Xi pledged China’s support in a message to a gathering of representatives from Afghanistan, China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in a central Chinese city that spotlights Beijing’s aspirations to play a leading role in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of US forces last August.
A “peaceful, stable, developed and prosperous Afghanistan” is what Afghans aspire to, which “serves the common interests of regional countries and the international community,” Xi said.
“China has all along respected Afghanistan’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, and is committed to supporting Afghanistan’s peaceful and stable development,” Xi said in his message to the gathering in Tunxi, a center of the tourism industry in Anhui province.
Xi gave no specifics, although China has already shipped emergency aid to Afghanistan and is seeking to develop copper mining there.
China follows what it calls a strict policy of “non-intervention” in other countries’ internal affairs, including opposing those staged for humanitarian purposes unless sanctioned by the United Nations.
Special envoys for Afghanistan from China, the United States and Russia, a group known as the “Extended Troika”, were also meeting concurrently in Tunxi.
Although it has yet to recognise the Taliban government, China has moved quickly to shore up its ties with the group.
A month before the Taliban took power, Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted a high-powered delegation from the group for a July 28, 2021, meeting in the Chinese port city of Tianjin.
Wang referred to the group as “pivotal” force important to peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan.
On that and other occasions, the Chinese have pushed the Taliban for assurances they will not permit operations within Afghanistan’s borders by members of China’s Turkic Muslim Uyghur minority intent on overthrowing Chinese rule in their native region of Xinjiang.
Wang also made a surprise stop in Kabul last week to meet Taliban leaders, even as the international community fumed over the hardline movement’s broken promise a day earlier to open schools to girls beyond the sixth grade.
The foreign ministers of Qatar and Indonesia have been invited to the meeting of neighbouring states as guests.
Taliban-appointed foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, is representing Afghanistan at the meeting.
The strange creature looks like a reptilian with loose limbs, a long tail, and lizard-like claws.
Alex said he was out on his morning walk when he bumped into it on the shore of Maroochydore beach in Australia.
“I've stumbled across something weird,” he can be heard saying in the video. “This is like one of those things you see when people claim they've found aliens,” Alex added.
Flies can be seen buzzing around the creature’s body.
“Extra-terrestrial,” the man said, ending the video.
Australian legend Steve Irwin's daughter Bindi, a wildlife expert, also commented on the post. A few said the creature looked like a wallaby.
It is not uncommon for locals, however, to discover such beings.
Previously, a few such creatures were found, one of which was identified to be a type of nudibranch or sea slug.
"We don t believe anyone, not a single beautiful phrase," Zelensky said in a video address to the nation, adding that Russian troops were regrouping to strike the eastern Donbass region.
Read more: China, Russia 'more determined' to boost ties, Beijing says
"We will not give anything away. We will fight for every meter of our territory," he added.
After another round of peace talks in Istanbul on Tuesday, a Russian negotiator said Moscow would "radically" scale back its attacks around the capital Kyiv and the northern city of Chernigiv.
However, shelling continued during the night.
On Wednesday, US military officials said Russian forces did begin to pull out of the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power site north of Kyiv.
"We think that they are leaving, I can t tell you that they re all gone," said a US defence official speaking on condition of anonymity.
Zelensky said in his video address that any retreat by Russian forces was "the result of the work of our defenders."
Zelensky said that as the centre for the global fight for freedom, Ukraine has the right to demand weapons from the international community, including tanks, planes, artillery systems.
"Freedom must be armed as well as tyranny," he said.
In a separate development, the Russian defence ministry announced a local ceasefire Thursday to allow civilians to be evacuated from Ukraine s port of Mariupol, which has been under siege for weeks, left without water, food and power.
The two also condemned what they called illegal and counter- productive Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Wang and Lavrov spoke in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, where China is hosting two days of multilateral meetings on Afghanistan.
"Both sides are more determined to develop bilateral ties, and are more confident in promoting cooperation in various fields," Wang said.
"China is willing to work with Russia to take China-Russian ties to a higher level in a new era under the guidance of the consensus reached by the heads of state," he said.
The meeting comes a little over a month after Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine, in what it calls a "special operation", triggering unprecedented Western economic sanctions.
Russia is looking to China for support and partnerships as it becomes ever more isolated from global financial systems and supply chains.
China has refused to condemn Russia's actions in Ukraine or to call it an invasion. It reiterated support on Wednesday for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
Russia's foreign ministry said Lavrov had informed Wang about the progress of military operations in Ukraine and the state of Moscow's negotiations with Kyiv.
"The sides noted the counterproductive nature of the illegal unilateral sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and its satellites," the ministry said in a statement.
The two ministers agreed that Russia and China would continue to strengthen their strategic partnership and to speak on global affairs "with a united voice", it added.
China's foreign ministry quoted Wang as saying that bilateral relations had "withstood the test of international turbulence".
Lavrov said on Monday that Russia's relations with China were at their strongest level ever.
On the eve of last month's Winter Olympics in Beijing, China and Russia declared a "no-limits" strategic partnership.
Details filtering from the talks in Istanbul raised hopes after more than a month of war that has left thousands dead and millions displaced.
Read more: PM Imran Khan ready to share 'threat letter' with CJP: Asad Umar
Kyiv s negotiator David Arakhamia said there were "sufficient" conditions for President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to meet in a push to end Europe s worst conflict in decades.
On the Russian side, chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky called the talks "meaningful," while the country s deputy defence minister, Alexander Fomin, reported progress on "the neutrality and non-nuclear status" of Ukraine -- two central Russian concerns.
