- Diplomacy should be the only way for the international community to dissuade North Korea from further nuclear tests
- Energy cooperation between the two countries could be extended so that Germany could turn from a consumer to a large European distribution center for natural gas and oil
- Russian-German trade will hit a record of $40 billion in 2006
- Russia will pay 1.125 billion euros of its debt to Germany ahead of schedule.
- Participation of foreign companies in a project of Russia's energy giant, Gazprom, to develop the vast Shtokman natural gas deposit off Russia's arctic shelf is still possible
- Russia needs $500 million and two-three years to ensure the security of its southern borders
- Russia has no plans for the hostile takeover of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS)
- He would see to it that a thorough inquiry is carried out into the recent murder of a prominent investigative journalist, Anna Politkovskaya
* Russia's defense minister and deputy prime minister, Sergei Ivanov, said:
- North Korea has become the ninth nuclear power de facto
- North Korea's nuclear test is a serious blow to the nuclear non-proliferation regime
- No dangerous substances in the atmosphere have yet been detected following North Korea's nuclear test
- The UN Security Council resolution likely to be adopted on North Korea does not envision the use of force
- The Russian army will not entirely be transferred to a contract basis
- Russia will withdraw its garrison deployed in the Georgian capital Tbilisi ahead of schedule
- Moscow has imposed neither sanctions nor a blockade on the impoverished South Caucasus nation
- Russia sees NATO's plans to deploy anti-ballistic missile defense systems in Poland as a threat to its national security
* The Russian Foreign Ministry said:
- Russia is willing to join the international effort to resolve peacefully the situation around North Korea following its nuclear test
- Russia has supported the nomination of South Korea's foreign minister to the post of UN Secretary General
* Georgian Special Forces have blocked a road leading to the country's breakaway republic of South Ossetia following shootouts on the border, the republic's Interior Ministry said
* Two major Georgian carriers plan to sue Russia for damages following the country's suspension of air links with its South Caucasus neighbor
* China considers military action against North Korea following its nuclear test to be 'unimaginable', the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said
* Japan does not plan to create its own nuclear weapons following North Korea's test, but may introduce further sanctions, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said
* Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said he has agreed with President Viktor Yushchenko to continue working on the formation of a broad parliamentary coalition
* Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko said his country is interested in resuming talks on the creation of a gas transportation consortium with Russia and Germany
* Russia's Supreme Court has upheld prison sentences for 13 gunmen involved in a bloody raid on the North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia in 2004
* HIV tests on children in southern Kazakhstan have exposed four more cases of infection through blood transfusions and injections, bringing to 76 the total number of young victims at the center of a hospital negligence scandal that hit the Central Asian country
* Russia's Cabinet is set to introduce a bill lowering the top limit for stakes that may be purchased in domestic banks without a Central Bank permit, a spokesman said
* An international arbitration court in Brussels has rejected French oil major Total's claim on a vast hydrocarbon deposit in East Siberia to which Rosneft holds a license, the Russian state-owned oil company said
