Main news of April 27

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* The White House on Wednesday released President Barack Obama's birth certificate to put an end to questions about his place of birth

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin continued to criticize NATO military operations in Libya, saying that he was "dumbfounded" over how easy decisions are made to use force against countries

* Russia and the EU have no prospects for future development without close mutual cooperation and Russia's integration with the European Union, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said

* Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said that planned peace talks between Thai and Cambodian defense ministers had been rescheduled

* A Belarusian court rejected an appeal for the release of former presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, detained in December for taking part in an anti-governmental riot

* Harvard legal scholar Lobsang Sangay is to take over political leadership of the Tibetan government in exile from the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan election committee said

* U.S. President Barack Obama has authorized the allocation of $25-million in non-lethal assistance to the Libyan opposition, fighting to overthrow the Muammar Gaddafi regime

RUSSIA

* A verdict in the trial of two far-right activists accused of the 2009 murders of a top Russian human rights lawyer and a journalist is due on Thursday

* The Russian presidential administration has terminated a contract with the Effective Politics Foundation headed by well-known spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky, a Kremlin source said

* The Moscow city government says it is studying a request by a leading gay activist to hold the country's first ever gay pride march in the capital

* The shortage of gasoline that started in Russia over the weekend persisted across the country with prices rising in regions where fuel is still left, business and government officials said

BUSINESS

* Net profits for Russo-British joint venture TNK-BP almost doubled in the first quarter of 2011 to $2.4 billion to US GAAP, the company said

* Russian Helicopters has signed a deal with France's Turbomeca for the delivery of some 308 Ardiden 3G turboshaft engines for installation in a modified version of its Kamov Ka-62 twin-engine light utility helicopter