* The Moscow Arbitration Court ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by Yuganskneftegaz overturning the Federal Tax Service's $197 million back tax bill for 1999
* Russian presidential envoy Konstantin Pulikovsky met with North Korea's Chairman of the National Defense Commission Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang
* Authorities in Voronezh, a city in central Russia, launched an investigation into an assault on foreign students that killed one and seriously injured two
* An annual amnesty was granted to more than 8,000 prisoners in Turkmenistan
* Nine people were hospitalized in southwestern Kyrgyzstan due to an anthrax outbreak
