Europe

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: The Kremlin does not believe that some pro-Ukrainian individuals could have been behind the Nord Stream explosions, as only a handful of intelligence services are capable of committing such a terrorist attack, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: Moscow welcomes Riyadh’s growing interest in solving regional issues and problems on the global agenda, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday.

Opening talks with his Saudi counterpart Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud in Moscow, Lavrov said, "We welcome the recently increased interest on the part of Saudi Arabia in playing an active role in solving not only regional issues, but also those problems that stand high on the global agenda."

TBILISI, March 9 (Reuters) - Georgia's ruling party said on Thursday it was dropping a bill on "foreign agents" after two nights of violent protests against what opponents said was a Russian-inspired authoritarian shift that imperilled hopes of the country joining the European Union.

The Georgian Dream ruling party said in a statement it would "unconditionally withdraw the bill we supported, without any reservations". It cited the need to reduce "confrontation" in society, while also denouncing "lies" told about the bill by the "radical opposition".

KYIV/ZOLOCHIV, Ukraine, March 9 (Reuters) - Russia launched a huge wave of missile strikes across Ukraine while people slept on Thursday, killing at least six civilians, knocking out electricity and briefly forcing Europe's biggest nuclear power plant off the grid.

The first such mass attack on targets far from the front since mid-February shattered the longest calm since Moscow began an air campaign against Ukraine's civil infrastructure five months ago. Kyiv said it included an unprecedented six kinzhal hypersonic cruise missiles, one of Moscow's most valuable weapons.

KIEV, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine's grain production will drop by 37 percent this year, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported Thursday, citing an official forecast.

The National Academy of Agrarian Sciences projected that Ukrainian farmers will reap about 34 million tons of grain in 2023 compared with some 53.9 million tons last year -- a decrease mainly due to the reduction of planted areas and a lack of fertilizers.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's oilseeds harvest is forecast to increase by 13 percent to 19.3 million tons this year.

BERLIN (AP) — A German appeals court on Thursday ordered a new sentencing hearing for a German convert to Islam who was given 10 years in prison on charges that, as a member of the Islamic State group in Iraq, she allowed a 5-year-old Yazidi girl she and her husband kept as a slave to die of thirst in the sun.

The 31-year-old defendant now risks a higher sentence.

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is spearheading a new drive this week to see Finland and Sweden become members of the world’s biggest military organization by the time U.S. President Joe Biden and his counterparts meet for their next summit in July.

Fearing that they might be targeted next after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, the Nordic neighbors abandoned their traditional positions of military nonalignment to seek protection under NATO’s security umbrella.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed “a massive rocket attack” that hit critical infrastructure and residential buildings in 10 regions of Ukraine, the country’s president said Thursday, with officials reporting at least six deaths in the largest such nighttime attack in three weeks.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the barrage that came while many people slept and knocked out power in cities across the country was an attempt by Moscow “to intimidate Ukrainians again.”

8 Mar 2023; MEMO: Commenting on the violent settler attack on the occupied West Bank village of Huwara last week, Amnesty International has said that "impunity reigns for perpetrators of settler violence" against Palestinians.

"Under Israel's apartheid system, impunity reigns," Amnesty International's Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Heba Morayef, said.

8 Mar 2023; MEMO: Ukraine's President and United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, called on Wednesday for the extension of a deal with Moscow that has allowed Kyiv to export grain via Black Sea ports during Russia's invasion, Reuters reports.