* Mikhail Kamynin, the official spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said Russia had appealed again for the immediate release of four diplomats kidnapped in Baghdad on June 3
* A government source said Russia's federal budget could run at a deficit in 2007-2009
* A source in the Finance Ministry said Russia's Stabilization Fund would top 4.065 trillion rubles ($150.31 billion) in 2007
* Pro-presidential grouping Our Ukraine said it had nominated businessman and former national Security Council secretary Petro Poroshenko for the post of parliamentary speaker
* Three pro-Western parties have initialed a deal on forming a majority coalition in Ukraine's parliament, a representative for pro-presidential bloc Our Ukraine said
* The pro-Russian Party of Regions said it would back Ukraine's president if he dissolved Ukraine's parliament and called fresh elections, should talks on forming a majority coalition fail to produce a result this week
* City council deputies of Kryvyi Rih in Ukraine's eastern Dnipropetrovsk region voted to make Russian a regional language, and declared the city a NATO-free territory
* Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran would respond by August 22 to a package of incentives put forward by the Iran-6 to get the Islamic Republic to stop uranium enrichment
* A Gazprom spokesman said:
- the energy giant expected a Russian stock market to start trading in natural gas in 2007
- Gazprom hoped to buy natural gas from Turkmenistan in 2006 at $65 per 1,000 cu m
- Gazprom and MOL Group would establish a company to implement gas projects in Hungary
* Yukos re-elected chairman Viktor Gerashchenko said:
- Yukos is discussing the sale of a 20% stake in the company formerly known as Sibneft to energy giant Gazprom
- Steven Theede, the Yukos chief executive and president, is not intending to resign from his post
- the best way to solve the company's troubles would be for it to become a subsidiary of state-owned oil company Rosneft
- the outstanding tax bill of Yukos Oil Company was $6.5 billion in early 2006
* Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said repaying Russia's debt to the Paris Club of creditor nations ahead of schedule would save the country $7.7 billion
* Russia's Audit Chamber head Sergei Stepashin said a sliding scale for income tax could be re-established in the country in 2008-2009
