Russia:
* The United States and Russia will continue talks on the issue of a proposed European missile shield on August 11-12 in St. Petersburg, the U.S. Department of State said
*The Russian Finance Ministry will borrow some 5 trillion rubles ($181 billion) from foreign buyers on the domestic market to cover soaring budget spending in 2012-2014, Kommersant business daily said on Monday quoting the ministry’s Debt Policy Guidelines for 2012-2014
* Foreign specialists and their family members will be allowed to stay in Russia for 90 days without having to register at their home address, the Russian government said
* Georgia has refused to cooperate with Russia on the investigation into the Russian-Georgian war in August 2008, Russian Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin said
* Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is an ill-bred pathology and anomaly of the Georgian people, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
World:
* The chances are 1 to 3 that rating agency Standard Poor’s will further downgrade the U.S. long-term sovereign credit rating following the agency’s historic decision to cut America’s top-tire AAA rating, a SP official said
* Violence which began in the British capital of London at the weekend over the fatal shooting of a young man by police has spread to the eastern district of Hackney, British media reports
* A Kiev district court granted former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s request to summon her husband and daughter as defense witnesses
* The editor of the Belarusian opposition website Charter 97, Natalya Radina, has asked for political asylum in Lithuania, Charter 97 quoted Radina as saying
Business:
* International prices for oil, Russia’s key export, dropped four percent on a market gripped by panic that Standard Poor’s rating agency which has cut the U.S. credit rating for the first time in the history of the country, will downgrade it further
* The index of Russia’s Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX) slumped 5.5 percent below 1,500 points, while the RTS stock exchange index dropped almost 8 percent, according to the trading floors
* Russia’s stock markets followed Asia into the red morning in reaction to the US downgrade by Standard Poor’s on Friday