Main News of June 18

A roundup of what has happened over the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Egypt's governing Supreme Council of the Armed Forces passed on Sunday a declaration of amendments to the Constitution that will outline the future president’s powers and responsibilities

* Mohammed Mursi, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, is leading by a million votes in the presidential runoff after 95 percent of the ballots were counted

* China's state media said on Sunday that a spacecraft carrying the country's first female astronaut and two male colleagues has made a planned change in its orbit en route to docking with an experimental module. State television said the Shenzhou 9 made the first of five planned changes in its orbit early on Sunday. The capsule is to dock on Monday with the Tiangong 1 orbiting module 343 kilometres (213 miles) above Earth.

* The first day of Moscow talks between Iran and the Group 5+1 over Iran’s nuclear ambitions ended constructively, the deputy head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council

 

RUSSIA

* Russia’s Coast Guard service detained in the Sea of Okhotsk a Cambodian-flagged fishing vessel that carried over 21 metric tons of illegally caught live crab

* Russia's ruling United Russia party's candidate, Vyacheslav Dvorakovsky, won the election for Mayor of the Siberian city of Omsk on June 17, gaining 49.35 percent of the vote. The Communist Party's Viktor Zharkov came second with 28.97 percent.

* President Vladimir Putin has set up and will head a council for economic modernization and development

*Tatneft, Russia's sixth largest crude oil producer, saw US GAAP first quarter net profit increase 14.65 percent year-on-year to 28.061 billion rubles ($927 million), the company said in a statement