Europe

MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/: A Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying a Meridian-M communication satellite was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk Region, Russian Defense Ministry announced Tuesday.

"On March 22, at 15:48 Moscow time, a Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying a Meridian-M spacecraft was successfully launched from the launch pad number 3 of site 43 of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome," the Ministry said.

Russian Space Forces started tracking the rocket three minutes after the launch.

BELGRADE, March 22. /TASS/: Serbia will never join the anti-Russian hysteria and will not ban Russian media, Serbian Minister of the Interior Aleksandar Vulin said during a meeting with Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko Tuesday.

MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/: The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) suspends operation of a one more single point mooring (SPM) at the marine terminal near Novorossiysk due to critical damages, the pipeline operator says. Oil shipments from the terminal may drop threefold.

RAMALLAH, Mar 22 (NNN-WAFA) – The Palestinian Central Elections Committee, yesterday condemned Israel, for arresting candidates racing for the Palestinian local council elections, in the West Bank.

The committee said in a statement that, the arrest is blatant interference in Palestinian internal affairs, calling for the immediate release of the detained candidates.

Yesterday, the Israeli army arrested Islam al-Taweel, who heads a list running for the mayor of the West Bank city of al-Bireh, bringing the number of detained nominees to three, during the past few days.

LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) - Ukraine wants China to play a more "noticeable role" in halting the war being waged by Russia on its territory and also to become a future guarantor of its security, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday.

Andriy Yermak, who heads Zelenskiy's office, also said he expected a dialogue "very soon" between Ukraine's leader and Chinese President Xi Jinping, without elaborating.

STOCKHOLM, March 22 (Reuters) - A Swedish high school student arrested on suspicion of killing two teachers in the southern city of Malmo on Monday was not previously known to police and his motive was still unclear, the Malmo police chief said on Tuesday.

The 18-year-old was arrested on suspicion of murdering two women in their 50s at his school in Malmo. Around 50 students were at the school at the time of the attack but nobody else was hurt, according to police.

PARIS, March 22 (Reuters) - Voters told French President Emmanuel Macron to focus more on the needs of his country in a call-in radio show on Tuesday amid criticism that his last-minute election campaign has been too dominated by the conflict in Ukraine.

Macron, who has spared no effort to mediate between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, entered the presidential election race just a month before the first round and has kept the number of campaign events to a minimum.

LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) - A Russian newspaper has accused hackers of planting fake news on its website after a report briefly appeared there saying nearly 10,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in Ukraine.

The incident marked the second apparent breach within a week of the tightly controlled war narrative that the Kremlin promotes through loyal Russian media.

LVIV, Ukraine, March 22 (Reuters) - Ukraine's president said on Tuesday there was "nothing left" of the city of Mariupol after weeks of Russian bombardment, and Kyiv appealed to Moscow to allow the evacuation of at least 100,000 people who want to leave.

Ukraine has issued increasingly dire warnings about the situation in the encircled southern port city, where officials say residents are without food, medicine, power or running water. 

MOSCOW, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Washington must stop escalating tensions if it wishes to normalize ties with Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Tuesday.

"They need to stop their escalation, both verbally and in terms of pumping the Kiev regime with weapons," Ryabkov said, adding that the United States must also stop threatening Russia, according to Russian media reports.

"In the meantime, we are seeing a downward trend in relations," said Ryabkov, who faults the United States for the state of ties.