Main News of May 14

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

RUSSIA

* Russian counterintelligence officials briefly detained a US diplomat suspected of being an undercover CIA officer and trying to recruit a Russian agent, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said

* We’ve been playing so nice, how could you stab us in the back like this? That seemed to be the message delivered by a Russian security official to the US diplomat detained on suspicion of spying, according to a video released Tuesday by the Federal Security Service (FSB) and posted on YouTube

* A Proton-M rocket carrying a European telecommunications satellite blasted off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, a spokesman for Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said

* Russia hopes to finalize a list of more than 20 priority investment projects it is planning together with Vietnam, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday after talks with his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung

* Russia is ready to develop relations with all democratically elected governments in the Middle East, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said

* The leader of Russia’s Orthodox Church conducted a landmark service in the Chinese city of Harbin on Tuesday, the first in several decades

* Russians are losing trust in non-parliamentary opposition forces and their leaders, according to a survey conducted by the independent Levada Center pollster

* The spring weather in Moscow broke a 17-year record on May 14, hitting 28.7 degrees Celsius (83.7 degrees Fahrenheit), an expert with the Fobos weather center said

WORLD

* Russia published a document on Tuesday terminating the 1996 transit agreement under which it transported oil from Azerbaijan through its territory

* Russia and Israel will continue cooperation in an effort to resolve the situation in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday following talks with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

CRIME

* Jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has demanded she be allowed to attend a Kiev court on Wednesday where a witness in a murder investigation against her is to be questioned, her lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko said

DEFENSE

* The board of directors of Russia's Oboronservis defense property services company, which has been tainted by a string of fraud scandals, decided on Tuesday to fire its general director Sergei Khursevich, the Russian Defense Ministry reported

SCIENCE

* The Soyuz TMA-07M landing capsule touched the ground on Tuesday morning in a designated area in Kazakhstan safely bringing back three crewmembers from the International Space Station (ISS), Mission Control said