Main news of June 26

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

RUSSIA

*The Venezuelan film Brother was awarded the grand prize at the 32nd Moscow International Film Festival

*Head of Russian banking group VTB Andrei Kostin is against the implementation of additional taxes in the banking sector, a policy on the agenda of the G20 business summit in Toronto

* Several sexual minorities activists were detained after attempting to stage an unsanctioned protest in central St. Petersburg

*Russia's drug control chief Viktor Ivanov opened =the Far Eastern Drug Observatory to monitor drug trafficking in North East Asia.

* A 26-year-old TV host for a satellite business channel, Dmitry Okkert, was found dead in his apartment in southern Moscow on Friday, Moscow's chief investigator said.

* In the next three years Russia will contribute $75 million to a program to cut infant and maternal mortality in African states

* A task force from the Russian Pacific Fleet led by the Varyag missile cruiser completed its a friendly visit to the United States and left San Francisco

WORLD

*Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev lent Belarus money to settle its debts with Russian state-run gas giant Gazprom, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview with Euronews TV station, broadcast on Saturday

*The presidents of Russia, the United States and France issued a joint statement during the G8 summit in Canada on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

* Opening discussion on the second day of the G8 summit in Canada focused on global security and in particular the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, a Canadian press secretary said

* The G8 leaders called on Iran to respect the rule of law and freedom of speech and condemned the sinking of the South Korean Cheonan warship, for which Seoul blames North Korea, a source from one the delegations said

*Head of the Kyrgyz interim government Roza Otunbayeva has arrived in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh to take part in Sunday's referendum on the constitution, a government official said

*Nearly all the refugees who fled across the border to neighboring Uzbekistan have returned to their homes in Kyrgyzstan, interim defense minister Ismail Isakov said

* The Kyrgyz interim government declared a "Day of Silence" before the 27 June referendum on a new constitution, a Kyrgyz Central Election Committee spokeswoman said.

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and British premier David Cameron agreed to make relations between the two states "more efficient and intense"

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed G8 leaders to adopt a global plan on anti-drug trafficking effortS

* Negotiations on the International Monetary Fund reform are to be completed by the G20 summit to be held in November in Seoul