Main News of April 23

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

RUSSIA

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has pardoned a man who has spent almost two years in jail for attacking a police officer during a 2009 unsanctioned demonstration in Moscow

* Russia's political opposition has applied to hold a May 6 "March of Millions" in Moscow to protest the results of parliamentary and presidential elections, the Left Front movement said in a statement

* A Just Russia party member Oleg Shein has announced that he would stop his hunger strike in protest against purported election violations in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan on April 24

* A man wielding an ax attacked a Moscow judge who refused to release on bail three members of the all-female punk group Pussy Riot

* Russian scientists have spotted what they believe to be the first ever adult albino orca, or killer whale, off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East, the international science project Far East Russia Orca reported

* A traditional Russian drink may help crews of interplanetary spacecraft to maintain healthy microbacterial balance in the intestines, a report by Russian scientists said

WORLD

* With almost all ballots counted in French presidential elections, socialist Francois Hollande has 28.61 percent of the vote, while his main rival, conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, is second with 27.08 percent, the French Interior Ministry sai

* Georgia is planning to withdraw from the remaining three dozen agreements within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Deputy Foreign Minister Nino Kalandadze said

* Norwegian confessed mass killer Anders Breivik told a court in Oslo that questions about the 1,500-page manifesto he posted online before the rampage are an attempt to portray him as insane

* Switzerland has extended sanctions against the Syrian regime to President Bashar al-Assad’s mother and wife, Swiss media reported.

* Hamas has announced plans to introduce Hebrew language classes at secondary schools in the Gaza Strip, in what its long-time rival faction Fatah described as the "deepening of the divide"

* Ukraine is currently working on an expanded governmental program aimed at sprucing up the contaminated territories adjacent to the crippled Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said

ECONOMY

* Russia's economy grew four percent year on year in the first quarter of 2012, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina said

* Prime Minister and President-elect Vladimir Putin has proposed tax holidays for new production facilities in Russia’s special economic zones

* A Moscow Arbitration Tribunal declared Avianova airline bankrupt and launched six-month bankruptcy proceedings to settle creditors’ claims, RAPSI news agency reported

VimpelCom, one of Russia's top three mobile phone operators, will sell its 49 percent stake in Vietnamese joint venture GTEL Mobile for $45 million and quit the Southeast Asian market, the firm said

* Russian fertilizer holding company PhosAgro saw 2011 net profit jump 88 percent year-on-year to $765 million to IFRS, the firm said in a statement

* Russian grocery store chain Magnit saw first quarter 2012 unaudited net profit skyrocket 167 percent year-on-year to 4.772 billion rubles ($157.6 million) to IFRS, the company said in a statement

DEFENSE

Russia’s defense electronics are up to 12 years behind foreign analogs, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said

SPORTS

* More than 60 football fans were detained in Moscow after a match between Spartak Moscow and Anzhi Makhachkala on Sunday evening, the special-purpose center of the Moscow police department said

* Dynamo Moscow dominated Avangard Omsk to record a 5-2 win on home ice and level the Gagarin Cup final series at 3-3

* The KHL has vowed to tighten doping controls at the Gagarin Cup final after Avangard Omsk player Anton Belov tested positive for a banned stimulant during the series, the league said

* Russian football authorities will eradicate match-fixing entirely by carrying out more investigations and issuing tough punishments, the head of the Russian Football Union’s committee on match-fixing said

* Anatastasia Pavlyuchenkova’s lack of fitness was a key factor in the Russian tennis team’s Fed Cup semifinal defeat to Serbia, Russia coach Vladimir Kamelzon said