China’s military has said it’s begun joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan.

It said the exercises were intended to “serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence”, and called the self-governed island’s president a “parasite”.

China considers Taiwan to be its own territory and has threatened to use force to gain control.

Its military released a poster entitled “Closing In”, showing Chinese ships and fighter jets circling the island and the words “sinister moves of Taiwan separatists courting disaster upon themselves”.

It comes after the Taiwanese president, President Lai Ching-Te, called China a “foreign hostile force” last month.

He announced measures including a proposal to re-instate a military court system in response to a perceived growth in Chinese infiltration of Taiwanese society and “grey-zone” tactics.

Announcing the joint exercises, China’s eastern theatre command depicted the president as a cartoon bug held by a pair of chopsticks above a burning Taiwan.

“Parasite poisoning Taiwan island. Parasite hollowing Island out. Parasite courting ultimate destruction,” the animation said.

Footage also showed the capital Taipei being aimed at from above and military vehicles patrolling the streets.

The eastern theatre command said on its official WeChat social media account: “The focus is on exercises such as combat readiness patrols at sea and in the air, seizing comprehensive control, striking maritime and land targets and imposing blockade controls on key areas and routes.”

Taiwan’s defence ministry said China’s Shandong aircraft carrier group had entered its response area and it had tracked 19 Chinese navy vessels in the waters surrounding the island in a 24-hour period.

It said the group had dispatched military aircraft and ships and activated land-based missile systems in response.

“The Chinese Communist Party has continued to increase its military activities around Taiwan and in the Indo-Pacific
region… and has become the biggest ‘troublemaker’ in the international community,” the statement added.

The drills come two weeks after a large exercise in mid-March, when Beijing sent a large number of drones and ships towards the island.

Even with thousands dead and entire neighbourhoods levelled, the ruling military junta in Myanmar maintains its long-term ban on international journalists entering the country.

It cited a lack of guaranteed safety that could be provided to foreign media to report on the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake that rocked the southeast Asian nation on Friday.

That may also be because it is still pursuing its campaign against rebel forces amid the destruction.

So open-source information from satellite imagery and social media is a vital tool. The picture is incomplete, but gives some sense of the true scale of damage from the quake.

Mandalay, Myanmar’s second city and just 20km from the epicentre, was hit especially hard. The largest monastery in the city had boasted a clock tower, now completely flattened.

Sky’s Data & Forensics Unit has analysed the destruction based on a combination of videos like these and satellite imagery.

That is not a comprehensive picture of the destruction. For many areas, we don’t yet have satellite imagery available – for example the city of Sagaing. But we have verified videos posted to social media which give some idea of the situation there: buildings toppled, flattened pagodas and even a collapsed bridge.

The country’s military rulers issued a rare call for help after the disaster. Their allies – Russia, India and China – were some of the first to heed the call.

On Saturday, a Russian plane registered to the Ministry for Emergency Situations (EMERCOM) arrived in Mawlamyine, southern Myanmar, from Moscow.

EMERCOM said it had also flown 120 rescuers and supplies to Yangon, in the south of the country.

In Mandalay, Russian and Chinese emergency workers have collaborated in efforts to rescue civilians trapped under rubble, according to a post on the official Telegram channel for EMERCOM.

China said it sent more than 135 rescue personnel and pledged about $13.8m (£10.7m) in emergency aid. Chinese President Xi Jinping extended his condolences to the military junta leader Min Aung Hlaing.

Other countries have pledged money too including the US, the EU and the UK.

But many are worried if aid will be distributed fairly.

“Throughout history, the military uses denial of aid access as a counter-insurgency tactic,” said Morgan Michaels, research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). “So there is warranted concern that in this current crisis, the military could block aid to affected areas.”

Some 265 groups in Myanmar have signed a statement calling for aid to be directed to civil society, the National Unity Government, and ethnic resistance organisations, rather than the junta.

Khin Ohmar, spokesperson for the signatories to the statement, is concerned about aid not reaching areas like Sagaing, which was at the epicentre of the earthquake.

