* A Russian TV channel said its journalists, detained earlier by authorities in Georgia, had been released
* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said:
- the latest draft UN resolution on Kosovo is simply a re-wording of the Ahtisaari plan to grant independence to the Serbian province, which Russia rejected
- Russia considers the Alexander Litvinenko case a purely criminal matter, which should not involve the U.K. Foreign Office
* The Russian Air Force said a group of four strategic missile aircraft achieved their objectives in a major Navy and Air Force exercise off Russia's Arctic coast
* A Moscow court again postponed for two weeks the hearings in absentia of an $8-million fraud case against Russian fugitive tycoon Boris Berezovsky following a request from his state-appointed lawyer
* Legislators in Novosibirsk, Siberia, reappointed incumbent Governor Viktor Tolokonsky
WORLD
* The Pakistani Army began withdrawing from Islamabad after completing a 36-hour operation to retake the Red Mosque, seized and held by Islamic radicals for a week, local television said citing military sources
* A Pristina delegation accepted U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's invitation to visit Washington July 23 to consider holding parliamentary elections in Kosovo, a senior State Department official said
* Talks brokered by Egypt on the release of Palestinians currently being held in Israeli prisons are close to completion, an Egyptian newspaper said
* Britain's Daily Telegraph reported that the U.K. is considering expelling Russian diplomats over Moscow's refusal to extradite the chief suspect in the of killing former security officer and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London last year
* Lebanese troops began a final assault on positions held by Islamic militants at a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, a local television station said
* Envoys of the six nations involved in talks on North Korea's nuclear program will meet in Beijing July 18, a senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official said
* South Korea sent a shipload of fuel oil to North Korea, the Communist nation's precondition to begin shutting down its nuclear reactor under a disarmament deal, Seoul's Yonhap agency said
* Emergency medics said 51 people were injured in a collision between a commuter and cargo train near Athens
* Bao Xishun, 56, the world's tallest man according to Guinness World Records, standing 2.36 meters (7 feet 9 inches) tall, married in China, local media reported
BUSINESS
* Gazprom [RTS: GAZP] chose French oil major Total SA as a partner in the first stage of developing the vast Shtokman natural gas field in the Barents Sea, chief executive Alexei Miller said
* Russia's Industry and Energy Ministry signaled its approval for Gazprom's choice Total SA as a partner to develop the vast Shtokman natural gas field in the Arctic
* Russia's Atomstroyexport said it had completed the second power unit of China's Tianwan NPP
* Russian authorities approved a raise in the 2007 cost estimate for Kharyaga oil field being developed by French oil major Total SA by 12% to $164 million, the Industry and Energy Ministry said
* Russian Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said:
- Higher bread prices were being driven by the international situation, and that he saw no need to restrict grain exports
- Russia is insisting on $9 billion-a-year state agriculture subsidies at accession talks with the World Trade Organization (WTO), in accordance with the organization's rules
* East Siberian deposits of the bankrupt oil company Yukos were auctioned off to state-controlled crude producer Rosneft for 5.847 billion rubles ($229 million)
* Transneft, Russia's state-run pipeline operator, has invested 160 billion rubles ($6 billion) in the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline being built to transport crude eastward, the company's president said
* Russian state-controlled foreign economic bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) denied it had purchased a 50% stake in the Siberia-based Tomskneft oil company
* International Industrial Bank (IIB), a leading privately-owned Russian banking institution, said Thursday it had placed a three-year Eurobond issue totaling 200 million euros (about $275 million)
