World News

By Max Hunder and Natalia Zinets

KYIV (Reuters) -Russian forces intensified their assault on the largest city held by Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region in the east on Sunday as Kyiv said it was hopeful longer-range weapons it desperately needs from Western allies could soon arrive.

Slow, solid Russian gains in recent days in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas, comprising the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, point to a subtle momentum shift in the war, now in its fourth month.

Invading forces appear close to seizing all of the Luhansk region, one of the more modest war goals the Kremlin set after abandoning its assault on the capital, Kyiv, in the face of Ukrainian resistance.

Russia’s defence ministry said its troops and allied separatist forces were in full control of Lyman, the site of a railway junction west of the Siverskyi Donets River in the Donetsk.

However, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Malyar, said the battle for Lyman continued, the ZN.ua website reported.

Sievierodonetsk, some 60 km (40 miles) northeast of Lyman on the eastern side of the river and the largest Donbas city still held by Ukraine, was under heavy assault.

“The situation has extremely escalated,” said Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of Luhansk.

The shelling was so intense it was not possible to assess casualties and damage, though two people were killed on Saturday and 13 more buildings in the city were destroyed, he said.

Gaidai said on Friday that Ukrainian troops might have to retreat from the city to avoid capture but it was not clear whether they had begun to pull out.

Russian artillery was also pounding the Lysychansk-Bakhmut road, which Russia must take to close a pincer movement and encircle Ukrainian forces, and police said there was “significant destruction” in Lysychansk.

Reuters could not independently verify the accounts.

Ukrainian presidential adviser and peace negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak repeated a call for U.S.-made long-range multiple-rocket launchers. U.S. officials have told Reuters such systems are actively being considered, with a decision possible in coming days.

“It is hard to fight when you are attacked from 70 km away and have nothing to fight back with … we need effective weapons,” Podolyak posted on Twitter.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy voiced hopes in a late-night video address that Ukraine’s allies would provide needed weapons, adding that he expected “good news” in the coming days.

His adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, said: “The weapons we so desperately need will most likely be delivered soon.”

Ukraine has started receiving Harpoon anti-ship missiles from Denmark and U.S. self-propelled howitzers, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Saturday.

‘CATASTROPHIC CONSEQUENCES’

Zelenskiy said the military situation in the Donbas was very complicated, adding that defences were holding up in a number of places, including Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.

“It’s indescribably difficult there. And I am grateful to all those who withstood this onslaught,” he said.

Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said if Russian forces were to capture Sievierodonetsk, Ukraine could be expected to launch counter-offensives.

“Putin is now hurling men and munitions at the last remaining major population centre in that (region) … as if taking it would win the war for the Kremlin. He is wrong,” they said.

In a sign of frustration over Western differences on the war as its economic costs become more evident, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna said NATO had shown itself incapable of mounting a united response.

“We have to talk clearly about the catastrophic consequences for the future of all Europe if Ukraine is defeated,” she said on Facebook.

Pushing diplomatic efforts for a solution to a conflict that has ramifications beyond Ukraine’s borders, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a call on Saturday.

They urged him to lift a Russian blockade of Odesa port to allow Ukrainian grain exports, France said. The Kremlin said Putin told them Moscow was willing to discuss ways to make it possible for Ukraine to resume shipments of grain from Black Sea ports.

Ukraine is a major grain exporter, and the blockage of its exports threatens to result in food shortages in a number countries, including in Africa.

Zelenskiy said in a television interview he believed Russia would agree to talks if Ukraine could recapture all the territory it has lost since the invasion began on Feb. 24.

Still, Zelenskiy ruled out the idea of using force to win back all the land Ukraine has lost to Russia since 2014, which includes the southern peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow annexed that year.

“I do not believe that we can restore all of our territory by military means. If we decide to go that way, we will lose hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.

Russia says it is waging a “special military operation” to demilitarise Ukraine and rid it of nationalists threatening Russian-speakers there. Ukraine and Western countries say Russia’s claims are a false pretext for a war of aggression.

Thousands of people, including many civilians, have been killed and several million have fled their homes, either for safer parts of Ukraine or to other countries.

(Reporting by Natalia Zinets, Conor Humphries, Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Vitaliy Hnidyi in Kharkiv and Reuters journalists in Popasna, David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Phil Stewart in Washington, Lidia Kelley in Melbourne; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by William Mallard)

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By Emily Chow and Roxanne Liu

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) – Shanghai announced on Sunday further steps towards returning to more normal life and lifting a two-month COVID-19 lockdown this week, while Beijing reopened parts of its public transport, some malls, gyms and other venues as infections stabilised.

