* Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the heads of Phillips, Shell, Unilever, and the ABN AMRO and ING banks

* The World Bank issued a wide-ranging report on the Russian economy

* The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry denied a news report about repositories of chemical weapons and nuclear waste near the Russian border

* The Ukrainian Anti-Monopoly Committee approved Mittal Steel Germany's acquisition of steel giant Kryvorizhstal's stock

* Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom and Canadian hydrocarbon giant Petro-Canada discussed possible LNG supplies from Russia to North America

* International rating agency Moody's upgraded the local and foreign currency credit ratings of Moscow and St. Petersburg

* Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said Russia was ready to discuss China's involvement in developing oil and gas fields in Eastern Siberia and Russia's Far East

* Lawyers of Yevgeny Adamov, a former Russian nuclear power minister, filed an appeal against his extradition to the United States

* The new head of Kyrgyzstan's Penitentiary Service was wounded and several inmates were killed during a police raid on a penal colony

* Kyrgyz authorities said that crime boss Aziz Batukayev had ordered the inmate riots in Kyrgyzstan

* Guichnazar Tachnazarov, Turkmenistan's deputy prime minister and minister of the oil and gas industry and mineral resources, was accused of large-scale state property embezzlement