News of the Day, 18:00 Moscow time

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a package of measures to curb corruption, the Kremlin said

* Russia's EU envoy Vladimir Chizhov said

- The global financial crisis as well as European energy and security issues will be the focus of the upcoming Russia-EU summit

- Europe will need not just one but several new gas pipelines

* The Russian energy minister, Sergei Shmatko, said:

- Russia is ready to participate in and partially finance the modernization of Ukraine's natural gas pipeline system

- The modernization of Ukraine's gas transportation system could cost 10-12 billion euros ($13.5-16 billion)

* Russia could increase its commercial space launches by up to 10%, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said

* Russia's industrial output declined 14.9% in January-April, compared with growth of 6.9% in the same period of last year, the state statistics service Rosstat said

* Russian citizen Irina Belenkaya has lost her appeal in a Hungarian court against being extradited to France to stand trial for kidnapping her daughter, her lawyer said

* Georgian opposition parties are to continue their protests against President Mikheil Saakashvili this week, an opposition spokesman said

* German prosecutors have decided not to investigate allegations of a drunken brawl in Frankfurt airport involving the Ukrainian interior minister, the Ukrainskaya Pravda web site said

* The Russian Central Bank's profits grew by four times, year-on-year, in 2008 to 97.79 billion rubles ($3 billion), the bank's annual report said