Main News of August 22

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

*Greece needs more time to introduce austerity measures to reduce its massive state debt and keep the Hellenic economy afloat, but is not seeking extra loans from its European partners, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said.

*More than 2.5 million people in Syria urgently need aid, a top official at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) said.

*Kyrgyzstan’s governing parliamentary coalition broke up on Wednesday after two factions quit the four-party pact, the AKIpress news agency said.

*Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik is planning to write an autobiography, in which he will talk about at least two Norwegian cell organizations to which he belonged, his attorney said.

*British singer Sarah Brightman is in talks with the space tourism firm Space Adventures to become the world's eighth space tourist, a senior Russian space official said.

 

RUSSIA

*Although only 49 percent of Russians know the words to the national anthem, that is still 10 percentage points higher than in 2009, the state-run VTsIOM pollster said in a survey.

*A leading Russian human rights activist condemned plans by a Christian group to set up "Orthodox squads" to fight blasphemy and aggression against priests.

 

BUSINESS

*Russia officially joined the World Trade Organization on Wednesday.

*A space satellite manufacturing plant will be built in the town of Shchyolkovo, just outside the Russian capital, Moscow Region Governor Sergei Shoigu said.

*Macroeconomic stability and the government’s fulfilment of all social obligations should be key in drafting the federal budget for the next three years, President Vladimir Putin said.

*Russia’s largest privately owned oil firm LUKoil has acquired ConocoPhillips’ indirect 30 percent interest in NaryanMarNefteGaz (NMNG) operating in the Timan Pechora oil and gas province in northern Russia, the firm said.