Russia:
* A total of seven militants were killed in a large-scale security operation in Russia’s North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan, a local police source said
* Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and Interior Ministry have prevented a series of terrorist attacks planned by religious extremists in Astrakhan in south Russia on May 9, the FSB and the Interior Ministry said in a joint statement
* Firefighters are battling 34 wildfires in Siberia on an area of over 1,300 hectares, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said
World:
* Osama bin Laden’s wives and children still remain in custody and no country had sought their extradition so far, Pakistani Foreign Ministry said
* A total of 12 people died, with another 232 were injured in clashes between Muslims and Christians outside a church near the Egyptian capital Cairo, Egypt’s Health Ministry reported
* Syrian authorities are continuing military crackdown on protesters in several cities as an effort to tightened a grip in the main parts of the country where massive pro-democracy protests are ongoing, an official military source said
* An official of Indonesia’s Transport Ministry has confirmed the death of 27 people on board a plane that crashed on Saturday in Indonesia’s eastern province of West Papua, the BBC reported
* Japan will maintain nuclear power despite the ongoing nuclear crisis caused by radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crippled after a powerful earthquake and tsunami in March this year, a top government official said
* The health condition of the Ukraine’s former interior minister, Yury Lutsenko, who was detained for abuse of office last year, and announced a hunger strike late last month, is satisfactory, Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office said in a statement
* The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries vowed to introduce one visa regime for citizens from countries outside ASEAN by 2015
* Russian tycoons Alisher Usmanov and Roman Abramovich living in Britain have been ranked among the U.K.’s top three rich people, according to a new rating published by a British newspaper