Russian News: Wednesday April 1st, 2009!

Five years ago, Indian millionaire Ratan Naval Tata, CEO of the multinational conglomerate Tata Group, which is India’s largest private corporation, challenged his engineers to develop a cheap, safe and comfortable car. RIA Novosti became the only Russian news agency to test this vehicle.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqawi denied on Wednesday comments by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that talks were held between the two countries at a conference in The Hague.

Gazprom will increase gas supplies to Turkey via the Blue Stream pipeline to compensate for shortages caused by a pipeline rupture in the Transdnestr region on Wednesday, the gas monopoly said.

A statue of Vladimir Lenin near the Finlyandsky railway station in St. Petersburg was badly damaged in an explosion on Wednesday, a local police spokesman said.

Pyongyang has announced that any attempt by Japan to shoot down a rocket, which is scheduled to launch a communications satellite April 4-8, would be considered an act of war, a North Korean news agency said on Wednesday.

Russia marks on Wednesday the 200th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Gogol, author of some of the most original and memorable literature in the Russian language.

Iran is considering exporting gas to Europe via Iraq, Syria and the Mediterranean Sea, the petroleum minister of the Islamic republic said on Wednesday.

The first Ford Mondeo cars to be produced at a Ford car plant near Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg have gone on sale in Russia, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

Latvia’s unemployment rate is expected to grow by 14-15% to around 175,000 people in 2009, Latvia’s Chas newspaper said on Wednesday citing a Welfare Ministry official.

The European Union and Ukraine must work with Russia in modernizing the Ukrainian natural gas pipeline network, the German chancellor said on Tuesday.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that global financial institutions need to be reformed to meet modern challenges, and that a new international currency system should be developed.