SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Plastics entering the world’s oceans have surged by an “unprecedented” amount since 2005 and could nearly triple by 2040 if no further action is taken, according to research published on Wednesday.

An estimated 171 trillion plastic particles were afloat in the oceans by 2019, according to peer-reviewed research led by the 5 Gyres Institute, a U.S. organisation that campaigns to reduce plastic pollution.

Marine plastic pollution could rise 2.6 fold by 2040 if legally binding global policies are not introduced, it predicted.

The study looked at surface-level plastic pollution data from 11,777 ocean stations in six major marine regions covering the period from 1979 to 2019.

“We’ve found an alarming trend of exponential growth in microplastics in the global ocean since the millennium,” Marcus Eriksen, co-founder of the 5 Gyres Group said in a statement.

“We need a strong legally binding U.N. global treaty on plastic pollution that stops the problem at the source,” he added.

Microplastics are particularly hazardous to the oceans, not only contaminating water but also damaging the internal organs of marine animals, which mistake the plastic for food.

Experts said the study showed that the level of marine plastic pollution in the oceans has been underestimated.

“The numbers in this new research are staggeringly phenomenal and almost beyond comprehension,” said Paul Harvey, a scientist and plastics expert with Environmental Science Solutions, an Australian consultancy focused on pollution reduction.

The United Nations kicked off negotiations on an agreement to tackle plastic pollution in Uruguay in November, with the aim of drawing up a legally binding treaty by the end of next year.

Environmental group Greenpeace said that without a strong global treaty, plastic production could double within the next 10 to 15 years, and triple by 2050.

A separate international treaty was agreed on Sunday to help protect biodiversity in the world’s high seas.

(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Jamie Freed)

By Daniel Becerril

MATAMOROS, Mexico (Reuters) -Two of four Americans kidnapped by gunmen on Friday just after they drove into northeastern Mexico have been found dead, U.S. and Mexican officials said on Tuesday, in a grim reminder of the lawlessness plaguing parts of the border region.

The survivors and the two bodies were discovered by Mexican security forces on Tuesday morning in a wood cabin southeast of the border city of Matamoros, said Americo Villarreal, governor of Tamaulipas, the state the four crossed into from Texas.

Authorities were still investigating how the two Americans died, and one Mexican official said the most likely explanation for the group’s abduction was a case of mistaken identity.

One of the two surviving Americans suffered a gunshot wound to his leg that was not life-threatening, while the other, a woman, was not injured, Villarreal told a news conference.

A Mexican woman, 33, also died during the kidnapping ordeal, apparently from a stray bullet, he said.

A 24-year-old man guarding them at the cabin was arrested at the scene. Before they were found, the four had been moved to a succession of locations in the area, including a local clinic in a bid to throw law enforcement off the trail, Villarreal said.

“We’re very sorry to have this happen in our country and we send our condolences to the families of the victims, their friends, to the people of the United States,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told an earlier news conference.

Mexican officials on Tuesday morning handed the survivors to U.S. officials at the border, and the two bodies were to follow in the next few hours, Villarreal said. The U.S. State Department confirmed two Americans had returned to the United States.

Mexican officials pledged to work with the U.S. to find the perpetrators, but the incident threw a harsh spotlight on gang violence in Mexico and sparked angry reactions from some U.S. lawmakers critical of Mexican efforts to fight crime.

The four Americans were in a white minivan when they entered Matamoros on Friday. Gunmen fired at them soon afterwards and then forced them into another vehicle, officials said.

A video circulating on social media purportedly of the kidnapping showed a woman being walked towards a white pickup truck by a group of men with body armor and guns. She was forced into the back before the men dragged in two prone figures.

Tamaulipas is one of Mexico’s most gang-ravaged states and has long been plagued by the kidnapping of migrants.

ABC News on Monday named the four Americans as Shaeed Woodard, Zindell Brown, Latavia McGee and Eric James Williams. A Tamaulipas official identified the last two as the survivors.

Williams was receiving treatment in hospital in Brownsville, Texas, across the border from Matamoros, the official said.

MILITARY THREAT

U.S. Republicans, in particular, have been pushing for the U.S. government to take a tougher line on organized crime south of the border amid rising overdose deaths caused by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid trafficked by Mexican cartels.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Monday said it was time to “put Mexico on notice,” advocated introducing legislation to classify some Mexican drug cartels as “foreign terrorist groups”, and set the stage to use military force if necessary.

