WORLD
* Russia will support the reelection of UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon for a second term at Thursday’s voting in the UN Security Council, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said
* Russia may limit the volume of its loans to Belarus if the former Soviet state continues limiting the circulation of Russian media in the country, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said
* Libyan authorities are ready to hold free elections within three months and draft a new constitution as a compromise with the insurgents who are demanding Muammar Gaddafi’s resignation, Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, said
* Euro zone finance ministers are expected to decide on a new bailout for Greece in July, European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said in a statement
* Mikhail Margelov, the Russian presidential envoy to Africa, is holding talks on Thursday with top representatives of Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle in the country’s capital of Tripoli.
* Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, has been appointed the new chief of al-Qaeda, Arabic-language websites reported
* Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva has vetoed amendments to the country’s constitution due to a lack of funding, Parliamentary Speaker Ahmatbek Keldibekov said
* Some 50 Malaysian government websites were crippled after a hacker attack by the Anonymous Hactivist group, renowned for its retaliation attacks on companies hindering the work of Wikileaks, local media sources said
RUSSIA
* The ruling United Russia party will hold a congress on September 3-4 to approve a list of candidates for the December 2011 parliamentary elections, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said
BUSINESS
* Russia’s state-controlled gas export monopoly Gazprom has boosted its exports for the first five months of 2011 by about 22 percent, Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller said
* Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said that the privatization of 50 percent plus one share in the country’s largest shipping company Sovcomflot might be shifted to 2012 from the earlier announced 2011
* Russia’s largest tobacco distributor, Megapolis group, plans to raise over $1 billion by floating over 25 percent of its stock in an initial public offering in London this fall, a banking source told RIA Novosti
SPORTS
* American J.R. Holden, who has played for Moscow’s TsSKA basketball team as a guard since 2002, said he will retire at the end of the 2010/2011 season