* Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov said the masterminds of the attack had been identified
* Russian Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said 50 militants had been killed in the siege
* Presidential envoy Dmitry Kozak said 12 civilians and seven policemen had been killed, and hostages taken, in the attack
* The U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during her tour of the Central Asian countries that the United States did not plan to open a military base in Tajikistan
* The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry set up a mobile hospital in Pakistan to help victims of the devastating earthquake that hit the country five days ago
* A prosecutor's office official in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous area in West Siberia said former Menatep chairman Platon Lebedev had been transferred to local penal colony No. 3
* The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow had to revise its relations with Georgia.
* Russia's Central Bank said it had not yet reversed its 2005 capital flight forecast of $9 billion
* Russia's Central Bank said Thursday that inflation would continue to fall in 2005-2006.
* LUKoil Overseas, a 100% subsidiary of Russia's largest oil company, LUKoil intends to acquire shares of Nelson Resources oil exploration and production company, operating in Kazakstan, for $2 billion
