* Russian energy giant Gazprom said its net profit calculated to Russian Accounting Standards doubled in the first six months of 2006 year-on-year, to 177.6 billion rubles ($6.6 bln).
* Russia's Sheremetyevo international airport chose Jones Lang LaSalle as financial consultant to implement the first stage of a modernization project, the airport and the company said in a joint news release
* The state security minister of Moldova's breakaway region of Transdnestr said that an explosion that ripped apart a trolleybus in the regional capital Sunday was a terrorist act
* Russia's deputy finance minister said the ministry hoped to sign agreements with the Paris Club of creditor nations on the pre-term repayment of the country's debt by Wednesday
* Criminal proceedings were launched after at least 150 foreign workers in Moscow and its environs were hospitalized - six of them in a serious condition - with suspected food poisoning, prosecutors said
* Russia's economics minister German Gref said:
- state-owned Vnesheconombank would be transformed into a state-run development corporation that will be regulated by a special law
- his ministry was drafting a decree to exclude Aeroflot from the list of strategic enterprises
- state-controlled telecoms holding Svyazinvest could be restructured rather than privatized
* State-controlled oil company Rosneft said its net profit, calculated to Russian Accounting Standards, grew 140% year-on-year in the first half of 2006, to 60 billion rubles (about $2.2 billion)
* Atomstroiexport, Russia's nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly, said it had prepared a modified bid for a tender to build the Belene NPP in Bulgaria
* A Russian army general said Georgia had used a so-called anti-crime operation in Abkhazia's Kodori Gorge aimed at disarming a rebellious militia unit as a pretext to deploy military forces in the area
* The Moscow City Court sentenced Alexander Miskov, an official from the Russian Industry and Energy Ministry, to seven years in prison for taking bribes
* Power Machines (Silovye Mashiny) signed a deal worth 42 million euros (about $53 million) in a consortium with Siemens to modernize a thermal power plant in Greece, Russia's leading heavy machinery manufacturer said
* A 40-year-old man in West Siberia was diagnosed with anthrax, a spokesman for the local emergency situations department said
* Russia's 201st military base in Tajikistan with several thousand personnel began division-level command and staff exercises, the base press service said
