KYIV -Ukraine remains in control of the Azot chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk where hundreds of civilians are sheltering, the region’s governor said on Saturday, after a Russia-backed separatist claimed 300 to 400 Ukrainian fighters were also trapped there.

“The information about the blockade of the Azot plant is a lie,” Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk region partially controlled by pro-Russian separatists, said on the Telegram messaging app.

“Our forces are holding an industrial zone of Sievierodonetsk and are destroying the Russian army in the town,” he wrote.

Sievierodonetsk, a small city in the region, has become the focus of Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine and one of the bloodiest flashpoints in a war now into its fourth month.

Ukraine has said some 800 people were hiding in several bomb shelters underneath the Azot plant, including about 200 employees and 600 residents of Sievierodonetsk.

Rodion Miroshnik, a Russian-backed representative of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, said late on Saturday that some civilians had started to leave.

“There are occasional exchanges of fire. … They (the Ukrainian defenders) may still be holding several hundred civilians hostage,” he said in an online post. Reuters was not immediately able to verify his account.

Miroshnik had earlier said 300 to 400 Ukrainian fighters were blockaded on the grounds of the plant along with civilians and had tried to negotiate their passage to Lysychansk, Sievierodonetsk’s twin city.

(Reporting by Natalia Zinets in Kyiv, Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Jason Neely and Jonathan Oatis)

By Jake Spring

ATALAIA DO NORTE, Brazil – Brazilian investigators are skeptical that remains found in a river could be from a British journalist who went missing in the Amazon rainforest on Sunday, two police officers involved in the case told Reuters.

On Friday, federal police had announced finding “organic material” that was “apparently human,” raising expectations of a breakthrough in the search for reporter Dom Phillips and his travel companion, indigenous expert Bruno Pereira.

However, a federal police officer and a state detective, both of whom requested anonymity to discuss the case, said the material’s location and condition raised doubts about whether it could be connected to the missing men.

A federal police spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The remains were found near the port of Atalaia do Norte, a town more than 40 miles (65 km) downstream from where Phillips and Pereira were last seen on a slow-moving river, the sources said. The material’s condition suggested it could have been scraps from a nearby butcher rather than remains carried far downstream, they added.

One of the sources said it seemed likely the material was from an animal and not human, but that it had been sent for forensic analysis out of an abundance of caution. The other said the origin would only be clear after that analysis.

Witnesses said they last saw Phillips, a freelance reporter who has written for the Guardian and the Washington Post, last Sunday. His companion Pereira, an expert on local tribes, had been a senior official with government indigenous agency Funai.

The two men were on a reporting trip in the remote jungle area near the border with Peru and Colombia that is home to the world’s largest number of uncontacted indigenous people. The wild and lawless region has lured cocaine-smuggling gangs, along with illegal loggers, miners and hunters.

The pair’s disappearance has echoed globally, with Brazilian icons from soccer great Pele to singer Caetano Veloso joining politicians, environmentalists and human rights activists in urging President Jair Bolsonaro to step up the search for them.

State police detectives involved in the investigation have told Reuters they are focusing on poachers and illegal fisherman in the area, who clashed often with Pereira as he organized indigenous patrols of the local reservation.

Police have arrested one fisherman, Amarildo da Costa, known locally as “Pelado,” on a weapons charge and are keeping him in custody as they investigate whether he is involved in the men’s disappearance

Costa’s lawyers and family have said he fished legally on the river and denied he had any role in the men’s disappearance.

Some 150 soldiers had been deployed via riverboats to hunt for the missing men and interview locals, joining indigenous search teams who have been looking for the pair since Sunday.

(Reporting by Jake Spring; Editing by Brad Haynes and Jonathan Oatis)

LOS ANGELES -U.S. President Joe Biden said he had “not yet” decided if he will travel to Saudi Arabia, a week after he opened the door to a possible trip.

Sources have said Biden was planning a trip to Saudi Arabia, along with a trip to Europe and Israel in late June. The White House has said the president feels that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a “pariah” for his role in the killing of a political opponent, Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in Turkey in 2018.

The Saudi government has denied any involvement by the crown prince.

Asked by a reporter later in Albuquerque, New Mexico, if he would use a possible trip to the Middle East to secure a deal to improve Saudi-Israeli relations, Biden said: “We’ll see.”

