* The Russian Foreign Ministry described Georgia's suit with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg over the deportation of Georgians from Russia last fall as an unfriendly act harmful for bilateral relations
* President Vladimir Putin has invited the Azerbaijani president to St. Petersburg's 11th International Economic Forum and an informal CIS summit in June 2007 during a Kremlin meeting
* The Russian and Latvian prime ministers signed a border treaty ending a drawn-out territorial dispute, and outlined plans to ink an agreement on the status of Soviet military burials
* Moscow hopes Iran will recognize the constructive proposals in the latest UN Security Council resolution and the Iran-6 statement on Tehran's nuclear program, Russia's foreign minister said
* Russia's electricity monopoly Unified Energy System could sell a blocking stake in Russia's Power Machines (Silovye Mashiny) to a Russian investor in the first half of 2008, a source said
* Moscow urges the United States to avoid escalating tensions around Iran over its nuclear program, as it could lead to a "clash of civilizations," the Foreign Ministry said
* Russia and Latvia will sign an agreement soon on the status of Soviet military burials, the Russian prime minister said against a backdrop of preparations in Estonia's capital to remove a Soviet-era monument
* Ukraine is not yet ready to join NATO, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said
* Moscow human rights activists have described the break-up of unauthorized opposition rallies in Nizhny Novgorod and St. Petersburg as a "cynical provocation" and propose discussing the issue at an urgent meeting of the presidential expert council
* Russia's state-run oil producer Rosneft said it will use the stock it bought back from Yukos to acquire assets in Russia and abroad
* The 2013 World Athletics Championship will be held in Moscow, the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) said
* The signing of a $1-billion agreement on Russian crude supplies to China was postponed indefinitely after Russian companies failed to agree on transportation conditions, a source said
* A former Russian KGB spy has gone on a hunger strike in Britain demanding a decent defector's pension from the government for passing secrets to British intelligence during the Cold War
* Russia's aluminum giants SUAL and RusAl, and Swiss-based commodities and raw materials supplier Glencore, formally completed their merger deal announced in October, a joint statement said
* The U.S. House of Representatives gave final backing late Monday to NATO's further eastward enlargement, including bids from ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine, continuing a drive that has unnerved Russia
* Britain has completed the elimination of its chemical weapons reserves several weeks ahead of the planned date, British Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said
* Russia's engineering regulator suspended work at 29 shafts of 12 coal mines in West Siberia in the wake of a tragic mine accident, which claimed 108 lives last week, an official said
* Two more people have died in Indonesia over the last 10 days after apparently contracting the lethal H5N1 strain of avian flu, the Health Ministry said
