News of the Day, 18:00 Moscow time

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said:

- Russia is in favor of plans to significantly increase the IMF's financial resources and is proposing the creation of effective loan mechanisms for countries experiencing financial problems

- Russia will provide an extra $100 million to poor nations most affected by the current global financial crisis in the next three years

* A Russian presidential aide, Arkady Dvorkovich, said:

- President Dmitry Medvedev is in favor of proposals to boost the resources of international financial institutions by $1 trillion to help overcome the global crisis

- No discussions have been held at the G20 summit in London on the possibility of introducing a new global currency

- Almost all participants at the G20 summit in London have backed the idea of reforming the International Monetary Fund

* Russia's Economic Development Ministry hopes to complete talks on the country's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) by the end of 2009, Moscow's top WTO negotiator said

* Moscow has not received an official request from Washington on the transit of military equipment to a U.S. contingent in Afghanistan via Russia, the Foreign Ministry said

* Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said:

- The Foreign Ministry has not yet received any of the official documents it requested from the United Arab Emirates relating to the murder of former Chechen military commander Sulim Yamadayev

- Russia urges North Korea to show restraint with its upcoming rocket launch and related activities

* Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has criticized NATO's eastward expansion and the failure by Western powers to keep their promise not to deploy military bases near Russia's borders

* Ukraine's national energy company Naftogaz will pay Gazprom on time for gas deliveries carried out in March, a Naftogaz spokesman said

* Former tycoon and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is standing trial for embezzlement, accused Russia's law-enforcement agencies of involvement in oil theft