Within minutes of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landing in Taiwan on Tuesday night, China said it would immediately begin “a series of joint military operations around the island,” including using long-range live ammunition in the Taiwan Strait.

An announcement from the People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command said beginning Tuesday night a series of exercises would be held on the sea and in the air surrounding Taiwan, the self-governed island that China says is its sovereign territory.

“This action is a solemn deterrent against the recent major escalation of the negative actions of the United States on the Taiwan issue, and a serious warning to the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces seeking ‘independence,'” Col. Shi Yi, spokesman for the Eastern Theater Command, said in a statement.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan Tuesday night local time, in a significant show of support for Taiwan that comes despite China’s threats of retaliation over the visit.

The Eastern Theater is one of the five joint commands of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with jurisdiction over China’s eastern coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, which sit opposite and above Taiwan.

China’s Defense Ministry said the PLA was “on high alert and will launch a series of targeted military operations to counteract the situation, resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and resolutely thwart the interference of external forces and ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist schemes.”

In an unusual move, Chinese state media posted on Twitter a map showing six areas around Taiwan where it said the PLA would conduct drills, including live-fire exercises from Thursday through Sunday.

The announcements came after a US Air Force plane carrying Pelosi landed in Taiwan’s capital of Taipei, marking the first time a US House speaker has visited Taiwan in 25 years.

China did not specify what the exercises would entail or what units would be involved.

The PLA has been active with exercises around the region in the days leading up to the Pelosi visit. It typically stages drills at this time of year to mark Army Day, the founding of the PLA.

Pelosi and the congressional delegation that accompanied her said in a statement that the visit “honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy.”

“Our discussions with Taiwan’s leadership will focus on reaffirming our support for our partner and on promoting our shared interests, including advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the statement said.

The US Treasury Department on Tuesday sanctioned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reputed girlfriend as part of a series of measures targeting Russian elites in the Biden administration’s latest attempt to punish the Kremlin for its ongoing war in Ukraine.

Alina Maratovna Kabaeva, who has been romantically linked to the Russian leader, was sanctioned “for being or having been a leader, official, senior executive officer, or member of the board of directors of the Government of the Russian Federation,” a Treasury Department statement said.

That statement describes the 39-year-old Kabaeva as having “a close relationship to Putin.”

She is a former member of the State Duma “and is the current head of the National Media Group, a pro-Kremlin empire of television, radio, and print organizations.”

In April, the Wall Street Journal reported that sanctioning Kabaeva was under consideration by the US, but there was concern that such a move would inflame tensions given her close proximity to Putin.

Kabaeva was previously sanctioned by the European Union and the United Kingdom.

In addition to Kabaeva, the Treasury Department announced sanctions against a number of other oligarchs, a major steel production company and two of its subsidiaries as well as a financial institution accused of running a sanctions evasion operation and its general director.

Separately, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced sanctions on three oligarchs, a Russian state-owned company overseen by the Ministry of Transportation, “four individuals and one entity illegitimately operating in Ukraine’s territory in collaboration with Russia,” and 24 Russian defense and technology-related entities.

The US is also imposing visa restrictions on 893 Russian Federation officials and “31 foreign government officials who have acted to support Russia’s purported annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine and thereby threatened or violated Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Blinken said.

Many of the designations announced by the US target oligarchs who were previously sanctioned by allies like the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the European Union.

They come as the war in Ukraine has entered its sixth month

“As innocent people suffer from Russia’s illegal war of aggression, Putin’s allies have enriched themselves and funded opulent lifestyles,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.

“The Treasury Department will use every tool at our disposal to make sure that Russian elites and the Kremlin’s enablers are held accountable for their complicity in a war that has cost countless lives.”

The oligarchs sanctioned by the State Department Tuesday are Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko, Alexander Anatolevich Ponomarenko, and Dmitry Aleksandrovich Pumpyanskiy.

The yacht AXIOMA was identified as blocked property in which Pumpyanskiy has an interest, the State Department said in a fact sheet.

According to that fact sheet, Ponomarenko “is an oligarch with close ties to other oligarchs and the construction of Vladimir Putin’s seaside palace” who has previously been sanctioned by the UK, EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Among the oligarchs sanctioned by the Treasury Department Tuesday is Andrey Grigoryevich Guryev, the Russian billionaire founder of the chemical company “PhosAgro” and former government official described by the Treasury as “a known close associate” of Putin.

He is also sanctioned by the UK, and according to the US Treasury, he “owns the Witanhurst estate, which is the second largest estate in London after Buckingham Palace.”

