WORLD
* European Union foreign ministers agreednew sanctions against Syria, including a freeze on assets of the country’s central bank and ban on cargo flights into the EU
* Nearly 90 percent of voters supported Syria’s new constitution meant to end decades of one-party rule, state TV said
* A Ukrainian court sentenced Yuriy Lutsenko, a former Ukrainian interior minister and ally of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, to four years in prison for abuse of office
* A new building will be erected at the U.S. Embassy compound in Moscow, the Embassy said
RUSSIA
* The Russian Federal Protection Service (FSO) confirmed that it had received information about a “terrorist attack” plotted against “Russia’s leadership”
* Moscow City Court authorized opening a criminal case against Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in Moscow pretrial detention in 2009 of untreated health problems and, allegedly, a beating by prison guards
* Media reports alleging that Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika may have collaborated with foreign intelligence services is a provocation, his office said
BUSINESS
* Russian prosecutors claimed to have thwarted the attempted theft of $1.6 million from the Sochi Olympics construction budget in 2011
* The Russian government is planning to take serious measures to fight counterfeit production of Russian weaponry in foreign countries, especially the Kalashnikov assault rifles
* Ukraine’s national energy company Naftogaz has sent evidence to Gazprom it claims disproves accusations from the Russian company that it siphoned off natural gas bound for Europe, Naftogaz said in a statement