World

Britain geared up Saturday for a “party at the palace” concert starring Diana Ross and Andrea Bocelli, set to be watched by millions to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the throne.

The concert is the climax of the third day of public events to mark the 96-year-old monarch’s record-breaking Platinum Jubilee, with 22,000 people set to attend in person outside Buckingham Palace.

Motown legend Ross, performing for the first time in Britain in 15 years, is one of the star attractions at the event, to be held on a purpose-built 360-degree stage outside the queen’s central London residence.

Rockers Queen + Adam Lambert will open the show, with Italian opera star Bocelli and James Bond composer Hans Zimmer also featuring in the line-up.

Other performers include Alicia Keys, Craig David and Rod Stewart, George Ezra and Eurovision 2022 runner-up Sam Ryder. Elton John has recorded a tribute.

“We’re so excited to be here,” said attendee David Hitchins, one of thousands queuing hours ahead of the event with his wife. He was gifted two tickets after raising money for the national health service.

– Broadcast live –

The queen — the longest-reigning monarch in British history — is not expected to attend the two-and-a-half-hour event in person but will instead watch on television in Windsor Castle.

It will be broadcast live by the BBC on radio, television and online from 1900 GMT.

The queen’s heir Prince Charles, 73, and his eldest son, Prince William, 39, will attend and are expected to address the crowds and honour the monarch’s seven decades of service. 

On Thursday, the first day of celebrations, the queen made two public appearances to huge crowds on the Buckingham Palace balcony, and then travelled to Windsor to attend a beacon-lighting ceremony.

The effort, after months battling difficulties walking and standing, left her in “some discomfort”, Buckingham Palace said.

On Friday, she withdrew from a church service of thanksgiving and she has also pulled out of attending the Epsom racecourse for the flat-racing showcase The Derby on Saturday.

This is only the fourth time the keen horseracing fan, rider and breeder has missed the race since 1952.

She did not attend in 2020 as spectators were banned due to Covid.

– ‘Binds us’ –

Jubilee celebrations began Thursday with the pomp and pageantry of the Trooping the Colour military parade to mark the sovereign’s official birthday.

Friday’s focus was the traditional Church of England service led by senior royals — and returning Prince Harry and his wife Meghan — in the hallowed surroundings of St Paul’s Cathedral.

On Saturday, the queen wished her namesake great-granddaughter Lilibet a “very happy first birthday” on Twitter, after reportedly meeting Harry and Meghan’s second child for the first time in recent days.

The couple, who sensationally quit royal life in January 2020, now live in California but are staying in Frogmore Cottage on the queen’s Windsor Castle estate while visiting for the jubilee.

Britain made Thursday and Friday public holidays to mark the unprecedented milestone in the queen’s reign, which has focused attention on the monarchy’s future without her.

Longer pub opening hours, street parties and other celebratory events have temporarily lifted the gloom of a soaring cost-of-living crisis.

“I’m proud of Britain and it’s nice to be able to celebrate as well,” said London bus driver June Davis, in Windsor Saturday to enjoy the atmosphere.

“The queen is a constant thread through all our lives, she binds us all together.”

– ‘Delighted’ –

Sunday will see millions of people share food at “Big Jubilee Lunch” picnics and take part in a musical and creative public pageant with a cast of 10,000.

Ed Sheeran will round off the celebrations Sunday, singing his 2017 hit “Perfect”.

Ross, who heads to the Glastonbury Festival this month after Saturday’s concert, said she was “absolutely delighted to receive an invitation to perform on such a momentous occasion”.

Charles has previously revealed that the 78-year-old diva’s disco hit “Upside Down” from 1980 was one of his favourite tracks.

Queen guitarist Brian May provided one of the most enduring images from the 2002 jubilee, playing “God Save the Queen” on the roof of Buckingham Palace.

British rocker Stewart, who received a knighthood in the queen’s 2016 birthday honours for services to music and charity, said Saturday’s gig was “nerve-wracking”.

“I’ve grown up with this woman. I was seven when she came to the throne,” the 77-year-old singer told the BBC Friday.

“She’s always been part of my life.”

Hong Kong authorities on Saturday detained several people as they pounced on any attempt at public commemoration of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, while around the world tributes were paid to the victims of the bloody event. 

As night fell, candles appeared in the windows of several foreign countries’ missions to Hong Kong — in defiance of a warning not to do so — and on various street corners around the city. 

Discussion of the events of 1989, when China set troops and tanks on peaceful protestors, is all but forbidden on the mainland.

Semi-autonomous Hong Kong had been the one place in China where large-scale remembrance was still tolerated — until two years ago when Beijing imposed a national security law to snuff out dissent after widespread pro-democracy protests in 2019. 

