World News

By Chen Lin

SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Monday warned of the scope for miscalculations over tensions in the Taiwan Strait, which he said were unlikely to ease soon amid deep suspicion and limited engagement between the United States and China.

In a televised address ahead of the city-state’s national day on Tuesday, Lee said Singapore would be buffeted by that intense rivalry and tension in the region, which should prepare for a future less peaceful and stable than now.

“Around us, a storm is gathering. U.S.-China relations are worsening, with intractable issues, deep suspicions, and limited engagement,” Lee said.

“This is unlikely to improve anytime soon. Furthermore, miscalculations or mishaps can easily make things much worse.”

Lee said economic challenges were more immediate and that Singapore’s outlook has “clouded considerably”, adding that the government will roll out more measures in coming months to help people cope with rising prices.

Singapore’s inflation has reached more than a decade-high in recent months, and its central bank tightened its monetary policy on July 14 in an off-cycle move to cope with the cost pressure.

The city-state has earlier announced support package for mainly lower-income groups to help mitigate increased living costs from inflation and rising energy prices.

“The world is not likely to return anytime soon to the low inflation levels and interest rates that we have enjoyed in recent decades,” he said, adding the country of 5.5 million people must plan far ahead and transform industry, upgrade skills and raise productivity.

(Reporting by Chen Lin; Editing by Martin Petty)

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BRASILIA (Reuters) – Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s lead over incumbent Jair Bolsonaro has narrowed to 7 percentage points ahead of the October election, according to a new poll published on Monday.

The leftist leader has the support of 41% of voters against 34% for his far-right adversary, compared to 44% and 31% respectively last month, the BTG/FSB telephone poll said.

Lula’s lead has dropped steadily to 7 points from 13 last month and 14 in May, the poll said.

Other polls show Lula’s strong lead slipping but maintaining a double-digit advantage: Datafolha saw his advantage at 18-points and a Genial/Quaest poll last week said his lead had fallen to 12 points from 14 points.

Lula would still win a second-round runoff against Bolsonaro by 51% to 39% if the vote were today, a 12-point lead that has narrowed from 18 points last month, the BTG/FSB poll said.

Bolsonaro has stepped up social welfare spending, with pay-out of increased monthly stipends to low-income families starting on Tuesday, and he has worked to reduce fuel costs that have spurred inflation, the major complaint from voters.

His negative numbers have come down, with 44% of those surveyed seeing his government as bad or terrible, down from 50% in early June, while 53% say they would never vote for him, compared to 59% in June, the new poll said. Lula’s rejection rate has risen marginally to 45% of voters, it said.

The survey by pollster FSB commissioned by investment bank BTG Pactual polled 2,000 people between Aug. 5 and 7 and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points up or down.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Steven Grattan and Bernadette Baum)

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BRASILIA (Reuters) – Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s lead over incumbent Jair Bolsonaro has narrowed to 7 percentage points ahead of the October election, according to a new poll published on Monday.

The leftist leader has the support of 41% of voters against 34% for his far-right adversary, compared to 44% and 31% respectively last month, the BTG/FSB telephone poll said.

Lula’s lead has dropped steadily to 7 points from 13 last month and 14 in May, the poll said.

Other polls show Lula’s strong lead slipping but maintaining a double-digit advantage: Datafolha saw his advantage at 18-points and a Genial/Quaest poll last week said his lead had fallen to 12 points from 14 points.

Lula would still win a second-round runoff against Bolsonaro by 51% to 39% if the vote were today, a 12-point lead that has narrowed from 18 points last month, the BTG/FSB poll said.

Bolsonaro has stepped up social welfare spending, with pay-out of increased monthly stipends to low-income families starting on Tuesday, and he has worked to reduce fuel costs that have spurred inflation, the major complaint from voters.

His negative numbers have come down, with 44% of those surveyed seeing his government as bad or terrible, down from 50% in early June, while 53% say they would never vote for him, compared to 59% in June, the new poll said. Lula’s rejection rate has risen marginally to 45% of voters, it said.

