News of the Day, 15:00 Moscow time

* Russia is monitoring North Korea's preparations for a ballistic missile launch, but does not know when it might take place, Lt. Gen. Alexander Burutin of the Russian General Staff said

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will set off on a tour of Africa next week, the Kremlin press service said

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that he had approved the government's program of anti-crisis measures

* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has again urged President Barack Obama to adopt socialist principles to see the United States through the ongoing economic crisis

* Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected the possibility that vote rigging affected the result of the country's presidential election

* Russia will carry out the next test of a Bulava sea-launched ballistic missile in late July, and will conduct a total of four or five launches this year, Navy commander Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky said

* Explorers conducting mini-submarine dives in Siberia's Lake Baikal began their search for several carriages known to have sunk in the world's deepest lake during the 1917-1923 Russian Civil War

* A French court has sentenced a woman to eight years in jail for killing three babies she gave birth to in secret, hiding two of the bodies in the freezer of her family home, local media said