* The Federal Security Service said Russian border guards had been forced to open fire on a Japanese vessel in Russia's territorial waters
* Russian President Vladimir Putin said:
- the ambitions of ex-Soviet states to join the WTO should be coordinated with their regional economic integration plans
- the leaders of the five-nation Eurasian Economic Community had approved Uzbekistan's membership of the Collective Security Treaty Organization
* Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said Ukraine and Russia had agreed the parameters of prices for Russian natural gas for the end of this year and the beginning of 2007
* A Moscow court spokesman said the Prosecutor General's Office had appealed the refusal by a Moscow district court to freeze shares of state-owned pipeline operator Transneft
* An Interior Ministry spokesman said one soldier had been killed and another seriously wounded after a vehicle carrying military couriers came under fire in southern Russia
* The French Foreign Ministry confirmed that three staffers at the French Consulate in Moscow had been fired, and four more had resigned, for violating visa issuance procedures
* The Economic Development and Trade Ministry forecasts Russia's gross domestic product growth of 6% in 2007, 5.8% in 2008 and 5.9% in 2009
* Russia's Federal budget revenue is projected to hit 6,965.3 billion rubles (about $257.9 billion) in 2007, with spending reaching 5,463.5 billion rubles (about $202.4 billion), a government source said
* The Finance Ministry said Russia's aggregate state debt would be reduced from 9% of GDP in 2006 to 7.5% by the end of 2009
* The Russian government said in budget and tax policy guidelines that national defense, law enforcement and security spending will grow 22.7% in 2007
* A source in Moscow's health-care department said a total of 215 foreign construction workers had been hospitalized in Moscow and its environs with suspected salmonella poisoning
* The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said two Ukrainian sailors abducted in Nigeria had been released after spending almost a week in captivity
* The Moscow District Federal Arbitration Court has approved a mooted peace agreement between Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service and Eurocement, the country's largest cement producer, the head of the service's press office said
* A doping controversy raised by Spain's sports officials, who dispute Russian athletes' overwhelming victory at the European Athletics Championship in Sweden last week is groundless, Russia's athletics head Valentin Balakhnichev said
* The Russian national soccer team defeated Latvia 1:0 in a friendly at home in its first match under Dutch coach, Guus Hiddink
