2007 Review: June

RIA Novosti looks back at the main events of the outgoing year; below the month by month review of 2007 continues, with June

June 5

* Russian President Vladimir Putin grants a top state award to Alexander Solzhenitsyn to honor the Nobel Prize-winning writer as a champion of humanitarian causes

June 7

* At a bilateral meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush at the Group of Eight summit in Germany's Baltic resort of Heiligendamm, President Vladimir Putin offers the United States the joint use of a radar installation in Azerbaijan in an apparent attempt to ease tensions sparked by Washington's plans to deploy elements of missile shield in Europe

June 8

* World leaders conclude a three-day G8 summit in Germany that brought new deals on climate change and Africa, and may have served to ease tensions between Russia and the West 

June 15

* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declares a state of emergency and dissolves the government after six days of bloody gun battles in which Hamas fighters wrested control of key Fatah strongholds in Gaza

* U.S. President George Bush extends sanctions against Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and other high-ranking officials from the ex-Soviet republic, dubbed by Washington as Europe's last dictatorship

June 17

* A fugitive former Serbian general, Vlastimir Djordjevic, is arrested in Montenegro on charges of committing war crimes against Kosovo Albanians in 1998-99

June 18

* At the world's largest air show at Le Bourget near Paris, Russia's S7 Airlines (formerly Sibir Airlines) signs a contract with European aviation giant Airbus to buy 25 new A320 medium-haul passenger planes for more than $1.6 billion

June 23

* Russia and Italy sign a memorandum on the construction of a new natural gas pipeline, South Stream, from Russia to Europe across the Black Sea

June 25

* North Korea confirms receipt of its funds from a previously-frozen Macao bank account and pledges to start talks on nuclear disarmament with the United Nations nuclear watchdog

* Bulgaria and Greece join the construction of a new natural gas pipeline under the Black Sea, South Stream, designed by Russian energy giant Gazprom and Italy's ENI

June 26

* Russia signs a bilateral agreement on accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) with Guatemala, and completes talks with Vietnam

June 27

* Tony Blair resigns as British prime minister after 10 years in office, making way for his former finance chief Gordon Brown, and is approved as a special envoy for the Middle East

* Russia's lower house of parliament ratifies two agreements regulating the ITER project, an experimental reactor in France being built with Russia's involvement, aimed at eventually generating power by nuclear fusion

* The Russian and Chinese space agencies sign a deal in Moscow on joint exploration of Mars and its satellite Phobos