“I would tell the Mexican government if you don’t clean up your act, we’re going to clean it up for you,” he told Fox News.

White House spokesman John Kirby condemned the incident in Tamaulipas. “Attacks on U.S. citizens are unacceptable, no matter where,” he told a news briefing.

Tamaulipas Attorney General Irving Barrios told the conference with Villarreal that the Gulf Cartel was known to operate in the area but stopped short of explicitly blaming it.

Barrios said the Americans were likely mistaken for somebody else when abducted but noted authorities were still pursuing several lines of investigation.

Tamaulipas officials said McGee was traveling with the group to Mexico to get cosmetic surgery.

Mexican President Lopez Obrador vowed to bring the killers to justice. But he lashed out at what he cast as “tabloid” coverage of the incident and accused the media of not giving the same attention to killings of Mexicans in the United States.

(Reporting by Dave Graham and Brendan O’Boyle; Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Kylie Madry in Mexico City, and David Shepardson, Steve Holland, Andrea Shalal and Susan Heavey in Washington D.C.;Editing by Stephen Eisenhammer, Susan Fenton, Deepa Babington and Cynthia Osterman)

By Mike Collett-White and Stefaniia Bern

KYIV -At a memorial service on Tuesday for four Ukrainians killed last year while carrying out a raid on Russian territory, ordinary soldiers rubbed shoulders with volunteer fighters of the Brotherhood Battalion to which those killed belonged.

The ceremony, at the historic gold-domed St. Michael’s cathedral in central Kyiv, underlined the unclear relationship between irregular groups and Ukraine’s formal armed forces fighting against Russia.

The groups’ role in the war is the focus of increasing scrutiny, after several videos purporting to show cross-border sabotage raids into Russian territory have surfaced and the Kremlin has raised the alarm over the security threat.

Reuters has not independently verified the videos.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has branded the saboteurs as “terrorists” and urged his security services to bolster defences along the frontier.

The four members of the Brotherhood Battalion later buried in Kyiv were Yurii Horovets, 34, Taras Karpiuk, 38, Maksym Mykhailov, 32 and Bohdan Liagov, 19.

They were killed on Dec. 25 last year, according to Russia’s FSB security service, which said at the time that they were armed with foreign-made guns and four improvised explosive devices.

Ukrainian authorities did not comment on the raid then, and have subsequently denied involvement in attacks claimed by Ukrainian-based groups on Russian soil.

Last week, for example, a different group called the Russian Volunteer Corps led by a Russian nationalist in exile who opposes Putin’s rule, said it had briefly taken control of a small border village.

Putin denounced that attack in a televised address, saying: “We will crush them”. Ukraine portrayed it as a false “provocation” by Russia to justify its full-scale invasion.

Later the same day four members of Russia’s National Guard were wounded when their car ran over a mine in the village of Sushany, just across the border from Ukraine, said Alexander Khinstein, a senior federal parliamentarian.

The raids present Kyiv with a dilemma. If regular forces were involved, it would represent a significant escalation in a war that has so far been fought almost exclusively on Ukrainian soil.

But Ukrainian officials have also cast the attacks, which have so far involved small armed groups on limited missions, as a sign Russians may take up arms against their leaders.

“Maybe Russians will begin to wake up,” Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov said in response to the operation claimed by the Russian Volunteer Corps.

Ukraine is believed to have struck deep inside Russia on several occasions using drones, though officials decline to confirm them.

‘PAIN AND PRIDE’

At the memorial for the Brotherhood fighters, whose bodies local media said were returned to Ukraine in late February, hundreds of soldiers and civilians crammed into the cathedral’s ornate interior to watch priests bless the coffins.

Mourners lit candles and a man sobbed over one of the caskets.

Outside, as the coffins were being carried into the cathedral, the leader of the nationalist Brotherhood movement which is associated with the Battalion said he felt both “pain and pride”.

“They were one of the most courageous ones to die in battle,” Dmytro Korchynsky, a controversial figure in Ukraine for his ultra-nationalist and devout Orthodox Christian views, told Reuters.

