* Lawyers for Russian Vitaly Kaloyev, who was sentenced to eight years in jail for the murder of a Swiss air traffic controller, filed an appeal
* Prosecutors demanded Alexei Kurtsin, an executive of Yukos-Moskva, the embattled oil major's subsidiary, be sentenced to 13 years in prison for embezzlement and money laundering
* Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Federation Council's foreign affairs committee, said the findings of an inquiry into alleged mass-scale corruption in the UN Oil-for-Food Program in Iraq were "a farce"
* The board of Russian electricity monopoly Unified Energy System approved a credit agreement with Vneshtorgbank for the purchase of a 22.43% stake in Silovye Mashiny
* Arkady Dvorkovich, the head of the president's expert department, said inflation in Russia might stand at 11-11.5% in 2005
* The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources said it was preparing to hold a tender for potential developers of Barents Sea deposits
* A Moscow court sanctioned the arrest of the president of Renaissance Capital, one of Russia's leading investment banks, on fraud charges
* Ukraine's government said Mittal Steel Germany would acquire a 93.02% share package in the Kryvorizhstal steel mill
* International rating agency Moody's said it had upgraded the global scale long- and short-term foreign currency deposit ratings of nine Russian banks with a stable outlook