The survey by pollster FSB commissioned by investment bank BTG Pactual polled 2,000 people between Aug. 5 and 7 and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points up or down.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Steven Grattan and Bernadette Baum)

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MILAN (Reuters) – Anatoly Chubais, the former privatisation tsar of post-Soviet Russia who quit his post as a Kremlin special envoy due to the war in Ukraine, has been discharged from a hospital in Italy after treatment, an Italian daily reported.

Two sources close to Chubais, 67, told Reuters on Aug. 1 that he was in intensive care in Europe with a rare immune disorder.

According to the sources, Chubais believed he was suffering from Guillain–Barre syndrome, a disease caused by the immune system damaging the peripheral nervous system. Some media and opposition activists had speculated he could have been poisoned.

Results of toxicological tests were not yet available but Chubais responded to treatment “so doctors are certain” they were dealing with Guillain-Barre, Italian daily La Repubblica reported on its website.

“He feels better,” La Repubblica said, adding Chubais was discharged in the late morning of Saturday from Mater Olbia hospital on the island of Sardinia.

It said Chubais walked out of the hospital without assistance and left Frankfurt in Germany to spend time in a rehab clinic, according to the report.

The hospital did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Chubais, who once served as former Russian president Boris Yeltsin’s chief of staff, was President Vladimir Putin’s special representative for ties with international organisations before his resignation.

Reuters reported on March 23, almost a month after Russia invaded Ukraine, that Chubais had quit his post and left the country.

The most powerful of a group of Russian economists who sought to cement the transition to capitalism after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, Chubais sold off some of Russia’s biggest industrial assets in the 1990s.

(Reporting by Federico Maccioni, editing)

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By Yimou Lee and David Brunnstrom

TAIPEI (Reuters) -Chinese and Taiwanese warships played high-seas “cat and mouse” on Sunday ahead of the scheduled end of four days of unprecedented Chinese military exercises launched in reaction to a visit to Taiwan by the U.S. House speaker.

Nancy Pelosi’s visit last week to the self-ruled island infuriated China, which responded with test launches of ballistic missiles over the island’s capital for the first time and the cutting of some communication links with the United States.

About 10 warships each from China and Taiwan sailed at close quarters in the Taiwan Strait, with some Chinese vessels crossing the median line, an unofficial buffer separating the two sides, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The island’s defence ministry said multiple Chinese military ships, aircraft, and drones were simulating attacks on the island and its navy. It said it had sent aircraft and ships to react “appropriately”.

As Chinese forces “pressed” the line, as they did on Saturday, the Taiwan side stayed close to monitor and, where possible, deny the Chinese the ability to cross, said the person with knowledge of the situation who declined to be identified.

“The two sides are showing restraint,” the person said, describing the manoeuvres as high-seas “cat and mouse”.

“One side tries to cross, and the other stands in the way and forces them to a more disadvantaged position and eventually return to the other side.”

Taiwan said its shore-based anti-ship missiles and its Patriot surface-to-air-missiles were on stand-by.

The defence ministry said its F-16 jet fighters were flying with advanced anti-aircraft missiles. It issued photographs of Harpoon anti-ship weapons being loaded on another.

Taiwan said on Saturday its forces scrambled jets to warn away 20 Chinese aircraft, including 14 that crossed the median line. It also detected 14 Chinese ships conducting activity around the Taiwan Strait.

LIFTING RESTRICTIONS

The Chinese exercises, centred on six locations around the island that China claims as its own, began on Thursday and were scheduled to last until midday on Sunday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported last week.

There was no announcement from China on Sunday on whether the exercises were ending and Taiwan said it is unable to verify whether China had stopped them.

Nevertheless, Taiwan’s transport ministry it was gradually lifting restrictions on flights through its airspace, saying notifications for the drills were no longer in effect.

But Taiwan would continue to direct flights and ships away from one of the drill zones off its east coast until Monday morning, it said.

China’s military has said the sea and air joint exercises, north, southwest and east of Taiwan, had a focus on land-strike and sea-assault capabilities.

