* President Vladimir Putin will hold bilateral meetings with the leaders of the U.S., China, Japan, and other countries on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific economic forum in Hanoi next weekend, the Russian foreign minister said
* Russia must fulfill the obligations it made to Georgia as part of talks on its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), and Tbilisi will, in turn, make no further demands, the Georgian prime minister said
* South Ossetians gave their resounding support for independence in Sunday's referendum and presidential election, with preliminary results showing 99% of voters in favor of autonomy, the Central Election Commission of Georgia's unrecognized republic said
* The European Union has extended an embargo on arms supplies to Uzbekistan and on visas for 12 of the country's officials due to the Central Asian state's poor human rights record, a European Union Council source said
* The growth of Russia's gross domestic product in 2006 will be 6.5%, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said in its annual Transition Report
* Russian aluminum companies RusAl and SUAL and Switzerland's Glencore have applied to Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service for authorization to merge their assets to form United Company RusAL
* Transneft, the Russian pipeline monopoly, has announced:
- It is planning to complete work in late November to increase the capacity of the Baltic pipeline system to 74 million metric tons per year
- It has sent a draft intergovernmental agreement on the construction of an oil pipeline in the Balkans
- Construction of a pipeline, set to be completed in the second half of 2008, to pump Siberian crude to China and other countries of the Asia-Pacific region is proceeding on schedule
* Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service said it has closed legal proceedings against the CIS division of U.S. automotive giant General Motors and the Russian division of Japan's Nissan Motor Company for violating competition laws
* Russian oil company Tatneft posted a net profit increase of 20.1%, year-on-year, in the first half of 2006, to $661.8 million, in its un-audited interim consolidated U.S. GAAP financial statement
* Russia's Natural Resources Ministry said it is dissatisfied with the environmental measures taken so far by the operator of the Sakhalin II oil and gas project in Russia's Far East
* Bureaucracy, the 'criminal factor', and environmental regulations are discouraging Chinese investors from investing in Russia's economy, the governor of the Far Eastern Khabarovsk Territory said
* Russia will export about $2 billion in software products and IT services in 2006, the Russian communications minister said
* Russia will lift all precision restrictions as of 2007 in the use of military-controlled Glonass, a Russian version of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), to enable accurate and unlimited commercial use of the global positioning system, the defense minister said
* A plane with Russian military observers will make an inspection flight over the United States under the Open Skies Treaty, the Russian Air Force said
* Some 26,000 people have contracted HIV, the virus causing AIDS, in Russia since the beginning of this year, the Federal Service for the Supervision of Consumer Rights and Human Welfare said
* A court in Russia's Far East fined a South Korean national 500,000 rubles (about $19,000) for illegally shipping radioactive equipment from Libya in 2004
