* The People's Council of Turkmenistan scheduled the country's presidential election for February 11, 2007 and passed the law on presidential elections
* The People's Council of Turkmenistan approved amendments to the Constitution, which vest the deputy prime minister with presidential powers in the event of the president's incapacity
* Sergei Kupriyanov, a spokesman for Gazprom, said Gazprom wants Belarus to pay for natural gas deliveries $75 per 1,000 cubic meters plus $30 in Beltransgaz shares, while Belarus is ready to pay $45 per 1,000 cu m plus $30 in shares of the Belarusian government-owned pipeline company
* Alexander Medvedev, the head of Gazprom's export arm Gazexport, said:
- Gazprom will continue to deliver Europe-bound gas to the Russian-Belarusian border from January 1 even if no gas contract is signed with Minsk
- The proposals that Gazprom made to Belarus on natural gas deliveries are more than beneficial and there may be no more concessions
- Gazprom interpreted Azerbaijan's silence on the amount of natural gas it would like to buy in 2007 as a refusal to buy
* Gazprom and Moldova agreed on Russian natural gas deliveries to Moldova at $170 per 1,000 cubic meters in 2007, the Russian energy giant said
* Gazprom agreed that Belarus's Beltransgaz company, which controls Europe-bound gas pipelines, has a value of $5 billion, the chief executive of the Russian gas monopoly said
* Gazprom said it reached an agreement with two Egyptian companies on joint prospecting and exploration of oil and natural gas in Egypt
* Head of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Rovnag Abdullayev said Azerbaijan would not buy natural gas from Russia at $235 per 1,000 cubic meters
* Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych proposed Azerbaijan its services on Caspian oil deliveries to Europe
* Russia's Supreme Court upheld a life sentence for the only surviving terrorist, Nurpashi Kulayev, involved in the September 2004 siege of a school in the southern Russian town of Beslan after an appeal hearing
* Russia launched three Glonass-M satellites, expanding its global navigation satellite system, Glonass, with three satellites, a spokesman for the Russian Federal Space Agency said
* Russia conducted 45% of the world's spacecraft launches in 2006, maintaining its leading position, the head of the Federal Space Agency said
* Anatoly Byshovets, who led the Soviet soccer team to gold medals at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, was appointed head coach of Russia's soccer club Lokomotiv Moscow, a club official said
* A court in Russia's Far East ruled to fine a Japanese trawler captain over $41,700 for illegally fishing in Russian waters
* The Prosecutor General's Office intends to bring new charges against jailed Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his associate Platon Lebedev, a lawyer for Khodorkovsky said
* The opposition in Kyrgyzstan said it would stage protests if the parliament approved a new Constitution to broaden presidential powers
* The prosecution in two bomb explosions in Moscow's underground in 2004 said three key suspects should be given life sentences for involvement in the attacks, which killed a total 49 people and injured more than 300 others
* Russian political scientist Andrei Suzdaltsev, known for criticism of the Belarusian authorities, was denied by Belarusian authorities to visit Minsk for the New Year holidays
