* Russia received no prior information about North Korea's nuclear test October 9, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said
* Russian President Vladimir Putin said:
- Large national research centers should be created in the country to boost high technology and encourage innovation
- Tax benefits should be granted for research and development work
* The situation around the $20-bln Sakhalin II oil and gas project in Russia's Far East:
- Oil major Royal Dutch Shell, which is leading the project, said it will demonstrate to Russian authorities during a minister's visit to the region next week that it has tackled the environmental infringements of which it is accused
- The 1994 production sharing agreement on the Sakhalin II project will not be revised, the industry and energy minister said
- Changes in the composition of the participants in the project are dictated purely by corporate interests, Russia's industry and energy minister said against the backdrop of the reported progress in negotiations between Russia's energy giant Gazprom and Royal Dutch Shell over Gazprom's stake in the project
- A Moscow district court refused to consider a lawsuit filed by Russia's environmental watchdog against the Natural Resources Ministry to enforce the annulment of a 2003 environmental review for the project
- The Sakhalin prosecutor's office for environmental protection summoned for questioning the acting head of the local environmental agency, the Russian Natural Resources Ministry said
* Ukraine's pro-presidential parliamentary bloc Our Ukraine has officially announced that it is switching to the opposition, the parliamentary faction leader said
* Ukraine's ministers of foreign affairs and the interior said they were not planning to resign, despite their pro-Western bloc's calls for them and other affiliated ministers to go into opposition to the Russian-leaning government
* Ukraine has been illegally selling arms to Georgia amid escalating tensions between the South Caucasus republic and Russia, Ukraine's Communist Party leader said
* The situation with the supplies of natural gas on the domestic market in Russia is 'tense but not critical', the Russian industry and energy minister said
* Belarus is ready to provide the infrastructure needed to pump Caspian oil via pipelines to the Baltic States and Poland, President Alexander Lukashenko said
* Russia could start supplying up to 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year to South Korea beginning in 2012-13, Alexei Miller, the chief executive of gas monopoly Gazprom, said
* Russia and South Korea have agreed to build a launch site in east Asian country and a light-class carrier rocket, the head of the Russian Federal Space Agency said
* Rosneft, Russia's state-owned oil company, and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) have signed a protocol on establishing a joint venture, the Russian company said
* Rosneft may lose a license to produce oil in Chechnya in mid-2007, the North Caucasus republic's energy minister said
* LUKoil will issue bonds worth 14 billion rubles ($520 million), the company's board of directors said
* A food trade exchange will begin operating in Russia as soon as 2008, Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said
* The Moscow Inter-Bank Currency Exchange has postponed the launch of its futures market until next year, the MICEX stock exchange director said
* NPO Saturn, one of Russia's leading aircraft engine producers, said it was in talks with U.S. firm GE Energy on establishing a joint venture to produce industrial gas turbines
* Russia's air traffic watchdog warned three of the countries' airlines on Tuesday - Dalavia, Domodedovo Airlines and Interavia - that it may stop servicing them October 20 if they do not repay their debts
* A jury in St. Petersburg acquitted all 17 defendants in the case of the murder of a Vietnamese student in Russia's second city in October 2004, but found nine of them guilty of other crimes
* The first launch of Russia's new generation carrier rocket Soyuz 2-1A to put a European weather satellite in orbit has been delayed by one day, the country's Federal Space Agency said
* Russia and the Czech Republic are ready to sign an agreement on the modernization of Mi helicopters, delivered earlier to the Central European country, to meet NATO standards, the head of Russia's government staff said