“Our aim is to bring the war over to Russian territory. It’s bad that the war is currently only on our territory, it has to expand to the enemy’s territory as well.”

Korchynsky was careful to distinguish between the battalion’s activities in Ukraine, including areas occupied by Russians – where he said its members coordinate with Ukraine’s armed forces – and those on Russian soil.

“When we are on Russian territory, we act autonomously,” he added.

Ukraine’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its relationship with the Brotherhood Battalion, called “Bratstvo” in Ukrainian, and the armed forces.

The conservative nationalist Brotherhood movement began around 20 years ago to promote Christian values. Western media reports say it has been active in sometimes dangerous combat missions since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Korchynsky said most of the Brotherhood volunteers were Christians, and that the numbers were “constantly growing.

“The battalion has several hundred fighters,” he said. “We can’t disclose precise numbers, as the battalion takes part in investigative and reconnaissance activity.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White and Stefaniia Bern; Editing by Alex Richardson)

By Clotaire Achi and Stephane Mahe

PARIS (Reuters) -France’s nationwide strike against a planned pension reform, which disrupted train services, shut schools and halted fuel deliveries, will spill into Wednesday as unions seek to force a government retreat on the deeply unpopular policy.

Around 1.28 million people took to the streets on Tuesday in demonstrations across the country, the interior ministry said, making turnout for the protest day – the sixth against the reform this year – the highest so far.

This is a critical time for labour and the government since French President Emmanuel Macron hopes parliament will adopt his plan to raise the pension age by two years to 64 before April.

Looking to pile pressure on lawmakers, France’s hardline unions said there would be rolling strikes going forward that could go on for days, at least in some sectors including at TotalEnergies’ oil refineries.

“The real fight starts now,” said Marin Guillotin, FO union representative at the Donges refinery in western France.

“We haven’t been heard or listened to. We are using the only means we have left: It’s the hard strike … we are not going to give up.”

Trains will experience disruptions again on Wednesday, as will the Paris metro system, though slightly less than on Tuesday, the SNCF and RATP transportation companies said.

The government said 10,000 more protesters turned out nationwide on Tuesday than the previous peak of 1.27 million on Jan. 31, and bigger crowds were reported by media and local officials at rallies in some cities, including Marseille.

The strike also drew in more industrial sectors, extending to truck drivers and garbage collectors. Local media quoted the CGT union as saying 700,000 marched in Paris. Police put the number at 81,000.

Another round of protests will take place on Saturday, France’s union leaders announced on Tuesday evening as they again urged Macron to drop the reform, saying the president’s rigid stance could lead to an “explosive” situation.

‘UNFAIR’

Macron’s proposal to make people work longer before they are eligible for pensions is deeply unpopular, opinion polls show.

“This reform is unfair,” said Aurelie Herkous, who works in public finance in the Normandy town of Pont Audemer. “Macron offers tax gifts to companies … he’s got to stop coming down on the same people time after time.”

France’s leading trade unions have so far acted with rare unity, but the coming weeks will test that.

The CFDT, France’s biggest trade union and generally reform-minded, has not committed to the rolling strikes and has said there could be other forms of protest.

While the government will be looking for divisions among the unions, the CGT and FO, which are powerful within the transport and energy sectors, would still be able to bring significant disruption even without CFDT participation. 

The government insists its reform plan is essential to ensure the pension system does not run out of money.

“I can understand that not many people want to work two more years, but it’s necessary to ensure the viability of the system,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told France 5 TV.

Macron’s centrist alliance does not have an absolute majority in parliament, and his government may use special constitutional powers to enact the legislation by bypassing the lower house – something union leaders have warned him not to do.

“Forcing (the bill) through would spark a crisis,” CGT leader Philippe Martinez said.

The Senate was likely to adopt overnight the bill’s Article 7, that pushes retirement age to 64.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon, Forrest Crellin, Benjamin Mallet, Ingrid Melander, Elizabeth Pineau, Alain Acco, Blandine Henault, Marc Leras, Yonathan Van der Voort, Layli Foroudi, Tassilo Hummel, Geert de Clercq, Richard Lough; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Christina Fincher, Aurora Ellis and Cynthia Osterman)

KABUL (Reuters) – Female employment in Afghanistan has dropped by a quarter after the Taliban took over the country, according to estimates from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which said the fall was exacerbated by restrictions on women working and studying.

