Main news of December 25

* A Proton-K carrier rocket launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan at 8:07 a.m. Moscow time (5:07 a.m. GMT) successfully delivered three navigation satellites into designed orbit at 11:39 a.m. Moscow time (8:39 a.m. GMT). The new satellites, which have an extended seven-year service life, will expand Russia's global navigation satellite system GLONASS

* The Chukotka autonomous area in Russia's Far East held elections to the local legislature. As of 19:00 p.m. local time (7:00 a.m. GMT), 50.5% of registered voters had come to the polls, crossing the electoral threshold of 50%

* The Chelyabinsk Region in Russia's Urals area held elections to the local legislature. As of 6:30 p.m. local time, 26% of the electors had come to the polls, crossing the required threshold of 25%

* Moscow launched the construction of a 73-storey tower of the two-tower multifunctional complex in the Russian Business Center, Moscow City

* Racism is the most probable motive for an attack on African students Saturday night that killed a Cameroonian and injured another one from Kenya, the St. Petersburg prosecutors said Sunday

* Divers found the black boxes of an Azerbaijani plane that crashed Saturday 40 kilometers away from Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, killing all 18 passengers and five crew