By Yimou Lee and David Brunnstrom

TAIPEI -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 communication links with the United States.

Some 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 in a release 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, the person said.

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

China’s military said on Saturday 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 an escalation.

“These activities are 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, which is what the world expects.”

‘DAMAGING PEACE’

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 claims saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.

China has also warned the United States not to “act rashly” and create a greater crisis.

Referring to the response to Pelosi’s visit, the Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper said China had adopted “effective measures that fully demonstrates that China is fully determined and capable of safeguarding national unity and safeguarding … sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Taiwan’s Premier Su Tseng-chang told reporters that China had “arrogantly” used military action to disrupt peace and he called on Beijing not to not flex its military muscle.

Taiwan’s defence ministry 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.

The ministry released a photograph showing Taiwanese sailors closely watching a nearby Chinese vessel.

Taiwan’s forces on Friday fired flares to warn away drones flying over its Kinmen islands and unidentified aircraft flying over its Matsu islands. Both island groups are close to China’s coast.

‘WORLD FACES A CHOICE’

As part of its response to Pelosi’s visit, China has halted communication through various channels with the United States 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 U.S. 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.

He said China’s cessation of bilateral dialogue in eight key areas were moves that would punish the world.

China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, on Friday accused Blinken of spreading “misinformation”.

(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)

(Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden sees strong ties with Pacific Island countries as a priority, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said in the Solomon Islands on Sunday, underscoring the stakes of her visit as tensions have been mounting in the region.

At a World War Two memorial event in the Solomons’ capital, Honiara, Sherman rebuked governments that she said sought to dismantle the rules-based international order. She did not specify which governments she was criticizing but tensions in the region has been mounting between U.S. allies and China.

The Solomons surprised their neighbour Australia, and the United States, this year by striking a security pact with China.

“President Biden has made solidarity with the Pacific Islands a priority for his entire administration from the very beginning,” Sherman said at the event, also attended by top diplomats from Australia and New Zealand.

“We have built profound and enduring ties with each other, as one Pacific family.”

Sherman referred to her father, a U.S. Marine who was wounded in the World War Two Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomons.

“Some around the world … seem to have forgotten the awful lessons learned here,” she said.

She called out “leaders who believe that others must be diminished if they are to rise (and) believe that coercion, pressure, and violence are tools to be used with impunity”.

Those leaders, who she did not name, appeared to “believe that the principles and institutions the world set up after the Second World War, the rules-based international order … can be ignored and undermined, diminished and destroyed”.

At the event, U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy, whose father, President John F. Kennedy, also served in the Solomons, said that “countless Americans and allied families have Solomon Islanders to thank for their survival”.

Australia’s minister for international development and the Pacific, Pat Conroy, referred to an agreement with the police in the Solomons to dispose of unexploded ordnance from World War Two, saying it was “ultimately about supporting (the police) to ensure the safety of Solomon Islands people”.

Sherman’s tour is ostensibly timed to commemorate important battles in World War Two, but several senior U.S. officials have visited the region this year as geostrategic competition has increased.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Samoa and Tonga in May, followed by Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong in early June.

The United States has said it wants to open embassies in the Solomons, Kirabati and Tonga, where Sherman visited the day before.

(Reporting by Byron Kaye in Sydney; Editing by David Gregorio and Gerry Doyle)

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON -The United States fully supported Israel’s right to defend itself, the State Department said on Saturday, and it urged all sides to avoid further escalation as Israeli air strikes pounded Gaza while the militant Islamic Jihad group fired rockets into Israel.

At least 24 Palestinians, including six children, have been killed and 203 wounded during the two days of firing, according to the Gaza health ministry.

The State Department also said it was concerned by reports of civilian deaths and called for “a timely and thorough” probe into those casualties. It did not elaborate.

Palestinian militants fired over 400 rockets at Israel – most of them intercepted, setting off air raid sirens and sending people running to bomb shelters. There were no reports of serious casualties, the Israeli ambulance service said.

A State Department spokesperson told Reuters the United States was in touch with Israeli officials and others in the region to prevent further escalation.

An Egyptian intelligence delegation headed by Major General Ahmed Abdelkhaliq arrived in Israel on Saturday and would be travelling to Gaza for mediation talks, two Egyptian security sources said. They were hoping to secure a day’s ceasefire in order to carry out the talks, the sources added.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio and Kim Coghill)

By Richard Cowan and Makini Brice

WASHINGTON -The U.S. Senate on Saturday began debating a Democratic bill to address key elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda – tackling climate change, lowering the costs of medication for the elderly and energy, while forcing corporations and the wealthy to pay more taxes.

