1. Campaigning kicked off in France for a snap parliamentary election which opinion polls suggest the far-right National Rally will win

2. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved the six-member war cabinet.

3. Western powers and their allies at a summit in Switzerland denounced Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but they failed to persuade major non-aligned states to join their final statement.

4. The Kremlin said that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's remarks about talks on deploying more nuclear weapons were an escalation.

5. The US is as many as 15 years behind China on developing high-tech nuclear power.