WORLD
*Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the founders of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, was released after almost six years in Israeli prisons, local media reported
*A French court ordered a probe on Thursday into Christine Lagarde, the current International Monetary Fund chief, over her involvement in a possible corruption scheme when she was the French finance minister, BFM TV reported
*At least 45 people were killed in an overnight attack by Syrian government forces on protesters in the eastern city of Hama, local media reported, quoting witnesses and rights activists
*The Russian Foreign Ministry has warned against outside interference in the Syrian conflict, saying the country’s citizens should solve their problems themselves
*Russia and the United States plan to sign more military cooperation deals, the deputy chief of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation said
*The Libyan government is forging an alliance with radical Islamist elements among the Libyan rebels to drive out their more liberal-minded confederates, The New York Times quoted Muammar Gaddafi’s son as saying
*Ten people were killed after a Bell-412 helicopter crashed on Thursday in mountains in the north of Indonesia, the country’s national news agency Antara reported
*The UN Security Council condemned ongoing violence in Syria and urged the country’s authorities to stop using force against peaceful protesters
RUSSIA
*Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to conduct reforms and restore peace in the country otherwise Russia may make “some kind of decisions.”
*Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday he supported the idea of an international tribunal for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, but said some countries would make such a tribunal unlikely
*Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became the main character in an online platform game giving users a chance to drive a Lada Kalina, tackle forest fires and “waste terrorists in the outhouse.”
*Russia has no intentions of paying for entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO) by changing the political situation after Georgian aggression against South Ossetia, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said
*A woman from Siberia found her cat lost in mid-July in an airline crash when a Russian regional passenger jet with 36 people on board ditched in the western Siberian Ob River killing seven, the local TV channel said
*Police in Tula, a small city some 200km to the south of Moscow, have detained a man on suspicion of the murder of a family of five, including three children
*A company owned by a relative of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is to produce gyrocopters for government officials and businessmen at a site near Moscow, a business paper said