The debate began after the Senate voted 51-50 to move ahead with the legislation. Vice President Kamala Harris broke a tie vote, with all 50 Republicans in opposition.

The Senate was set to debate the bill for up to 20 hours before diving into an arduous, time-consuming amendment process called a “vote-a-rama.”

Democrats and Republicans were poised to reject each other’s amendments, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer maneuvered to keep a his 50-member caucus united behind a bill that was negotiated over several months. If even one Democrat were to peel off, the entire effort would be doomed in the evenly split 50-50 Senate.

Earlier in the day, the Senate parliamentarian determined that the lion’s share of the healthcare provisions in the $430 billion bill could be passed with only a simple majority, bypassing a filibuster rule requiring 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber to advance most legislation and enabling Democrats to pass it over Republican objections.

Democrats hope that the legislation will give a boost to their candidates in the Nov. 8 midterm elections in which Biden’s party is in an uphill battle to retain its narrow control of the Senate and House of Representatives. The Democrats cast the legislation as a vehicle to combat inflation, a prime concern of U.S. voters this year.

“The bill, when passed, will meet all of our goals: fighting climate change, lowering healthcare costs, closing tax loopholes abused by the wealthy and reducing the deficit,” Schumer said in a Senate speech.

There are three main parts to the bill’s tax provisions: a 15% minimum tax on corporations and the closing of loopholes that the wealthy can use to avoid paying taxes; tougher IRS enforcement; and a new excise tax on stock buybacks.

The legislation has $430 billion in new spending along with raising more than $740 billion in new revenues.

Democrats have said the legislation by 2030 would result in a 40% reduction in U.S. carbon emissions, blamed for climate change.

‘PRICE-FIXING’

The measure also would allow the Medicare government health insurance program for the elderly to begin negotiating in 2026 with the pharmaceutical industry over prices on a limited number of prescription drug prices as a way of reducing costs. It also would place a $2,000-per-year cap on out-of-pocket medication costs under a Medicare drug program.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell attacked the provision involving negotiating drug prices, comparing it to past “price-fixing” attempts by countries such as Cuba, Venezuela and the former Soviet Union.

“Their policy would bring about a world where many fewer new drugs and treatments get invented in the first place as companies cut back on R&D,” McConnell said in a floor speech, referring to research and development.

While senators debated the policies embedded in the bill, its political ramifications also were on display.

In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Saturday, former President Donald Trump predicted fallout for Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, two key Democratic senators: “If this deal passes, they are both going to lose their next elections.”

But Manchin and Sinema are not up for re-election until 2024 and many of the provisions of the bill are popular with voters.

The legislation is a scaled-down version of a far broader, more expensive measure that many Democrats on the party’s left had hoped to approve last year. That measure stalled when Manchin, a centrist, balked, complaining that it would exacerbate inflationary pressures.

The bill calls for billions of dollars to encourage the production of more electric vehicles and foster clean energy, though automakers say sourcing rules will sharply limit how many electric vehicles qualify for tax credits.

It also would set $4 billion in new federal drought relief funds, a provision that could help the re-election campaigns of Democratic Senators Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada and Mark Kelly in Arizona.

One provision cut from the bill would have forced drug companies to refund money to both government and private health plans if drug prices rise more quickly than inflation.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, a leading progressive, has criticized the bill for failing to go far enough and said he planned to offer amendments that would revive a series of social programs he pushed last year, including broadening the number of prescription drugs Medicare could negotiate prices on and providing government-subsidized dental, vision and hearing aid.

His amendments were expected to fail.

Republicans have signaled that they will offer amendments touching on other issues, including controlling immigrants coming across the U.S. border with Mexico and enhancing policing to curtail rising crime rates in American cities since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Makini Brice; additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici, David Shepardson and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Will Dunham, Scott Malone and Lisa Shumaker)

BRASILIA -Brazil’s federal police on Saturday arrested five more men in an investigation into the murder of British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in the Amazon rainforest in June.

Police said in a statement that seven arrest warrants were issued for illegal fishing in the Vale do Javari region, the remote area close to the border with Colombia and Peru where Phillips and Pereira disappeared on June 5.

