Main news of February 1

A roundup of what happened in the past 24 hours.

RUSSIA

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will exchange the instruments of ratification for the New START arms reduction pact in Munich on February 5, Russia's Foreign Ministry said

* A monument to Russia’s first president, Boris Yeltsin, was unveiled in Yekaterinburg on February 1

* Former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, dismissed by President Medvedev for loss of confidence, is reportedly seeking to resettle in Britain. The British Embassy has neither confirmed nor denied the rumor

* The United States voiced concerns over detentions of opposition protestors in Moscow, saying the move amounts to the "intimidation" of peaceful protesters

WORLD

* Egypt's leading opposition figure Mohammed ElBaradei called on embattled President Hosni Mubarak to step down and leave the country

* The participants of the "march of millions" in Cairo are demanding the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak despite concessions he has been forced to make

* Mass unrest over the past week in Egypt has triggered shortages of food supplies in shops in Cairo and other cities

* Iran supports the protests in Egypt demanding authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak to step down after 30 years of ruling the North African nation, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said

* Jordan's King Abdullah II fired the government and appointed a new prime minister following street protests calling for political reform

* Ukraine parliamentary elections due later this year were moved back by some 18 months after a vote by lawmakers

BUSINESS

* London's High Court imposed an injunction on the strategic Rosneft-BP deal on share swap until February 25 following a lawsuit by the AAR consortium of Russian shareholders in the TNK-BP joint venture

* Russia's largest lender, state-owned Sberbank, intends to buy a major stake in Troika Dialog investment bank, a source familiar with the deal said

* Russia's MICEX exchange signed an agreement of intent to buy a controlling stake in RTS, the country's other major trading floor, and the deal will become legally binding by mid-April, the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank said

* Transneft plans to pump 1.6 million metric tons of oil to Belarus in February, a spokesman for Russia's state-run oil pipeline monopoly said

* International ratings agency Standard & Poor's lowered Egypt's long term credit rating for foreign-currency denominated government bonds from BB+ to BB and for long term and short term Egyptian Pound denominated bonds from BBB-/A-3 to BB+/BB