The Chinese commercial hub of 25 million aims to essentially end from Wednesday a lockdown that has severely damaged the economy and seen many Shanghai residents lose income, struggle to source food and to cope mentally with prolonged isolation.

The painful coronavirus curbs in major Chinese cities run counter to trends seen in the rest of the world, which has largely moved towards co-existing with the virus even as infections spread.

Shanghai, China’s most populous city, will ease testing requirements from Wednesday for people who want to enter public areas, said city government spokeswoman Yin Xin, adding these tweaks should encourage work resumption.

“The current epidemic situation in the city continues to stabilise and improve,” Yin said, adding Shanghai’s strategy was now “pivoting towards normalised prevention and control.”

People entering public venues or taking public transport will need to show a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours, versus 48 hours previously.

Bus services within the Pudong New Area, home to Shanghai’s largest airport and the main financial district, will fully resume by Monday, officials said.

Plaza 66, an upscale mall in central Shanghai that hosts Louis Vuitton and other luxury brands, reopened on Sunday.

Authorities have been slowly relaxing curbs, with a focus on resuming manufacturing.

More people have been allowed to leave their flats, and more businesses permitted to reopen, though many residents remain largely confined to their housing compounds, and most shops limited to deliveries.

The authorities approved 240 financial institutions in the city for reopening from Wednesday, state-run Shanghai Securities News reported on Sunday, adding to a list of 864 firms released earlier this month. That is out of Shanghai’s roughly 1,700 financial firms.

The newspaper said on Saturday that the more than 10,000 bankers and traders who have been living and working in their offices since the start of lockdown were gradually returning home.

Shanghai has already allowed key manufacturers in the auto industry, life sciences, chemicals and semiconductors to resume production since late April.

GYMS AND LIBRARIES

In the capital Beijing, libraries, museums, theatres and gyms were allowed to reopen on Sunday, with limits on numbers of people, in districts that have seen no community COVID cases for seven consecutive days.

The districts of Fangshan and Shunyi will end work-from-home rules, while public transport will largely resume in the two districts as well as in Chaoyang, the city’s largest. Still, restaurant dining remains banned city-wide.

Shanghai reported just over 100 daily COVID cases on Sunday, while Beijing recorded 21, both mirroring a nationwide downtrend.

China’s economy has shown signs of recovering its heartbeat this month following April’s slump, but activity levels are weaker than last year and many analysts expect a second-quarter contraction.

The strength and sustainability of any recovery will depend largely on COVID, with the highly transmissible Omicron variant proving hard to exterminate and prone to comebacks.

Investors have worried about the lack of a roadmap for exiting the zero-COVID strategy of ending all outbreaks at just about any cost, a signature policy of President Xi Jinping. He is expected to secure an unprecedented third leadership term at a congress of the ruling Communist Party in the autumn.

Markets expect more policy support for the economy.

“We expect policies to ease further on the fiscal front to boost demand, given downward pressures on growth and the uncertainty of the recovery pace,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a Friday note.

(Reporting by the Beijing and Shanghai bureaus; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by William Mallard)

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By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) -A plane operated by a private airline in Nepal went missing on Sunday with 22 people on board, officials told Reuters, saying cloudy weather was preventing search helicopters from flying into the area of the flight’s last known location.

The Tara Air plane took off from the tourist town of Pokhara, some 125 km (80 miles) west of capital Kathmandu, headed towards Jomsom, about 80 km to the northwest, the officials said. Tara Air mainly flies Canadian-built Twin Otter turboprop planes.

“One search helicopter returned to Jomsom due to bad weather without locating the plane,” the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal said in a statement.

“Helicopters are ready to take off for search from Kathmandu, Pokhara and Jomsom once weather conditions improve. Army and police search teams have left towards the site.”

The airline said the plane was carrying four Indians, two Germans and 16 Nepalis, including three crew. Seven of the passengers were women, it said.

The plane lost contact with the control tower five minutes before it was due to land at Jomsom, a popular tourist and pilgrimage site, an airline official said on condition of anonymity.

The country’s weather office said there had been thick cloud cover in the Pokhara-Jomson area since the morning.

Police official Prem Kumar Dani said a land rescue-and-search team had been sent to the area near Mount Dhaulagiri, the world’s seventh-highest peak at 8,167 m (26,795 ft).

Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest, has a record of air accidents. Its weather can change suddenly and airstrips are typically sited in difficult-to-reach mountainous areas.

In early 2018, a US-Bangla Airlines flight from Dhaka to Kathmandu crashed on landing and caught fire, killing 51 of the 71 people on board.

In 1992, all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it ploughed into a hill as it tried to land in Kathmandu.

