* Ukraine's government supported First Deputy Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko as acting foreign minister after the resignation of his Western-leaning predecessor, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said
* Iran dismissed media reports of its nuclear cooperation with North Korea
* Russian President Vladimir Putin signed law prohibiting people with dual citizenship from occupying the posts of prime minister, deputy prime minister or cabinet minister
* A Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket carrying a commercial communications satellite exploded during lift-off from an oceangoing platform in the Pacific, a company spokeswoman said
* Russia's Defense Ministry will spend over 860 billion rubles ($32.42 billion) of federal budget funds in 2007, 23% more than in 2006, a ministry official said
* Two International Space Station astronauts made their first spacewalk of 2007 and will make three further walks in February, NASA reported
* Mikhail Prokhorov, a co-owner of Interros, the holding company for the world's largest nickel producer, will quit the financial group's board of directors and sell his stake in Norilsk Nickel to another billionaire co-owner of the financial group, Vladimir Potanin, Interros said
* Russia's chief health official Gennady Onishchenko brushed aside fears that an outbreak of the deadly bird flu virus, registered at three farmsteads in two regions of the southern Krasnodar Territory, could pose a danger to people
* Baltiisky Zavod, St. Petersburg-based shipyard, said it has started sea trials of the largest nuclear-powered icebreaker in the world, which has been under construction since 1989
* A Moscow Court has sentenced a notary in the murder case of Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov to nine years in prison for property fraud and abuse of power
* The refusal by authorities to register liberal party Yabloko for the spring elections in St. Petersburg makes no sense, a senior Russian rights official said
* Russia's Supreme Court reduced the prison sentence of Denis Mikhailov, a former Finance Ministry official convicted under the official secrets statute, from eight to five years, the court press service said
* Electricity supplies were resumed in full after a blizzard in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, a candidate city for the 2014 Winter Olympics, a local energy company said
