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A British minister will visit Taiwan this week for trade talks and meet President Tsai Ing-wen, his office said on Monday, drawing an angry reaction from Beijing to the latest high-level engagement between a Western government and the island.

China views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory and strongly objects to any official interactions between Taipei and foreign governments, believing it is a show of support for Taiwan's separateness from China.

Britain's Department for International Trade said Greg Hands, minister of state for trade and also a member of parliament, would meet Tsai and co-host the 25th annual UK-Taiwan Trade Talks during his two-day visit.

"Visiting Taiwan in person is a clear signal of the UK's commitment to boosting UK-Taiwan trade ties. Like the UK, Taiwan is a champion of free and fair trade underpinned by a rules-based global trading system," his office said in a statement.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said China resolutely opposed any form of official exchanges between a country with whom it has diplomatic ties and Taiwan.

"We urge the British side to stop any form of official exchanges with Taiwan and stop sending wrong signals to separatist forces for Taiwan independence," he said.

Hands will also meet Taiwan's top trade negotiator John Deng and Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua, his office added.

Taiwan's Economy Ministry declined to comment, saying that the meetings it was arranging were closed to the media.

Taiwan views Britain as a like-minded democratic partner and has been heartened by London's concerns over recent Chinese war games near the island and support for its participation in international organisations, most of which Taiwan are locked out of due to China's objections.

Britain, like Taiwan, is also bidding to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP. Members agreed in February that Britain can proceed with its application, as it looks for new trading relationships after leaving the European Union.

China has applied to join as well.

Britain has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan but the two have close economic and informal relations and Britain maintains a de facto embassy in Taipei.

Western lawmakers and other officials have been stepping up their visits to Taiwan, despite Beijing's strong objections, which views the island as its own territory and bristles at anything which implies it is a separate country.

China staged war games near Taiwan in August following a visit to Taipei by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (Reuters)

The United Arab Emirates will be a responsible supplier of oil and gas for as long as the world needs, its President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan said on Monday at the start of two weeks of climate talks in Egypt.

He added the Gulf nation, which is one of OPEC's biggest producers but has also invested in renewable energy, was focused on reducing the carbon impact of its fossil fuel output.

"The UAE is considered a responsible supplier of energy and it will continue playing this role for as long as the world is in need of oil and gas," he said.

"Oil and gas in the UAE is among the least carbon intensive around the world and we will continue to focus on lowering carbon emissions emanating from this sector."

Egypt's Conference of the Parties (COP) is the latest of decades of U.N. talks to try to curb climate change caused by the use of fossil fuels.

Next year's COP28 summit will be hosted by the UAE in Dubai's Expo City and will assess the implementation of the 2015 Paris climate agreement that seeks to limit to global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The UAE president said his country was among the first in the Gulf region to announce a plan for carbon neutrality by 2050 and last week signed a $100 billion agreement with the United States with the goal of adding 100 gigawatts of renewable energy globally by 2035. (Reuters)

The head of Ukraine's Byzantine-rite Catholic Church met Pope Francis on Monday and said there can be no dialogue with Russia as long as Moscow considered the neighbour it invaded a colony to be subjugated.

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk's trip to the Vatican was his first trip outside Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February. He said he prefers to remain in Kyiv to be close to the people despite the bombings and hardships.

"The war in Ukraine is a colonial war and peace proposals by Russia are proposals of colonial pacification," he said after meeting the pope at the Vatican.

Shevchuk, who has several times urged the pope to visit Kyiv, gave Francis a piece of shrapnel from a Russian mine that destroyed the facade of a church in Irpin in March. An estimated 200-300 civilians were killed in Irpin, near Kyiv, before the town was taken back from Russian forces in late March.

"These proposals imply the negation of the existence of the Ukrainian people, their history, culture and even their Church. It is the negation of the very right of the Ukrainian state to exist with the sovereignty and territorial integrity that is recognised by the international community," Shevchuk said.

"With these premises, Russia's proposals lack a basis for dialogue," he said.

Kyiv says it will never agree to cede land taken by force, and that lawful referendums cannot be held in occupied territory where many people have been killed or driven out.

After the Kremlin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces in September in the wake of referendums condemned by Ukraine and the West as a coercive sham, Kyiv said it was applying to join NATO, and would not negotiate with Russia as long as Vladimir Putin is Russia's president.

Last month, Pope Francis for the first time directly begged Putin to stop the "spiral of violence and death" in Ukraine and asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to be open to any "serious peace proposal".

Russian forces swept into Ukraine in what Moscow calls a "special military operation" to eliminate dangerous nationalists and protect Russian-speakers. Kyiv calls Moscow's military action an unprovoked imperialist land grab.

Ukraine is predominantly Christian Orthodox but about 10% of the population belongs to the Eastern, or Byzantine-rite, Catholic Church, whose followers are in communion with Rome.

The support of Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), for Moscow's invasion of Ukraine has splintered the worldwide Orthodox Church and unleashed an internal rebellion.

The war has also prompted some Orthodox believers in Ukraine to abandon their allegiance to the ROC and join the country's own branch of the Orthodox Church, which Moscow refuses to recognise. (Reuters)

Drought-stricken countries, led by Senegal and Spain, announced an alliance Monday to help each other manage water scarcity by sharing technology and expertise.

The announcement was made on the sidelines of the U.N. climate conference, COP27, which is taking place in the sun-baked Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh after a fifth failed rainy season on the Horn of Africa.

Forecasters have warned that an unprecedented sixth season of failed rains is likely next year.

"Science is telling us we will have more episodes of drought," said Andrea Meza, deputy executive secretary of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification. "We need to be prepared for the next drought."

Droughts have become 29% more frequent across the globe since 2000, as warming temperatures exacebate the influence of forest degradation and poor land management in drying out previously temperate regions, the U.N agency said.

Climate scientists say droughts will become more severe and frequent in the coming years. They will also last longer as global warming disrupts weather patterns.

By 2050, weather disturbances, including drought as well as heavy winds and rains, could cost the global economy some $5.6 trillion, a report published in August by environmental engineering consultancy GHD found.

Meza said no country was immune to drought and the people worst affected ultimately cannot produce food, electricity or trade as rivers dry up preventing transportation.

The alliance will aim to mobilise resources to fight drought where it occurs, Spain's President Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón said in a statement, but did not give details about how much money might be made available. (Reuters)