HONG KONG (AP) — As a COVID-19 outbreak overwhelms Hong Kong, it’s hard for its 7.4 million residents to know what’s next.

Uncertainty is the only certainty as store shelves are stripped of goods, mainland Chinese companies throw up sprawling isolation and testing centers and the government sends mixed messages on whether it will lock down the population for a citywide mass testing.

BEIJING, March 16. /TASS/: The Chinese authorities are demanding that Washington make sure that the activities of US military biolabs are fully transparent, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a briefing on Wednesday.

"We once again insist that <...> the US should ensure full transparency of the activities related to military biological technologies," he said in response to a TASS question as to how the Chinese Foreign Ministry viewed Washington’s attempts to dodge responsibility amid the revelation of US military biological activities in Ukraine.

KYIV/LVIV, Ukraine, March 16 (Reuters) - New talk of compromise from both Moscow and Kyiv on a status for Ukraine outside of NATO lifted hope on Wednesday for a potential breakthrough after three weeks of war.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said negotiations were becoming "more realistic", while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said proposals now being discussed were "close to an agreement".

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered his troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, said Moscow was ready to discuss neutral status for its neighbour.

16 March 2022; MEMO: The Palestinian Authority (PA) yesterday warned the ICC of falling in the "double-standards trap", adding that it should immediately start probing Israeli crimes against Palestinians.

A statement was issued by the Palestinian Foreign Ministry following Israel's "execution" of three Palestinians – two in the occupied West Bank and a third in the Arab Israeli city of Rahat.

LIMA, March 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Part of a hill collapsed in northern Peru on Tuesday, burying at least 60 homes, the government said, with harrowing images on social media showing whole apartment buildings being covered by the landslide.

While casualties are yet unknown, dozens of people are feared dead after a landslide buried multiple homes. The disaster occurred at around 8.30am local time and was believed to be a result of the heavy rain in the La Libertad region of Peru.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s military forces blasted Ukraine’s capital region and other major cities Wednesday as they tried to crush a Ukrainian defense that has frustrated their progress nearly three weeks after invading.

BEIJING (AP) — China’s government tried Wednesday to reassure jittery investors after regulatory crackdowns caused stock prices to plunge, by promising support for its struggling real estate industry, internet companies and entrepreneurs who want to raise money abroad.

Regulators should issue market-friendly policies to “invigorate the economy,” officials said at a Cabinet meeting led by Vice Premier Liu He, President Xi Jinping’s top economic adviser, the official Xinhua News Agency said

UNITED NATIONS, March 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths on Tuesday warned against inertia and fatigue on the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen.

After more than seven years of war, Yemen is becoming what humanitarians often refer to as a "chronic emergency," he told the Security Council in a briefing. "And, as aid workers know, there are grave risks in chronic emergencies, namely inertia and fatigue. We have to avoid giving in to those forces."

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that talks were “moving forward” for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been detained in Iran for almost six years.

Johnson confirmed a negotiating team was at work in Tehran to free Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who holds dual U.K.-Iranian citizenship. Johnson’s comments were made on a visit to the Middle East, coming a day after Iran returned the passport of the charity worker.

WASHINGTON, March 16 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged American lawmakers to do more to protect his country from Russia's invasion in an address to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday and pleaded with President Joe Biden to be the world's "leader of peace."

"Russia has turned the Ukrainian sky into a source of death for thousands of people," Zelenskiy said in a virtual address before showing graphic video of death and destruction in his country that ended with an appeal to "close the sky over Ukraine."

TOKYO, March 16 (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 jolted Japan's northeast coast on Wednesday, shaking buildings as far away as Tokyo where it left hundreds of thousands without power, and reviving memories of a devastating quake 11 years earlier.

The tremor hit off the coast of Fukushima prefecture, some 275 kilometres (170 miles) northeast of Tokyo and at a depth of 60 kilometres, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.

MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/: Moscow’s move to sanction US President Joe Biden does not mean that Russia refuses to hold contacts with the United States, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

"These sanctions don’t mean a refusal to hold contacts," he pointed out. "Contacts can resume if need be," Peskov added.

He also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had not talked with his US counterpart after the launch of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.