Russia, Fomin said, had decided to "radically, by several times reduce the military activity" around Kyiv and the northern city of Chernigiv.
Zelensky himself sounded a note of cautious optimism following the day s talks -- though he said the "positive" signals "do not drown out the explosions or Russian shells" and vowed in a video address late Tuesday to keep up defence efforts.
Read more: Biden sticks to suggestion Putin should step down
But the United States cast clear doubt on Moscow s words, and vowed with fellow Western powers to keep "raising the costs" on Russia.
And by Tuesday evening Ukraine s general staff -- while confirming Russian units were withdrawing from the Kyiv and Chernigiv regions -- said it was most likely a troop rotation intended to "mislead" Ukraine s military.
PM Imran made these remarks as Zelenskyy called him on Tuesday to discuss the ongoing situation in Ukraine, according to an official statement. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Discussing the latest situation in Ukraine, the premier expressed deep regret that the military conflict is continuing and reiterated Islamabad’s principled position in support of immediate cessation of hostilities and resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.
He added that he had been persistently highlighting the adverse economic impact of the conflict on the developing countries, manifest in rising prices of oil and commodities.
PM Imran also emphasised the importance of humanitarian relief for the civilians and underlined that Pakistan had dispatched two C-130 airplanes with humanitarian relief assistance for the people in Ukraine.
Recalling the recent OIC-CFM session in Islamabad, he informed that the foreign ministers of the Islamic countries expressed deep concern about the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation arising from the conflict.
The foreign ministers called for an immediate cessation of hostilities and expressed the willingness of OIC member states to support and facilitate the dialogue process, he maintained.
The premier thanked the Ukrainian president for the support extended by his country to evacuate Pakistani students and nationals as well as the Embassy staff.
Concluding, he also appreciated the efforts made by other countries to facilitate a diplomatic solution.
“I’m not walking anything back... I want to make it clear, I wasn’t then, nor am I now, articulating a policy change. I was expressing moral outrage that I feel — I make no apologies for my personal feelings,” he told reporters at the White House.
Biden’s remark — delivered in Warsaw at the close of three days of marathon diplomacy on Saturday — was seen as a gaffe by Republicans and some independent analysts concerned over a president going off-script when dealing with such a combustible conflict.
Biden said he was not worried that it would ratchet up tensions with Putin over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, adding that he was “talking to the Russian people, telling them what we thought.” “I don’t care what he thinks,” Biden added. “This is guy who goes to the beat of his own drummer and the idea that he is going to do something outrageous because I called him for what he was and what he’s doing, I think is just not rational.” Ukraine’s government says that as many as 10,000 people may have died since the start of Putin’s invasion more than a month ago.
Russian attacks near Kyiv have cut power to more than 80,000 homes, despite an apparent retreat in Moscow’s war aims to focus on eastern Ukraine.
Biden left the door open to further diplomacy with Putin, however, saying US agreement to a meeting would depend “on what he wants to talk about.” “The question is, is there something to meet on that would justify him being able to end this war and being able to rebuild Ukraine,” Biden told reporters.
Multiple cities in Ukraine remained under crushing Russian bombardment on the eve of new face-to-face peace negotiations Tuesday in Turkey, as Kyiv -- and its allies in the West -- seek to end the month-long war.
Read more: Abbas slams West's 'double standards' on Ukraine, Palestinians
In the besieged southern port of Mariupol at least 5,000 people have already been buried, according to a senior Ukrainian official who said as many as 10,000 may have died -- appearing to confirm the darkest scenarios of devastation in the city.
"The burials stopped 10 days ago because of continued shelling," Tetyana Lomakina, a presidential adviser now in charge of humanitarian corridors, told AFP by phone Monday.
Russian attacks near Kyiv cut power to more than 80,000 homes, officials said, underscoring the peril facing the capital despite an apparent retreat in Moscow s war aims to focus on eastern Ukraine.
"To capture Kyiv is essentially a captured Ukraine, and this is their goal," warned Ukraine s deputy defence minister Ganna Malyar, who said Russia was "trying to break through the corridor around Kyiv and block transport routes."
Fierce Ukrainian resistance however reclaimed the strategically vital Kyiv suburb of Irpin from Russian troops, by sweeping the area block-by-block, according to Ukraine s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky.
AFP journalists said heavy shelling continued to be heard on the road leading to Irpin, however, as residents including 86-year-old Olga Molchanova evacuated from the devastated commuter town.
Read more: Russia signals less ambitious goals in Ukraine war
"I just pray to God for salvation. I pray every day for the soldiers who defend us. Let them have courage," Molchanova cried after reuniting with her daughter Agnesa Brovkina who described hellish conditions in Irpin.
"My mother was deafened by a rocket. All the time, non-stop, shelling. All day and night, bombing, shelling, all of it," said Brovkina, a 62-year-old office worker.
Kyiv s forces also Monday recaptured Mala Rogan, a hamlet on the outskirts of Ukraine s second-largest city Kharkiv in the northeast.
"There are Russian corpses all over the place," a Ukrainian soldier told AFP, saying more than two dozen Russian soldiers had been killed in the fight
Abbas voiced his frustration to visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a press briefing with reporters at the Palestinian presidential residence in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
Read more: Russia signals less ambitious goals in Ukraine war
"The current events in Europe have shown blatant double standards," he told Blinken.
"Despite the crimes of the Israeli occupation that amounted to ethnic cleansing and racial discrimination... we find no one who is holding Israel responsible for behaving as a state above the law," he said.
