Russia has intercepted a US spy plane at a time of escalating military tensions between the two powers. Earlier today, the Russian National Defence Control Centre (RNDCC) said a Russian MiG-31 fighter had escorted a US spy plane away from Russia's borders. In chilling footage, the American plane - a RC-135 US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft - can seen from the cockpit of the Russian warplane off the coast of the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia.
The Russian warplane had scrambled amid concerns that the US spy plane was about to "violate its state border".
The RDNCC said that after escorting the foreign plane from the border, the Russian fighter safely returned to its airbase.
This follows mounting tensions along the Ukraine border with Russia, amid fears of an all-out war between the two sides.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has amassed tens of thousands of troops and heavy military equipment close to the border with Ukraine in recent days.
Kiev estimates there are now 85,000 Russian troops just six miles from its border and in Crimea.
The US, which is strongly allied to Ukraine, is sending two warships to the Black Sea, while Russia is also boosting its navy deployments in the area.
Earlier today, a top Russian official warned that Moscow could intervene in eastern Ukraine if Ukraine launches an assault on Russian-backed separatists there.
The official, Dmitry Kozak, said that Russian forces could intervene to "defend" Russian citizens.
On Saturday, Ukraine’s defence minister said that Ukraine could be provoked into war by Russian aggravation in the the eastern Donbass region.
The minister, Andrii Taran, said: "At the same time, it should be noted that the intensification of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine is possible only if an appropriate political decision is made at the highest level in the Kremlin."
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Russian troop numbers at the Ukraine border were the highest since 2014, when the conflict began.
She described the situation as "deeply concerning".
Pictures shared with Sky News, taken by survivors of the Palma terror attack in Mozambique, give a graphic illustration of a terrifying three days under fire, surrounded by insurgents.
Nearly 200 people - including foreign workers - took refuge in one of the town's hotels.
But survivors have told Sky News how they fled for their lives because they felt they'd been abandoned and no one was coming to rescue them.
One South African contractor spoke of almost constant shooting and shelling during the three days they were trapped inside the Amarula Lodge in Palma.
Image:Those trapped inside the Amarula Lodge used the satellite phones they had among them, to appeal for help but no-one came
Wesley Nel filmed on his mobile phone throughout and his footage shows those pinned down in the Lodge - including his brother Adrian and father Greg - lying on the floor of the hotel's upstairs restaurant as a volley of gunfire is heard.
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"The gunfire just didn't stop," Mr Nel said.
"The mortars - you're talking about 100's of mortars going off… probably 40 to 50 an hour. We counted them.
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"And it went on constantly for three, four days.
"They [the insurgents] must have been stockpiling tonnes of ammunition nearby or in the town for months before."
Image:They managed to drive the vehicle to the quarry where they were hoping helicopters might be able to land to pick them up. But none arrived
Mr Nel, his father and brother were sub-contracted to work on the huge multi-billion-dollar LNG (liquified natural gas) project being developed on the Afungi Peninsula near to Palma.
They had been told, despite militant unrest around the northern Cabo Delgado Province since 2017, that the town of Palma was secure and stable.
But when, on 24 March, the insurgents mounted their most audacious attack so far, it seemed to take the military and the police completely off-guard.
Image:Briton Phil Mawer is believed to be among those killed in attack on Palma
A week after the attack, Islamic State extremists said they had carried out the attack. But little is known about the group called ISIS Mozambique (also known locally as al Shabaab).
Many analysts believe the ISIS flag is simply one of convenience with many more complex layers at the heart of the insurgency including geo-political rivalries over Africa's largest oil and gas investment as well as discontent over economic inequalities in the country.
The vast natural resources are just off the coast of Mozambique's poorest province.
The Palma attack was vicious, brutal and appeared to have a level of planning. It came only hours after the French gas giant Total announced it was resuming work on the LNG project after months of hiatus over security concerns.
When shooting broke out in the town, the foreign workers who were stationed near to the lodge headed straight there.
It was considered secure and had high perimeter walls and a helicopter landing pad for airlifts.
"We, 100% thought we were going to get out by helicopter [on the first day of the terror attack]," Mr Nel said.
But he said only helicopters manned by the private security company DAG appeared to mount any rescue attempt.
DAG's small helicopters could only airlift six people at a time. Women, children and the sick were loaded on first with more than 20 being taken to safety in Pemba.
