* Russian Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said the ministry was planning poultry vaccination campaigns in areas crossed by migrating birds

* The Russian Federal Arbitration Court upheld a decision by a lower court to make oil company Yukos repay over $482 million of its syndicated loan

* The Federal Statistics Service said foreign investment in the Russian economy had increased by 32.4% in 2005 year-on-year, to $53.7 billion

* Prosecutors are inquiring into a decision made by Chechnya's acting prime minister to ban Danish NGOs from the republic over the publication in Denmark of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed

* Georgia's Foreign Ministry has started issuing visas to the Russian military deployed in the South Caucasus republic, Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili said Wednesday.

* The State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, passed in the second reading a counter-terrorism bill empowering security services to tap telephone conversations and control electronic communications

* President Vladimir Putin said Moscow hoped for a positive outcome to its difficult talks with Iran on forming a joint venture for uranium enrichment on Russian territory

* A criminal case on the killing of a foreign student in the central Russian city of Voronezh was handed over to a court

* The Russian men's hockey team beat the United States 5-4 at the Winter Olympics in Turin

* Russian skier Alyona Sidko took the bronze in the ladies' cross-country sprint at the Winter Olympics in Turin.

* Russia's industry and energy minister said Russia had proposed to Azerbaijan a long-term agreement on oil transportation via the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline

* Russia's largest diamond producer Alrosa said it had started buying shares from minority shareholders

* Russia's investment abroad during 2005 declined 7.8% year-on-year to $31.1 billion, the Russian Federal Statistics Service said

* The Russian health and social development minister said there were more than 715,000 homeless children in Russia

* Russia's Mission Control near Moscow said it had completed an operation to widen the International Space Station's orbit by about three kilometers

* The Russian Defense Ministry said it had nothing to do with billboards purportedly celebrating the Russian military, but in fact depicting the U.S. WWII battleship Missouri