News of the Day, 15:00 Moscow time

* European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said

- It was "too early to say" when a new Russia-EU cooperation agreement would be reached

- The European Union needs to review its energy relations with Russia and Ukraine in the wake of January's natural gas row between the two countries

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia hoped the new Israeli government would stick to previous Middle East peace settlement commitments

* Russia will raise export duty on oil to $114-117 per metric ton from the current rate of $100.9 per ton following a stabilization of oil prices on world markets, said Alexander Sakovich, deputy director of the finance ministry's customs department

* Russia will deliver the first of 80 Mi-171 transport helicopters to India under a recent contract in 2010, said Viktor Komardin, an official from Russia's state arms exporter

* An Indian delegation has visited the dock in Russia's Far East where the Nerpa nuclear submarine has been kept since a fatal accident on board last year, the dockyard's director, Gennady Bagin, said

* Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is to pay two visits to Russia this year, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official, Alexei Yermakov, said

* U.S. President Barack Obama should seize the opportunity to improve ties with Iran, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Hassan Qashqawi, said

* A Proton-M rocket has successfully orbited two new Russian Express-series communications satellites, said Anatoly Shilov, the head of Roscomos Space Communication and Ground Control Complexes department

* The Commander-in-Chief of the Azerbaijani Air Force, Lt. Gen. Rail Rzayev, was shot dead in Baku, the country's Defense Ministry said