But with light fading and fuel running out, the controversial security company which had only weeks earlier been accused of war crimes by human rights groups, halted its rescue mission.
The civilians trapped inside the Amarula Lodge used the satellite phones they had among them, to appeal for help from the Mozambican military, from their employers, from anyone.
"We said to them, we're sitting ducks… we've got nothing to protect ourselves," Mr Nel told Sky News.
The footage shows the group left behind in the hotel still appearing to believe there would be further attempts to take them out of what was now a battle zone.
Image:Shops, offices and a hospital in the town were vandalised
They are filmed sitting and standing around with small bags ready to flee. But the help never came.
"We knew the insurgents were getting closer," said Mr Nel. "It was only a matter of time before they breached the gates and we were slaughtered."
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Mozambique: Inside the town destroyed by IS
In desperation, his elder brother Adrian hatched a plan to run out of the lodge gates to try to recover a weapon they believed had been hidden in one of the parked vehicles outside.
It took him three runs to find it. You can hear his brother Wesley urging him on as he films him tearing across the road.
"Come on Adrian, come on!" he can be heard saying.
"Ordinarily he'd have got a medal of honour," his brother said.
But with just a single weapon between them, and some abandoned flak jackets left behind in the hotel by aid agencies, the group decided to organise a convoy of vehicles, pack as many people in as possible and take their chances outside.
The mobile phone video shows the back of one pick-up truck crammed full of people waiting to bolt out of the hotel gates.
"We were determined to take everybody who wanted to go. We had four people in the boot of just our car," Mr Nel said.
His brother Adrian opted to be one of the drivers.
"You've got the drive of your life bro," his younger brother can be heard saying to him on the footage.
But only two minutes outside the gate, the convoy of 17 vehicles was ambushed.
Vehicles stopped, Mr Nel said, and there was panic and frantic running into the bush as well as into other cars.
The convoy continued with the brothers' vehicle about fourth from the front, only to run into another ambush as militants shot at specifically the drivers from the side of the road.
Adrian was hit, twice. His brother relays what happened.
"He started shouting that he's hit, he's hit and his leg was off and he can't drive… someone needs to take over…and everyone was shouting keep driving as far as you can.
"He was like, I'm trying. Probably about a kilometre after, he was saying I can't… I'm going guys, I'm going…"
His brother pulled over to the side and when Wesley reached him, he was shaking uncontrollably. Now the younger brother took over the driving.
"I was holding his shoulder over the bullet wound trying to stop the blood and it was just pumping out," said Mr Nel.
"I started to drive and I was just shouting back at them, to put the other doses inside the gunshot wounds to stop the bleeding."
And all the time, his younger brother is trying to reassure him of his love.
Mr Nel breaks down as he remembers: "I was shouting that I love him and that I'd look after his family and that I'm so, so sorry that this had happened to him."
He managed to drive the vehicle to the quarry where they were hoping helicopters might be able to land to pick them up. But still there were none.
The men fled into the thick bush nearby and camped out all night and until well into the next day before emerging.
This time they managed to reach a DAG helicopter which flew them to the nearby Afungi airstrip.
Image:Mr Nel: 'We did everything for everybody and it felt like no one was doing anything for us'
"I begged them to go back and retrieve my brother's body," said Wesley. "I wasn't going to leave him there."
The DAG team followed through on its promise, retrieved his brother's body and with Mr Nel laying next to his dead brother in the helicopter, they were taken onto Pemba - and then flown back to South Africa.
Now he says friends and family have started crowdfunding to raise money for his brother's young family. He leaves behind a wife and three young children.
"We did everything for everybody and it felt like no one was doing anything for us," said Mr Nel.
"And my brother paid the ultimate price… they just abandoned us and now I'm left with this… I can't understand why there wasn't foreign military in there that could help us."
There are still more than 20,000 people unaccounted for more than two weeks after the Palma terror attack.
The Mozambican authorities have sent hundreds of soldiers into the town and have declared it free of terrorists.
The Mozambican President, Felipe Nyusi has called for unity and promised a huge job creation scheme and there have been expressions of solidarity among the southern African countries which make up SADC.
But the insurgents still hold the strategically important port of Mocimboa da Praia and the challenge will be for the authorities to regain control there and crush the insurgency before it spreads further.
