- Russia expects Georgia to renounce its anti-Russian policy
- Russia believes it is possible to resume six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear problem
- Russia is trying to convince North Korea to abandon its possible nuclear tests
- Russia is worried about the lack of a consistent reply from Tehran on its nuclear plans
- Additional pressure can be put on Iran on the nuclear issue
- The U.S. law on sanctions against countries cooperating with Iran has complicated Iran nuclear talks
- Russia's interests will be considered in a decision on whether to deploy United States anti-missile defense systems in Poland
* President Vladimir Putin ordered the government to introduce quotas on the foreign labor force by November 15 and to toughen visa regulations for foreigners who break the law
* Life imprisonment could be introduced for drug distribution in Russia, a senior narcotics police official said
* Russia plans to send two more planes to Georgia to evacuate its citizens from the South Caucasus state amid an escalating crisis with its former Soviet ally, Russia's charge d'affaires said
* Russia's Interior Ministry has shut down the Golden Palace Weekend, the third Moscow casino to be closed, in an apparent crackdown on gambling businesses controlled by the Georgian mafia, a ministry official said
* Moscow police detained sixteen crime bosses, including native Georgians, in a raid on a restaurant in the center of the Russian capital, a police spokesman said
* Georgia's authorities are pursuing a policy of political terror, including through the murder of opposition representatives, a leading campaigner for the opposition said
* The ruling United Russia party has considered asking the government to ratify an international convention on employment agencies against the backdrop of a constantly growing influx of immigrants working illegally in Russia
* The pro-presidential bloc Our Ukraine vowed Thursday to form a radical opposition, and called on its ministers to quit Ukraine's recently installed coalition government
* Gazprom and Spanish multinational Repsol YPF have signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in oil and gas projects, the Russian energy giant said
* Gazprom and Netherlands-based Gasunie signed a memorandum of understanding on European natural gas projects
* Russian steel giant Severstal and mining multinational Anglo American have signed an agreement on forming an alliance to prospect for nickel, copper and zinc deposits in Russia
* Rosneft's president said the company will produce 33 million metric tons of oil a year (662,712 bbl/d) at the Vankor deposit in East Siberia from 2008
* A new natural gas pipeline connecting deposits developed under the Sakhalin I energy project with a major industrial center in Russia's Far East was put into operation
* Russia's environmental watchdog has submitted details to prosecutors on illegal deforestation being carried out through the Sakhalin II oil and gas project in the country's Far East, the Natural Resources Ministry said
* The Russian Finance Ministry has extended the deadline for the submission by creditors of claims on the second tranche of the Soviet Union's commercial debt by two weeks, until October 20, the ministry's press service said
* A court martial in southern Siberia sentenced a sergeant to 14 years in a maximum-security penal colony for murdering a private in 2005
