* The head of the Interstate Aviation Committee, Tatiana Anodina, said experts might face problems deciphering the flight data from the plane wreck, as the magnetic tape of its cockpit voice recorder was seriously damaged
* Russia's nuclear chief Sergei Kiriyenko said:
- At least 40 new nuclear reactors are needed by 2030 if nuclear power is to retain its importance for the domestic energy market
- He is optimistic that talks on lifting restrictions on access to the U.S. market for Russian nuclear products and services will produce a positive outcome
* The various parties involved in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project initialed an agreement on the construction of the world's first nuclear fusion reactor
* The Iranian Foreign Ministry said Tehran was ready for talks on its controversial nuclear program, without the need for any preliminary conditions
* Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said the number of small businesses set up every year in Russia should at least triple, to reach 50,000-70,000
* Prosecutors said eight members of an extremist gang in St. Petersburg suspected of being involved in the killing of a student from Senegal had been detained
* Igor Giorgadze, a Georgian opposition leader and former state security minister on the international wanted list, said he did not intend to seek political asylum in Russia
* Alexei Miller was reelected as chief executive of Russian energy giant Gazprom for another five years
* Gazprom's board of directors recommended that a shareholders' meeting approve a 26% increase in dividend payouts for 2005, to 1.5 rubles per share, the Russian energy giant said
* Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said defense spending in Russia in 2007 would total about 800 billion rubles ($29.6 billion)
* Sberbank said it had approved a credit line of 65 billion rubles ($2.4 billion) for Transneft to build a $11.5-billion pipeline from East Siberia to the Pacific Ocean
* Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Stabilization Fund resources would be placed on deposit at the Central Bank of Russia - 45% in dollars, 45% in euros and 10% in pounds sterling
* Major General Leonid Golopatyuk, director of the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff's Euro-Atlantic integration department, said NATO had allocated about $800,000 to train civilian employees for Ukraine's Defense Ministry
* Two of the three major parties that backed the "orange revolution" - former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's eponymous bloc and the Socialist Party - signed a draft agreement on forming a coalition in the Ukrainian parliament
* Ukrainian Fuel and Energy Minister Ivan Plachkov said Naftogaz, the country's national oil and gas company, would obtain a $60 mln loan to pay trading company Rosukrenergo for natural gas
