UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will be in Moscow on March 19 for the Mideast quartet meeting before heading to Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, a spokesman for the UN Secretary General said on Tuesday.

Iran's first nuclear power plant, Bushehr, will be launched in 2010, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's European security initiative should be discussed in the OSCE framework, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday.

Russia will provide by the end of 2010 the first batch of low-enriched uranium for an international nuclear fuel reserve bank under control of the UN nuclear watchdog, the head of Russia's state-run nuclear power corporation Rosatom said.

The construction of the Russia-China oil pipeline will be finished by the end of this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said on Sunday.

The stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear program could resume as early as in the next few months, China's top North Korean envoy said on Friday.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet practiced an amphibious landing of troops on the coast of Abkhazia as a nearby NATO vessel observed, a Russian Navy source said on Wednesday.

Despite minor disagreements, the U.S. and Russia are working "actively" to shape a common anti-drug policy in Afghanistan, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan said on Wednesday.

The Russian permanent mission to the United Nations has not yet received any signal to start working on new sanctions against Iran, Russia's ambassador to the UN said on Wednesday.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Monday he does not rule out sanctions against Iran but added that if used, they should be balanced and wise and not target civilians.