The region has been invaded by illegal fishermen, loggers and gold miners. Police say it is a key drug trafficking route.

Phillips, a freelance reporter who wrote for the Guardian and the Washington Post, was doing research for a book on the trip with Pereira, a former head of isolated and recently contacted tribes at federal indigenous affairs agency Funai.

Two of the seven suspects were already under arrest: Ruben Dario da Silva Villar, known as “Colombia”, and fisherman Amarildo Costa de Oliveira, known as “Pelado” who was arrested in June as the primary suspect in the murder.

According to the police, Colombia would be the leader and financier of an armed criminal gang involved in illegal fishing that was smuggled out to the neighboring countries.

Three of the newly arrested men, whose names were not revealed, are relatives of Amarildo and were involved in concealing the bodies of Phillips and Pereira, the police said.

Pereira, the former senior official at the federal indigenous affairs agency Funai, had previously clashed with Amarildo over illegal fishing within the indigenous territory.

Federal prosecutors said that Phillips was killed so that he could not identify the killers.

(Reporting by Marcela Ayres; Editing by David Gregorio)

By Jack Queen

(Reuters) -U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre $45.2 million in punitive damages – on top of $4.1 million in compensatory damages already awarded – for falsely claiming the shooting was a hoax, a Texas jury decided on Friday.

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, separated parents of slain 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, testified that followers of Jones harassed them and sent them death threats for years in the false belief that they were lying about their son’s death in the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting that killed 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

The 12 jurors decided on the punitive damages one day after determining the compensatory damages following a two-week trial in the defamation lawsuit presided over by Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in state court in the Texas capital of Austin, where Jones’ radio show and far-right webcast Infowars are based.

Jones, a prominent figure in American right-wing circles and a supporter of former President Donald Trump, had called the Sandy Hook massacre a U.S. government hoax staged using crisis actors to serve as a pretext for taking away Americans’ guns.

After the verdict, Lewis told reporters that the trial’s outcome showed that “we can choose love,” adding: “We’re all responsible for one another.”

The parents had sought $145.9 million in punitive damages and $150 million in compensatory damages. Compensatory damages are awarded to cover a plaintiff’s suffering and losses. Punitive damages are awarded to punish a defendant’s actions.

An attorney for Jones, Federico Andino Reynal, had asked jurors to return a verdict of $270,000 in punitive damages based on the number of hours Infowars devoted to Sandy Hook coverage.

Outside the courthouse, Reynal told reporters the verdict was high but that Texas law caps punitive damages at $750,000 per plaintiff.

Reynal later told Reuters he aimed to minimize compensatory damages throughout the trial knowing there is a cap on punitive damages.

“We always knew that was going to be a backstop, so the strategy worked,” Reynal said, referring to the cap.

The punitive damages were put at $4.2 million for Jones defaming Heslin by questioning that he held his dead son after the shooting and $20.5 million apiece to Heslin and Lewis for mental anguish.

“We ask that you send a very, very simple message, and that is: stop Alex Jones. Stop the monetization of misinformation and lies,” Wesley Todd Ball, a lawyer for the parents, told jurors on Friday before they began deliberations on punitive damages.

Jones sought to distance himself from the conspiracy theories during his testimony in the trial, apologizing to the parents and acknowledging that Sandy Hook was “100% real.”

The Sandy Hook gunman, Adam Lanza, used a Remington Bushmaster rifle during the massacre, which ended when he killed himself with the sound of approaching police sirens.

‘TRULY A BAD ACTOR’

The judge admonished Jones during the trial for not telling the truth during his testimony about his bankruptcy and lack of compliance with requests for documents.

Attorney Doug Mirell, a defamation litigation expert not involved in the case, said the question of Jones’s truthfulness on the witness stand could have played a role in the jury’s award of punitive damages, noting that it is unusual to award significantly more in punitive than compensatory damages.

“The jury may have simply latched on to their revulsion at the lies and decided Mr. Jones is truly a bad actor,” Mirell told Reuters.

Forensic economist Bernard Pettingill testified on Friday that Jones and Infowars are worth between $135 million and $270 million combined.

Jones’ company, Free Speech Systems LLC, declared bankruptcy last week. Jones said during a Monday broadcast that the filing will help the company stay on the air while it appeals.

The bankruptcy declaration paused a similar defamation suit by Sandy Hook parents in Connecticut where, as in Texas, he has already been found liable. The bankruptcy will also pause another defamation suit by Sandy Hook parents in Texas, Reynal told Reuters.

