Main News of August 1

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Edward Snowden, the US former intelligence contractor who has been holed up in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport for more than a month, has been granted temporary asylum and finally left the airport heading to an undisclosed location.

* Russia’s decision to grant temporary asylum to fugitive former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden deals a blow to bilateral ties, US lawmakers said.

* Russia has delivered to war-torn Syria another batch of humanitarian aid, this time worth $1.3 million, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

* Mukhtar Ablyazov, a former banker from Kazakhstan and an opponent of Kazakh authorities, has been arrested in the south of France, media quoted his family’s lawyer as saying.

* Two activists from the radical feminist movement Femen were arrested in Stockholm for illegally entering the Russian Embassy compound, an embassy official said.

 

RUSSIA

 

* Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed an order to distribute $88 million among seven regions to kickstart the stadium-building process for the 2018 football World Cup.

* Most Russians have negative views regarding the influx of labor migrants, millions of whom come from former Soviet republics in Central Asia to seek a better living in Russia, according to the results of a state survey.

* A Moscow court extended the house arrest of leftist opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov until October 6, the RAPSI news agency reported from the courtroom.

* Prosecutors in northwestern Russia have upheld charges against a group of former officials from the Federal Drug Control Agency (FSKN) accused of committing 149 crimes over a three-year period, the Prosecutor General's Office said.

* Investigators will carry out checks across Russia into suspected corruption involving the police, bureaucrats and traders at outdoor markets, the Investigative Committee said after a recent incident at a Moscow market when a police officer was seriously injured.

* Outrunning the mainstream film industry on copyright protection, a Russian distributor of arthouse movies filed the first lawsuit under a new controversial anti-piracy law.

 

DEFENSE

 

* President Vladimir Putin has instructed the Russian military to assess the risks of the withdrawal of US and international coalition troops from Afghanistan and help Tajikistan face potential threats after the pullout, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

* A hybrid combat vehicle that combines features of an airborne infantry fighting vehicle and a helicopter will be developed for the Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) by 2030 to meet the demands of modern warfare, the military branch’s commander said.

 

SPORTS

 

* Danish swimmer Rikke Moller Pedersen set a new world record in the women’s 200 meter breaststroke at the world aquatics championships in Barcelona.

* Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko warned that athletes and visitors to the Sochi Olympics will be subject to the country's laws against promoting homosexuality, contradicting a statement from the International Olympic Committee that the government had promised they would be exempt.

* Russian tennis player Dmitry Tursunov has withdrawn from next week's Canadian Open because of a hold-up in receiving his Canadian visa, the world No. 61 said.