WORLD
* The United State faces a possible threat from al Qaeda, U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton said in a speech at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice
* Russia is interested in developing mutually beneficial economic ties with Pyongyang, President Dmitry Medvedev said in a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
* Thousands gathered on Tahrir square in Cairo, to demand that the interim authorities speed up the transition of power
* Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said the International Monetary Fund was making unacceptable political demands
* Interpol issued arrest warrants for deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi
* Syrian opposition leader Ammar Qurabi urged Moscow to play a more active part in resolving civil strife in the Middle East nation
* The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner called on the Russian government to abide by international treaties on the right to free assembly
* Israel and Hamas resumed talks in Cairo last Tuesday aimed at securing the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier abducted by Hamas in June, the Al-Hayat Arab paper said
* U.S. officials say the threat of a car- or truck-bomb attack in New York or Washington as Americans mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11 is “specific, credible but unconfirmed,” the New York Times reported
* There has been no direct contact between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and U.K. ministers or diplomats since 2007, the BBC said, citing Whitehall officials
RUSSIA
* Flights of eight planes were suspended after a deadly air crash that virtually wiped out one of Russia’s most successful hockey teams, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, the Russian transport watchdog said
* Russia is ready to discuss a peace treaty with Japan but rules out any claims to the southern Kuril Islands, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Japanese counterpart Koichiro Gemba
* Russian billionaire and possible presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov said he saw no parallels between himself and jailed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky
* The two survivors of the plane crash that virtually wiped out the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team remain in critical condition, a Health Ministry official said
* An army major in the Russian Far East has been sentenced to four years in prison for beating a warrant officer and a soldier