Authorities had warned the public that “participating in an unauthorised assembly” Saturday risked a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. 

They also closed large parts of Victoria Park, once the site of packed annual candlelight vigils that were attended by tens of thousands on the anniversary.

The park and nearby Causeway Bay shopping district — one of the city’s busiest neighbourhoods — were heavily policed all day Saturday.

People were stopped and searched for carrying flowers, wearing black and, in one case, carrying a toy tank box. 

– Multiple people detained –

Five men and one woman, aged 19-80, were arrested in the course of the day, Hong Kong police said. 

Three of them were detained for obstructing officers in the execution of their duties, one for inciting others to join an unauthorised assembly, and the remaining person was apprehended for possession of offensive weapons, according to the police.

Activist Yu Wai-pan from the League of Social Democrats (LSD) party was also briefly detained but later released without charge, according to his party.

“For 33 years it has always been peaceful, but today it’s like (police) are facing a big enemy,” Chan Po-ying, head of the LSD, said. 

Security was heightened in the Chinese capital Beijing on Saturday, with officer numbers bulked up, and ID checks and facial recognition devices set up on roads leading to Tiananmen Square. 

China has gone to exhaustive lengths to erase the crackdown from collective memory, omitting it from history textbooks and scrubbing references to it from the Chinese internet and social media platforms.

A similar approach is now beginning to be applied to Hong Kong, as authorities remould the city in the mainland’s image. 

Since last September, the Victoria Park vigil’s organisers have been arrested and charged with subversion, their June 4 museum has been closed, statues have been removed and memorial church services cancelled. 

Commemoration events in Macau were also cancelled this year.

– International solidarity –

On Saturday, multiple Western consulates general in Hong Kong posted Tiananmen tributes on social media, despite local media reports that they had been warned by the city’s Chinese foreign ministry office to refrain from doing so. 

The European Union’s office confirmed to AFP that they had received a call. 

At dusk, both the US Consulate General and the EU office’s windows were illuminated by the flickering light of candles. 

“The European Union always stands in solidarity with human rights defenders across the globe,” the latter wrote on Twitter, posting a picture of dozens of candles on a windowsill.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement pledging to continue to “honour and remember those who stood up for human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

“While many are no longer able to speak up themselves, we and many around the world continue to stand up on their behalf,” he said, specifically mentioning the situation in Hong Kong. 

A spokesperson for the city’s Chinese foreign ministry office said it “firmly rejected and strongly condemned” Blinken and other US officials’ statements.

“Their political show interfered in China’s internal affairs under the guise of human rights and freedom, and smeared Hong Kong’s human rights and rule of law, in an attempt to incite hostility and confrontation and tarnish China’s image,” read a statement.

– Overseas vigils –

Vigils are being held globally on Saturday, with rights group Amnesty International coordinating candlelit events in 20 cities “to demand justice and show solidarity for Hong Kong”. 

“We want this spirit to carry on forever,” said Frank Ruan, a former Tiananmen Square protestor who said he was lucky to have survived, in Melbourne. 

In Tokyo, 52-year-old Daikichi Wakiyama said it was important to advocate for democracy. 

“I have to admit things are getting not better (in Hong Kong)… But all I can say is we shouldn’t give up hope,” he told AFP.

Connie Lui, a 65-year-old hospital worker who left Hong Kong a year and a half ago because of the political situation, told AFP at a commemoration event in Taipei that she had been “glued to the TV in 1989”.

“We came because this is the only place now where we can come to remember,” she said.

“I am here also on behalf of all my friends in Hong Kong who are unable to attend.”

As Saturday night fell in Hong Kong, democracy activist Chiu Yan-loy turned off the lights, lit a number of candles and observed a moment of silence to commemorate those killed in China’s Tiananmen crackdown 33 years ago.

For the first time since 2000, when he started attending an annual vigil to mark the anniversary alongside tens of thousands of fellow Hong Kongers in the city’s Victoria Park, Chiu was performing this ritual alone. 

Hong Kong used to be the notable exception to an effective blanket ban in China on discussing the events of June 4, 1989, when the government set tanks and troops on peaceful protestors. 

But in 2020, Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law to snuff out dissent after widespread and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests the year before. Since then, large-scale public remembrance in the city has been wiped out.

This is the third consecutive year that the vigil at Victoria Park has been banned, with the park closed late on Friday. 

Police warned the public that gathering to commemorate Tiananmen anywhere risked breaking the law. 

But “the emotional connection with June 4 that Hong Kong people have is far beyond attending any collective ritual”, Chiu told AFP, his face illuminated by the flickering flames. 