Blinken held talks with Abbas on the first full day of a trip that includes a meeting with the foreign ministers of Israel and four Arab countries that have normalised relations with the Jewish state.
Blinken told Abbas he wanted to revitalise US relations with the Palestinians after they collapsed under the administration of former president Donald Trump.
But with its focus on the challenge from China and now Russia s invasion of Ukraine, Washington has spent less time overall on Middle East issues.
The Palestinian Authority led by Abbas has sparked the ire of Western diplomats in recent weeks because it has not condemned Russia s attack on Ukraine.
Multiple Western diplomatic sources have told AFP of requests to the PA, a recipient of major European Union donations, to condemn the Russian invasion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the February invasion to destroy Ukraine’s military and topple pro-Western President Volodymyr Zelensky, bringing the country under Russia’s sway.
But Sergei Rudskoi, a senior general, suggested a considerably reduced “main goal” of controlling Donbas, an eastern region already partly held by Russian proxies.
His surprise statement came as a Western official reported that a seventh Russian general, Lieutenant General Yakov Rezanstev, had died in Ukraine and that a colonel had been “deliberately” killed by his own demoralised men.
Complicating Moscow’s challenges, invasion troops were facing a counteroffensive in Kherson, the only major Ukrainian city under Russian control.
Zelenskyy at Doha Forum
Ukraine’s president made a surprise video appearance on Saturday at Qatar’s Doha Forum, calling on the energy-rich nation and others to boost their production to counteract the loss of Russian energy supplies.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the United Nations and world powers to come to his aid, as he has in a series of other addresses given around the world since the start of the war Feb 24. He compared Russia’s destruction of the port city of Mariupol to the Syrian and Russian destruction wrought on the city of Aleppo in the Syrian war. Zelenskyy called on countries to increase their exports of energy something particularly important as Qatar is a world leader in the export of natural gas. Western sanctions have deeply cut into Russian exports, which are crucial for European nations.
Also on hand was Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the top diplomat for the world’s biggest oil exporter. Saudi Arabia so far has said it would stick with an OPEC+ production schedule the cartel struck with Russia and other producers.
The kingdom also said it wouldn’t be responsible for higher prices as it deals with attacks from Yemen’s Houthi rebels amid its yearslong war in the Arab world’s poorest country.
Zelenskyy criticised Russia for what he described as threatening the world with its nuclear weapons, raising the possibility of tactical nuclear weapons being used on the battlefield.
Russia occupies Chernobyl staff town
Russian forces took control of a town where staff working at the Chernobyl nuclear site live and briefly detained the mayor, sparking protests, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday.
“I have been released. Everything is fine, as far as it is possible under occupation,” Yuri Fomichev, mayor of Slavutych, said, after officials in the Ukraine capital Kyiv announced earlier he had been detained.
Earlier, Kyiv announced that Russian troops had entered Slavutych and occupied the municipal hospital.
Residents took to the streets, carrying a large blue and yellow Ukrainian flag and heading towards the hospital, the administration said, adding that Russian forces fired into the air and threw stun grenades into the crowd.
An official source requesting anonymity told AFP that the "consultative brotherly meeting dealt with recent international and regional developments". The source did not elaborate.
Read more: Nato will ‘respond’ if Russia uses chemical weapons in Ukraine
A statement from the royal court said others in attendance included Jordan s Crown Prince Hussein and Saudi Minister of State Prince Turki bin Mohammad bin Fahd bin Abdulaziz.
The meeting comes just a day before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to travel to Israel, the West Bank, Morocco and Algeria to discuss the Ukraine war, Israeli-Palestinian relations and Iran.
Israel said it would host a "historic summit" from Sunday of top diplomats from the United States and three Arab states with which it has normalised ties -- the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco.
Earlier in the week, Egypt hosted the Israeli and UAE leaders for unprecedented three-way talks as Russia s invasion of Ukraine rocks energy and food markets and major powers inch toward a revived Iran nuclear deal.
The summit was held in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh between Sisi, the Abu Dhabi crown prince and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
Analyst Oraib al-Rantawi, head of the Al-Quds Center for Political Studies, said "most" of the parties to Friday s meeting in Jordan are "historic allies and friends of Washington but are linked to Moscow through deep ties and interests".
As battles raged across Ukraine, with television footage showing a large Russian warship ablaze at dockside near the southern city of Mariupol, Zelensky addressed the emergency NATO summit and a G7 leaders meeting by video link.
Read more: Fortress Kyiv Holds Breath Ahead Of Feared Russian Assault
He said the West should provide "all the weapons we need" to "prevent the deaths of Ukrainians from Russian strikes, from Russian occupation."
Kicking off a day of intense diplomacy, US President Joe Biden made clear that the Western alliance was listening.
"NATO has never been more united," Biden said.
And after Zelensky said there was a "real" chance of Russian President Vladimir Putin resorting to chemical warfare, Biden told reporters "we will respond if he uses it."
Biden noted that under his presidency the United States has pledged $2 billion in weapons to Ukraine. He announced a new commitment to "more than $1 billion in humanitarian assistance," as well as promising to welcome 100,000 of the nearly 3.7 million refugees fleeing the country.
After the United States announced new sanctions, including targeting Russian politicians, Biden said the West was in it for the long haul, intent on "increasing the pain" on Moscow.
Biden intensified the effort to ostracize Putin s Russia with a call to exclude Moscow from the G20.
Read more: Cause of China jet crash still unknown as hunt for black boxes continues
"That was raised today," Biden told reporters, adding that if the group of 20 countries does not agree, then he would press for Ukraine to be allowed to join.
