* President Vladimir Putin said Britain's demand that Russia amend its Constitution to extradite a suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko shows the country retains a colonialist mentality
* A Russian delegation will visit Washington July 30-31 to discuss the Russian president's proposals for the United States on missile defense cooperation in Europe, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
* Russian President Vladimir Putin has received an official request for assistance in extinguishing large forest fires in Serbia from the Balkan nation's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, the Kremlin press service said
* A federal soldier was killed and another wounded in a skirmish with a group of militants in the south of the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, the local Interior Ministry said
* Police said an attack on an environmental camp in southeast Siberia, which left one person dead and seven injured, was carried out by members of a local neo-Nazi group
WORLD
* Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency agreed to hold the next round of talks on the Islamic Republic's controversial nuclear program on August 20 in Tehran, an Iranian official said
* The nuclear power plant being built by Russians in Bushehr, southern Iran, is more than 90% complete, Iran's official news agency IRNA quoted the Iranian project leader as saying
* Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will take part in the August 16 summit of a security cooperation grouping dominated by China and Russia, to be held in Kyrgyzstan, a senior Iranian diplomat said
* South Korea is expected to complete a fuel oil shipment to the North on Sunday as part of a six-nation deal to encourage Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament, a Seoul's Yonhap news agency said
* Tony Blair, the special envoy of the international Quartet of Mideast mediators, said progress was possible in the region
* Libya's decision to release five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, now a Bulgarian national, will help improve relations between the European Union and Libya, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said
* Hopes for a speedy resumption of dialogue between Georgia and its breakaway republic of Abkhazia have once again been frustrated, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a report
* All 15 train cars carrying yellow phosphorous that overturned in Western Ukraine last Monday have been hoisted back onto the tracks, the emergencies ministry said
* A research center in eastern Ukraine said it had completed the development of technology to produce transparent light armor that can stop an armor-piercing bullet, research ordered and funded by NATO
* Ukraine's Communists announced they would open a museum in the Crimea dedicated to victims of U.S. imperialism next month, as a riposte to a Communism memorial recently put up in Washington
* Belarusian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky may visit Moscow July 30 to discuss paying for natural gas deliveries
* The bodies of two people were found in a charred car after a forest fire in southeast Italy's Apulia region, a local social services official told reporters
* Over 50 people are missing, feared dead in floods and landslides caused by torrential rains in Sulawesi, central Indonesia, the head of the Health Ministry's crisis center said
* About 350,000 people are still without fresh water in Gloucestershire, in the west of England, after recent heavy flooding which also left 50,000 homes without electricity, British media reported
BUSINESS
* The share of British oil major BP in the net profit generated by Russia-based joint oil venture TNK-BP decreased by 20.2% year-on-year in January-June 2007 to $848 million, BP said in a statement
* Russian metals giant Norilsk Nickel said it had re-extended its cash offer to acquire the common stock of Canada's gold and nickel producer LionOre until August 13