The Treasury Department on Tuesday identified the yacht Alfa Nero, reportedly owned by AG Guryev, as blocked property.

AG Guryev’s son, Andrey Andreevich Guryev, was also sanctioned by the US Tuesday, after previously being sanctioned by Australia, Canada, the European Union, Switzerland, and the UK, as was his investment firm Dzhi AI Invest OOO.

Natalya Valeryevna Popova was sanctioned “for operating or having operated in the technology sector of the Russian Federation economy, and for being or having been a leader, official, senior executive officer, or member of the board of directors of LLC VEB Ventures,” which is a sanctioned entity.

She was also sanctioned for being the wife of Kirill Aleksandrovich Dmitriev, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF). Both he and the RDIF were sanctioned in the days following the start of the war.

The Joint Stock Company Promising Industrial and Infrastructure Technologies, “a financial institution owned by the Russian Federal Agency for State Property Management,” and its General Director Anton Sergeevich Urusov were sanctioned Tuesday in relation to alleged sanctions evasion.

According to the Treasury Department, “JSC PPIT attempted to facilitate the circumvention of sanctions imposed on the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).”

The Treasury Department sanctioned Publichnoe Aktsionernoe Obschestvo Magnitogorskiy Metallurgicheskiy Kombinat (MMK), described as “one of the world’s largest steel producers,” the chairman of its board of directors Viktor Filippovich Rashnikov — who has also been sanctioned by Australia, Canada, the EU, Switzerland, and the UK — and two of MMK’s subsidiaries.

“MMK is one of Russia’s largest taxpayers, providing a substantial source of revenue to the Government of the Russian Federation,” the Treasury Department said.

The agency has authorized a wind-down period for transactions with MMK and one of its subsidiaries.

US Speaker Nancy Pelosi has met Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in a visit that has been strongly condemned by China. 

Ms Pelosi, the most senior US politician in 25 years to visit Taiwan, said her delegation had come to make it “unequivocally clear” that the US would not “abandon” the island.

China had earlier said the US would “pay the price” for Ms Pelosi’s visit. 

Taiwan is self-ruled, but China sees it as a breakaway province that will eventually unite with it.

“Forty three years ago, America made a promise to always stand with Taiwan… today our delegation came to Taiwan to make it unequivocally clear we will not abandon our commitment to Taiwan,” Ms Pelosi said, referring to the Taiwan Relations Act. 

Taiwan has become yet another flashpoint amid heightened tensions and sharp rhetoric between Washington and Beijing in recent years, with the US walking a diplomatic tightrope on the issue.

The US abides by the “One China” policy – a cornerstone of the two countries’ diplomatic relationship which recognises only one Chinese government – and has formal ties with Beijing and not Taiwan. But it also maintains a “robust unofficial” relationship with the island. That includes selling weapons for Taiwan to defend itself. 

Ms Pelosi’s visit is viewed by Beijing as yet another sign of support for Taiwan. 

However, the White House has been opposed the visit, and President Joe Biden had said the military assessed it as “not a good idea”.

In her meeting with Ms Tsai at the presidential office, Ms Pelosi called Taiwan an “inspiration to all freedom-loving people”, saying: “The world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy. America’s decision to preserve democracy here in Taiwan remains iron-clad.”

Ms Tsai similarly praised the partnership between both places, saying Taiwan remained a “trustworthy and reliable partner of the US”.

She added that Taiwan was “facing deliberately heightened military threats”, adding that it “would not back down and that Taiwan will do whatever it takes to strengthen its self-defence capabilities”.

Ms Pelosi is expected to meet a group of human rights activists later on Wednesday. 

She had earlier met with Taiwan Deputy Speaker of Parliament Tsai Chi-Chang.

At least 87 women have been hospitalised after a gas leak at an apparel manufacturing plant in India, local media reports said Wednesday.

The workers complained of nausea and vomiting at a plant in the Atchyutapuram district of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday night.

No deaths had been reported and the situation was under control on Wednesday, broadcaster India Today said.

The hospitalisations follow a similar accident in June when around 200 women fell unconscious after a gas leak in the same area, broadcaster NDTV reported.

In 2020, at least five people were killed and hundreds were hospitalised after a gas leak at a chemical plant in Visakhapatnam, an industrial port city in the same state.

In 1984, India witnessed one of its worst industrial disasters in history when gas leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, a city in central India.

Around 3,500 people living around the plant operated by Union Carbide died in the days that followed the leak. People continue to suffer the effects of it to this day.

Children are still born disfigured, with webbed feet and hands, and stunted growth because of the gas that affected their mothers.