The ILO said the 25% drop in female employment took place by the final quarter of 2022 from the second quarter of 2021, compared with a 7% drop for men. The Taliban took over the country in August 2021 as foreign forces withdrew.

“Restrictions on girls and women have severe implications for their education and labour market prospects,” said Ramin Behzad, the Senior Coordinator for Afghanistan at the ILO, in a statement accompanying its assessment for 2022 of Afghanistan.

Taliban authorities have barred most girls from high school, stopped women from attending universities and most female NGO workers from working.

Afghanistan’s economy has also been plunged into a crisis that has wiped out jobs. Following the Taliban takeover, foreign governments withdrew development aid and froze the country’s central bank assets.

The ILO estimated GDP had contracted by 30-35 per cent across 2021 and 2022.

Taliban officials have called on the international community to unfreeze its assets to ease the country’s liquidity crisis and have said they are focused on encouraging trade and investment to create economic self-sufficiency.

Youth unemployment had also shrunk by an estimated 25% for those aged between 15 and 24. The ILO noted that total employment had shown some signs of recovery in the first half of 2022, but that it had decreased for young men and all women over the year.

“Some women moved into self-employed activities, such as farming…or repairing clothes, thereby contributing to household income and preventing female employment from falling by even more,” the ILO’s report said.

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield in Kabul; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden’s nominee for a key fifth seat on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Gigi Sohn, withdrew on Tuesday, dealing a setback for Democrats who have been unable to take control of the telecom regulator for more than two years.

Sohn confirmed Tuesday she was withdrawing after Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said he would vote against confirming her.

“We appreciate Gigi Sohn’s candidacy for this important role. She would have brought tremendous intellect and experience,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday adding her withdrawal was “clearly unfortunate.”

Since January 2021, Democrats have been unable to command a majority of the five-member FCC, stalling the party’s efforts to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules revoked under Republican President Donald Trump. The open internet laws seek to bar internet service providers from blocking or slowing traffic or offering paid fast lanes.

“The FCC deadlock, now over two years long, will remain so for a long time,” Sohn said in a statement. “Unfortunately the American people are the real losers here. As someone who has advocated for my entire career for affordable, accessible broadband for every American, it is ironic that the 2-2 FCC will remain sidelined at the most consequential opportunity for broadband in our lifetimes.”

Democrats hold a narrow 51-49 majority in the U.S. Senate but two Democrats are currently absent because of health issues.

Sohn who was first nominated in October 2021, had her third hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee in February.

Sohn said in 2021 she “could not have imagined that legions of cable and media industry lobbyists, their bought-and-paid-for surrogates, and dark money political groups with bottomless pockets would distort my over 30-year history as a consumer advocate into an absurd caricature of blatant lies.”

Republicans in February offered a sweeping denunciation of Sohn on a number of grounds and accused her of misleading Congress, which she rejected.

Many Democrats said Republicans were doing the bidding of powerful telecom companies that did not want to face regulation from the FCC.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz said Tuesday Sohn’s withdrawal demonstrates the need for a nominee “committed to serving as an even-handed and truly independent regulator.”

In July 2021, Biden signed an executive order encouraging the FCC to reinstate the open internet net neutrality rules.

At least two other Democrats were undecided on Sohn’s nomination.

Sohn joins several other high-profile Biden nominees who withdrew from consideration, including Neera Tanden, who had been tapped to lead the Office of Management and Budget and Sarah Bloom Raskin, who was nominated to become the top bank regulator at the Federal Reserve.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Katharine Jackson; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; writing by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Bill Berkrot, Leslie Adler and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

By Eduardo Baptista and Greg Torode

BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) -China needs the capability to shoot down low-earth-orbit Starlink satellites and defend tanks and helicopters against shoulder-fired Javelin missiles, according to Chinese military researchers who are studying Russia’s struggles in Ukraine in planning for possible conflict with U.S.-led forces in Asia.

A Reuters review of almost 100 articles in more than 20 defence journals reveals an effort across China’s military-industrial complex to scrutinise the impact of U.S. weapons and technology that could be deployed against Chinese forces in a war over Taiwan.

The Chinese-language journals, which also examine Ukrainian sabotage operations, reflect the work of hundreds of researchers across a network of People’s Liberation Army (PLA)-linked universities, state-owned weapons manufacturers and military intelligence think-tanks.

