* Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said the European Union had approved sanctions against senior Belarusian officials including the country's president, Alexander Lukashenko
* Russian energy giant Gazprom and Italy's ENI agreed to continue talks on natural gas supplies from Russia in April
* Russia's leading heavy machinery manufacturer Silovye Mashiny said that according to Russian Accounting Standards its net profit had fallen 77% year-on-year in 2005 to 194,180,000 rubles ($7 million)
* The lower house of parliament passed the first reading of a bill on the government regulation of gambling
* Five leading opposition parties and a number of non-governmental organizations in Georgia issued a joint memorandum subjecting the policy pursued by the country's leadership to a scathing attack
* The Russian government said it had approved a financial plan for 2006-2008
* Vladimir Putin called for Russian educational establishments to expand their presence overseas and to offer broader access to foreign students and teachers
* The Ukrainian president's secretary, Oleh Rybachuk, said the presidential staff was drawing up contingency plans for a possible dissolution of parliament following next Sunday's elections to the legislature
* A lawyer for the widow of a Siberian governor killed in a car crash said there were no plans to appeal a regional court's decision to quash the verdict against the driver originally found guilty of causing the accident