The United States called the exercises a significant escalation in China’s efforts to change the status quo.

“They are provocative, irresponsible and raise the risk of miscalculation,” a White House spokesperson said. “They are also at odds with our long-standing goal of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

‘POLITICAL STUNT’

China says its relations with Taiwan are an internal matter and it reserves the right to bring the island under its control, by force if necessary. Taiwan rejects China’s claim saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.

China has warned the United States not to “act rashly” and create a greater crisis and the state-run Xinhua News Agency said in a commentary Pelosi had staged a “political stunt” out of self-interest.

“Insisting on going to the island, she apparently does not care about harming China-U.S. ties, or putting peace across the Taiwan Strait on the line,” it said.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry condemned China’s “aggressive and provocative” exercises and urged it “to immediately stop such tension-escalating behaviours that have endangered the common good of the region and the world”.

As part of its response to Pelosi’s visit, China has halted communication with the United States through various channels, including between military theatre commands and on climate change.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused China of taking “irresponsible” steps and moving away from prioritising peaceful resolution towards the use of force.[L4N2ZI0BZ]

Pelosi, a long-time China critic and a political ally of President Joe Biden, arrived in Taiwan late on Tuesday on the highest-level visit to the island by an American official in decades, despite Chinese warnings. She said her visit showed unwavering U.S. commitment to supporting Taiwan’s democracy.

“The world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy,” she said. She also stressed that her trip was “not about changing the status quo in Taiwan or the region”.

Taiwan has been self-ruled since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s communists took power in Beijing after defeating Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang nationalists in a civil war, prompting their retreat to the island.

Speaking during a visit to the Philippines, Blinken said the United States had been hearing concern from allies about what he called China’s dangerous and destabilising actions but Washington sought to avoid escalating the situation.

(Reporting by Yimou Lee in Taipei, David Brunnstrom in Manila, Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Meg Shen in Hong Kong, Jeff Mason in Washington; Additional reporting by Ryan Woo; Writing by Tony Munroe and Greg Torode; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dan Williams

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Palestinian militants fired rockets toward Jerusalem on Sunday, causing no casualties but signalling new reach and resolve as Israel pressed air strikes in the Gaza Strip and admitted Jewish visitors to a contested mosque compound.

The Islamic Jihad faction said it targeted Jerusalem in retaliation for Israel’s killing overnight of Khaled Mansour, its commander in southern Gaza. “The blood of the martyrs will not be wasted,” it said.

About 30 Palestinians, at least a third of them civilians, have been killed in Gaza fighting that erupted on Friday, while rocket salvoes have paralysed much of southern Israel and sent residents in cities like Tel Aviv and Ashkelon to shelters.

Casualties on the Israeli side have been prevented by the Iron Dome antimissile system, which an army spokesman said had a 97% success rate in shooting down rockets.

The flare-up has worried world powers and prompted ceasefire mediation by Egypt. But it has been contained by the fact that Hamas, the governing Islamist group in the impoverished and blockaded Gaza Strip since 2007, has held fire.

Palestinians dazed by another surge of bloodshed – after outbreaks of war in 2008-09, 2012, 2014 and last year – picked through the ruins of houses to salvage furniture or documents.

“Who wants a war? No one. But we also don’t like to keep silent when women, children and leaders are killed,” said a Gaza taxi driver who identified himself only as Abu Mohammad.

“An eye for an eye.”

Israel said it would stop shooting if Islamic Jihad did. “Quiet will be answered with quiet,” a military spokesman said.

The booms of mid-air rocket interceptions over towns some 5 km (2 miles) west of Jerusalem could be heard in the city as Jews fasted in an annual commemoration of two ancient temples.

The site where those shrines once stood is now the Al Aqsa mosque compound, Islam’s third holiest site and an icon of Palestinian nationalism, in Jerusalem’s walled Old City.

Scores of Jews toured the compound under police guard on Sunday. The scheduled visits are an affront to Palestinians.