While Chinese officials have avoided any openly critical comments about Moscow’s actions or battlefield performance as they call for peace and dialogue, the publicly available journal articles are more candid in their assessments of Russian shortcomings.

China’s defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment about the researchers’ findings. Reuters could not determine how closely the conclusions reflect the thinking among China’s military leaders.

Two military attaches and another diplomat familiar with China’s defence studies said the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission, headed by President Xi Jinping, ultimately sets and directs research needs, and that it was clear from the volume of material that Ukraine was an opportunity the military leadership wanted to seize. The three people and other diplomats spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss their work publicly.

A U.S. defence official told Reuters that despite differences with the situation in Taiwan, the Ukraine war offered insights for China.

“A key lesson the world should take away from the rapid international response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is that aggression will increasingly be met with unity of action,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the topic’s sensitivity, without addressing concerns raised in the Chinese research about specific U.S. capabilities.

STARLINK GAZING

Half a dozen papers by PLA researchers highlight Chinese concern at the role of Starlink, a satellite network developed by Elon Musk’s U.S.-based space exploration company SpaceX, in securing the communications of Ukraine’s military amid Russian missile attacks on the country’s power grid.

“The excellent performance of ‘Starlink’ satellites in this Russian-Ukrainian conflict will certainly prompt the U.S. and Western countries to use ‘Starlink’ extensively” in possible hostilities in Asia, said a September article co-written by researchers at the Army Engineering University of the PLA.

The authors deemed it “urgent” for China – which aims to develop its own similar satellite network – to find ways to shoot down or disable Starlink. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

The conflict has also forged an apparent consensus among Chinese researchers that drone warfare merits greater investment. China has been testing drones in the skies around Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy that Beijing has vowed to bring under its control.

“These unmanned aerial vehicles will serve as the ‘door kicker’ of future wars,” noted one article in a tank warfare journal published by state-owned arms manufacturer NORINCO, a supplier to the PLA, that described drones’ ability to neutralise enemy defences.

While some of the journals are operated by provincial research institutes, others are official publications for central government bodies such as the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence, which oversees weapons production and military upgrades.

An article in the administration’s official journal in October noted that China should improve its ability to defend military equipment in view of the “serious damage to Russian tanks, armored vehicles and warships” inflicted by Stinger and Javelin missiles operated by Ukrainian fighters.

Collin Koh, a security fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said the Ukrainian conflict had provided impetus to long-standing efforts by China’s military scientists to develop cyber-warfare models and find ways of better protecting armour from modern Western weapons.

“Starlink is really something new for them to worry about; the military application of advanced civilian technology that they can’t easily replicate,” Koh said.

Beyond technology, Koh said he was not surprised that Ukrainian special forces operations inside Russia were being studied by China, which, like Russia, moves troops and weapons by rail, making them vulnerable to sabotage.

Despite its rapid modernisation, the PLA lacks recent combat experience. China’s invasion of Vietnam in 1979 was its last major battle – a conflict that rumbled on until the late 1980s.

Reuters’ review of the Chinese journals comes amid Western concern that China may be planning to supply Russia with lethal aid for its assault on Ukraine, which Beijing denies.

TAIWAN, AND BEYOND

Some of the Chinese articles stress Ukraine’s relevance given the risk of a regional conflict pitting China against the United States and its allies, possibly over Taiwan. The U.S. has a policy of “strategic ambiguity” over whether it would intervene militarily to defend the island, but is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns has said that Xi has ordered his military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, while noting that the Chinese leader was probably unsettled by Russia’s experience in Ukraine.

One article, published in October by two researchers at the PLA’s National Defence University, analysed the effect of U.S. deliveries of high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) to Ukraine, and whether China’s military should be concerned.

“If HIMARS dares to intervene in Taiwan in the future, what was once known as an ‘explosion-causing tool’ will suffer another fate in front of different opponents,” it concluded.

The article highlighted China’s own advanced rocket system, supported by reconnaissance drones, and noted that Ukraine’s success with HIMARS had relied on U.S. sharing of target information and intelligence via Starlink.

Four diplomats, including the two military attaches, said PLA analysts have long worried about superior U.S. military might, but Ukraine has sharpened their focus by providing a window on a large power’s failure to overwhelm a smaller one backed by the West.