The Turkish government has cut the water supply to the Chinese embassy in Ankara, following an online spat between the two countries. The extraordinary move comes as a dispute blew up between Turkish and Chinese politicians about the Chinese governments treatment of the Uyghur population in Western China. A Twitter war erupted with both sides exchanging insults on official government accounts which led to Turkey taking action and cutting off water to the embassy.
The bizarre turn of events spun out of control after Turkish politicians criticised China for its treatment of Uyghurs.
Back and forth arguments took place between the two nations online with insults thrown from either side criticising and defending claims against each other.
One Turkish politician Marel Aksenar even tweeted a photo that the Xinjiang province.
She said: "East Turkestan will definitely become independent one day" with a picture of the Xinjiang flag.
Other Turkish politicians followed suit in a move that infuriated the Chinese Embassy in Turkey before they responded angrily on Twitter.
The account erupted in response, saying: "The Chinese side resolutely opposes and strongly condemns any challenge by any person or power to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
"The Chinese side reserves the right to a justified response.”
The situation boiled over and Ankara decided to plug the water supply into the Chinese embassy prompting further anger from the Chinese.
But China responded and banned a number of British officials from China, including former Work and Pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith who voiced his concerns for the Uyghur people.
He said he wore the ban as "a badge of honour" and will continue to speak out against the terrible treatment of the Uyghur population by the Chinese government.
Earlier this week the Chinese held a bizarre press conference called 'Xinjiang is a Wonderful Land'.
China continues to deny any wrongdoing in the region.
European Council President Charles Michel has said he is not sleeping well at night because he feels embarrassed about a seating arrangement incident at a meeting this week.
The incident happened when Mr Michel took the only chair available next to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a meeting in Ankara.
When the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, came to be seated too, she became perplexed and raised a hand in disbelief.
Image:Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel arriving at a news conference after the meeting
She ended up being relegated to a sofa further away from her counterparts and opposite Turkey's foreign minister, who is lower than her in the pecking order.
Talking about the incident with German newspaper Handelsblatt, Mr Michel said he would go back and fix the issue if he could.
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"I make no secret of the fact that I haven't slept well at night since because the scenes keep replaying in my head," he said.
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In an earlier interview with Belgian broadcaster LN24, he said the incident was a "disastrous incident" and added: "I deeply regret this situation."
"I can tell you that I have rewound [the scene] in my head… I would like so much to rewind, to go back. If I could do it, I would make sure that there is no ambiguity whatsoever," he said.
The awkward scene was just before a three-hour meeting with Mr Erdogan, where one of the topics of discussion was women's rights following Turkey's withdrawal from a convention on gender-based violence.
Image:Two chairs for three leaders... (L-R Charles Michel, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ursula von der Leyen)
In a news conference after the meeting, neither Ms Von der Leyer nor Mr Michel mentioned the incident.
An EU spokesperson said the president should have been seated in exactly the same manner as the president of the council and the Turkish president but decided to "proceed by prioritising substance over protocol".
"We will be making the appropriate contacts to ensure this doesn't happen again in future," they added.
There remains a "shocking imbalance" in the global distribution of coronavirus vaccines, the head of the World Health Organisation has said.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that on average, one in four people in rich countries have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine - compared with only one in 500 in low-income nations.
Mr Ghebreyesus spoke as it emerged that up to 60 countries, including some of the world's poorest, might be stalled in delivering the first shots of the coronavirus vaccination, as nearly all deliveries through the global program intended to help them are blocked until as late as June.
COVAX, the global initiative to provide vaccines to poorer nations, will only ship those cleared by the WHO, and countries are growing increasingly impatient as deliveries have all but halted since Monday.
Mr Ghebreyesus said: "There remains a shocking imbalance in the global distribution of vaccines."
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Fewer than two million COVAX doses in total were cleared for shipment to 92 countries in the developing world during the past two weeks - the same amount injected in Britain alone, according to data compiled daily by UNICEF.
The vaccine shortage stems mostly from a decision by India to stop exporting vaccines from its Serum Institute factory.
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The site produces the overwhelming majority of the AstraZeneca doses that COVAX counted on to supply around a third of the global population at a time coronavirus is spiking worldwide.