Video circulated online showed some Jews trying to pray in defiance of Israeli regulations, as police moved in to stop them and Muslim worshippers shouted in protest. Confrontations at the site helped spark a May 2021 war between Israel and Hamas.

Israel launched Friday’s strikes in what it described as the pre-emption of an Islamic Jihad attack meant to avenge the arrest of a group leader in the occupied West Bank. Arrest sweeps against the group have continued in that territory.

The hundreds of rockets fired by Islamic Jihad in response are the reason for the continuing operation, according to Israeli Justice Minister Gideon Saar, a member of the decision-making security cabinet.

Asked on Israel’s Army Radio whether an end might be close, he said: “I hope so, but I don’t want to pin excessive hopes on that. To the extent that Islamic Jihad wants to protract this operation, it will regret it.”

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta; writing by Dan Williams; editing by Mark Heinrich)

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TAIPEI (Reuters) -The deputy head of Taiwan defence ministry’s research and development unit was found dead on Saturday morning in a hotel room, succumbing to a heart attack, according to the official Central News Agency.

Ou Yang Li-hsing, deputy head of the military-owned National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, had died in a hotel room in southern Taiwan, CNA reported.

Authorities said 57-year-old Ou Yang died of a heart attack and the hotel room showed no sign of any ‘intrusion’, CNA said. His family said he had a history of heart disease and had a cardiac stent, according to the report.

Ou Yang was on a business trip to the southern county of Pingtung, CNA said, adding that he had assumed the post early this year to supervise various missile production projects.

The military-owned body is working to more than double its yearly missile production capacity to close to 500 this year, as the island boosts its combat power amid what it sees as China’s growing military threat.

(Reporting By Yimou LeeEditing by Shri Navaratnam)

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By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli aircraft struck in Gaza and Palestinian militants fired rockets at Israeli cities on Saturday as fighting ran into a second day, ending more than a year of relative calm along the border.

Israel on Friday said it had launched a special operation against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, killing one of its senior commanders in a surprise daytime air-strike on a high-rise building in Gaza City.

The Israeli strikes killed nine more Palestinians, including at least four Islamic Jihad militants and a child, and wounding 79 people, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said it had apprehended 19 Islamic Jihad militants in overnight arrest raids.

Palestinian militants fired at least 160 rockets over the border, the military said, some deep into Israel toward the commercial hub Tel Aviv. Most of the missiles were intercepted and a few people were lightly injured when running to shelters.

Egypt, the United Nations and Qatar had begun mediating an end to the violence, according to a Palestinian official with knowledge of the efforts, “but no breakthrough yet”, the official said.

A Western-backed Palestinian Authority official condemned Israel’s attacks.

“We call on the international community to intervene and provide protection for our people,” Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh said on Twitter.

Further escalation would largely depend on Hamas, the Islamic militant group which controls Gaza, and whether it would opt to join the fighting.

Tensions rose this week after Israeli forces arrested an Islamic Jihad commander in the West Bank, drawing threats of retaliation from the group.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said Friday’s strikes thwarted an immediate and concrete attack by Islamic Jihad.

The frontier had been largely quiet since May 2021, when 11 days of fierce fighting between Israel and militants left at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel dead.

(Additional reporting and writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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(Reuters) – The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said on Friday there were “early signs” that the monkeypox outbreak is plateauing across the country and that its expansion has slowed.

“While the most recent data suggests the growth of the outbreak has slowed, we cannot be complacent,” Dr Meera Chand, director of clinical and emerging infections at UKHSA, said.

There were 2,859 confirmed and highly probable cases of monkeypox in the UK as of Aug. 4, with nearly 99% of the cases among men, the country’s health authority said in a statement.

The recent analysis by the UKHSA showed that “monkeypox continues to be transmitted primarily in interconnected sexual networks of gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men”, it added.

British authorities in June were recommending gay and bisexual men at higher risk of exposure to monkeypox be offered a vaccine, as the outbreak of the viral disease had gathered pace, mostly in Europe.

