- all 15 hostages seized by three inmates at a Moscow pre-trial detention center earlier today have been freed, no one was hurt
- three inmates have been detained, criminal proceedings have been launched
* Russian President Vladimir Putin, on a visit to Greece:
- called for an agreement on the construction of an oil pipeline in the Balkans to be signed as soon as possible
- said the leaders of Russia, Bulgaria and Greece signed a joint declaration on energy cooperation in Athens
- said presidential elections in Bulgaria, due in October, will not affect the positive development of relations between the two countries
* The prime minister of Greece said his country, Russia and Bulgaria agreed to sign an agreement on the construction of an ambitious oil pipeline, Burgas-Alexandroupolis, in 2006
* Ukraine plans to finalize talks on its admission to the World Trade Organization before the end of 2006, the country's government said
* Russia's Foreign Ministry criticized the actions of Georgia's authorities in an incident over the weekend, when air defense forces in breakaway South Ossetia shot at a helicopter carrying Georgia's defense minister
* The Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline will be commissioned in 2009-10, Sergei Bogdanchikov, the head of Russia's Rosneft oil company, said
* The Russian Foreign Ministry said a Russian tanker, the Luchegorsk, seized by the Guinean authorities last month with 19 sailors on board has been released
* The Moscow Arbitration Court has adjourned until October 4 hearings on a motion filed by Yukos to invalidate an auction that sold its main production unit
* The Moscow Prosecutor's Office has amnestied the architect in the case of a water park roof collapse in February 2004, a source in law enforcement agencies said
* The leader of Ukraine's opposition bloc, Yulia Tymoshenko, said the current government was illegitimate and called on the president to dissolve parliament and announce new elections
* Russian energy giant Gazprom said it would soon complete a deal to acquire a stake in Novatek, Russia's largest independent natural gas producer
* A criminal case against the captain of a Japanese fishing boat involved in an alleged poaching incident in Russian waters was sent to a Russian court in the South Kuril Islands
* Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said a plan first proposed over 40 years ago to change the route of rivers in Siberia should be reconsidered to provide his Central Asian country with water
* International ratings agency Standard & Poor's said it had raised Russia's long-term credit rating to 'BBB+' for foreign currency liabilities and to 'A-' for the national currency
