WORLD
* Presidential elections in Venezuela have been slated for October 7, 2012, Vincente Diaz, a member of the National Elections Committee, said
* Russia complained of a lack of progress in its talks with NATO on a new U.S. missile defense shield for Europe
* Hamas lawmakers urged Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to abandon his plans to ask the UN to recognize the independence of the Palestinian state
* Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the Taliban would not derail the transition of his country from the NATO-led coalition to Afghan control, following a string of suicide bomb and gun attacks in central Kabul
* Iran will free the two U.S. men it arrested in 2009 on spying charges, world media reported
* Gunmen who attacked the U.S. Embassy in Kabul have all been killed, the Afghan National Directorate of Security said
* Russia will back any Palestinian bid to achieve statehood at a UN vote, envoy Vitaly Churkin has said
* The European Union praised the resolve of the Syrian people and urged the authorities to halt its crackdown on the opposition
RUSSIA
* Russia’s Supreme Court has ruled that jailed former Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were illegally held in a Moscow pre-trial detention center for three months during their second trial
* The only survivor of last week’s plane crash that killed almost the entire Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice-hockey team has regained consciousness in hospital, a hospital sources aid
BUSINESS
* Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the country would over triple its investment in the Egyptian economy from $1.5 billion to $5 billion
* The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Moscow regrets the EU’s decision on Monday to open talks with Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan aimed at agreeing shipment of Turkmen natural gas across the Caspian Sea to Europe
* Russian oil major Rosneft and U.S. energy giant ExxonMobil will develop a detailed plan of joint projects by the end of the year, Rosneft head Eduard Khudainatov said
* Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin denied that his wife Irina had any connection to a $145.4 million project to repave the city’s asphalt sidewalks with brick