* State-owned oil major Rosneft reported that its half-year net profits were up 7.2 times and stood at $2.4 billion
* An Amsterdam district court ruled to release the foreign assets of embattled oil giant Yukos that had been temporarily frozen on an appeal by its former subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz
* Widely respected U.S. international news channel CNN denied reports it planned to open a bureau and launch a new channel in Ukraine
* Sergei Ivanov, Russia's deputy prime minister and defense minister, said Russia had no plans to open a military base in the Uzbek city of Khanabad
* Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said Russia's GDP had grown by 6.2% year-on-year and by 5.9% in the first 10 months of 2005. He also said inflation in Russia stood at 9.9% in January-October 2004 and the annual inflation forecast for 2005 was 11.2%-11.5%
* Rosneft Vice President Sergei Alexeyev said the debt of the state-owned oil major would total $10.5-$11 billion by the end of the year
* Mikhail Yefimov, vice president of embattled oil major Yukos, has asked for political asylum in Latvia
* The Moscow City Court rejected an appeal in a three-year court battle to take the world's best-known cartoon family, the Simpsons, off the airwaves in Russia
* The Federal Migration Service said some 57,000 illegal immigrants had been deported from Russia in 2005
* Authorities in the Russia's far-eastern Khabarovsk Territory said they were considering imposing a state of emergency as heavily polluted water from China headed toward cities on the Amur River