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Robert Birsel and Tom Hogue)

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ZURICH (Reuters) – Falling ice boulders killed two climbers and hurt nine more on a peak in southwestern Switzerland on Friday, prompting a major rescue operation, police said.

Several chunks of ice fell off the Grand Combin mountain in the Val de Bagnes region of Valais canton, pummelling the climbers below.

Seven rescue helicopters scrambled to the site, evacuating others of the 17 climbers who were at the scene in various groups.

The two who died were a 40-year-old French national and a 65-year-old Spaniard, police said. Two of the nine hurt sustained serious injuries.

(Reporting by Michael Shields; editing by Diane Craft)

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DUBAI (Reuters) -Iranian forces seized two Greek tankers in the Gulf on Friday, Iranian state media reported, shortly after Tehran warned it would take “punitive action” against Athens over the confiscation of Iranian oil by the United States from a tanker held off the Greek coast.

“The Revolutionary Guards Navy today seized two Greek tankers for violations in Gulf waters,” said a Guards statement, quoted by the state news agency IRNA.

It gave no further details or say what the alleged violations were.

Greek authorities last month impounded the Iranian-flagged Pegas, with 19 Russian crew members on board, near the coast of the southern island of Evia due to EU sanctions.

The United States later confiscated the Iranian oil cargo held onboard and plans to send it to the United States on another vessel, Reuters reported on Thursday.

The Pegas was later released because of confusion about the sanctions over its owners.

Earlier on Friday, Nour News, which is affiliated to an Iranian state security body, said on Twitter: “Following the seizure of an Iranian tanker by the Greek government and the transfer of its oil to the Americans, #Iran has decided to take punitive action against #Greece.”

It did not say what kind of action Iran would take.

The Pegas was among five vessels designated by Washington on Feb. 22 – two days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – for sanctions against Promsvyazbank, a bank viewed as critical to Russia’s defence sector.

It was unclear whether the cargo was impounded because it was Iranian oil or due to the sanctions on the tanker over its Russian links. Iran and Russia face separate U.S. sanctions.

Also on Friday, Iran summoned an envoy of Switzerland, which represents U.S. interests in Tehran, to protest against the Pegas oil seizure, the Iranian foreign ministry said.

“The Islamic Republic expressed its deep concern over the U.S. government’s continued violation of international laws and international maritime conventions,” state media quoted the foreign ministry as saying.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment on the oil seizure.

IRNA quoted Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization as saying the tanker had sought refuge along the Greek coast after experiencing technical problems and poor weather. It called the seizure of its cargo was “a clear example of piracy”.

The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on what it described as a Russian-backed oil smuggling and money laundering network for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.

In 2019, Iran seized a British tanker near the Strait of Hormuz for alleged marine violations two weeks after British forces detained an Iranian tanker near Gibraltar, accusing it of shipping oil to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions. Both vessels were later released.

(dubai.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com; editing by Angus MacSwan)

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ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece has told the head of the United Nations that Turkey is directly challenging its sovereignty over islands in the eastern Aegean Sea, and pursuing a hostile and “revisionist” policy that is destabilizing the region.

The four-page letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, dated May 25 and signed by Greece’s permanent U.N. representative, Maria Theofili, was seen by The Associated Press on Thursday.

“Greece solemnly calls upon Turkey to stop questioning Greece’s sovereignty over its Aegean islands, in particular through legally baseless and historically false assertions (and) to abstain from threatening Greece with war,” the letter reads.

Greece and Turkey have been at odds for decades over sea boundaries, but the disagreement flared in 2020 as oil and gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean intensified.

Turkey is demanding that Greece demilitarize its eastern islands, maintaining the action is required under 20th century treaties that ceded sovereignty of the islands to Greece. The Greek government calls the demand a deliberate misinterpretation and has accused Turkey, a fellow NATO member, of stepping up hostile actions in the area.

“Highly threatening acts by Turkey (include) repeated overflights of Greek territory by fighter jets in contravention to international law,” the letter said.

The Greek-Turkish dispute largely centers around oil-and-gas drilling rights in the eastern Mediterranean, specifically around Greek islands near Turkey’s coastline.

A Turkish survey mission two years ago triggered a tense naval stand-off that Western allies had warned ran the risk of escalating into a military conflict.

In response to the energy crisis worsened by the war in Ukraine, Greece has pledged to temporarily reverse a coal phase-out and step up hydrocarbon exploration along its western coastline. ___

Follow Gatopoulos on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dgatopoulos

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish lawmakers on Thursday approved removing a controversial disciplinary body for Poland’s top court that the right-wing government has used to sanction outspoken judges and which has drawn condemnation from the European Union.

