* Iran's ambassador to Russia, Gholam Reza Ansari, said Iran would not discuss shutting down its uranium enrichment program even if appropriate discussions with six international negotiators were resumed
* Ukraine's Constitutional Court resumed its consideration of the presidential decree to dissolve parliament and call early elections, despite a blockade of the court building by opposition and ruling coalition forces
* Members of the opposition Yulia Tymoshenko and pro-presidential Our Ukraine factions tendered their resignations, pushing for the dissolution of parliament amid an escalating conflict with the premier-led forces
* Russia's Industry and Energy Ministry said it and participants in the Sakhalin II project had coordinated all documents to implement the project with a Russian investor and approved the costs of its second stage at $19.4 billion until 2014
* Gazprom finalized a $7.45 billion deal to buy 50% plus one share in formerly Shell-led Sakhalin II with the partners in the vast hydrocarbon project in Russia's Far East.
* The Natural Resources Ministry said 37 oil and gas fields were opened in Russia last year
* Kyrgyzstan's opposition added roadblocks and demands for access to national television to its already customary rallies and calls for official resignations and constitutional reform
* Russia's envoy to the UN said during a New York-Moscow TV link that a UN Security Council mission could leave for Kosovo and Belgrade next week
* Russia's Supreme Court quashed the not guilty verdict against Magomed Salikhov, charged with organizing an explosion of an apartment building in Buinaksk in 1999 that killed 64 and injured 100
* The radical Islamist group Hezbollah accused the government of Lebanon of appeasing Israel and facilitating U.S. plans to control the Middle East, an influential Lebanese newspaper reported
* Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the country was not ready to satisfy in full the demands of Palestinian militants holding an Israeli serviceman
* The U.S. administration disclosed the technical parameters of a missile defense system to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic
* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at an annual military parade his country has acquired advanced military technology despite Western sanctions
* North Korea expects Russia to wipe out its $8.8 billion Soviet-era debt, the Russian co-chairman of an intergovernmental commission said
* A Siberian branch of the Communist Party said it will sue the leader of another left-wing party, Just Russia, for $390,000 over allegations of using criminal ties in a local Sunday election
* Marshall Islands-based Nuclear Claims Tribunal ruled that the Rongelap Islanders, affected by radioactive fallout from U.S. nuclear tests, receive $1 billion in compensation, the Radio New Zealand said
* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Spain to hold talks with his counterpart Miguel Moratinos
* The prime ministers of Eurasec, an economic alliance of six ex-Soviet republics, adopted a series of joint documents at a meeting in the Kazakh capital designed to deepen integration within the organization
* An 18-year-old Russian girl was freed after serving four months in a Singapore jail on drug charges, a local newspaper said