While that scenario has obvious Taiwan comparisons, there are differences, particularly given the island’s vulnerability to a Chinese blockade that could force any intervening militaries into a confrontation.

Western countries, by contrast, are able to supply Ukraine by land via its European neighbours.

References to Taiwan are relatively few in the journals reviewed by Reuters, but diplomats and foreign scholars tracking the research say that Chinese defence analysts are tasked to provide separate internal reports for senior political and military leaders. Reuters was unable to access those internal reports.

Taiwanese Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said in February that China’s military is learning from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that any attack on Taiwan would have to be swift to succeed. Taiwan is also studying the conflict to update its own battle strategies.

Several articles analyse the strengths of the Ukrainian resistance, including special forces’ sabotage operations inside Russia, the use of the Telegram app to harness civilian intelligence, and the defense of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.

Russian successes are also noted, such as tactical strikes using the Iskander ballistic missile.

The journal Tactical Missile Technology, published by state-owned weapons manufacturer China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, produced a detailed analysis of the Iskander, but only released a truncated version to the public.

Many other articles focus on the mistakes of Russia’s invading army, with one in the tank warfare journal identifying outdated tactics and a lack of unified command, while another in an electronic warfare journal said Russian communications interference was insufficient to counter NATO’s provision of intelligence to the Ukrainians, leading to costly ambushes.

A piece published this year by researchers at the Engineering University of the People’s Armed Police assessed the insights China could glean from the blowing-up of the Kerch Bridge in Russian-occupied Crimea. The full analysis has not been released publicly, however.

Beyond the battlefield, the work has covered the information war, which the researchers conclude was won by Ukraine and its allies.

One February article by researchers at the PLA Information Engineering University calls on China to preemptively prepare for a global public opinion backlash similar to that experienced by Russia.

China should “promote the construction of cognitive confrontation platforms” and tighten control of social media to prevent Western information campaigns from influencing its people during a conflict, it said.

(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista in Beijing and Greg Torode in Hong Kong; additional reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart in Washington. Editing by David Crawshaw.)

By Ryan Woo

BEIJING (Reuters) -The United States should change its “distorted” attitude towards China or “conflict and confrontation” will follow, China’s foreign minister said on Tuesday, while defending its stance on the war in Ukraine and its close ties with Russia.

The U.S. had been engaging in suppression and containment of China rather than engaging in fair, rules-based competition, Foreign Minister Qin Gang told a news conference on the sidelines of an annual parliament meeting in Beijing.

“The United States’ perception and views of China are seriously distorted,” said Qin, a trusted aide to President Xi Jinping and until recently China’s ambassador in Washington.

“It regards China as its primary rival and the most consequential geopolitical challenge. This is like the first button in the shirt being put wrong.”

Relations between the two superpowers have been tense for years over a number of issues including Taiwan, trade and more recently the war in Ukraine, but they worsened last month after the United States shot down a balloon off the U.S. East Coast that it says was a Chinese spying craft.

The U.S. says it is establishing guardrails for relations and is not seeking conflict but Qin said what that meant in practice was that China was not supposed to respond with words or action when slandered or attacked.

“That is just impossible,” Qin told his first news conference since becoming foreign minister in late December.

Qin’s comments struck the same the tough tone of his predecessor, Wang Yi, now China’s most senior diplomat after being made director of the Foreign Affairs Commission Office at the turn of the year.

“If the United States does not hit the brakes, and continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailment, which will become conflict and confrontation, and who will bear the catastrophic consequences?”

In Washington, John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, brushed off the criticism and said the United States does not seek confrontation with Beijing.

“We seek a strategic competition with China. We do not seek conflict,” Kirby told reporters. “We aim to compete and we aim to win that competition with China but we absolutely want to keep it at that level.”

U.S. officials often speak of establishing guardrails in the bilateral relationship to prevent tensions from escalating into crises.

Qin likened Sino-U.S. competition to a race between two Olympic athletes.

“If one side, instead of focusing on giving one’s best, always tries to trip the other up, even to the extent that they must enter the Paralympics, then this is not fair competition,” he said.

