* Energy security and talks on a new partnership agreement between Russia and the EU will dominate this year's first meeting between President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday
* President Putin issued a decree appointing Russia's state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport as the sole agency authorized to trade military-purpose products internationally, the Kremlin press service said
* A powerful cyclone that has been sweeping across Europe for the past 24 hours has reached northwest Russia, bringing down 15 power lines and shutting down over a hundred power sub-stations in the Veliky Novgorod Region, a local electricity company said
* The Russian defense minister denied reports that China launched a ballistic missile January 11 that destroyed a satellite
* Techsnabexport, Russia's state-run nuclear exporter, has signed a cooperation agreement with Renova Group to set up joint ventures as part of a joint investment project to prospect and develop uranium deposits in Africa and Asia
* During a phone conversation between Russia's foreign minister and Lebanon's prime minister, the sides discussed preparations for an international conference on Lebanon, the foreign ministry said
* Russia has launched an ecological assessment of a section of the Siberia-Pacific oil pipeline that will run to neighboring China, the technological regulator said
* Evaluators have put the value of Yukos [RTS: YUKO] assets awaiting liquidation at $22 billion, the press secretary of the Russian oil company's bankruptcy receiver said
* Tajikistan's Foreign Ministry said NATO's contingent will stay in the ex-Soviet Central Asian country until stability is restored to neighboring Afghanistan
* The State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, passed in its third and final reading a presidential bill to reform the country's nuclear power sector and facilitate its development
* A Russian banker, accused of ordering the killing of a senior Central Bank license regulator, said he was being punished for refusing to participate in the money laundering operations of Russia's main bank, a leading business daily said
* Preliminary court hearings began in the city of Khabarovsk in Russia's Far East in the case of a U.S. national charged with killing a relative of his Russian wife