In his address, Zelensky said that Russia was using phosphorus bombs, which cause severe burns, conducting indiscriminate shelling of civilians, and could resort to "full-scale use" of chemical weapons.
Ukraine has already lived through "a month of heroic resistance. A month of the darkest suffering," he said. "To save people and our cities, Ukraine needs military assistance without restrictions."
Tens of thousands of residents have already fled the southern city, bringing harrowing testimony of a “freezing hellscape riddled with dead bodies and destroyed buildings”, according to Human Rights Watch.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that almost 100,000 people remained trapped by relentless Russian bombardment in Mariupol without water, food and power.
The mayor of Kyiv, former world heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, said Ukrainian forces were pushing the invaders back in several areas around the capital.
“We are ready to fight for each building, each street, every part of our city,” he told reporters. “We would rather die than kneel in front of the Russians or surrender to the invaders.” As President Joe Biden travelled to the summits of Nato, the G7 and European Union in Brussels, Andriy Yermak, a top advisor to Zelensky, said Ukraine was holding out “with superhuman courage”.
“But we cannot win a war without offensive weapons, without medium-range missiles that can be a means of deterrence,” Yermak said.
‘Ruins of Verdun’
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said the leaders at Thursday’s summit would agree to “major increases of forces” including four new battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
The allies will also offer “additional support” to Kyiv against nuclear and chemical threats, he said, after Biden warned anew that Russia could be prepared to unleash Syria-style horror in Ukraine.
But Nato members, while maintaining a steady supply of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, have balked at Zelensky’s demands to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, fearing all-out war with nuclear-armed Russia.
Zelensky kept up the pressure on foreign allies, using speeches to French and Japanese lawmakers to invoke their own national traumas of the past. He told the French National Assembly that images of devastated cities such as Mariupol “recall the ruins of Verdun as in the photos of World War I that everyone has seen”.
“The Russian army makes no distinction between targets. They destroy residential areas, hospitals, schools, universities.
“They do not take into account the concepts of war crimes.” Nearly a month on in to the invasion, peace talks have agreed on daily humanitarian corridors for refugees, and Ukraine says it is willing to countenance some Russian demands subject to a national referendum.
But it has refused to bow to Russian pressure to disarm and renounce all Western alliances, and Zelensky was also due Thursday to address the NATO meeting.
Ukraine’s lead negotiator Mykhaylo Podolyak said the peace talks were encountering “significant difficulties”, after Moscow accused the United States of undermining the process. Russia meanwhile refuses to rule out using nuclear weapons if it faces an “existential threat”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby slammed Moscow’s “dangerous” rhetoric.
Charred landscape
For Ukrainians besieged in Mariupol and other cities, Russian talk of peace rings hollow as they come under indiscriminate shelling that Western countries agree amounts to a war crime.
Satellite images of Mariupol released by private company Maxar showed a charred landscape, with several buildings ablaze and smoke billowing from the city.
Ukrainian forces also reported “heavy” ground fighting, with Russian “infantry storming the city” after they rejected a Monday ultimatum to surrender.
“Even if Mariupol falls, Ukraine cannot be conquered city by city, street by street, house by house,” United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said.
"On March 23, a note with the list of the American diplomats declared persona non grata was handed to the head of the American diplomatic mission who was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," the ministry said in a statement.
Read more: After two years, Aitekaf to resume at Holy Mosques in Saudi Arabia
The decision was taken in response to the expulsion by Washington of Russian diplomats at the UN in New York, the source said.
"The US side has been given firm notice that any hostile action by the United States against Russia will be met with a resolute and appropriate response," the statement added.
A US State Department spokesperson confirmed it had received the list from Moscow.
"This is Russia s latest unhelpful and unproductive step in our bilateral relationship. We call on the Russia government to end its unjustified expulsions of US diplomats and staff," this official said.
"Now more than ever, it is critical that our countries have the necessary diplomatic personnel in place to facilitate communication between our governments."
Read more: Fortress Kyiv Holds Breath Ahead Of Feared Russian Assault
The United States expelled 12 members of the Russian diplomatic mission to the UN in early March amid an open crisis with Russia over Ukraine on charges of espionage.
"The US has informed the Russian Mission that we are beginning the process of expelling 12 intelligence operatives from the Russian Mission who have abused their privileges of residency in the US by engaging in espionage activities that are adverse to our national security," the spokeswoman for the US mission to the UN, Olivia Dalton, announced in a statement.
The Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoli Antonov, denounced it as a "hostile move" by the United States, stressing that the actions were a cause of "deep disappointment and absolute rejection" in Moscow.
The announcement was made by Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, head of the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques, in an annual meeting held to launch the presidency's plan for this year's Ramazan.
He said that the presidency will soon start issuing permits through its official website. "They will be in line with specific conditions and set criteria," Al-Sudais added.
The presidency, earlier, launched an online portal to provide guidelines and registration facilities to worshippers intending to perform Aitekaf.
The religious ritual of staying in mosques for the sole purpose of worship and meditation is observed during Ramazan. The report stated that as many as 100,000 worshipers perform Aitekaf at the two holy mosques during the last 10 days of the holy month.
However, it was suspended for the last two years because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Restrictions lifted
Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia lifted most Covid restrictions including social distancing in public spaces and quarantine for vaccinated arrivals, moves that could facilitate the arrival of Muslim pilgrims.
Masks will only be required in closed spaces, according to the decision, which came into effect on March 6.
In 2020, when the Holy Mosques reopened for the public, strict restrictions such as social distancing and wearing of masks were imposed. Visas were also not being issued to pilgrims across the world, including Pakistan.
The kingdom, which is home to Islam's two holiest places in Makkah and Madinah, will no longer require vaccinated travellers to provide a negative PCR or rapid test before their arrival in the kingdom or to quarantine.
The Covid-19 pandemic has hugely disrupted Muslim pilgrimages, which are usually key revenue earners for the kingdom, bringing in some $12 billion annually.
Hosting the pilgrimages is a matter of prestige for Saudi rulers, for whom the custodianship of Islam's holiest sites is their most powerful source of political legitimacy.
With businesses ordered closed and residents told to stay home, Kyiv is a ghost town, with air sirens and distant sounds of explosions regularly punching through the silence and the golden cupolas of the landmark Saint Sophia Orthodox cathedral shining in spring sun.
Read more: Cause of China jet crash still unknown as hunt for black boxes continues
Kyiv mayor and former world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko imposed the curfew from Monday until Wednesday morning, telling civilians to seek cover in bomb shelters if air defence sirens go off.
"For people who have been constantly under pressure since the start of the invasion, it s a chance to breathe a little," says Alexis, who taught German before the war and guides an AFP team through the city.
"At any rate, they are traumatised, they don t really want to go out."
No survivors had been found nearly 36 hours after Monday's crash — the deadliest air disaster in three decades in China, a country that had maintained an enviable air safety record.
“With the current information, we are unable to make a clear judgement on the cause of the accident,” Zhu Tao, director of the aviation safety office at China's aviation authority, told reporters late on Tuesday.
He said the focus is now on “the search for flight recorders”.
Questions have mounted over the cause of the crash, which saw the stricken jet drop 20,000 feet in just over a minute before plunging into rugged terrain in southern China on Monday afternoon.
The velocity of the impact left twisted metal and passengers' belongings scattered across a swathe of forest.
The airline has officially acknowledged that some aboard the jet, which was travelling from the city of Kunming to the southern hub of Guangzhou, had perished — but has stopped short of declaring all on board dead.
Contact has been made with the families of all on board, said Sun Shiying, chairperson of China Eastern Airlines Yunnan.
The crashed plane, which was nearly seven years old, had met all airworthiness requirements pre-flight, he told reporters at Tuesday's press conference.
President Xi Jinping called for a full probe shortly after the crash as search teams armed with drones descended upon the site in a rural area of Guangxi province.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China has said it will conduct a two-week safety inspection across the industry.
On Tuesday, scorch marks were visible from the crash and resulting fire, rescue workers told AFP, with one speculating that passengers had been “totally incinerated” from the intensity of the blaze.
A villager near the sprawling crash site, giving only his surname Ou, recounted hearing a “sound like thunder” followed by a blaze that blistered the surrounding hills.
A torn wallet and burned camera lens were among the eviscerated possessions captured on video by a reporter from the state-run People's Daily who was able to enter the crash site.
But AFP journalists were blocked at a hillside checkpoint by a group of men identifying themselves as Communist Party members who said they had “orders from above” to prevent access.
The disaster occurred after a high-speed vertical nosedive, according to a video carried by Chinese media. AFP could not immediately verify the video's authenticity.
Flight MU5735, which took off from Kunming shortly after 1pm (0500 GMT), lost contact over Wuzhou, a city in the Guangxi region, according to China's aviation authority.
The foreign ministry said on Tuesday they believed all passengers on board were Chinese nationals.
In Guangzhou airport, staff assisted loved ones of the 123 passengers and nine crew members aboard the plane, which stopped sending any flight information after dropping a total of 26,000 feet in altitude in just three minutes.
Relatives and friends of those onboard endured a grim wait for news.
A user on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, wrote that he was a friend of a crew member on the crashed plane.
“I will miss you forever,” he wrote, describing the “enthusiasm” his friend took to his new job this year.
One woman had told local media that she had changed her flight plans at the last minute to board an earlier plane — but her sister and four friends had boarded the stricken China Eastern jet.
The disaster prompted an unusually swift public reaction from Xi, who said he was “shocked” and called for “absolute safety” in air travel.
State media said Vice Premier Liu He, a powerful official close to Xi who usually deals with economic matters, had been dispatched to the area to oversee rescue and investigation work.
Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 showed the plane sharply dropped from an altitude of 29,100 feet to 7,850 feet in just over a minute.
After a brief upswing, it plunged to 3,225 feet, the tracker said.
Despite a huge boom in travel, China has a strong flight safety record.
Chinese media reported that the airline will now ground all its Boeing 737-800 jets.
The deadliest Chinese commercial flight accident was a China Northwest Airlines crash in 1994 that killed all 160 people onboard.
Wang's comments came at a regular briefing in Beijing and the promise of aid follows previous pledges of aid to Ukraine including one of 5 million yuan from earlier this month.
"China pays close attention to the civilian casualties in the Russia-Ukraine conflict," Wang said, noting that the top priority for the international community now is to deal with the possible large-scale humanitarian crisis.
Wang said China has put forward a six-point initiative on alleviating the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and has taken concrete actions, including providing humanitarian aid supplies.
"China will continue to play a constructive role in easing the situation in Ukraine and stands ready to make its own efforts to overcome the humanitarian crisis," said Wang.
The Chinese Red Cross will offer an additional 10 million yuan ($1.57 million) of humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters on Monday.
Wang's comments came at a regular briefing in Beijing and the promise of aid follows previous pledges of aid to Ukraine including one of 5 million yuan from earlier this month.
"China pays close attention to the civilian casualties in the Russia-Ukraine conflict," Wang said, noting that the top priority for the international community now is to deal with the possible large-scale humanitarian crisis.
Wang said China has put forward a six-point initiative on alleviating the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and has taken concrete actions, including providing humanitarian aid supplies.
"China will continue to play a constructive role in easing the situation in Ukraine and stands ready to make its own efforts to overcome the humanitarian crisis," said Wang
Mariupol, a port city on the Azov Sea, has been under siege and bombardment, with no food, medicine, power or fresh water, since the early days of Russia's invasion on Feb 24. Video footage of the city shows it has been devastated.
Russia's military had ordered Ukrainians inside Mariupol to surrender by 5am (0300 GMT), saying that those who did so would be permitted to leave through safe corridors.
“Of course we rejected these proposals,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
She said agreement had been reached with Russia on creating eight humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from besieged towns and cities on Monday but Mariupol was not among them.
Efforts to reach the city with humanitarian supplies continue to fail, she said.
“The situation there is very difficult,” she added.
She gave no further details.
Ukraine has accused Russian forces of bombarding buildings including hospitals and a theatre where it said people were sheltering last week.
Russia denies targeting civilians.
Russia's Defence Ministry has blamed “Ukrainian nationalists” for the situation in Mariupol.
A Russian-backed separatist leader in eastern Ukraine said it would take more than a week to take control of Mariupol.
“I am not so optimistic that two or three days or even a week will close the issue. Unfortunately, no, the city is big,” the Russian news agency Interfax quoted Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, as saying.
Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said the city's “heroic defenders” had helped prevent Russia marching on other big cities and saved many lives.
Greece's consul general in Mariupol, Manolis Androulakis, who arrived home on Sunday after escaping the siege, said: “What I saw, I hope no one will ever see.”
He described Mariupol as standing alongside Guernica, Leningrad and Russia's previous targets Grozny and Aleppo in a list of cities “completely destroyed by war”.
But UN envoy Geir Pedersen said the two co-chairs -- from the government and the opposition -- had now come up with an improved procedure for finding common ground on the final day of the talks, which will be on Friday.
Read more: Ukrainian President Zelensky says Russia should immediately start peace talks.
"Syria remains one of the gravest crises in the world and there is a clear need for progress towards a political solution," Pedersen told reporters on Sunday.
The Syrian Constitutional Committee was created in September 2019 and first convened a month later.
The tentative negotiations are aimed at rewriting the war-torn country s constitution. It is hoped the talks could pave the way towards a broader political process.
"The committee should work in a way that builds trust and confidence," Pedersen said.
"During this session I hope to see the constitutional committee work with a sense of seriousness and purpose and determination to make progress that the situation demands.
"If the three delegations do what they have said they will do, I hope that we can see some steady progress."
He described the devastation caused by the Russian aggression in Ukraine as "regrettable". He added that it was time for the Moscow government to recognize Ukraine's sovereignty and integrity.
"I want you all to listen to me now, especially the people of Moscow," he said. It's time to meet, it's time to talk. It is time to restore Ukraine's territorial integrity and justice.
He said that if this did not happen then the loss of Taurus would be so great that it would take you many generations to make up for it.
It should be noted that negotiations are underway between Russia and Ukraine, but no agreement has been reached yet regarding the ceasefire.
Assad met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan who “stressed that Syria is a fundamental pillar of Arab security, and that the UAE is keen to strengthen cooperation with it”, Emirati state news agency (WAM) reported.
A video posted by WAM showed Assad smiling as he stood alongside Sheikh Mohammed in front of the Syrian and Emirati flags, as well as gesticulating and smiling during talks.
The visit drew a sharp rebuke from Washington, with the State Department saying it was “profoundly disappointed and troubled” by what it called an apparent attempt to legitimize Assad.
Assad’s only trips outside Syria during the war have been to Iran and Russia, close allies whose military support helped him turn the tide against opponents who had been backed by governments including US-allied Gulf states.
He also met on Friday with Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the Syrian presidency said in a statement.
The timing of the trip coincided with the eleventh anniversary of the Syrian uprising, which began in March 2011, and at a time when Washington has been working worldwide to unite allies and partners against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price reiterated that Washington remains opposed to efforts to normalise ties or rehabilitate Assad. He said the United States will not waive or lift sanctions on Syria unless progress is made toward a political solution to the conflict, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people since spiralling out of an uprising against Assad.
“We urge states considering engagement with the Assad regime to weigh carefully the horrific atrocities visited by the regime on the Syrians over the last decade, as well as the regime’s continuing efforts to deny much of the country access to humanitarian aid and security,” Price said in an email.
Washington had expressed concern in November when the UAE foreign minister visited Damascus and met Assad.
But the Biden administration has eroded its political capital with both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi by not heeding their concerns about regional rival Iran, ending its support for their war in Yemen and slapping conditions on US weapons sales to the Gulf states.
WAM said the sides emphasized “the preservation of the territorial integrity of Syria and the withdrawal of foreign forces” from the fragmented country where Russia, Iran, Turkey and the United States all have a military presence.
They also discussed political and humanitarian support for Syria and its people to reach a peaceful solution to all the challenges it faces, WAM reported.
WAM said Sheikh Mohammed “expressed his wishes that this visit will pave the way for goodness, peace and stability to prevail in Syria and the entire region”. Assad briefed him on the latest developments in Syria, it said.
Assad was seen off by Sheikh Mohammed at the airport.
The meetings marked the latest in a series of diplomatic overtures that point to a shift underway in the Middle East where several Arab countries are reviving ties with Assad.