During closing arguments on Wednesday, Kyle Farrar, a lawyer for the parents, urged the jury to end what he called their nightmare and hold Jones accountable for profiting off their son’s death. Reynal acknowledged during his closing argument that Jones and Infowars reported “irresponsibly” on Sandy Hook but said his client was not responsible for the harassment.

The plaintiffs have accused Jones of approaching the trial in bad faith, citing broadcasts in which he said the proceedings were rigged against him and that the jury pool was full of people who “don’t know what planet they’re on.”

Reynal vowed on Friday that Jones will keep doing his job “holding the power structure accountable.”

(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Additional reporting by Jacqueline Thomsen in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell

GAZA/JERUSALEM -Israeli air strikes pounded Gaza while the militant Islamic Jihad group fired hundreds of rockets into Israel on Saturday as a cross-border clash continued into a second day, killing at least six people, including four children.

Hamas, the Islamist group which controls the enclave, said the children were among the dead from a blast close to the Jabalya refugee camp and blamed Israel. The Israeli military denied it was responsible, saying the explosion was caused by a failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch.

It distributed a video which appeared to show a rocket being launched from Gaza at night and then veering immediately off course down into a built-up area. Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

While the Israeli strikes went on, hitting what the military said were weapons depots hidden in residential areas and destroying a number of houses, Islamic Jihad fired rocket salvoes as far as Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv.

At least 24 Palestinians, including six children, have been killed and 203 wounded during the two days of firing, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Palestinian militants fired more than 400 rockets at Israel – most of them intercepted, setting off air raid sirens and sending people running to bomb shelters. There were no reports of serious casualties, the Israeli ambulance service said.

Egypt said it was engaged in intensive talks to calm the situation. Further escalation would largely depend on whether Hamas would opt to join the fighting alongside the smaller Islamic Jihad group.

An Egyptian intelligence delegation headed by Major General Ahmed Abdelkhaliq arrived in Israel on Saturday and would be travelling to Gaza for mediation talks, two Egyptian security sources said. They were hoping to secure a day’s ceasefire in order to carry out the talks, the sources added.

“Intensive efforts have been made this evening and the movement listened to the mediators, but these efforts haven’t reached an agreement yet,” an Islamic Jihad official told Reuters late on Saturday.

The cross-border clash, which shattered more than a year of relative calm around Gaza, began when Israel launched a surprise attack on Friday, killing a senior Islamic Jihad commander and hitting a series of what it said were military targets.

CONCERN

Around 2.3 million Palestinians are packed into the narrow coastal Gaza Strip, with Israel and Egypt tightly restricting movement of people and goods in and out of the enclave and imposing a naval blockade, citing security concerns.

Israel stopped the planned transport of fuel into Gaza shortly before it struck on Friday, crippling the territory’s lone power plant and reducing electricity to around eight hours per day and drawing warnings from health officials that hospitals would be severely impacted within days.

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

The United States fully supported Israel’s right to defend itself, the U.S. State Department said on Saturday, and it urged all sides to avoid further escalation.

U.N. and European Union Mideast envoys expressed concern about the violence and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority condemned Israel’s attacks.

Gaza streets were largely deserted on Saturday afternoon. At the site where top Islamic Jihad commander Tayseer al-Jaabari was killed, rubble, glass and furniture were strewn along the street.

In Israel, border town streets were largely empty while brushfires sparked by rockets spread through nearby fields.

Islamic Jihad said it had fired a missile at Israel’s main international gateway, Ben Gurion Airport, but the rocket fell short around 20 km (12 miles) away. The Civil Aviation Authority said the airport was operating normally.

Tensions rose this week after Israeli forces arrested an Islamic Jihad commander in the occupied West Bank, drawing threats of retaliation from the group. The military said it had apprehended 19 more members of the group there on Saturday.

Israeli Defence Minister said dozens of the group’s rocket facilities in Gaza had been destroyed.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who faces an election in November, said the operation thwarted an imminent attack by Islamic Jihad, which is backed by Iran and designated as a terrorist organisation by the West.

(Writing by Maayan Lubell, additional reporting by Ahmed Mohamed Hassan in Cairo, Amir Cohen in Sderot, Eli Berlzon in Ashkelon and Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Jason Neely, Christina Fincher and Jonathan Oatis)