Any potential visit to Saudi Arabia likely would be aimed at bolstering relations with the country at a time when Biden is trying to find ways to lower gasoline prices in the United States.

A White House official said on Friday that the United States would not overlook conduct that took place before Biden’s presidency, but that “it was also important to reorient – but not rupture – relations with Saudi Arabia”, noting the country’s role as a strategic partner of the United States for eight decades.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Steve Holland; Writing by Makini Brice and Michael Martina; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Daniel Wallis)

(Reuters) – Britain’s Department for Transport on Saturday denied a report that the government was considering issuing temporary visas to workers from the European Union to ease a staffing crisis at airports.

The Telegraph newspaper reported https://bit.ly/3zz6Dlu that Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has discussed plans to issue baggage handlers and check-in staff with temporary visas similar to those issued to fruit pickers and musicians,

“This is entirely untrue,” a ministry spokesperson said.

Shapps last week said the government would be working with the aviation industry to avoid a repeat of the chaos at airports as passengers faced lengthy delays and cancellations of hundreds of flights.

Airports across Europe have struggled to cope with a post-pandemic rebound in demand but British airports have been particularly hit by disruptions over the past week.

The sector has struggled to recruit staff after the turmoil of the pandemic and complain it is taking longer to recruit new employees and vet them for security clearance.

Britain quit the EU in January 2020, leading to an exodus in workers from the bloc.

(Reporting by Shivam Patel and Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

ST ALBANS, England – Former Masters champion Patrick Reed has become the latest golfer to join the lucrative LIV Golf Invitational Series, the Saudi-backed league said on Saturday.

Reed, who won the Masters in 2018, has 12 wins on the PGA Tour and the European Tour. LIV announced Reed as its newest member on Twitter https://twitter.com/LIVGolfInv/status/1535652475411345408.

The 31-year-old American joins former world number one Dustin Johnson, six-times major champion Phil Mickelson and former U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau in joining the LIV Series which had its inaugural event in London this week.

The big-hitting DeChambeau jumped ship from the PGA Tour on Friday and will make his debut in the second event of the series in Portland, Oregon, later this month.

The PGA Tour said on Thursday it would suspend players who turned out for the LIV event but some golfers had already resigned from the Tour before the sanctions were announced.

“The growing roster of LIV Golf players gets even stronger today with a player of Patrick Reed’s calibre,” LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman said in a statement.

“He has a proven track record as one of the most consistent competitors in pro golf and adds yet another big presence at our tournaments. He’s a major champion and he’ll bring another impressive dynamic to our team-based format at LIV Golf.”

The eight-event LIV Series, bankrolled to the tune of $250 million by the Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) began this week at the Centurion Club north of London.

Events, with fields of 48, take place over 54 holes with no cuts and shotgun starts. As well as an individual event, players also compete for teams with huge prize money at stake.

The individual winner of each event will bag $4 million — the biggest prize in golf history.

(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru and Martyn Herman; Editing by Toby Davis)

By Chen Lin and Kanupriya Kapoor

SINGAPORE – The United States and its allies traded barbs with China at Asia’s premier security meeting on Saturday, especially on Taiwan, but the war in Ukraine and a remote speech by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dominated proceedings.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier told the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that Washington will do its part to manage tensions with China and prevent conflict even though Beijing was becoming increasingly aggressive in the region.

Zelenskiy, speaking via video link from an undisclosed location in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, told the delegates that their nations’ support was crucial not just to defeat the Russian invasion, but to preserve the rules-based order.

“It is on the battlefields of Ukraine that the future rules of this world are being decided along with the boundaries of the possible,” he said.

He noted that Russia is blocking ports in the Black Sea and Azov Sea, keeping Ukrainian food exports from the world market.

“If … due to Russian blockades we are unable to export our foodstuffs, the world will face an acute and severe food crisis and famine in many countries in Asia and Africa,” he said.

China and the United States, which have clashed in recent months over everything from Taiwan and China’s human rights record to its military activity in the South China Sea, were again at odds.

Austin and Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe met on Friday and reiterated they want to better manage their relationship but there was no sign of any breakthrough in resolving differences.

Austin said the United States would continue to stand by its allies, including Taiwan.

