Main News of May 24

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama will meet at a G8 summit in June and during the US president’s visit to Russia in September, a Kremlin aide said.

* Azerbaijan will join neither NATO nor the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), but is prepared to cooperate with both, a presidential aide said.

* A Kiev District Court has banned the holding of any non-official public events, including a gay pride (LGBT) parade, on May 25.

RUSSIA

* An earthquake measuring 8.2 on the Richter scale struck Russia’s Far East, with slight tremors felt thousands of miles away in Moscow.

* Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to continue supporting the domestic film industry, but called on Russian filmmakers to produce movies that promote patriotic and moral values.

* A Moscow court has upheld the legality of an unscheduled inspection of the Memorial Human Rights Center NGO by prosecutors, the court said.

* The Russian government is ready to step in to sort out the crisis in Russian naval shipbuilding which is threatening to derail the defense procurement program, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said.

* Members of foreign delegations attending an international conference on European security visited a military base near Moscow hosting a motorized infantry division.

* The Russian Defense Ministry has signed a contract with the Beriev Aircraft Company for the purchase of six Beriev Be-200 amphibious planes, Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) said.

* Russia’s legendary cruiser Avrora, a symbol of the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, will most likely be moved for repair work in September this year, a Navy spokesman said.

* Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov entered into a bizarre public row with a Russian socialite over whose cat was the “most beautiful.”

* Vasily Klyukin, a Russian businessman living in Monaco, paid 1.2 million euros ($1.5 mln) to board a Virgin Galactic spaceship in a seat next to Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio, Sky News television reported.

BUSINESS

* Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company PdVSA and Russian state oil company Rosneft have signed documents to form a joint venture, Petrovictoria, the energy giants told reporters.

* Russia will provide 1.7 billion euros to finance the construction of Serbia’s stretch of the South Stream gas pipeline that will carry Russian natural gas through the Black Sea to Bulgaria and then on to Greece, Italy and Austria, President Vladimir Putin said.

* Production of vodka and other spirits in Russia dropped 23.3 percent in the first four months of 2013 year on year to 5.7 million decaliters, the Federal Statistics Service (Rosstat) said in a report.