Signs of rapprochement between Assad and Arab states grew last year, including a phone call with King Abdullah of Jordan, another US ally.
Analysts say political and economic considerations loom large for Arab states that are seeking closer ties with Assad, including how to counter the influence of Iran and Turkey.
The comments came during a nearly two-hour phone call between the leaders of the world s two largest economies, focusing on Ukraine, where China s close ally Russia is in the fourth week of a bloody assault.
Read more: Xi stresses joint China-US efforts for world peace, tranquillity
The White House said that Biden described to Xi "the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians."
The White House refused to characterize Xi s response to the warning or say how hard Biden pushed him. "It wasn t about making asks, it wasn t about making assessments. It was about having an ongoing dialogue," Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
But she said that "is something we ll be watching and the world will be watching."
Beijing was ambiguous about Xi s position after the call.
Chinese state television CCTV reported that Xi said the war was "in no one s interest" and that "state-to-state relations cannot go to the stage of military hostilities."
Read more: Moscow accused of war crimes as Ukraine
However, there was no mention of direct criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a readout from the Chinese foreign ministry laid some responsibility for Russia s invasion of its neighbor to the West.
"The US and NATO should also have dialogue with Russia to address the crux of the Ukraine crisis and ease security concerns of both Russia and Ukraine," the foreign ministry noted.
Xi made the remarks in a video call with US President Joe Biden at the latter's request.
Noting the international landscape has experienced new major developments since their first virtual meeting last November, Xi said the prevailing trend of peace and development is facing serious challenges, and the world is neither tranquil nor stable.
"The Ukraine crisis is not something we want to see," Xi said.
The events again show that countries should not come to the point of meeting on the battlefield. Conflict and confrontation are not in anyone's interest, and peace and security are what the international community should treasure the most, he added.
"As permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the world's two leading economies, we must not only guide the China-US relations forward along the right track, but also shoulder our share of international responsibilities and work for world peace and tranquillity," Xi said.
Three weeks into Russia s devastating invasion, the harsh tally of assaults on civilian targets grew to include a school and a cultural centre in the town of Merefa, pounded by overnight artillery fire with 21 people killed, authorities said.
Despite the mounting carnage, punishing international sanctions and unexpectedly strong resistance from Ukrainians, top US diplomat Antony Blinken said Thursday he saw no sign that Russian leader Vladimir Putin "is prepared to stop."
Read more: In call with Putin, Erdogan offers to host him and Zelenskiy for talks
"Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime. After all the destruction of the past few weeks, I find it difficult to conclude that the Russians are doing otherwise," he said, following warnings from the G7 that those behind such crimes "will be held responsible."
Blinken was doubling down on the tough language used by President Joe Biden -- who a day earlier branded Putin a "war criminal" and on Thursday called him both a "thug" and a "murderous dictator."
He spoke as authorities were still trying to count the dead at the theatre targeted by a bomb in southern Mariupol a day earlier -- which Ukraine s leader Volodymr Zelensky held up as evidence "Russia has become a terrorist state".
In the latest of a series of resonant speeches to Western lawmakers, Zelensky told the German parliament that Moscow was building a new Cold War wall across Europe, "between freedom and bondage."
Russia s unrelenting onslaught on Mariupol has drawn particular horror.
Read more: Russia says parts of a Ukraine compromise deal are close
Local officials say more than 2,000 people have died so far in indiscriminate Chechnya-style shelling of the strategic port, and 80 percent of its housing has been destroyed.
Under new Russian shelling, rescuers were combing through the smoking rubble of the Drama Theatre, where Ukrainian officials said more than 1,000 civilians were sheltering in a basement bomb shelter when it was bombed. Human Rights Watch believes they numbered at least 500.
Among the 30,000 civilians said to have fled Mariupol so far, evacuees said they were forced to melt snow for drinking water and cook food scraps on open fires, with water and power supplies cut off.
"In the streets there are the bodies of many dead civilians," Tamara Kavunenko, 58, told AFP after reaching the central city of Zaporizhzhia.
The statement said Erdogan told Putin that agreement on certain issues could require a meeting between the leaders. Erdogan also said a lasting ceasefire could lead the way to a long-term solution, it said.
Speaking to the Bundestag by videolink earlier in the day, Zelenskiy urged German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to tear down what he called a wall between "free and unfree" Europe and stop the war in Ukraine.
Zelenskiy appealed to Scholz to restore freedom to Ukraine, tapping Germany's collective memory with reference to the historic 1948-1949 Berlin Airlift and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Zelenskiy described a new wall "in the middle of Europe between freedom and unfreedom", which he said Germany had helped build, isolating Ukraine with its business ties to Russia and its previous support for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
"And this wall is getting bigger with every bomb that falls on Ukraine, with every decision that is not taken," he added.
Germany last month halted the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline project, designed to double the flow of Russian gas directly to Germany. read more
Recalling former US president Ronald Reagan's appeal to Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, to tear down the Berlin Wall, Zelenskiy told German lawmakers: "That's what I say to you dear Chancellor Scholz: destroy this wall."
"Give Germany the leadership role that it has earned so that your descendants are proud of you. Support freedom, support Ukraine, stop this war, help us to stop this war," he added.
Lawmakers in the Bundestag welcomed Zelenskiy with a standing ovation and the chamber's vice president, Katrin Goering-Eckardt, told him: "Your country has chosen democracy, and that's what (Russian President) Vladimir Putin fears."
She said Putin was trying to deny Ukraine's right to exist, adding: "But he has already failed with that."
