Main News of April 6

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

*Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday it will take all efforts necessary to repatriate convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout after a U.S. court sentenced him to 25 years in prison.

*Georgia announced that it is breaking its obligations to Russia under the 1992 Open Skies Treaty, saying Moscow attempted to use the accord to "legitimize" its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

*Russia welcomes the UN Security Council’s statement expressing support for the UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan’s demand for Damascus to stop military offensives and begin a troop pullout from cities and towns by April 10, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

 

RUSSIA

*Russia's former Health Minister Yury Shevchenko said on Friday he paid almost 20 million rubles ($677,500) in damages ordered by a court for damaging a downtown Moscow apartment belonging to the head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.

*Three of the four factions in the State Duma have postponed a decision on the possible dismissal of Russia's beleaguered top cop, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, pending publication of his report on April 13.

*Russia plans to hold an international swim across the Bering Strait between Russia’s Chukotka and Alaska in the U.S. in 2013, Russian Duma deputy aide Oleg Dokuchayev said.

*The Scorpius yacht with a Russian-Ukrainian crew on board has gone missing off the Antarctic coast while performing a polar circumnavigation voyage, the expedition’s press service said.

 

BUSINESS

*Japanese car maker Nissan plans to transfer part of its Qashqai crossover production lines to Russia from Sunderland in the UK, the carmaker’s vice-president for engineering Colin Lawther said.

*Russia's Economic Development Ministry has cut its 2012 gross domestic product forecast from 3.7 percent to 3.4 percent, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina said.