* President Vladimir Putin relieved Igor Savolsky of his duties as chief negotiator on military affairs with Georgia, and replaced him with Foreign Ministry ambassador at large Valery Kenyaikin
* Kyrgyzstan's president and prime minister refused to accept the resignation of 13 Cabinet members, including the deputy prime minister, foreign and interior ministers, following a spat with the country's parliament
* The Kazakh Foreign Ministry said U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney would travel to Kazakhstan on an official visit May 5-6
* Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili instructed his government to look at economic aspects of the country's continued membership of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a move which could signal the beginning of Georgia's withdrawal from the loose union of former Soviet republics
* Sergei Kupriyanov, official spokesman for energy giant Gazprom, said the company would announce partners for development of its vast Shtokman gas field in the next few days
* Gazprom said it could maintain prices for natural gas supplies to Moldova in 2Q06 at $110 per 1,000 cubic meters
* Economics minister German Gref said that financing for federal target programs would increase by 100 billion rubles ($3.67 billion) in 2007 against this year
* Trade and Economic Development Minister German Gref said that financing for all federal programs would be increased by a total of 100 billion rubles ($3.67 billion) in 2007 compared with this year
* The Air Force said a new group of Russian peacekeepers would fly to Sudan May 3 to join a UN mission there
* LUKoil posted a net profit of 29.425 billion rubles ($1 billion) in the first quarter of 2006 against a net loss of 3.45 billion rubles ($126.5 million) in the fourth quarter of last year
* OVIT, a Russian-Indian oil and gas consortium that comprises Russia's No. 1 independent natural gas producer Itera and India's ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL), said it had lodged a bid for TNK-BP-owned Udmurtneft, the main oil producer in the Volga republic of Udmurtia.
* Law-enforcement agencies seized over a million fake CDs and DVDs during a raid on the city of Tver, about 100 miles north of Moscow
* Rescuers said they were searching for one man believed to be trapped under debris after a fire engulfed 2,000 square meters of Moscow's largest confectionary plant
* Emergency services said a mudflow in Tajikistan had left 13,000 people in the southeastern city of Rogun without water
* KazSat, Kazakhstan's first communications satellite, was delivered to Baikonur space center in the Central Asian republic for preparation ahead of its scheduled June 8 launch