She told Sky News: “International rescue aid is not reaching people that need to be saved, and the junta keep bombing areas, including Sagaing, where people were most severely impacted.”

With an ongoing civil war and poor infrastructure, Myanmar was already one of the most challenging places in the world for aid organisations to operate.

Some of the heaviest fighting has concentrated in the areas hit hardest by the earthquake, including Sagaing and Mandalay.

Rebel groups in Myanmar that oppose the junta have called for a two-week pause in fighting to help with aid deliveries and rescue efforts, saying they would only take defensive action.

But these calls have not stopped the violence.

“There were about 11 or so airstrikes [on Sunday],” Mr Michaels told Sky News. “One of these airstrikes happened in Nancho, which is in Shahn State.

“We already know that is the site of a major ongoing battle. So that looks more or less like a continuation of fighting with either side using the tools that they’ve been using all along.”

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open-source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has said that barring her from running for public office for five years is a “political decision” aimed at preventing her from running in the next presidential election.

The National Rally leader, who left court before the verdict was read out, was found guilty in an embezzlement case.

She was also given a four-year jail sentence, with two years suspended and two which will be served with an electronic tag. She is not expected to serve any jail time.

Le Pen, who also received a €100,000 (£83,635) fine, will make an appeal against her conviction, her lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut later said.

The 56-year-old is a three-time presidential contender who has previously said the next election in 2027 would be her final run for top office.

The ban, which comes into force immediately, ends those hopes unless she successfully appeals before the campaign.

Speaking to French TV channel TF1 in her first reaction to the verdict, Le Pen said millions of French people “are outraged”.

Calling the verdict a violation of the rule of law, she said she would appeal it and asked that court proceedings take place before the 2027 campaign.

“If that’s not a political decision, I don’t know what is,” Le Pen said.

The ruling marked a “fateful day for our democracy”, she added, as she vowed to keep pursuing what she called the now “admittedly narrow” path to the presidency.

“There are millions of French people who believe in me, millions of French people who trust me,” she said, adding: “For 30 years I’ve been fighting for you, and for 30 years I’ve been fighting against injustice, so I’m going to continue fighting.”

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Le Pen and 24 other National Rally officials were accused of diverting more than €3m (£2.51m) of European Parliament funds to pay France-based staff working for her party between 2004 and 2016.

The judge also handed down guilty verdicts to eight other current or former members of Le Pen’s party who, like her, previously served as MEPs in the European Parliament.

Another 12 people, who served as parliamentary aides for Le Pen and her party, were also handed guilty verdicts.

The ruling at a court in Paris described the embezzlement as “a democratic bypass” that deceived the parliament and voters.

Judge Benedicte de Perthuis ruled: “It was established that all these people were actually working for the party, that their (EU) lawmaker had not given them any tasks.

“The investigations also showed that these were not administrative errors… but embezzlement within the framework of a system put in place to reduce the party’s costs.”

Le Pen left the court before the completion of the verdict and sentencing and did not address the media outside before being driven away in a car.

She had denied accusations she was at the head of “a system” meant to siphon off EU funds to benefit her party.

Hearings revealed how some EU money was used to pay for Le Pen’s bodyguard – who was once her father’s bodyguard – as well as for her personal assistant.

The defendants denied any wrongdoing and claimed the money was used legitimately.

The nine-week trial took place at the end of last year.

Le Pen has been seen as one of the leading contenders to succeed President Emmanuel Macron at the end of his second and final term.

She was the runner-up to Mr Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections.

Reacting to the verdict, National Rally president Jordan Bardella said: “Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly condemned: It was French democracy that was killed.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia does “not want to interfere in France’s internal affairs” but added: “More and more European capitals are going down the path of trampling over democratic norms.”

Le Pen also serves in France’s National Assembly – but there is no impact on the role by the court’s ineligibility ruling.

However, if parliament was dissolved for elections, she would not be able to stand.