WORLD
* Moscow urgently wants to receive legal guarantees from the United States that its European missile defense shield will not target Russia’s strategic nuclear forces, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement
* Kyrgyz state security forces may have been guilty of crimes against humanity during ethnic clashes last summer, an independent international commission said
* NATO forces participating in the operation Unified Protector in Libya on the side of the rebels provided sea lane security in the Libyan port of Misrata, Vice Admiral Rinaldo Veri said
* A former Russian intelligence officer who helped the U.S. authorities uncover a Russian spy ring last summer has been charged with high treason and desertion, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said
* The White House has officially confirmed that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, killed during a special U.S. operation in Pakistan on Sunday, was buried at sea in accordance with Islamic traditions
RUSSIA
* Russian media experts disputed the accuracy of the 2011 Freedom of the Press report which ranks Russia 173rd out of 196 countries
* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed into law a bill that grants him to impose additional security measures in the event of an increased terrorism threat
* A body, suspected to be that of the daughter of an executive at Russia’s second largest oil producer has been found in the Moscow region, a police source said
* A former colleague of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in pre-trail detention in 2009, faces arrest for evading tax payments as the head of the Russian branch of British investment company Hermitage Capital Management
* A group of Canadian observers will begin a series of inspection flights over Russian territory under the Open Skies Treaty, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry said
BUSINESS
* The Russian Defense Ministry will appoint a new team of negotiators to a possible $1.5 billion deal to buy Mistral-class helicopter carriers from France, a ministry source told RIA Novosti