its CEO said Friday

* OGK-3's net profit in 2007 calculated to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) grew 53% to 6.7 billion rubles ($281.4 mln), the Russian wholesale power generating company said Friday