‘JACKALS AND WOLVES’

During a nearly two-hour news conference in which he answered questions submitted in advance, Qin made a robust defence of “wolf warrior diplomacy”, an assertive and often abrasive stance adopted by China’s diplomats since 2020.

“When jackals and wolves are blocking the way, and hungry wolves are attacking us, Chinese diplomats must then dance with the wolves and protect and defend our home and country,” he said.

Qin also said that an “invisible hand” was pushing for the escalation of the war in Ukraine “to serve certain geopolitical agendas”, without specifying who he was referring to.

He reiterated China’s call for dialogue to end the war.

China struck a “no limits” partnership with Russia last year, weeks before its invasion of Ukraine, and has blamed NATO expansion for triggering the war, echoing Russia’s complaint.

China has declined to condemn the invasion and has fiercely defended its stance on Ukraine, despite Western criticism of its failure to single Russia out as the aggressor.

China has also vehemently denied U.S. accusations that it has been considering supplying Russia with weapons.

ADVANCING RELATIONS WITH MOSCOW

Qin said China had to advance its relations with Russia as the world becomes more turbulent and close interactions between President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, anchored the neighbours’ relations.

He did not give a definite answer when asked if Xi would visit Russia after China’s parliament session, which goes on for one more week.

Since Russia invaded its southwestern neighbour a year ago Xi has held talks several times with Putin, but not with his Ukrainian counterpart. This undermines China’s claim of neutrality in the conflict, Kyiv’s top diplomat in Beijing said last month.

Asked whether it was possible that China and Russia would abandon the U.S. dollar and euro for bilateral trade, Qin said countries should use whatever currency was efficient, safe and credible.

China has been looking to internationalise its currency, the yuan, which gained popularity in Russia last year after Western sanctions shut Russia’s banks and many of its companies out of the dollar and euro payment systems.

“Currencies should not be the trump card for unilateral sanctions, still less a disguise for bullying or coercion,” Qin said.

(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian, Laurie Chen, Ryan Woo and the Beijing Newsroom; additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Martin Quin Pollard; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Tom Hogue and Alex Richardson)

By Lidia Kelly

(Reuters) – Russia will not play “dangerous gender games”, the head of its upper house of parliament said in a vehement attack on sexual minorities in a message marking International Women’s Day, one of the most celebrated public holidays in the country.

Making any expression of a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) lifestyle is almost impossible in Russia, which under its “gay propaganda” law bans the distribution of materials on non-traditional relationships among any age group and the promotion of homosexual relationships to children.

There are people with gender “anomalies” but the “tyranny of minorities” cannot happen, said Valentina Matviyenko, a staunch ally of President Vladimir Putin and as the Federation Council’s chair considered Russia’s most powerful woman.

“Men and women are the biological, social and cultural backbones of communities,” Matviyenko wrote in a blog on the Council’s website.

“Therefore, there are no dangerous gender games in our country and never will be. Not in kindergartens, not in schools, not in education, not in politics, not in lawmaking. Let us leave it to the West to conduct this dangerous experiment on itself.”

Russian authorities say they are defending morality in the face of un-Russian liberal values promoted by the West, but human rights activists say the gay propaganda law has been broadly applied to intimidate Russia’s LGBT community.

‘MOST BELOVED’

The Ukraine-born Matviyenko called March 8 one of the “most beloved holidays” in Russia, while politicians and officials rushed with effusive wishes for Women’s Day.

“We know how much in life depends on you, our dear women, on your efforts and your spiritual generosity, how much energy you put to care for children, and so that love, comfort and harmony may reign in the family,” Putin said in a congratulatory video published on the Kremlin’s Telegram channel.

He issued special thanks to female military personnel, saying their courage amazes even the “most hardened fighters”.

Russia has been waging war on Ukraine for a year with no end in sight. Kyiv and its allies call it an imperialistic land grab that has seen thousands killed, millions of Ukrainians displaced and cities and villages reduced to rubble.

The International Women’s Day holiday was first celebrated in Russia 110 years ago and is one of its most important holidays, next to welcoming the New Year and the Victory Day.

While filled with public and private celebrations, flowers and gifts, it has nothing to do with the feminist movement for protection of women’s rights. 

The constitution guarantees equal rights for men and women, but Russian women continue to face inequality and are expected to prioritise motherhood over professional development.

