Main News of July 9

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations told reporters that Syrian rebels had likely used sarin nerve gas in a deadly attack near Aleppo in March

* Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro said that his country had received a request for political asylum from fugitive ex-CIA employee Edward Snowden and awaits his arrival

* Astronauts from the United States and Italy were conducing a spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS) to prepare the research lab for a new Russian laboratory module set to arrive in December

* United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the reported killings of more than 50 people at protests outside a military command post in Egypt

RUSSIA

* Up to 10,000 first-time violators of financial laws should qualify for amnesty, Russia’s chief prosecutor said

* Russian website owners must delete defamatory material if ordered to by a court ruling, Russia’s Constitutional Court ruled, following a complaint by a man who said he was defamed by an Internet forum

* The Bolshoi Theater’s director was dismissed seven months after an acid attack on his artistic director and a series of scandals that tarnished the reputation of Russia’s most renowned ballet company

* Moscow has not received any official notification from Britain that Russian officials suspected of involvement in the death in custody of a high-profile lawyer have been banned from entering the UK, Russia’s foreign minister said

* Russia’s first two military research units made up of science students have taken up their posts, a Moscow college chief said

* A Russian jihadist convicted of a 2009 train bombing that left 28 dead and scores injured was tortured and killed in jail, his father and a human rights group claimed

* Russia’s new aerospace defense system will ensure guaranteed detection of enemy ballistic and long-range cruise missiles at blastoff, a top military official said

* A deadly street fight in a small town in central Russia has exposed smoldering ethnic tensions, with hundreds of locals shouting for resident Chechens to be evicted, and police sent in to quell the unrest