“It has become part of our life and it’s now about how to practise what we believe in our everyday life.” 

– ‘Truth will come to light’ –

The 36-year-old was a former standing committee member of the Hong Kong Alliance, a now-disbanded group that was one of the organisers of the Victoria Park vigil that had taken place for more than three decades. 

The Alliance and its leaders were charged with “incitement to subversion” under the security law last year. 

Chiu said people should not be disheartened by the situation in Hong Kong, saying it was not yet as bad as in eastern European countries under the Soviet Union’s control, or Taiwan during its martial law era. 

“We should not belittle ourselves,” he said. “As long as we are willing to remember and pass it on, the truth will eventually come to light someday.”

Chiu believes many Hong Kongers, like him, will find their own ways to commemorate June 4 despite warnings and threats from the authorities. 

For him, the vigil itself was not the most important thing. 

“The main body is after all the people who participated in it — as long as our hearts and minds remain unchanged, we won’t easily give up,” he said.

Former district councillor Derek Chu, who had been handing out electronic candles from his office since Friday, also believes that remembrance does not have to be confined to a specific place. 

“In the contest between a people and the government, it boils down to belief and memory, and the location is less important,” Chu said.

Only 39 candles were handed out on Friday, he said, but he was not disappointed.

“Even at a low point of the (pro-democracy) movement, I don’t think people will forget June 4,” he said.  

– ‘Passing memory on’ –

Decades of commemoration are being erased as Hong Kong is remoulded in the mainland’s image. 

Chu’s alma mater, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), removed a “Goddess of Democracy” statue from campus in December last year, saying the move was based on an assessment of legal risk.

Earlier this week, four CUHK students placed 3D-printed miniatures of the “Goddess” in different locations on campus, creating a treasure hunt for students and alumni. 

“It feels like (the statue) was stolen,” Rebecca, one of the students behind the project, told AFP, using a pseudonym to protect her identity.

“But the memories and meanings of the sculpture will not simply disappear after it was removed — instead they rely on actions of passing them on.” 

The team had to axe the event halfway through its planned six-day run, as they noticed an increase in building staff at locations they had announced online. 

Of the 32 miniatures they prepared, 23 were found by students, seven were lost, one was damaged with its head broken off, and one’s whereabouts are unknown.  

Rebecca said she had first learned about Tiananmen in secondary school, when her teacher insisted that students learn about it even though it was not an exam requirement. 

“I was told that when I became an adult and could be responsible for myself, I should attend the candlelight vigil, but I haven’t had a chance,” she said.

“I still hope someday I can be part of it.” 

Ukraine said Saturday its forces were managing to push back against Russian troops in fierce fighting in Severodonetsk despite Russia “throwing all its power” into capturing the strategic eastern city.

At least seven civilians were reported killed in the Lugansk region where Severodonetsk is located and in the southern city of Mykolaiv, while a revered wooden church was reported to be on fire because of the fighting.

Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said in an interview posted online that the invading forces had captured most of Severodonetsk, but that the Ukrainian military was pushing them back.

“The Russian army, as we understand, is throwing all its power, all its reserves in this direction,” said Gaiday, who on Friday claimed Ukrainian troops had managed to win back a fifth of the city.

Russia’s army however claimed some Ukrainian military units were withdrawing from the city.

The press service of Ukraine’s presidential office said that “street fighting” was continuing in Severodonetsk and “assault operations are underway” in an industrial part of the city.

Severodonetsk is the largest city still in Ukrainian hands in the Lugansk region, where Russian forces have been gradually advancing in recent weeks after retreating or being repelled from other areas, including around the capital Kyiv.

Thousands of people have been killed, millions forced to flee and towns turned into rubble since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an all-out assault on his pro-Western neighbour on February 24.

Western powers have slapped increasingly stringent sanctions on Russia and supplied arms to Ukraine but divisions have emerged on how to react.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said Putin had committed a “fundamental error” but said Russia should not be “humiliated” so that a diplomatic solution could be found.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reacted on Saturday saying such calls “only humiliate France” and any country taking a similar position.

“It is Russia that humiliates itself. We all better focus on how to put Russia in its place. This will bring peace and save lives,” he said.

– Foreign volunteers killed –

Regardless of diplomatic efforts, the conflict has raged in the south and east of the country.

Ukrainian officials on Saturday announced the death of four foreign military volunteers fighting Russian forces but did not specify when or under what circumstances they died.

The International Legion of Defence of Ukraine, an official volunteer brigade, named the men and published photos of them, saying they were from Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and France.

The deaths of the two men named from the Netherlands and Australia had already been reported and France’s foreign ministry on Friday said a French volunteer fighter had been killed in combat.

