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(Reuters) -Relatives and supporters of Ukrainian fighters in the Azovstal steel plant on Thursday called for fresh efforts to save them as Kyiv said new talks were underway with Moscow on a plan to rescue badly wounded servicemen.

Russian forces have been bombarding the steelworks in the southern port of Mariupol, the last bastion of Ukrainian defenders in a city almost completely controlled by Russia after more than two months of a siege.

Civilians had been trapped at the plant and Kyiv says they have all been evacuated. But there is no deal on allowing out hundreds of fighters, some of whom are wounded.

“We have started a new round of negotiations around a road map for an (evacuation) operation. And we will start with those who are badly wounded,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told 1+1 television.

Vereshchuk said Ukrainian authorities were working with the Red Cross and United Nations, which had both helped with earlier evacuations.

“We want a document signed on how an evacuation would take place at Azovstal,” she said, adding that Turkey – which has offered to host talks between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine – was also acting as an intermediary.

Demonstrators, mostly women, marched through central Kyiv, holding banners and chanting, “Save defenders of Mariupol, save Azovstal,” “Glory to the heroes of Mariupol,” and “Save the military of Azovstal.”

Maria Zimareva, whose relative is a Azov battalion fighter, said tearfully, “I want all the defenders who are there to return home so that they can continue a normal life with their children and relatives.”

People holed up in the steelworks were dying of wounds that could normally be treated, said Tetiana Pogorlova.

“Nobody attempts to save them. There is nothing we can do except for gathering at such demonstrations and making demands on our authorities.”

Mariupol resident Alina Nesterenko was also at the demonstration in the capital. “The conditions they are in are horrible,” she said. “I have no words to describe them. That’s why we are here. We are begging, we are pleading in every possible way, we are asking for our loved ones to be saved.”

(Reporting by Abdel Hadi Ramahi, Anna Dabrowska and Ron Popeski; Writing by Mark Porter, David Ljunggren and Ron Popeski;Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Richard Chang)

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By Hamza Ibrahim

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) -A female Nigerian student was beaten to death and set on fire by fellow students who accused her of posting “blasphemous” statements in a student Whatsapp group, two witnesses and police said.

The school, located in Nigeria’s northwesternmost state of Sokoto, was immediately closed down following the attack.

Two suspects were arrested in connection with the murder of the student, who was identified as Deborah Samuel, said a spokesperson for the Sokoto state command. Reuters was not able to reach her family for comment.

“There is a WhatsApp group being used by the students and her Muslim colleague student posted an Islamic piece. She criticised the posting,” said one of the witnesses, who declined to be named.

“She composed an audio that contains blasphemous comments on the Prophet of Islam and posted in the group, that is what triggered everything.”

Nigeria is divided into a largely Christian south and mostly Muslim north.

“Students forcefully removed the victim from the security room where she was hidden by the school authorities, killed her and burnt the building,” police spokesperson Sanusi Abubakar said in a statement.

School security and police attempted to rescue the victim but were overwhelmed by the students, the witnesses said.

“Police have fired teargas on the students…then began firing shots in the sky to disperse the students, but they resisted,” said a student in her second year.

“The police sacrificed the lady after the students began throwing sticks and stones at them, then the students used stones and sticks to beat the lady. After being beaten, she was set on fire.”

The Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto said in a statement that it had closed the college indefinitely “following today’s early morning student rampage.”

The Sultanate Council Sokoto condemned the “unfortunate happenings…that led to the loss of life of a female student at the institution.”

(Reporting by Hamza Ibrahim in Kano, additional reporting by Maiduguri newsroom; Writing by Julia Payne;Editing by Leslie Adler and Lisa Shumaker)

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By Tarek Amara

TUNIS (Reuters) – Tunisian President Kais Saied indicated on Thursday he will not accept foreign observers for votes he plans this year to change the political system after having already taken control of the previously independent electoral commission.

Saied has consolidated his one-man rule since seizing executive power last summer and dissolving the parliament to rule by decree in moves his foes call a coup.

He has since said he will change the democratic 2014 constitution via a referendum in July and has said he wants to hold new parliamentary elections in December.

“They proposed sending observers. Why? We are not an occupied country,” said Saied, referring to foreign democracies that have previously provided observers to guarantee the credibility of Tunisian elections.