Individuals at higher risk of coming into contact with monkeypox are being offered the smallpox vaccine, Dr Chand said.

Earlier this month, the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a “public health emergency of international concern”, its highest alert level.

Following the WHO’s move, the United States too declared monkeypox a public health emergency on Thursday.

(Reporting by Anirudh Saligrama in Bengaluru; Editing by Jan Harvey)

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By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) -Israeli airstrikes hit targets across Gaza on Friday, killing a senior commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement and prompting vows of retaliation from the militant group, which said it could hit Tel Aviv in response.

Local health officials said at least nine people, including a five-year old child, had been killed and 44 wounded in the strikes, which came after days of escalating tensions following the arrest of a Palestinian militant leader during the week.

An Israeli spokesperson said the military estimated it had killed around 15 “terrorists” but said it did not have a final casualty total.

“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is currently striking in the Gaza Strip. A special situation has been declared on the Israeli home front,” the military said in a statement.

Israel’s Army Radio reported that Israel was calling up military reservists for the region near Gaza, which has been ruled by the militant Hamas movement since 2007.

An Islamic Jihad official confirmed that Tayseer al-Jaabari, whom the Israeli military described as the main coordinator between Islamic Jihad and Hamas, had been killed in the strikes, which hit several targets around the densely populated strip.

Smoke rose from a building where al-Jaabari was apparently killed and glass and rubble were strewn across the street amid the sound of ambulances racing to other sites.

As mourners prepared to hold funerals for those killed in the attacks, hundreds of people, some holding Palestinian flags, marched through the streets of Gaza.

The strikes came after Israel arrested Bassam al-Saadi, a senior leader of the Islamic Jihad group, during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin earlier this week.

It subsequently closed off all Gaza crossings and some nearby roads over fears of retaliatory attacks from the group, which has a stronghold in Gaza, further restricting Palestinian movement.

“The goal of this operation is the elimination of a concrete threat against the citizens of Israel and the civilians living adjacent to the Gaza Strip,” Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement.

‘NO RED LINES’

In an interview on Al Mayadeen television, a pro-Iranian Lebanese channel, Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhala vowed retaliation for the strikes.

“There are no red lines in this battle and Tel Aviv will fall under the rockets of resistance, as well as all Israeli cities,” he said.

Hamas’ armed wing issued a statement saying: “The blood of our people and our mujahideen will not go in vain.”

Islamic Jihad, one of a cluster of Palestinian militant groups, was founded in Gaza in the 1980s and opposes political dialogue with Israel.

Considered close to Iran, it is separate from Hamas but generally cooperates closely with the movement.

The Israeli military spokesperson said authorities expected there would be rocket attacks against the centre of Israel but said Iron Dome anti-missile batteries were operational. He said special measures had been imposed in Israeli areas 80 kilometres around Gaza.

He said plans to allow fuel trucks into Gaza to keep the area’s sole power plant operational had been dropped at the last minute as intelligence picked up movements that indicated attacks on Israeli targets were imminent.

Friday’s attack came as Egyptian officials were seeking to mediate between Israel and Hamas, and an Islamic Jihad statement said the strikes appeared aimed at undermining mediation efforts.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement condemning the Israeli strikes and demanding they stop.

Gaza, a narrow strip of land where some 2.3 million people live on a patch of 365 square kilometres (140 square miles), has been a constant point of conflict ever since Hamas took control.

The area has since been under blockade, with Israel and Egypt tightly restricting movement in and out.

“We have not yet been able to reconstruct what Israel had destroyed a year ago. People didn’t have the chance to breathe, and here Israel is attacking again without any reason,” said Mansour Mohammad-Ahmed, 43, a farmer from central Gaza.

Israel has fought five conflicts with Gaza since 2009, the most recent an 11-day war in May 2021, when Hamas fired thousands of rockets into Israel, killing 13 people and Israel pounded the strip with airstrikes that killed at least 250 Palestinians.

(Reporting by Nidal al Mughrabi, Henriette Chacar, James Mackenzie; Editing by Mike Harrison and Mark Potter)

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