Main news of April 24

A round up of what happened in the past 24 hours

RUSSIA

* Russia and Austria signed a deal in Vienna on Austria joining the South Stream gas project

* A technical and economic assessment of the South Stream gas project will be ready in February 2011 and the pipeline will go into operation at the end of 2015, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said:

- Terrorists should be fought against in a tough and consistent way

- He does not rule out running for president again in the 2012 election

* Poland expressed satisfaction with the Russian investigation into a crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski on April 10

* Russia is interested in clarifying the reasons for the air crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held talks in Vienna with Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann

* Russia's space forces launched a Proton-M rocket carrying a U.S. satellite, the Defense Ministry said

WORLD

* Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he hoped that the peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians will resume under the mediation of the United States in the coming weeks

* A smell of char was the reason for a Washington-Moscow passenger airliner emergency landing in Azores earlier in the week, a spokeswoman for United Airlines said