Main news of July 13

WORLD

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington that a new visa regime between the two countries would be signed by Christmas

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed a bilateral agreement on child adoptions

* At least 13 people were killed and 81 people were injured in India’s commercial capital Mumbai on Wednesday by three explosions in the city’s markets, local media reported

* Estonia has granted political asylum to a Russian blogger and musician convicted three years ago of inciting hatred against police, a spokesman for the Baltic country’s police and border guard department said

RUSSIA

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed that government officials chip in for a monument to one of his predecessors in imperial Russia, Pyotr Stolypin

* Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, approved a plan to more than double the size of the Russian capital Moscow

* Divers are substantially expanding the search area for the bodies of those who perished in the fatal sinking of the Bulgaria riverboat, the press service of the President of Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan said

* The death toll from the sunken Bulgaria cruise vessel in Russia’s river Volga has risen to 100, the Russian Emergency Ministry said

BUSINESS

* Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation withdrew from its takeover bid for British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC

* Russia has rejected as ‘unacceptable’ Germany’s timetable for measures to provide safety guarantees for food supplies to the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan