By Andrew MacAskill

LONDON -Britain will pay people to open their homes to Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion as the government moves to deflect anger over its response to the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two.

The new scheme called “Homes for Ukraine” will let refugees from the war come to Britain even if they do not have family ties, the government said on Sunday.

Britain will pay people 350 pounds ($456) a month if they can offer refugees a spare room or property for a minimum period of six months.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has sought to portray Britain as helping lead the global response to the Russian invasion – which Moscow calls a “special operation” – but his government has faced criticism over delays in accepting refugees.

Lawmakers from all the main political parties have attacked the government’s insistence that Ukrainians seek visas and biometric tests before arriving in Britain, saying this prioritised bureaucracy over the welfare of those fleeing war.

Under the new scheme, members of the public, charities, businesses and community groups should be able to offer accommodation via a web page by the end of next week, the government said.

“The UK stands behind Ukraine in their darkest hour and the British public understand the need to get as many people to safety as quickly as we can,” Michael Gove, the minister for housing, said in a statement.

“I urge people across the country to join the national effort and offer support to our Ukrainian friends. Together we can give a safe home to those who so desperately need it.”

Anyone offering a room or home will have to show that the accommodation meets standards and they may have to undergo criminal record checks.

In an interview on Sky News, Gove estimated tens of thousands of Ukrainians could come to Britain via this route, with the first arrivals likely in around a week’s time.

Gove said local authorities would be given just over 10,000 pounds per Ukrainian to help fund the additional demands on public services, with extra funding for school-age children.

The number of refugees fleeing Ukraine could rise to more than 4 million, double the current estimates of about 2 million, the UN’s Refugee Agency said last week. Britain has so far issued visas to around 3,000 Ukrainians.

($1 = 0.7671 pounds)

(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Susan Fenton)

ROME -A bus carrying around 50 Ukrainians left the road and overturned in Italy on Sunday, leaving one woman dead and several injured, fire fighters and police said.

The accident occurred at dawn on the highway between Cesena and Rimini, on the north eastern coast. Pictures released by the interior minister show the bus overturned and a crane lifting up the vehicle.

The bus, coming from Ukraine, was heading to the city of Pescara, the ministry said.

The passengers, mostly women and children, were believed to be fleeing the country after the military attack of Russia, a police source said.

(Reporting by Giselda Vagnoni Editing by Louise Heavens and Mark Potter)

BEIJING -Mainland China reported 1,807 new local symptomatic COVID-19 cases on Sunday, the highest daily figure in two years and more than triple the caseload of the previous day, as surging infections in a northeastern province squeeze health resources.

The number of domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms reported for Saturday spiked from 476 the previous day, data from the National Health Commission showed on Sunday. The daily count included 114 people initially classified as asymptomatic who later developed symptoms.

China’s case count is far lower than those of many other countries, but the growing number could complicate Beijing’s “dynamic-clearance” ambition to suppress contagion as quickly as possible.

The surge prompted health authorities to allow the public to buy rapid self-test kits for the first time to help detect infections quickly, as some experts said China’s earlier strategy based on nucleic acid test – requiring medical workers to take samples – had become harder with the fast-spreading Omicron variant.

The northeastern province of Jilin reported 1,412 new local symptomatic cases on Saturday, accounting for 78% of the national total and up from 134 a day earlier.

The increase “showed that some local areas, facing a rapid rise of the epidemic, lacked the capacity to expand medical resources, resulting in limited admission of infections to centralized facilities within a short period of time,” a Jilin provincial official told a news briefing.

Authorities in Changchun, the provincial capital already under lockdown, have been conducting mass testing and working on turning an exhibition centre into a temporary hospital with 1,500 beds, according to the local official and state media reports.

The southern tech hub of Shenzhen reported 60 new local cases with confirmed symptoms for Saturday, the city’s highest since China contained the first outbreak in early 2020.

Shenzhen will suspend public transport including buses and subways from Monday, and residents have been told not to leave the city unless necessary, as the city conducts three rounds of mass testing, the authorities said in a statement.

All nine districts in Shenzhen have halted dining in restaurants, closed indoor entertainment venues and demanded that companies should have employees work from home this Monday to Friday if remote working is possible, with exceptions for those in essential sectors.

Six officials with local government or Communist Party authorities in the southern city of Dongguan have been removed from their roles for doing a poor job in COVID prevention and control, state media said on Sunday.

The China Development Forum, a high-level business gathering in Beijing that was originally scheduled for March 19 to 22, will be postponed indefinitely due to the COVID situation, the organiser said in a statement.

The number of new locally transmitted asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, rose to 1,315 on Saturday from 1,048 a day earlier, the fourth consecutive day of increases, the NHC data showed.

There were no new deaths, leaving the death toll at 4,636. As of March 12, mainland China had reported 115,466 cases with confirmed symptoms, including both local ones and those arriving from outside mainland.

(Reporting by Kevin Yao and Roxanne Liu; Editing by William Mallard, Gerry Doyle and Susan Fenton)

(Corrects headline and first paragraph to reflect a continuation of current policy)

By Kanishka Singh

– The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden said unaccompanied migrant children will continue to not be expelled from the United States under a border policy put in place by former President Donald Trump, in a bid to counter a court challenge to the current practice.

“The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) director is terminating with respect to unaccompanied noncitizen children an Order under Title 42 suspending the right to introduce certain persons into the United States”, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said early on Saturday.

“In effect, this means that unaccompanied noncitizen children will not be expelled from the United States under CDC’s order.”

The Title 42 order was issued by the CDC in March 2020 at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and allowed U.S. authorities to rapidly expel migrant families caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without a chance to seek refuge in the United States.

Since it went into effect, migrants have been turned away more than 1.6 million times under the policy, though some of those encounters were people crossing multiple times.

In a separate 21-page order justifying the decision to end Title 42 for unaccompanied children, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky cited the recent nationwide decrease in COVID-19 cases and increased vaccination rates in the United States and in the countries of migrants who journey to the southern border.

Early in his presidency, Biden exempted unaccompanied children from the expulsion policy, but a federal judge in Texas ruled on March 4 that minors could not be excluded in a case brought by the state of Texas against the administration.

The Texas ruling, which is at odds with another U.S. district court order in 2020 blocking expulsions of unaccompanied children, has put pressure on the administration to consider whether to roll back the order entirely.

(This story corrects headline and first paragraph to reflect a continuation of current policy.)

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Alistair Bell)

NEW YORK – A Museum of Modern Art patron whose membership card was recently revoked for unruly behavior stabbed two MoMA employees on Saturday when they denied him admission to the famed midtown Manhattan site and then fled, police said.

The two victims, both women, were rushed to a local hospital for treatment of multiple stab wounds to their upper bodies, but “we’re told they’re going to be OK,” John Miller, deputy New York City police commissioner, told a news briefing afterward.

New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers launched a manhunt for the suspect, whom Miller said was familiar to MoMA staff as a museum “regular” and to police from previous “disorderly conduct” incidents, including at least one at MoMA, in recent days.

NYPD was not aware of any record of arrests or other brushes with the law, Miller said.

A letter revoking the man’s MoMA membership card was sent to him on Friday, and he showed up late on Saturday afternoon “with the stated intention” of seeing a film being screened at the museum, Miller said.

When he was told that his membership card had expired and was refused entrance, he became upset, jumped over the reception desk and stabbed the two employees, according to Miller. Surveillance video footage showed him fleeing the museum moments afterward on foot.

The New York Post posted photographs showing each of the two women being moved on gurneys to waiting ambulances outside the museum. The Post said the stabbings triggered a chaotic scene that sent visitors scurrying from the museum, renowned for one of the world’s largest and most influential collections of modern art.

(Reporting by Andrew Kelly in New York; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Sandra Maler)

By Marek Strzelecki and Fedja Grulovic

PRZEMYSL, Poland/ISACCEA, Romania – Ukraine’s neighbours reported a dip in numbers of refugees on Saturday as governments and volunteers struggled to find shelter for the nearly 2.6 million mostly women and children who have fled since Russia’s invasion two weeks ago.

Arrivals were still building on an influx that is overwhelming volunteers, non-governmental organisations and authorities in eastern Europe’s border communities as well as the big cities to which most of the refugees head.

Poland’s Border Guard said 76,200 people arrived on Friday – a drop of 12% from the day before. Slovak police reported a similar dip in numbers, to 9,581 people, and arrivals to Romania dropped by 22% to 16,348, police said.

Elena Pugachova, 52, a psychologist from Ukraine’s port city of Odessa, fought back tears after she stepped off a ferry that had carried her across the Danube river to Romania.

“I can’t speak without tears, I’m sorry, but I’m really sorry for my country and nobody could expect this…They’re bombing Kharkiv, they’re bombing Mykolayiv, it’s only 120 km from Odessa and it’s painful inside,” she said.

Mayor Wojciech Bakun of Przemysl, a Polish city of 60,000 near the Medyka border crossing, said the number of people arriving fell to around 18,000 over the past day from 23,000 the day before and peaks of over 50,000.

He said he needed support to prepare accommodation for 2,000-3,000 people.

“I have the buildings but they need work, it would require between 10-20 million zloty ($2.3-4.6 million). I can’t finance this from the municipal budget as we have other needs, it could be funds from the European Union or from the government,” he said.

Veronika Zhushman, 32, travelling with her 6-year-old daughter, mother and younger sister from Vasylkiv in the Kyiv region, had slept the night in a sports gymnasium at a high school in the city.

She was woken up early on Saturday morning by another refugee’s mobile alert about a bombing.

“I haven’t slept well since the beginning of the invasion … after the alarm went off I felt worried all over again,” she said.

Fighting raged near Kyiv on Saturday and Ukrainian officials said heavy shelling and threats of Russian air attacks were endangering attempted evacuations of desperate civilians from encircled towns and cities.

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR reported that nearly 2.6 million people had fled Ukraine as of Friday, 1.6 million of them heading to Poland.

Refugees have aimed for cities with established Ukrainian communities and better chances of finding work.

