Main news of May 5

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

RUSSIA

* Over 102,000 military servicemen across Russia will take part in festivities dedicated to the 65th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany, the Russian defense minister said

* A priest has been stabbed to death in Chuvashia, less than two weeks after a clergyman was shot dead in the central Russian republic, local investigators said

* The attacker of an elderly Russian human rights activist has been given a one-year suspended sentence by a Moscow court

* Two Russian warships conducted an exercise against a simulated nuclear attack with elements of chemical, biological and radiological (CBR) warfare in the Indian Ocean, a Navy officer said

* Russia's Reserve Fund, set up to accrue windfall revenues from oil exports, shrank 67% as of May 1, 2010 year-on-year to 1.19 trillion rubles ($40.6 billion), a business daily reported

* Russia has not yet introduced a ban on the adoption of Russian children by U.S. families, Russian science and education minister Andrei Fursenko said

WORLD

* Somali pirates attacked and seized the Russian tanker Moskovsky Universitet (Moscow University)in the Gulf of Aden, a Navy source said

* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a new series of emphatic statements during a news conference in New York, where a review conference of nuclear non-proliferation bringing together diplomats from 189 countries is underway

* Visitors to Internet cafes in Belarus will now have to show identification to get online, according to a government decree

* Iran's armed forces launched a series of large-scale exercises in the country's territorial waters, the Fars news agency reported

* Iran has overcome the technological obstacles in creating nuclear arms, leaving the development of nuclear arms in the country to just a question of political choice, the head of the Israeli military intelligence research department said

* Russia and France plan to sign a child adoption agreement this year, the press service of the Russian Science and Education Ministry said in a statement

* Bulgaria is not holding any official talks with the United States on hosting elements of a U.S. missile shield on its soil, Bulgarian Ambassador to Russia Plamen Grozdanov said

* The President of the International Exhibitions Bureau (BIE) Jean-Pierre Lafon visited Russia's pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai

* Ukraine hopes to get $120-$130 million over Venezuelan oil transit to Belarus through Ukrainian territory, Ukrainian Transport and Communications Minister Kostiantyn Yefimenko said

* Russia's proposal to merge its state-run Gazprom and Ukraine's national energy company Naftogaz merits attention and will be studied by the government, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said

* Ukraine's Communist Party unveiled a monument to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin despite protests by President Viktor Yanukovych

* Russian and Ukrainian warships have arrived in the Ukrainian Black Sea town of Odessa for Sunday's Victory Day celebrations, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's press service said

* Latvia, which has been heavily hit by the global recession, will not be able to begin repaying its debt to the International Monetary Fund in 2012