Main News of July 28

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD:

* Russia is beginning a series of monitoring flights over the United States under the international Open Skies Treaty.

* About 1,200 convicts have escaped from a prison in the restive eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.

* A weeks-long protest in support of ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in Cairo is sending animals at a nearby zoo into panic.

* United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the most recent surge of violence in Egypt where at least 80 people were killed in clashes between police and protesters in the past two days.

 

RUSSIA:

* A policeman who was severely beaten by a group of 20 to 25 people as he and fellow officers detained a suspected rapist is set to undergo brain surgery.

* Maria Sharapova says a hip injury forced her to withdraw from next week’s $2.37 million Rogers Cup in Toronto, the second year in a row the world No. 2 has missed Canada’s main women’s tennis tournament.

* Ilya Segalovich, who co-founded search engine Yandex, one of Russia’s most successful companies, died on Saturday.

* Russia’s Justice Ministry is preparing a reply to the US attorney general’s letter seeking the return of fugitive former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden to America to face espionage charges.

* Russia’s task force created in the Mediterranean Sea should be an effective tool of the country’s foreign policy.