Barricades and trenches have been built on beaches and close to key access routes in Crimea on a massive scale as Vladimir

A senior U.S. lawmaker pledged on Saturday to help provide training for Taiwan's armed force and to speed up the delivery of weapons, as China began three days of military exercises around the island Beijing claims as its territory. China announced the drills the day after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen returned to Taipei from Los Angeles, where she met speaker of the U.S. The media watchdog went on: "We take seriously the importance, in our democratic society, of a broadcaster's right to freedom of expression and the audience's right to receive information and ideas without undue interference. Dar said he would attend important attend bilateral and multilateral meetings virtually and a Pakistani delegation would be present in Washington. The minister played down reports of the canceled trip being linked to a holdup in Pakistan's IMF bailout program. Financial records appear to show shipments of laptops, mobile phones and microchips have been repeatedly sent from a business registered at the unassuming property in Enfield, North London, since Vladimir Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine began last year. Merlion is owned by three Russian oligarchs who appear in Forbes' list of 200 wealthiest Russians with a combined net worth of £1.6 billion. Two of them have been sanctioned by Ukraine for ‘material or financial support' for the war. House of Representatives. The three-day drills, announced the day after Tsai returned from the United States, had been widely expected after Beijing condemned her Wednesday meeting with Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles. In a statement, she said: "Ofcom has shown the UK public, and the regulatory community internationally, that, despite a well-constructed facade of independence, it is nothing more than a tool of government, bending to its media-suppressing will. Ofcom said it noted new laws in Russia which "effectively criminalise any independent journalism that departs from the Russian state's own news narrative", particularly in relation to the invasion of Ukraine. They show that a large volume of high-end microchips, telecoms equipment and servers, which have the potential to support Russian infrastructure, have been shipped through other countries, largely China, avoiding sanctions.  Seventy-one Chinese military aircraft crossed the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait on Saturday as China began drills around Taiwan in anger at President Tsai Ing-wen's meeting with the speaker of the U.S. "By ignoring RT's completely clean record of four consecutive years and stating purely political reasons tied directly to the situation in Ukraine and yet completely unassociated to RT's operations, structure, management or editorial output, Ofcom has falsely judged RT to not be ‘fit and proper' and in doing so robbed the UK public of access to information." India's foreign ministry said the Ukrainian minister was arriving in India on Sunday on a four-day trip during which the two sides would discuss their relations, the situation in Ukraine and global issues. Malaysia said on Saturday it was firmly committed to protecting its sovereign rights and interests in the South China Sea after China expressed concern about Malaysian energy projects in a part of the sea that China also claims. Ukraine's First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova will ask India on an upcoming visit for humanitarian aid and equipment to repair energy infrastructure damaged during Russia's invasion, a newspaper reported on Saturday. A statement released by the regulator on Friday said: "We consider the volume and potentially serious nature of the issues raised within such a short period to be of great concern - especially given RT's compliance history, which has seen the channel fined £200,000 for previous due impartiality breaches. Ofcom said the decision to suspend the licence came amid ongoing investigations into RT's news and current affairs coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson also having previously called for an Ofcom review. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Vietnam next week, Senator Jeff Merkley told a news conference in Hanoi on Saturday, as part of Washington's efforts to move diplomatic relations with Hanoi on to a higher level this year. Blinken's visit, which has not yet been officially announced, would come after U.S. Ukraine's leaders discussed ways to prevent leaks of military information on Friday after secret documents detailing U.S. and NATO efforts to help the country plan a counter-offensive against Russia's invasion reportedly appeared on social media. The New York Times said on Thursday, citing senior U.S. officials, that classified war documents were posted this week on Twitter and Telegram, which is widely used in Russia. In a further attempt to rein in increasing numbers of women defying the compulsory dress code, Iranian authorities are installing cameras in public places and thoroughfares to identify and penalize unveiled women, the police announced on Saturday.