“Neutral status is now being seriously discussed along, of course, with security guarantees,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said told RBC news.
“Now this very thing is being discussed in negotiations — there are absolutely specific formulations which in my view are close to agreement,” Lavrov said.
He said that President Vladimir Putin had spoken about neutrality, along with security guarantees for Ukraine without Nato enlargement, as one possible variant in February.
Lavrov cautioned that the negotiations were not easy but that there was “some hope of reaching a compromise”.
Ukraine has also made cautious positive statements on peace talks. It says it is willing to negotiate to end the war, but will not surrender or accept Russian ultimatums.
Lavrov said key issues included the security of people in eastern Ukraine, the demilitarisation of Ukraine and the rights of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that the country's armed forces are launching counteroffensives against Russian forces “in several operational areas”.
“This radically changes the parties' dispositions,” he added, without giving details.
In an update on the war, the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces referred to the “high intensity of hostilities” but did not say where fighting was heaviest.
Ukrainian officials also made clear that the death toll was rising from the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb 24.
The emergency service in Ukraine's eastern region of Kharkiv region said on Wednesday that at least 500 residents of the city of Kharkiv have been killed.
Prosecutor General said on Iryna Venediktova said on Facebook that 103 children have been killed so far in the war.
Russian forces have struck more than 400 educational establishments and 59 of them have been destroyed, she said.
The governor of the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine said there was no electricity in the region's main city, Chernihiv, or in some other settlements in the area.
But Governor Viacheslav Chaus said Ukraine's armed forces “are powerful and inflict powerful blows on the Russian enemy every hour”.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake struck 60 kilometres below the sea.
The region is part of northern Japan that was devastated by a deadly 9.0 quake and tsunami in 2011 that also caused a nuclear disaster.
There are no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
In January this year, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 had jolted southwestern Japan, injuring 13 people.
Multiple reports of damage to buildings, water pipes and roads were confirmed, public broadcaster NHK had said.
The talks between the countries over yuan-priced oil contracts have accelerated this year as the Saudis have grown increasingly unhappy with decades-old US security commitments to defend the kingdom, the WSJ report said.
The Saudis are angry over the US’s lack of support for their intervention in the Yemen civil war, and over the Biden administration’s attempt to strike a deal with Iran over its nuclear programme. Saudi officials have said they were also shocked by the hasty US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year.
China buys more than 25% of the oil that Saudi Arabia exports. If priced in yuan, those sales would boost the standing of China’s currency.
It would be a profound shift for Saudi Arabia to price even some of its roughly 6.2 million barrels a day of crude exports in anything other than dollars.
On Monday, the WSJ reported that Saudi Arabia has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit the kingdom in a trip that could happen as soon as May.
The visit could help the kingdom deepen its ties with Beijing at a time of strained relations with Washington.
Since US President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the strategic partnership between Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, and the United States has been tested by Riyadh's human rights record, particularly in light of the war in Yemen.
In an interview with The Atlantic published earlier this month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said he did not care whether Biden misunderstood things about him.
Saudi Arabia is planning to replicate the warm reception it gave to former US president Donald Trump in 2017 when he visited the kingdom on his first trip abroad as president, the Journal report said.
"The crown prince and Xi are close friends and both understand that there is huge potential for stronger ties," the report quoted a Saudi official as saying. "It is not just 'They buy oil from us and we buy weapons from them'."
The Saudi government and China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
"We attach the highest priority to the safety and security of our weapon systems. If any shortcoming is found, it would be immediately rectified," Rajnath Singh told parliament.
India accidentally released a missile, which landed in Pakistan, at about 7pm last Wednesday (March 9) during routine maintenance and inspection, he said.
Pakistan has asked for a joint probe into the incident, demanding clarifications from New Delhi over its safety mechanism to prevent accidental missile launches.
Although tensions between the two countries have calmed in recent months, military experts have previously warned of the risk of accidents or miscalculations by the nuclear-armed arch rivals, which have fought three wars.
India has started a high-level inquiry into the accident, which did not lead to any injuries or deaths, Singh said.
"I can assure the House that the missile system is very reliable and safe," he said, without specifying which missile had been accidentally launched.
"Moreover, our safety procedures and protocols are of the highest order and are reviewed from time to time," Singh said.
“China is gravely concerned about cyberattacks against other countries that originate from the US and use China as a springboard,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told media persons during a press briefing a day earlier, RT reported.
Lijian was apparently commenting on recent reports in Chinese media that hackers mainly belonging to the US as well as from Nato members Germany and the Netherlands hijacked a computer network in China to carry out cyberattacks, 87 per cent of which aimed at Russia.
“Against the background of the Ukraine situation, such a move may produce the negative effect of misleading the international community and spreading disinformation,” Zhao cautioned, as he pointed out that “a former US senior official called publicly for launching cyberattacks on Russia not long ago.”
Former US secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was reported to have made the calls during an MSNBC interview broadcast in late February.
While Beijing appears unaware of the exact role of the US government in the said attack, or whether it was linked to the “long practice of smearing China in cyberspace”, the spokesperson urged Washington to “adopt a more responsible attitude.”
On Monday, The United States warned China against providing military or financial help to Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine, as sanctions on Russian political and business leaders mounted and civilians sought to flee intense fighting on the ground.
According to US officials, Russia has asked for military and economic support from Beijing, which signalled a willingness to provide aid.
Moscow denies that, saying it has sufficient resources to fulfil all of its aims. China's foreign ministry has labelled the reports on assistance as "disinformation".
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