Tunisia has been widely praised for the fairness of its elections since the 2011 revolution that introduced democracy, with the last such vote in 2019 returning Saied as president in a second-round landslide.

He was speaking at a ceremony to swear in the new members of the electoral commission after he unilaterally replaced the previous commission whose head had questioned the validity of a referendum called outside the rules of the 2014 constitution.

Saied’s consolidation of power has accelerated in recent weeks. As well as taking control of the electoral commission, he has replaced the top judicial body and threatened to restrict civil society groups, giving the 64-year-old almost total control.

Saied this week appointed new members of the election commission, to be headed by Farouk Bouasker, seizing control of one of the last independent bodies in the North African country and casting doubt on electoral integrity.

The crisis has endangered democratic gains made since 2011, when Tunisians toppled longtime autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, sparking a wave of revolts against authoritarian leaders across the Arab world.

Saied has said his actions were needed to save Tunisia from years of economic stagnation and political paralysis at the hands of a corrupt, self-serving elite.

(Reporting By Tarek Amara, editing by Angus McDowall and Alistair Bell)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration says North Korea could be preparing for a nuclear test as U.S. President Joe Biden gets set to visit Asia later this month, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Thursday.

Biden is expected to visit South Korea and Japan from May 20-24 and hold talks with his Korean and Japanese counterparts. Psaki said North Korea could launch a missile test as early as this month.

Psaki said Biden was also considering a visit to the Korean Demilitarized Zone, but no final decision has been made.

(This story corrects to drop ‘missile’, add ‘nuclear’ in headline and first paragraph)

(Reporting By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Chris Reese and Mark Porter)

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By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korea fired three ballistic missiles toward the sea off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea said, in the latest such move by the isolated country racing to advance its weapons programmes on the day it first reported a COVID-19 outbreak.

Japan’s coastguard confirmed the launch of a ballistic missile by North Korea, citing its military. The projectile appeared to fall outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, public broadcaster NHK said.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said three short-range ballistic missiles were fired from the Sunan area of the North’s capital, Pyongyang, where an international airport is located and where the North had said it fired its largest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-17, on March 24.

The missiles flew approximately 360 kilometres (224 miles), reaching an altitude of 90 km and a maximum velocity of Mach 5, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

The firing was the first after the inauguration this week of conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who has signalled a hard line against the North’s weapons development.

The launch, the North’s 16th known weapons test this year, also came hours after it reported its first COVID-19 outbreak, declaring a “gravest national emergency” and ordering a national lockdown.

Yoon’s national security office issued a statement condemning the launch and saying it “deplored the duplicitous conduct” of firing ballistic missiles and ignoring the plight of its people in the middle of a COVID outbreak.

In its last weapons test on Saturday, the North used a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which it has been aggressively developing in recent years.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed late last month to expedite the country’s buildup of nuclear arsenal, amid stalled denuclearisation talks with the United States.

U.S. and South Korean officials have said Pyongyang’s first nuclear test since 2017 could take place as early as this month.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin;Editing by Alison Williams and Bernadette Baum)

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WARSAW (Reuters) -Russia on Wednesday demanded a formal apology from Poland and threatened possible future reprisals for a protest in which Moscow’s ambassador to Warsaw was doused with red paint.

The ambassador, Sergey Andreev, was accosted by people protesting against Russia’s intervention in Ukraine as he went to lay flowers at the Soviet Military Cemetery in Warsaw on Monday, drawing a furious reaction from Moscow.

The Russian foreign ministry summoned Polish Ambassador Krzysztof Krajewski to receive its protest.

“Russia expects an official apology from the Polish leadership in connection with the incident and demands the safety of the Russian ambassador and all employees of Russian foreign institutions in Poland are ensured,” it said in a statement.

“A decision on further steps will be taken depending on Warsaw’s reaction to our demands.”

On Wednesday afternoon, red paint was splattered over the entrance to the Polish Embassy in Moscow, a spokesman for the Polish foreign ministry said. Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said authorities had warned Andreev that attending the cemetery on Monday, when Russia was commemorating the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, risked provoking an incident, according to the state-run PAP news agency.

