Main News of July 25

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* US authorities on Thursday charged four Russian nationals and a Ukrainian man in connection with the theft of more than 100 million credit card numbers breaching the computer networks of major US and international corporations in what is being called the largest hacking scheme ever to be prosecuted in the United States

* A Belarusian court on Thursday revoked a two-year suspended sentence given to ex-presidential candidate Vladimir Neklyaev

* A legislation aimed at substantially curbing the federal government’s ability to collect information about Americans’ phone calls failed to pass the US House of Representatives on Wednesday, Washington Post reported

* The death toll in a high-speed commuter train derailment in the northwest of Spain near the city of Santiago de Compostela is at least 77 people, according to multiple news reports

RUSSIA

* Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised the role of Orthodox Christianity in the country’s history and congratulated the heads of the world’s Orthodox churches on the 1025th anniversary of the Christianization of Kievan Rus, a medieval state comprising parts of modern-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

* The electoral ratings of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country’s ruling United Russia party went up in July after a fall in June, according to opinion surveys by the Levada Center pollster

* Russia has officially asked Interpol to put Hermitage Capital equity fund head William Browder on an international wanted list, following his earlier sentencing in absentia, the Interior Ministry said

* US lawmakers on Thursday gave preliminary approval to a measure requiring the federal government to discuss possible sanctions against Russia or any other nation that provides asylum to fugitive former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who is currently holed up in a Moscow airport while seeking temporary refugee status in Russia

* An organization that provides free legal assistance to migrant workers building infrastructure for next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi is under pressure by investigators after it exposed rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said

* Russia’s Federal Security Service, a successor agency to the Soviet KGB, on Thursday released a manuscript of a controversial but now critically acclaimed novel that equated the Communist and Nazi political systems, and was confiscated by the KGB in 1961

* Ilya Segalovich, who co-founded search engine Yandex, one of Russia’s most successful companies, is in a coma, Yandex's CEO said Tuesday, contradicting a previous statement by the company that Segalovich was dead

BUSINESS

* Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed a decree to terminate the Federal Service for Financial Markets and transfer its functions to the Central Bank as of September 1, according to a post on the government’s legal information website

* The Russian government on Thursday approved an array of measures it hopes will boost growth, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev told journalists

CRIME

* Police in the Moscow Region on Thursday seized a large shipment of cocaine stashed in a truck carrying boxes of bananas, a police spokesman said

* The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Thursday that the 2005 conviction against Russian businessmen Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev was based on legitimate charges, dismissing their complaint that their prosecution was politically motivated, but found that the hearing of their case was unfair

DEFENSE

* Ukraine has tested a new Corsar light portable antitank missile system and plans to complete development work on it by the end of 2013, the missile designer said

* Russia’s Severnaya Verf laid down a new Gremyashchy class corvette Thursday at its St. Petersburg shipyard, the company said