* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for talks on how to make the Commonwealth of Independent States, the largest alliance of post-Soviet states, relevant again
* Russia's Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev said:
- He does not rule out imposing major sanctions against the operator of the vast Sakhalin II oil and gas project in the country's Far East for environmental violations
- The ministry will carry out further checks into compliance with environmental legislation by oil companies working in Russia, including major independent and state-controlled crude producers
* Russia's environmental watchdog sent an inquiry to the Federal Tax Service on payments made by the country's largest crude producer, LUKoil, for the use of deposits to which it holds licenses, the Russian Natural Resources Ministry said
* Russia's environmental watchdog said it has submitted documents to the Federal Agency for the Management of Mineral Resources on revoking licenses held by the country's largest oil producer LUKoil in the northwest Urals Komi Republic
* Sergei Ignatyev, the head of Russia's Central Bank said the volume of overdue consumer loans totaled 2.7% in January-August 2006
* First Deputy Chairman of Russia's Central Bank Alexei Ulyukayev said:
- Accumulated inflation in Russia in the first ten days of October was 7.3%, representing a decline of 1.3% from the same period of 2005
- The bank is concerned by the increasing debt of the country's banks, which grew by $30 billion this year
- Net capital inflow into Russia will total $15 billion in 2007
- The Russian Prosecutor General's Office identified suspects in the murder of Andrei Kozlov
* General Yury Baluyevsky, chief of the General Staff of Russia's Armed Forces, said Russia had no plans to go to war with Georgia,
* The Federal State Statistic Service said Russia's oil production grew 2.4% in the first eight months of 2006, year-on-year, to 318 million metric tons (2.34 billion bbl)
* Foreign non-governmental organizations are reluctant to submit re-registration documents to Russia's Federal Registration Service, with only 80 foreign NGOs listed in the state register so far, the chief state registrar said
* Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said trade between Russia and Venezuela was still lagging behind the two countries' cooperation potential
* The presidents of Russia and South Korea have highlighted the international coordination of efforts to stabilize the situation around North Korea, the Kremlin press service said
* The Moscow City Court canceled a lower court decision to send an ex-nuclear power minister's case back to the Prosecutor General's Office to correct shortcomings in the investigation and clarify the charges
* The Moscow prosecutor's office said a senior manager of a Moscow-based news agency was murdered in his apartment
* Russian Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said that more stringent general rules for clothes and food marketplaces in Russia were being drafted in cooperation with the Interior Ministry
