* Russia signed protocols on the completion of the WTO accession talks with Nicaragua and Paraguay at the sixth WTO Ministerial conference in Hong Kong
* Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said 11% inflation in 2005 had been caused by an excessive spending of petrodollars in the country
* The Ukrainian Ministry of Agrarian Policy said a London laboratory had confirmed the presence of the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus that is extremely dangerous for humans in the Crimea, a Black Sea autonomy
* Unified Energy System Deputy Chief Executive Mikhail Mantrov said Russia's electricity monopoly was ready to join the construction of the largest Khudoni hydroelectric power plant in Georgia
* Supporters of former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said they had been denied access to a congress of the Democratic Party of Russia
* A slick of highly toxic chemicals from an industrial accident in China approached the Amur River
* Igor Zotov, the deputy governor of the Tula Region in Central Russia, was elected leader of the Russian Pensioners' Party
* Sultan Bilimkhanov, a deputy speaker of the Chechen People's Assembly, the lower house of the newly elected parliament, was injured in a car accident and is in a serious condition
* William Hill, head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's mission in Moldova said he was dissatisfied with the results of the talks on the Transdnestr conflict resolution