In the capital Warsaw, a city of 1.8 million before the Russian attack, refugees now make up more than 10% of the population, the city’s mayor said on Friday.

CZECHS ASK EU PARTNERS FOR HELP

Hungary has received over 230,000 refugees, with 10,530 arrivals on Friday. Romania reported 380,866, including 16,348 on Friday.

Slovakia reported 185,660 arrivals, with most continuing their journey further west.

The western route often goes to the Czech Republic, where officials on Friday estimated the number of refugees at 200,000.

On Saturday, the country asked EU partners to provide modular homes to shelter 50,000 refugees. Refugees would also be housed in gyms, halls and possibly tent camps, Interior Minister Vit Rakusan told news agency CTK.

Czech police warned refugees about scammers offering help with visa processing and other assistance for money, or taking personal data that could be abused to steal or launder money. They also urged caution about suspicious offers of work that could lead to forced prostitution or trafficking.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a special military operation to disarm its neighbour and dislodge its “neo-Nazi” leaders. Kyiv and its Western allies say this is a baseless pretext to invade a country of 44 million people.

($1 = 4.3794 zlotys)

(Additional reporting by Mari Saito in Przemysl, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Anna Koper and Kacper Pempel in Warsaw, Luiza Ilie in Bucharest, Robert Muller in Prague, Krisztina Than in Budapest, writing by Jan Lopatka, editing by Ros Russell)

By Asif Shahzad

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan on Saturday demanded a joint probe into a missile India said it accidentally fired into its territory, rejecting New Delhi’s decision to hold an internal inquiry into the incident and calling on the international community to play a role.

“Such a serious matter cannot be addressed with the simplistic explanation proffered by the Indian authorities,” Pakistan’s foreign office said in a statement.

“Pakistan demands a joint probe to accurately establish the facts surrounding the incident,” it added.

India said on Friday it had accidentally fired the missile into Pakistan this week because of a “technical malfunction” during routine maintenance, giving its version of events after Pakistan warned New Delhi of “unpleasant consequences.”

The international community must play its “due role in promoting stability in a nuclearised environment”, the foreign office statement from Pakistan said, warning of “dire consequences” if any misinterpretation by one of the sides lead to an escalation.

Military experts have in the past warned of the risk of accidents or miscalculations by the nuclear-armed neighbours, which have fought three wars and engaged in numerous smaller armed clashes, usually over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Tensions have eased in recent months, and the incident, which may have been the first of its kind, immediately raised questions about safety mechanisms.

Pakistan demanded clarifications from India over its safety mechanism to prevent accidental missile launches, and whether it was appropriately handled by its armed forces.

According to the U.S.-based Arms Control Association, the missile’s range is between 300 km (186 miles) and 500 km (310 miles), making it capable of hitting Islamabad from a northern Indian launch pad.

(Reporting by Asif Shahzad; editing by Clelia Oziel)

By Andrea Shalal and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON -The United States on Saturday said it would rush up to $200 million in additional small arms, anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine, as Ukrainian officials pleaded for more equipment to defend against heavy shelling by Russian forces.

President Joe Biden on Saturday authorized the additional security assistance, the White House said, paving the way for the “immediate” shipment of fresh military equipment to Ukraine, a senior administration official said.

Biden’s decision brings total U.S. security aid provided to Ukraine to $1.2 billion since January 2021, and to $3.2 billion since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimea region of Ukraine, according to senior administration officials.

In a memorandum to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Biden directed that up to $200 million allocated through the Foreign Assistance Act be designated for Ukraine’s defense.

Blinken said he had authorized a fourth drawdown of U.S. defense stocks, in line with Biden’s directive, “to help Ukraine meet the armored, airborne, and other threats it is facing” as the war entered a third week.

He lauded the “great skill, iron will and profound courage” being shown by the Ukrainian armed forces and citizens, and said the United States would also continue to provide humanitarian assistance to those in need.

“The United States and our allies and partners stand in solidarity with the people and government of Ukraine in the face of the Kremlin’s aggression,” he said in a statement. “The international community is united and determined to hold (Russian President Vladimir) Putin accountable.”

Russia says it is engaged in a “special military operation” that it says is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its neighbour’s military capabilities and “de-Nazify” Ukraine.

The funds “will provide immediate military assistance to Ukraine, including anti-armor, anti-aircraft systems, and small arms in support of Ukraine’s front-line defenders,” one of the U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Ukraine has been asking for more Javelin anti-tank weapons and Stinger missiles to shoot down aircraft.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, on Saturday underscored Ukraine’s need for additional military supplies in an interview with the non-profit Renew Democracy Initiative.

The United States has drawn from U.S. weapons stocks to supply Ukraine repeatedly, beginning in the fall of 2021 and then again in December and February.

The last batch of U.S. weapons provided in February included anti-armor, small arms, body armor and various munitions, according to the Pentagon, as well as anti-aircraft systems.

On Thursday night the U.S. Congress approved $13.6 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine as part of a $1.5 trillion measure to fund the U.S. government through September.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Steve Holland; Editing by Alistair Bell, Grant McCool and Daniel Wallis)