Main news of June 7

RUSSIA

* The Russian president said he hopes that global companies will make a significant contribution to Russia's innovative development

* Russia's president said at an international economic forum in St. Petersburg the state's main task is to establish an independent judicial system that meets the level of economic development

* The number of those killed aboard a civilian cargo ship at a military dockyard in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad has reached nine, with another two bodies recovered, a Navy official said

* Advances in scientific developments could solve the problem of exhausting energy resources and "energy poverty," Russia's president said

* Russia is cautiously optimistic following the results of a meeting between the Russian and Georgian leaders, a source in the Russian delegation at the talks said

* Russia plans to build a deep-water breakwater to protect Black Sea Fleet ships at a naval base in Novorossiysk in south Russia by 2014

* A light cargo plane An-2 crashed in the Stavropol Region, in south Russia, killing both pilots, a spokesman for the Russian emergencies ministry said

* Russia's Glonass satellite system is expected to become fully operational in 2010, if it receives sufficient financing, the head of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) said

* Prevailing air currents will not bring deadly gas released in a recent leak in northeast China to Russia's borders, top weathermen in Russia said

* The Kremlin chief of staff, Sergei Naryshkin, denied on Saturday reports that Russia's Security Council would be reformed and its powers increased

* Six vehicles caught fire in Moscow, a police source said, in what is believed to be the work of the infamous 'car arsonist' who has burnt over 25 cars since the start of the month in the Russian capital

WORLD

* A Russian Air Force official said on Saturday that military aircraft flying near to a passenger airliner in northwest Russia had not posed any threat to the civilian plane

* Russia's president said that the role the U.S. has taken on in the world economy does not correspond to its true capabilities which was a major factor in the current global financial crisis

* Serbia's Ana Ivanovic beat Russia's Dinara Safina in the French Open women's final to win her first grand slam title

* Russian railroad troops will leave Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia within two months, Russia's defense minister said

* Russia's deputy prime minister and finance minister questioned on Saturday the abilities of oil and natural gas cartels to cut market risks

* Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin urged the European Union and the United States to make a decision on supporting agricultural producers under the Doha development round of world trade talks

* Euro 2008 kicks off on Saturday with a Group A match between hosts Switzerland and the Czech Republic

* The former Georgian foreign minister David Bakradze has been elected as the speaker of Georgia's new parliament

* U.S. President George Bush on Saturday prolonged for at least one year sanctions imposed in June 2006 on a number of Belarusian officials, including President Alexander Lukashenko

* Rescuers have found the body of a miner who died after a cave-in and methane leak at a coal mine in central Kazakhstan on June 2, the Emergency Situations Ministry said

* Energy ministers from the G8 countries, plus officials from China, South Korea and India, are holding a two-day meeting in the Japanese city of Aomori amid unprecedented hikes in oil prices

* Around 100 opposition supporters have gathered in central Tbilisi to protest the first session of the new Georgian parliament following elections in the Caucasus state on May 21

BUSINESS

* Over 40 foreign auto-component manufacturing plants are to be established in Russia, a government official said

* A deal which will see Dutch gas transportation company Gasunie join the Nord Stream gas pipeline project will be finalized next week, a Gazprom official said

* Sberbank and Deutsche Bank are set to invest billions of dollars in projects for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea city of Sochi, the Russian state-run savings bank's CEO said

* Royal Dutch Shell could join Gazprom's project to build a liquefied natural gas plant in northwest Siberia, the head of the Anglo-Dutch energy giant said

* The president of Russian Railways said Saturday that the rail monopoly could buy a stake in Germany's Deutsche Bahn AG, which the German government plans to privatize

* The Sukhoi aircraft maker is hoping to control 15% of the world's regional passenger plane market by 2024, the company CEO said

* The Russian economy is overheating, the CEO of Russian state savings bank Sberbank, who was the Russian economic development minister for seven years, said

* Russia will prepare an action plan within a month to set up an international financial center in Russia, the economics minister said

* Gazprom is seeking to take part in a project to build a natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the U.S. mainland and Canada, the Russian monopoly's CEO said

* The St. Petersburg international raw material and commodity exchange will start trading oil products this August and oil futures in 2009, the exchange's first deputy president

* Russia's largest independent oil producer LUKoil is hoping for success in negotiations with Iraq on a deal to develop Iraq's largest oil field, West Qurna-2, the company's CEO said

* TNK-BP CEO Robert Dudley said on Saturday he was sure a dispute between the joint oil venture's Russian and British shareholders would be resolved in the next few days

* The Russian automaker Sollers, previously known as Severstal-Avto, and Italy's Fiat Group signed agreements on Saturday to set up two joint ventures