WORLD
* The security service of the French Embassy in Damascus managed to counter an attack by alleged supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad without gunfire, a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry said
* Three rockets landed in the Iraqi capital Baghdad’s protected Green Zone on Monday whilst U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was visiting the city, media quoted an Iraqi police source as saying
*The launch of Russia’s Soyuz-2.1a space carrier with six U.S. Globalstar-2 communications satellites, has been postponed due to technical reasons
RUSSIA
* The Moscow District Military Court sentenced the leader of a Russian nationalist group and five other members to life in prison for dozens of ethnically motivated murders
* Divers working at the scene where a Russian cruise ship sank in the Volga River on Sunday, are approaching a music room where dozens of children are believed trapped, the regional emergencies center said
* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered large-scale safety checks of all passenger transport after two fatal transport accidents in Russia in as many days
* At least five people were killed and 30 injured when a Russian Antonov An-24 regional airliner with 36 people on board ditched in the western Siberian Ob river following an engine fire, investigators said
* Eighty out of 185 people on board of the Bulgaria cruise ship that sank in Russia’s Volga River on Sunday afternoon were rescued, while 100 are still missing and five were found dead, a spokesperson for the Russian Emergencies Ministry said
BUSINESS
* Russia’s DST Global II, the investment firm controlled by Russian billionaire and Mail.ru web portal founder Yury Millner, will lead a pool of investors to buy a 5 per cent stake in the Twitter microblogging service, Kommersant business daily reported