“That’s especially important as the PRC (People’s Republic of China) adopts a more coercive and aggressive approach to its territorial claims,” he said.

China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own and has vowed to take it by force if necessary.

Austin said there had been an “alarming” increase in the number of unsafe and unprofessional encounters between Chinese planes and vessels with those of other countries.

Australia has said a Chinese fighter aircraft dangerously intercepted one of its military surveillance planes in the South China Sea region in May, and Canada’s military has accused Chinese warplanes of harassing its patrol aircraft as they monitor North Korea sanction evasions.

Taiwan has complained for years of repeated Chinese air force missions into its air defence identification zone, and Austin said these incursions had surged in recent months.

Lieutenant General Zhang Zhenzhong, a senior Chinese military officer, called Austin’s speech a “confrontation”.

“There were many unfounded accusations against China. We expressed our strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these false accusations,” Zhang, vice chief of the joint staff department of China’s Central Military Commission, told reporters.

“The United States is trying to form a small circle in the Asia-Pacific region by roping in some countries to incite against some other countries. What should we call this other than confrontation?”

CLOSED-DOOR MEETING

Earlier this year, Washington said China appeared poised to help Russia in its war against Ukraine.

    But since then, U.S. officials have said while they remain wary about China’s longstanding support for Russia in general, the military and economic support that they worried about has not come to pass, at least for now.

Ng Eng Hen, the defence minister of host Singapore, said the ties between China and Russia were discussed at a closed-door meeting of the ministers on Saturday, and that several delegates had asked Beijing to do more to rein in Moscow.

The defence minister of Japan, one of Washington’s closest allies in Asia, told the meeting that military cooperation between China and Russia had sharpened security concerns in the region.

“Joint military operations between these two strong military powers will undoubtedly increase concern among other countries,” Nobuo Kishi said at the Singapore meeting.

Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand also spoke out against China.

“The interceptions by the Chinese of our (aircraft) are very concerning and unprofessional and we need to ensure that the safety and security of our pilots is not at risk, especially when they are simply monitoring as required under U.N.-sanctioned missions,” Anand told Reuters in an interview.

New Zealand voiced concern about Chinese attempts to gain influence in the Pacific islands.

Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said it was reasonable to expect China to make clear it did not support the invasion of a sovereign country in violation of the U.N. Charter.

“That China has not done so should give us cause for concern, especially given the investments it is making in military power,” he said at the meeting.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali, Chen Lin, Kanupriya Kapoor and Joe Brock; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by William Mallard and Gerry Doyle)

By Angelo Amante

ROME -Rescuers have found the bodies of seven people killed in a helicopter crash in Italy, local authorities said on Saturday, two days after the aircraft disappeared from radar screens.

The helicopter had taken off on Thursday from Lucca in Tuscany and was heading towards the northern city of Treviso when it was lost in bad weather over a remote area.

“The rescuers have found dead the seven passengers from the helicopter, four of Turkish and two of Lebanese nationality, who were on a business trip to Italy. As well as the Italian pilot,” the prefect’s office in the city of Modena said in a statement.

The helicopter was found in a mountainous area on the border between Tuscany and the Emilia Romagna region, the statement said.

Prosecutors have cordoned off the area as part of the investigation into the incident.

“We got the coordinates, we went to the site and found everything burnt. The helicopter is basically inside a valley, near a stream,” a rescuer said in a video posted on the Italian Air Force Twitter account.

The Turkish businessmen worked for Eczacibasi Consumer Products, a subsidiary of major Turkish industrial group Eczacibasi. They had been attending a paper technologies fair in Italy, the company said in a statement.

The helicopter was an AW119 Koala manufactured by defence group Leonardo, a person close to the matter told Reuters.

The ANSA news agency reported it was owned by transport and aeronautic maintenance company Avio Helicopters, based in Thiene, in northern Italy.

Avio Helicopters was not immediately available for comment.

(Additional reporting by Federico Maccioni; Editing by David Clarke, Clelia Oziel and Mike Harrison)

By Sarah Marsh and Tsvetelia Tsolova

SOFIA/SKOPJE -German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday called on Bulgaria to lift its veto on EU accession talks for North Macedonia, saying the bloc should avoid dashing the membership hopes of countries in Western Balkans.

