MOSCOW

// Dec. 28, 2005 - 05:28 GMT

* Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the 2006 federal budget, with budget revenues expected at 5.046 trillion rubles ($189.6 billion) and spending at 4.27 trillion rubles ($148.3 billion)

// Dec. 28, 2005 - 05:28 GMT

MOSCOW, December 28 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian Soyuz carrier rocket with European GIOVE A satellite has lifted off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, the Russian Space Agency said Wednesday.

// Dec. 28, 2005 - 05:36 GMT

MOSCOW, December 28 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian Soyuz carrier rocket with European GIOVE A satellite has lifted off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, the Russian Space Agency (Roskosmos) said Wednesday.

// Dec. 28, 2005 - 05:51 GMT

DUSHANBE, December 28 (RIA Novosti) – A minor earthquake rattled the republic of Tajikistan Wednesday morning, the regional Emergency Situations Ministry office said.

// Dec. 28, 2005 - 06:20 GMT

VLADIVOSTOK, December 28 (RIA Novosti, Veronika Perminova) – The local emergencies commission in the Russian Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk has decided to end the high alert status December 29 when the benzene slick in the Amur River moves past the city, experts said.

// Dec. 28, 2005 - 07:06 GMT

ROSTOV-ON-DON (southern Russia), December 28 (RIA Novosti, Sergei Rudkovsky) – Twenty residents of Chechnya, including 14 children, hospitalized last week for psycho-emotional stress, have been released from a hospital in the Shelkovsky district, the southern regional office of the Emergency Situations Ministry said Wednesday.

// Dec. 28, 2005 - 07:17 GMT

MOSCOW, December 28 (RIA Novosti) – A plane carrying the Russian sailors held in a Nigerian prison for almost two years arrived at Moscow's Sheremetyevo 2 Airport at 5:15 a.m. Wednesday.

// Dec. 28, 2005 - 07:32 GMT

The first satellite in the European Union's Galileo navigation program was launched from Kazakhstan, a major step forward for Europe's answer to the U.S. Global Positioning System satellites. The Galileo satellite, named "Giove A," took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard a Soyuz rocket.

// Dec. 28, 2005 - 07:40 GMT

The United States is set to step up efforts in advancing democracy in Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.

// Dec. 28, 2005 - 07:44 GMT