* Belarus's First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko said:
- Gazprom's action at Tuesday's talks on a price for Russian natural gas in 2007 was a provocation
- Belarus will stick to the 2006 price of under $50 per 1,000 cu m of gas until the new contract is signed
* Gazprom will do everything to compensate for the possible tapping of Europe-bound gas by Belarus, said the head of the Russian energy giant's export arm, Alexander Medvedev
* Gazprom head Alexei Miller said:
- the monopoly warned West European consumers about the gas dispute with Belarus
- will suspend gas supplies to the ex-Soviet state starting January 1, 2007, if no new price deal is reached
* Some of the former Yukos executives, including core shareholder Leonid Nevzlin, could be involved in the murder of Russian security service defector Alexander Litvinenko, Russia's top prosecutors said
* Russian prosecutors have brought no new charges against jailed Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, his lawyer said
* A new Russian carrier rocket Soyuz 2-1B with French satellite Corot on board was launched from the Baikonur space center in the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, a spokesman for the federal space agency said
* Russia signed a protocol on the completion of bilateral talks on its accession to the World Trade Organization with Moldova, the Russian economics ministry said
* Uzbekistan will supply 700 million cubic meters of natural gas to its Central Asian neighbor Tajikistan in 2007, the country's gas transport monopoly said
* A presidential candidate fielded by the Turkmen opposition, Nurberdy Nurmammedov, has gone missing in Ashgabat, the United Democratic Opposition of Turkmenistan said
* The leader of Turkmenistan's United Democratic Opposition, currently based in Norway, proposed sending a trainload of flour to Turkmenistan and carrying out a "flour revolution" in the republic
* Georgia's parliament approved constitutional amendments scheduling presidential and parliamentary elections for October 2008
* The upper house of Russia's parliament:
- approved a law easing foreign capital's access to the domestic banking market
- passed a bill setting up four gambling zones in the country
- passed a maternity incentive bill on payouts for women who give birth to or adopt more than one child
* An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale has struck northern Kyrgyzstan damaging at least 6,000 buildings but causing no human injuries, local rescue services said
* The Moscow City Court upheld an amnesty for an architect blamed for the collapse of a water park in Moscow in 2004, rejecting a protest from survivors of the tragedy, a lawyer representing them said
