Britain's new monarch, who took the throne when his mother Queen Elizabeth II died last month, had intended to deliver a speech at the November 6-18 gathering, the Sunday Times reported.

Putin was defiant during his address to Russia's political elite, telling the West that the internationally condemned maneuver was irreversible and urging Ukraine's emboldened army to negotiate a surrender.

The 96-year-old monarch died at her Balmoral Castle estate in the Scottish Highlands.

The Vatican acknowledgement came in response to reporters' questions following an article this week in Dutch magazine De Groene Amsterdammer.

The Russian leader is expected to deliver a major speech at the event, following referendums held last week in which four Ukrainian regions voted in a landslide to join Russia, but which were dismissed as a sham by the West.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a pro-Kremlin broadcast that Washington had "full control" over the waters around Denmark and Sweden where four leaks have been detected on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, which cross the floor of the Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany.

Dutch weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer published an investigative report that Belo had sexually abused some boys at his residence in Dili and other places in the 1980s and 1990s.

"On February 7, 2022, Joe Biden said that Nord Stream would be finished if Russia invaded Ukraine," foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on social media, posting a video of Biden saying "we will bring an end" to Nord Stream 2 if Russian tanks cross Ukraine's border.

Europe has been investigating what Germany, Denmark and Sweden have said were attacks which caused major leaks into the Baltic Sea from the two Russian gas pipelines at the centre of an energy standoff. The countries have not said who could be behind the attack. 

But it remained far from clear who might be behind the leaks that were first reported on Monday or any foul play, if proven, on the Nord Stream pipelines that Russia and European partners spent billions of dollars building.

"Russia's recognition of the pseudo-referendums as 'normal', implementation of the so-called Crimean scenario, and yet another attempt to annex Ukrainian territory means that there is nothing to talk about with (the) current Russian president," he said in a video message.

"Italy of course is a cause for concern. Parties in this coalition have said and done things that should make us vigilant. This relates to Russia, and to financial and economic issues," Rutte said in an interview on Dutch TV.

Votes were staged for a third day in four eastern Ukrainian regions, aimed at annexing territory Russia has taken by force. The Russian parliament could move to formalise the annexation within days.

Voting began at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will continue until 11 p.m. (2100 GMT) when exit polls will be published.

After a week of pressure at the United Nations General Assembly, Russia's foreign minister took the General Assembly rostrum to deliver a fiery rebuke to Western nations for what he termed a "grotesque" campaign against Russians.

Putin announced the call-up of 300,000 reservists -- more than the nearly 200,000 mustered to invade Ukraine in February -- after his troops have lost significant parts of territory seized early in the war.

"I consider it necessary to support the proposal of the Defence Ministry and of the General Staff to conduct partial mobilisation in the Russian Federation," Putin said during a televised address to the nation. 

"This is why we will not accept any peace dictated by Russia and this is why Ukraine must be able to fend off Russia's attack," Scholz said in his first address to the United Nations General Assembly.

The British monarch exercises little real power but Elizabeth was a titanic figure on the 20th-century stage, whose first prime minister was wartime leader Winston Churchill, met the first man in space Yuri Gagarin, and made landmark visits to newly independent nations as the British Empire fell apart.

The southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu will resume production and life "in an orderly manner" from Monday following more than two weeks of COVID-19 lockdowns and other strict curbs, local authorities said on Sunday. 

At 6.30 a.m. (0530 GMT), an official lying-in-state period ended after four days in which hundreds of thousands have queued to file past the casket of Britain's longest-reigning monarch at London's historic Westminster Hall.

"It would be naive to think that we are close to the possibility of a peace deal," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres ahead of the high-level meeting of the 193-member UN General Assembly, which starts on Tuesday. "The chances of a peace deal are minimal, at the present moment."

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, China has trod a careful line, criticising Western sanctions against Moscow but stopping short of endorsing or assisting in the military campaign.

"In Kyiv, a passenger car collided with the car of the President of Ukraine and escort vehicles," spokesman Sergiy Nikiforov said in a statement posted on Facebook at 1:22 am local time (22:22 GMT).

"We are not there yet. But the end is in sight," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference, noting that the tally of COVID-19 deaths last week fell to a level seen in March 2020.

RTE said lowering national electricity consumption by 1 percent to 5 percent in most scenarios and up to 15 percent in an extreme scenario of gas shortage and very cold weather could help avert a power crunch. It added it would be on alert to monitor market developments from November, or sooner if needed. RTE usually starts its winter monitoring in January.

On a dark night, the well-lit hearse travelled slowly from a nearby airport through London, with crowds stood all along the route, some in the road, others throwing flowers, and many ditching their cars or running from nearby streets to catch a glimpse of the cortege. 

Britain, along with its Western allies, has sought to isolate Russia and its ally Belarus on the world stage with economic sanctions and other measures in response to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

"Since the start of September, our soldiers have already liberated 6,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory in the east and south, and we are moving further," Zelensky said in his daily address.

At a ceremony in Westminster Hall, the oldest building on the parliamentary estate, Charles used his address to the upper and lower houses of parliament to pay tribute to his mother and to pledge to uphold the principle of constitutional government.