Scholz, visiting Sofia as part of a two-day tour of the region ahead of an EU-Western Balkans leaders’ summit on June 23, said he sensed a “new willingness” by the EU to expand after Russia’s invasion to Ukraine.

The war has lent new urgency to the process of trying to tie the Western Balkans closer to the 27-member bloc in a bid to counter Russian and Chinese influence. The German chancellor has made the matter a foreign policy priority, and fashioned himself as a mediator during his trip.

“I see chances for progress,” Scholz said in a news conference with Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov. “We will stay in close exchange in coming days.”

Petkov reiterated Bulgaria’s stance that North Macedonia must meet three conditions related to historical and cultural disputes between the two countries, urging Brussels to guarantee they were met.

The issue is sensitive for Bulgaria’s domestic politics. This week, one of Petkov’s four coalition partners quit, accusing him of being ready to lift Bulgaria’s veto in disregard of national interests, among other allegations.

Earlier on Saturday, Scholz visited North Macedonia, which has already carried out many reforms in its bid to become an EU member, such as changing its name to meet Greek objections.

Speaking in Skopje alongside North Macedonian Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski, Scholz said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made it important for Europe to stand together.

On Friday, he visited Serbia and Kosovo, which declared independence from Belgrade in 2008. He urged the leaders to reach an agreement on normalising relations.

Shortly before returning to Germany, Scholz said the will among many EU members to get the Western Balkans into the EU was stronger than it had been “for many years”.

(Reporting by Sarah Marsh in Skopje and Ivana Sekularac in Belgrade; additional Reporting by Tom Sims in Frankfurt; Editing by Jason Neely and Clelia Oziel)

SINGAPORE – Manoeuvres by China and Russia have sharpened security concerns in East Asia, Japanese Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi said in unusually strong comments on Saturday, adding that Japan was on the front lines as neighbours tried to upend international norms.

“Japan is surrounded by actors that possess, or are developing, nuclear weapons, and that openly ignore rules,” Kishi said in Singapore at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier security meeting.

In May, China and Russia conducted a joint aerial patrol in waters close to Japan and Taiwan, their first since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Joint military operations between these two strong military powers will undoubtedly increase concern among other countries,” he said.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made the same point in no uncertain terms in his Shangri-La Dialogue keynote speech the night before, saying his country would call for increased defence spending and possibly seek advanced strike weapons.

“Ukraine may be East Asia tomorrow,” he said.

Security and stability of the Taiwan Strait was also important for the security of Japan and the wider world, Kishi said on Saturday, calling China a “nation of concern”.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation,” has alarmed Tokyo, because it could establish military force as a way to settle international disputes and encourage China to try and take control of Taiwan, which lies close to Japan and maritime trade routes that feed its economy.

In his speech, Kishi also criticised North Korea, which has carried out at least 18 missile tests this year, saying the regime could not be allowed to threaten Japan, the region and the international community.

The three-day Shangri-La Dialogue, which attracts top-level military officials, diplomats and weapons makers from around the globe, began on Friday.

President Joe Biden, standing alongside Kishida in Tokyo in May, said the United States would militarily intervene if China attacked Taiwan. The White House later said Biden’s remarks did not represent a change in policy toward the island.

China says its recent military drills around Taiwan, which it considers as part of its territory, are meant to defend its sovereignty.

In a policy paper published on Tuesday, Kishida’s administration said it wanted to drastically increase defence spending within the next five years.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

By Andrew Galbraith

SHANGHAI -China’s capital Beijing is experiencing an “explosive” COVID-19 outbreak connected to a bar, a government spokesman said on Saturday, as the commercial hub, Shanghai, conducted mass testing to contain a jump in cases tied to a hair salon.

The warning followed a new tightening of COVID curbs in Beijing since Thursday, with at least two districts closing some entertainment venues after a flare-up in a neighbourhood full of nightlife, shopping and embassies.

While China’s infection rate is low by global standards, it maintains a zero-COVID policy, citing the need to protect the elderly and the medical system, even as other countries try to live with the virus.

So far, the country of 1.4 billion has seen just 5,226 deaths from COVID-19.

Beijing authorities said on Saturday that all 61 new cases uncovered in the city on Friday had either visited the Heaven Supermarket Bar or had links to it.