Their situation worsened when Russia decriminalised domestic violence in 2017. According to a 2013 RIA news agency study, up to 36,000 women face violence in the family every day.

(Additonal reporting by Ron Popeski; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

By Ali Sawafta

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) -Israeli forces raided a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing at least six Palestinian gunmen, including a Hamas member suspected of shooting dead two brothers from a Jewish settlement near the village of Huwara.

Early on Wednesday, a rocket launch was identified from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, triggering alarms and sending Israelis running to bomb shelters, though the rocket appeared to have landed inside Gaza and not in Israeli territory, the Israeli military said.

Earlier, witnesses said fighting broke out after residents of the refugee camp saw Israeli soldiers getting out of a furniture truck near a house on a hill overlooking the centre of the sprawling camp and fighters immediately opened fire.

In the ensuing gun battle, Israeli forces surrounded a house where the suspected gunman had barricaded himself with other fighters, and used shoulder-fired missiles against the building, the military said in a statement. The Palestinian health ministry said six Palestinians were killed and at least 16 wounded. One member of the Israeli police force was wounded and three lightly hurt.

The military identified one of the gunmen as Abdel-Fattah Kharusha, a member of the Islamist group Hamas, who it said shot two Israelis while they sat in their car at a checkpoint near the Palestinian village of Huwara in the occupied West Bank on Feb. 26. It said his two sons had been arrested in a raid at the same time on the city of Nablus, another centre of militant activity.

According to statements by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, all those killed were gunmen from the militant groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah.

“We call upon the fighters of our people everywhere to escalate armed resistance against the occupation and to fight them everywhere on the land of our occupied home,” Hamas’ armed wing said in a statement.

Hamas, which runs the blockaded Gaza Strip but which also has fighters in the West Bank, said Kharusha was a member and that he carried out the Huwara double killing, the latest in a series of deadly attacks on Israelis by Palestinians this year.

Jenin, one of the major centres of militant activity in the West Bank where armed fighters parade openly, has been raided repeatedly by Israeli forces during months of violence that has caused increasing fears of a repeat of the Intifadas or uprisings of the 1980s and early 2000s.

“The risk – not just to Palestine and to Israel but to the region – of the situation escalating out of hand is significant,” Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, told reporters in London.

The shooting of the two Israeli brothers triggered a revenge attack by Jewish settlers who killed a Palestinian man and torched dozens of houses and cars in a rampage described as a “pogrom” by a senior Israeli commander.

The rampage triggered worldwide outrage and condemnation, which was increased when ultra-nationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has responsibility for aspects of the West Bank administration, said Huwara should be “erased”. Smotrich later offered a partial retraction.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated calls for both sides to de-escalate tensions, and the violence is also expected to be raised by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin this week when he visits Israel.

However, there has been no sign of any let up in the violence, ahead of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover festival.

MORE HUWARA VIOLENCE

A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Tuesday’s raid which came after a major reinforcement of Israeli forces in the West Bank following the violence in Huwara, which sits near a major road junction where settlers and Palestinians have frequently clashed.

Despite a crackdown by Israeli police, tensions have continued at Huwara and overnight Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians in the village.

Israeli army and border police forces dispersed what the military described as “a number of violent rioters” in Huwara. Videos shared on social media showed black-clad youths attacking a Palestinian car before its driver manages to pull away.

“My wife was sitting in the back and she hugged our daughter to cover her,” said Omar Khalifa, who had just finished shopping at a supermarket and was in the car with his family. “We could have lost her. There was real danger to our lives.”

Other footage appeared to show Israeli soldiers dancing together with Jewish settlers in the town on what was the Jewish festival of Purim. “Huwara has been conquered, gentlemen!” a voice is heard saying in Hebrew.

The military did not address a question about the footage of soldiers dancing with settlers when it responded to a request for information on the incident. Nor did it immediately respond to a Reuters query on whether there had been any arrests.

Since the beginning of the year, Israeli forces have killed more than 70 Palestinians, including militant fighters and civilians, while in the same period, Palestinians have killed 13 Israelis and one Ukrainian woman in a series of apparently uncoordinated attacks.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Dan Williams and Emily Rose in Jerusalem and Alistair Smout in London; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Ed Osmond, Mark Heinrich, Mark Potter and Daniel Wallis)