Image:A woman receives a coronavirus vaccine under the COVAX scheme in Ethiopia
Image:Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says there is a 'shocking imbalance' in the global distribution of vaccines
In vaccination tents set up at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, many of those arriving for their first jabs are uneasy about when the second will arrive.
Oscar Odinga, a civil servant, said: "My fear if I don't get the second dose, my immune system is going to be weak, hence I might die."
Internal WHO documents obtained by the AP news agency show the uncertainty about deliveries "is causing some countries to lose faith in the COVAX (effort)".
That is reportedly prompting the organisation to consider speeding up its endorsement of vaccines from China and Russia, which have not been authorised by any regulators in Europe or North America.
WHO declined to respond specifically to the issues raised in the internal materials but has previously said countries are "very keen" to get vaccines as soon as possible and insisted it has not heard any complaints about the process.
Concern over the link between the AstraZeneca shot and rare blood clots has also "created nervousness both around its safety and efficacy", the WHO noted.
Among its proposed solutions is a decision to "expedite review of additional products" from China and Russia.
The WHO said in March that it might be possible to greenlight the Chinese vaccines by the end of April.
Some experts have noted that Sinopharm and Sinovac, two Chinese-made vaccines, lack published data, and there are reports of people needing a third dose to be protected.
Earlier this month, the WHO appealed to rich countries to urgently share 10 million doses to meet the UN target of starting COVID-19 vaccinations in every country within the first 100 days of the year.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has criticised what it describes as a "shocking imbalance" in the distribution of coronavirus vaccines between rich and poor countries.
The group's chief said a target of seeing vaccination programmes under way in every country by Saturday would be missed.
The WHO has long called for fairer distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
It is leading the Covax scheme which is designed to get jabs to poorer nations.
So far, more than 38 million doses have been delivered to around 100 countries under the scheme.
"There remains a shocking imbalance in the global distribution of vaccines," WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference on Friday.
"On average in high-income countries, almost one in four people have received a Covid-19 vaccine. In low-income countries, it's one in more than 500," he said.
The Covax scheme had been expected to distribute at least 100 million doses worldwide by the end of March, but only 38 million jabs have been delivered so far.
"We hope to be able to catch up during April and May," Dr Tedros said.
He also criticised countries that have sought their own vaccine deals outside of the Covax scheme. "Some countries and companies plan to do their own bilateral vaccine donations, bypassing Covax for their own political or commercial reasons," Dr Tedros said.
"These bilateral arrangements run the risk of fanning the flames of vaccine inequity," he added. "Scarcity of supply is driving vaccine nationalism."
Earlier this year, Dr Tedros warned that the world was facing a "catastrophic moral failure" over vaccine inequality. He said a "me-first" approach would be self-defeating because it would encourage hoarding and prolong the pandemic.
So how fair is the vaccine situation?
Vaccines produced in the UK, US, Europe, Russia and China are already being widely used, having been bought up and approved in countries around the world.
But doses have not been shared equally between countries.
The statement released on Friday, declares that the democratically ruled island’s military “won’t stand a chance” if China chose to annex the island by force. The threats come as the Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), committed a wave of incursions into Taiwan’s air and naval territory.
A military analyst who chose to remain anonymous told the Chinese state run media outlet, Global Times, that “The island's military won't stand a chance.”
Global Times reported: “The PLA exercises are not only warnings, but also show real capabilities and pragmatically practicing reunifying the island, if it comes to that.”
China has also directed its ire at Taiwan over the recent computerised war game simulations that the country is conducting this week in order to prepare for a potential Chinese invasion.
The PLA has been particularly bold in recent weeks as they sent an aircraft carrier - the Liaoning - accompanied by a fleet of five other vessels towards the Pacific through the tactical waterway connecting Taiwan with Japan.
Chinese aircraft also breached Taiwan’s southwestern air defence identification zone which saw eight fighter jets and two other aircraft enter the sovereign nation’s territory.
The US has been slowly increasing its support for Taiwan’s autonomy with a recent official visit to the country by an ambassador which China met with threats and warnings.
On Wednesday, the USS John McCain transited international waters in the Taiwan Strait as part of a “freedom of navigation operation” to contest China’s claims in the South China Sea over which it has claimed 90 percent as part of its territory.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the Pentagon said: “We don't conduct Freedom of Navigation Operations around the world to respond to some specific event or the specific action of another country.
