Main News of March 30

WORLD

*U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul does not consider Russia a “wild country” and respects it, he wrote on his Twitter page.

*Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov backed plans for giving Afghanistan observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

*The international human rights organization Freedom House says Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych systematically eliminated any opposition before parliamentary elections scheduled for October 2012.

*China called on the Syrian opposition to respond quickly to special envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan.

*An adoption deal between Russia and the United States drafted in the wake of a series of tragic episodes involving Russian children and their adoptive American families was submitted to the State Duma for ratification.

 

RUSSIA

*The ruling United Russia party will propose Emergencies and Civil Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu among others for governor of the Moscow region, senior party member Boris Gryzlov said.

*When nine-month-old Anna Shkaptsova was reported missing in the western Russian city of Bryansk on March 11, police and volunteers spent almost the next three weeks in a desperate search for her. But investigators alleged that she had become just one more of the many children murdered every year by adults in Russia – in this case, by her father.

*About 2.5 billion rubles ($84 million) of state money were embezzled in the republics of the volatile North Caucasus, with next to none recovered, Prosecutor General’s Office said.

*Russia’s seven federal districts will get special centers to assess hate-mongering in mass media, including online publications, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said.

 

BUSINESS

*Russian gas transit volume to Europe via Ukraine has fallen by half to 200 million cubic meters from the planned 400 million cu m in the past two days, Ukraine's Naftogaz energy firm Deputy Board Chairman Vadim Chuprun said.

*Russia sold $2 billion five-year Eurobonds, $2 billion 10-year Eurobonds and $3 billion 30-year Eurobonds, the country's Finance Ministry said.