Poland’s government expects the vote to end its spat with the EU, paving the way for an agreement that will result in Brussels’ disbursing billions of euros of frozen recovery funds for Poland.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in parliament before the vote that EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen is expected to sign the agreement in Warsaw on June 2.

The new judicial regulations still need approval from the Senate and from President Andrzej Duda, who is their chief author.

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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s prime minister said Thursday that he will quickly prepare an economic reform program and seek approval from the International Monetary Fund — because global inflation and the financial impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on other countries could limit their ability to help the island nation.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that officials have reached agreement on basic reforms concepts with the IMF and that he plans to have the economic reform program ready within two weeks. After it is finalized, an IMF delegation will visit Sri Lanka to evaluate the program.

“I have placed my special attention on this because of the present global situation, the war in Ukraine and global inflation. From what we can see a number of countries may have to face economic problems like ours,” Wickremesinghe said.

He added: “At the moment the United States and the Europe are spending a lot on the war and there is a possibility of the aid given to us being reduced.”

Sri Lanka is nearly bankrupt with an acute foreign currency crisis that resulted in a foreign debt default. The country announced last month that it is suspending nearly $ 7 billion foreign debt repayment due for this year out of about $25 billion due through 2026. Sri Lanka’s total foreign debt stands at $51 billion.

The IMF said in a statement Thursday said that a team remotely concluded initial discussions about Sri Lanka’s reform plan on Tuesday.

“The team made good progress in assessing the economic situation and in identifying policy priorities to be taken going forward,” the statement said.

The statement added that discussions focused on restoring fiscal sustainability while protecting the vulnerable and poor; ensuring monetary policy credibility and exchange rate regimes; preserving financial sector stability; and structural reforms to enhance economic growth and strengthen governance.

“We expect that these discussions will help the authorities formulate their reform program,” the IMF said.

Sri Lanka’s former finance minister Ali Sabry has said that badly timed tax cuts led to a reduction in government revenue, reducing the country’s ability to borrow and releasing existing reserves to maintain the US dollar at a fixed rate against the local currency — and that those factors triggered the foreign currency crisis. Also the COVID-19 pandemic nearly severely reduced tourism revenue, one of the country’s economic lifelines.

The economic crisis has caused a reduction of imports of goods and industrial raw material, prompting an acute shortage of essential items like food, medicine, cooking gas and other fuel, toilet paper and even matches.

Sri Lankans for months have been forced to wait in lines lasting hours outside stores to buy fuel and cooking gas.

Protesters have occupied the entrance to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office for nearly 50 days, demanding his resignation because they blame him and his powerful, and politically connected family for the economic crises.

The protests have nearly dismantled the powerful Rajapaksa political dynasty after the president’s brother resigned as prime minister amid countrywide violence earlier this month, when his supporters attacked peaceful protesters. Two of the president’s other siblings and nephew resigned from their Cabinet posts.

Wickremesinghe has promised to propose constitutional changes to curtail presidential powers, strengthen Parliament and resolve Sri Lanka’s economic difficulties.

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BEIRUT (AP) — Dozens of doctors, nurses and medical personnel rallied Thursday outside the Central Bank in the Lebanese capital of Beirut after declaring a two-day general strike to protest rapidly deteriorating economic conditions.

The strike was declared by two medical professionals’ unions — The Syndicates of Doctors in Beirut and the North and the Syndicate of Private Hospital Owners — which say they could no longer put up with Central Bank policies that have allowed banks to impose random capital controls and other restrictions.

During the strike, which ends Friday, only emergency cases and dialysis patients would be admitted to hospitals, the unions said.

Lebanon’s medical sector, which up until few years ago was among the best in the Middle East, is on the brink of collapse, barely surviving the country’s unprecedented economic and financial meltdown.

The crisis that started in October 2019 has seen the local currency lose more than 90% of its value to the dollar, wiping out salaries and savings. The hardship has led to the emigration of thousands of doctors and nurses and the closure of a large number of pharmacies, as well as severe shortages in medicines and medical equipment.

A number of hospitals have been warning they will have to close because they can no longer pay for their expenses or pay their employees’ salaries.

“Hospitals will close because there is no way they can continue. We have to pay cash when we have no access to cash,” said Suleiman Haroun, head of the private hospitals’ union, who joined the protest in Beirut along with a few hundred other colleagues.

He blamed Central Bank policies for destroying the sector.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese pound continued to hit new lows against the dollar, which was selling at around 35,600 pounds on the black market Wednesday. The Lebanese currency was pegged at 1,500 pounds to the dollar for 22 years until the crisis erupted in late 2019.

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LONDON (AP) — Investigation into lockdown parties says people at top allowed ‘culture’ of rule-breaking in UK prime minister’s office.

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