EU energy chief has called for the end to Russia, Belarus gas pricing row to avoid any problems in early 2007.

// Dec. 29, 2006 - 03:25 GMT

* The situation around a Russian-Belarusian gas dispute over new gas prices for Minsk:

// Dec. 29, 2006 - 05:29 GMT

KALUGA, December 29 (RIA Novosti). The Kaluga Region has more than 300 foster homes with an approximate total of thousand children. Some of them live in a village named Kitezh, after a utopian fairy-tale town of the Russian folklore. Several enthusiasts joined hands to build it fourteen years ago as they saw it was much easier to bring up adopted children in a community. The Kitezh, with 35 families and a hundred adopted children, has a 100- hectare land plot.

// Dec. 29, 2006 - 05:29 GMT

MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian passenger jet diverted from its course Thursday owing to an apparent highjack attempt has now touched down in Moscow, an airport official said Friday.

// Dec. 29, 2006 - 06:27 GMT

MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a bill on the ratification of the UNESCO International Convention against Doping in Sport, the Kremlin press service said Friday.

// Dec. 29, 2006 - 06:37 GMT

MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti) – Credit institutions' balances on correspondent accounts with the Russian Central Bank totaled 666.1 billion rubles ($25.3 billion at the current exchange rates) at the beginning of the business day, up 1.4% (9.1 billion rubles/$345 million) from Thursday, the CBR said Friday.

// Dec. 29, 2006 - 06:51 GMT

MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti) – Russia's investment index will open Friday at 776.64 points, up 1.54% on the previous day's trading, following Thursday evening's sessions on major world trading floors.

// Dec. 29, 2006 - 06:57 GMT

MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti) – Russia's Central Bank said Friday that the country's narrowly defined money supply (M1) was 3,200 billion rubles ($121.3 billion at the current exchange rate) as of December 25, up 89.7 billion rubles ($3.4 billion) in the week since December 18.

// Dec. 29, 2006 - 07:48 GMT

VLADIVOSTOK, December 29 (RIA Novosti) – Aircraft have joined a search-and-rescue operation in Russia's Far East for a helicopter with three people on board missing since Tuesday, a local emergencies official said.

// Dec. 29, 2006 - 08:05 GMT

MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti) – Belarus intends to impose a blockade on all Russian media beginning January 1, 2007, a source in Minsk said Friday.

// Dec. 29, 2006 - 08:19 GMT