“The recent outbreak … is strongly explosive in nature and widespread in scope,” Xu Hejian, spokesperson of the Beijing municipal government, told a news briefing.

The capital had registered 46 new local cases on Saturday as of 3 p.m. (0700 GMT), all people already in isolation or under observation, health official Liu Xiaofeng said.

The city did not announce new curbs at the briefing, but later the Beijing sports administration said all off-campus and “offline” sports activities for teens would be cancelled from Sunday.

So far, 115 cases and 6,158 close contacts linked to the bar have been reported, throwing the city of 22 million back into a state of anxiety.

Beijing only relaxed curbs less than two weeks ago that had been imposed to fight a major outbreak that began in April.

The sprawling Universal Beijing Resort – a theme park on the city’s outskirts – on Friday rescinded a plan to reopen. City authorities said three of its workers had visited the Heaven Supermarket bar.

Many neighbourhoods in the capital have been put under lockdown, with residents told to stay home.

CITYWIDE TESTING

In Shanghai, officials announced three new confirmed local cases and one asymptomatic case detected outside quarantined areas on Saturday, as nearly all the city’s 25 million residents began a new round of COVID tests.

Authorities ordered PCR testing for all residents in 15 of Shanghai’s 16 districts this weekend, and five districts barred residents from leaving home during the testing period. A city official said residents should complete at least one PCR test a week until July 31.

China’s most populous city only lifted a gruelling two-month COVID-19 lockdown on June 1.

“I am a little bit worried because if there are positive cases in the compound, it will be put into a sealed situation,” said Shanghai resident Shi Weiqi. “I will also stock up on some supplies properly in case the previous situation happens again.”

Shanghai authorities said they had also reprimanded and dismissed several district-level officials for lapses at a hotel that was used to quarantine arrivals from overseas, pinpointed as one of the sources of Shanghai’s wave of the Omicron variant of coronavirus.

They also said they had warned or dismissed some executives at a state-owned firm that owned the Red Rose beauty salon, where three cases were found among workers this week.

The salon’s employees had not followed guidelines to undertake PCR testing daily, they said.

On Saturday, Shanghai reported seven new local symptomatic cases for the previous day, a rise of one, of which six were detected outside of quarantined areas.

The city also recorded nine new local asymptomatic cases, up from six the previous day.

In total, mainland China reported 210 new coronavirus cases for June 10, of which 79 were symptomatic and 131 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said.

That was up from 151 new cases a day earlier, 45 of them symptomatic and 106 asymptomatic.

As of Friday, mainland China had confirmed 224,659 cases with symptoms.

(Reporting by Andrew Galbraith, Ryan Woo, Brenda Goh and the Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Kim Coghill, David Holmes and Kevin Liffey)

LONDON – Prince Charles has privately described the British government’s plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda as “appalling”, two media reports said, as the first flight taking refugees to the East African country is due to leave next week.

Charles, heir to the British throne, has been heard criticising the policy, The Times and Daily Mail newspapers reported.

Charles is concerned that the controversial asylum policy will overshadow a Commonwealth meeting summit in Rwanda where he is due to represent his mother Queen Elizabeth at the end of this month, The Times reported.

“He said he was more than disappointed at the policy,” a source told The Times.

“He said he thinks the government’s whole approach is appalling. It was clear he was not impressed with the government’s direction of travel.”

A spokesperson for Charles did not deny he had expressed personal opinions about the policy in private.

“We would not comment on supposed anonymous private conversations with the Prince except to restate that he remains politically neutral. Matters of policy are decisions for government,” the spokesperson said.

The British government announced in April it had struck a deal to send potentially tens of thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda in a bid to undermine people-smuggling networks.

At least 30 individuals are still set to be removed from Britain next week.

The government overcame a legal challenge to the policy on Friday as a judge dismissed campaigners’ attempts to win an injunction. It said the first flight could leave on Tuesday.

Under Britain’s unwritten constitution, the royal family should remain politically neutral. Queen Elizabeth has steadfastly kept her opinions to herself during her seven-decade reign.

Charles, in contrast, has expressed views about subjects close to his heart such as nature conservation, architecture and genetically modified crops.

(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; editing by Jason Neely)