“However, what happened does not in any way change our position that diplomatic representatives of foreign countries are entitled to protection … no matter how much we feel the need to disagree with the policy of the government that the diplomat represents,” Rau was quoted as saying.

Relations between Russia and the West have become fraught since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it calls a “special military operation” to disarm the country and protect it from “fascists”.

More than 3 million Ukrainians have fled to Poland, which has consistently argued for the Western sanctions imposed on Moscow to be tough, and has expelled 45 Russian diplomats, prompting a tit-for-tat response from Moscow.

Ukraine and the West say the fascist allegation is baseless and that Moscow launched an unprovoked act of aggression against its neighbour.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Marek Strzelecki; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Nick Macfie and Mark Heinrich)

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By Uditha Jayasinghe and Alasdair Pal

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s president urged people on Wednesday to reject what he called attempts to foment racial and religious disharmony, as clashes broke out in many parts of the country over the government’s handling of a devastating economic crisis.

Violent street protests killed eight people this week and even the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s elder brother as prime minister and a curfew have failed to douse public anger. The government has ordered troops to shoot at anyone damaging public property or threatening lives.

Sri Lankans have blamed the Rajapaksa dynasty for the economic meltdown that has left the country with only about $50 million in reserves, stalling most imports and leading to massive shortages of fuel, cooking gas, and other essentials.

Protesters set the family’s ancestral home in the south on fire earlier in the week.

“This is the time for all Sri Lankans to join hands as one, to overcome the economic, social & political challenges,” Rajapaksa said on Twitter.

“I urge all #Srilankans to reject the subversive attempts to push you towards racial & religious disharmony. Promoting moderation, toleration & coexistence is vital.”

It was not immediately clear what prompted the president to issue the warning. However, Sri Lanka has a long and bloody history of ethnic tensions.

Rajapaksa and his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, who resigned as prime minister on Monday, were in key government positions when a 26-year civil war ended in 2009 after security forces overcame militants from the minority Tamil community.

Sinhalese Buddhists are the majority in the country of 22 million which also has Muslim, Hindu and Christian minorities.

A police spokesperson said two shooting incidents were reported on Tuesday night, including one in the southern town of Rathgama that wounded four people.

“The situation is now calm,” Nalin Thalduwa said.

In Weerakettiya, a southern town that is home to the Rajapaksas, police and military patrolled the streets, with shops and businesses shut due to the curfew.

On Monday, video footage from local media showed the ancestral home of the family ablaze, while multiple attacks on houses and election offices of lawmakers were also reported.

(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe and Alasdair Pal; Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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(Reuters) – Fighting between Russia and Ukrainian forces has continued on Zmiinyi Island, also known as Snake Island, with Russia repeatedly trying to reinforce its exposed troops.

“If Russia consolidates its position on Zmiinyi Island with strategic air defence and coastal defence cruise missiles, they could dominate the north-western Black Sea,” the UK Ministry of Defence tweeted in a regular bulletin.

Russia’s resupply vessels have minimum protection in the western Black Sea, following the Russian Navy’s retreat to Crimea after the loss of the Moskva, the tweet said.

(Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Hogue)

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday he would not attend the U.S.-hosted Summit of the Americas if all countries in the region were not invited, and would send Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard in his place.

Lopez Obrador said during his regular news conference, just days after his trip to the Cuban capital Havana, that his absence at the summit in Los Angeles next month was unlikely to cause tensions with the United States.

U.S. officials have previously said it is unlikely Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government will receive an invitation to the summit that is meant to showcase democracy in the hemisphere.

“If they’re excluded, if not all are invited, a representative from the Mexican government would go, but I wouldn’t,” Lopez Obrador said.

(Reporting by Kylie Madry and Anthony Esposito; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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(Reuters) – Armenian police detained 61 protesters on Tuesday as hundreds of people marched in the capital Yerevan calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, news agencies reported.

Video footage showed groups of officers making arrests amid violent tussles with demonstrators.

Pashinyan has faced heavy criticism for agreeing to a Russian-brokered ceasefire after a six-week war in 2020 when Armenia was defeated by Azerbaijan and lost significant territory in and around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The landlocked South Caucasus country has seen a string of protests in recent weeks as pressure mounts on the embattled prime minister, with at least 92 protesters detained last Thursday.

(Reporting by Reuters)

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