Ukraine also reported two victims from a Russian missile strike on Odessa in the southwest, without specifying if they were dead or injured.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had struck a “deployment point for foreign mercenaries” in the village of Dachne in the Odessa region.

It also claimed a missile strike in the northeastern Sumy region on an artillery training centre with “foreign instructors”.

Apart from the human toll, the conflict has caused widespread damage to Ukraine’s cultural heritage.

On Saturday, Ukrainian officials reported that a large Orthodox wooden church, a popular pilgrim site, was on fire and blamed Russian forces.

Russia continues to prove “its inability to be part of the civilized world,” Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said in a statement.

Russia’s defence ministry blamed “Ukrainian nationalists” for the blaze and said its forces were not operating in the area.

The church was built in 2009 on the site of another church that was blown up in 1947.

– Grain exports ‘no problem’? –

Russian troops now occupy a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and Moscow has imposed a blockade on its Black Sea ports.

The blockade has sparked fears of a global food crisis since Ukraine and Russia are among the top wheat exporters in the world.

The United Nations said it was leading intense negotiations with Russia to allow Ukraine’s grain harvest to leave the country.

Putin in a televised interview Friday said there was “no problem” to export grain from Ukraine, via Kyiv- or Moscow-controlled ports or even through central Europe.

The UN has warned that African countries, which normally import more than half of their wheat consumption from Ukraine and Russia, face an “unprecedented” crisis.

Food prices in Africa have already exceeded those in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings and the 2008 food riots.

On Friday, Putin met the head of the African Union, Senegalese President Macky Sall, at his Black Sea residence in Sochi.

After the meeting, Sall said he was “very reassured”, adding that Putin was “committed and aware that the crisis and sanctions create serious problems for weak economies”.

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Hong Kong authorities on Saturday detained multiple people as they pounced on any attempt at public commemoration of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, while around the world tribute was paid to the victims of the bloody event. 

As night fell, candles appeared in the windows of several foreign countries’ missions to Hong Kong — in defiance of a warning not to do so — and on various street corners around the city. 

Discussion of the events of 1989, when China set troops and tanks on peaceful protestors, is all but forbidden on the mainland.

Semi-autonomous Hong Kong had been the one place in China where large-scale remembrance was still tolerated — until two years ago when Beijing imposed a national security law to snuff out dissent after widespread pro-democracy protests in 2019. 

Authorities had warned the public that “participating in an unauthorised assembly” Saturday risked a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. 

They also closed large parts of Victoria Park, once the site of packed annual candlelight vigils that were attended by tens of thousands on the anniversary.

The park and nearby Causeway Bay shopping district — one of the city’s busiest neighbourhoods — were heavily policed all day Saturday.

People were stopped and searched for carrying flowers, wearing black and, in one case, carrying a toy tank box. 

– Multiple people detained –

AFP reporters saw at least half a dozen people being taken away by police, mostly in the evening, including activist Yu Wai-pan from the League of Social Democrats (LSD) party.

LSD said Yu was later released without charge, while fellow member Lau Shan-ching was arrested for wearing a shirt with a portrait of late Chinese democracy activist Li Wangyang wearing a mask that read “mourn June 4”.

“For 33 years it has always been peaceful, but today it’s like (police) are facing a big enemy,” Chan Po-ying, head of the LSD, said. 

Security was heightened in the Chinese capital Beijing on Saturday, with officer numbers bulked up, and ID checks and facial recognition devices set up on roads leading to Tiananmen Square. 

China has gone to exhaustive lengths to erase the crackdown from collective memory, omitting it from history textbooks and scrubbing references to it from the Chinese internet and social media platforms.

A similar approach is now beginning to be applied to Hong Kong, as authorities remould the city in the mainland’s image. 

Since last September, the Victoria Park vigil’s organisers have been arrested and charged with subversion, their June 4 museum has been closed, statues have been removed and memorial church services cancelled. 

Commemoration events in Macau were also cancelled this year.

– International solidarity –

On Saturday, multiple Western consulates general in Hong Kong posted Tiananmen tributes on social media, despite local media reports that they had been warned by the city’s Chinese foreign ministry office to refrain from doing so. 

The European Union’s office confirmed to AFP that they had received a call. 

At dusk, both the US Consulate General and the EU office’s windows were illuminated by the flickering light of candles. 

“The European Union always stands in solidarity with human rights defenders across the globe,” the latter wrote on Twitter, posting a picture of dozens of candles on a windowsill.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement pledging to continue to “honour and remember those who stood up for human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

“While many are no longer able to speak up themselves, we and many around the world continue to stand up on their behalf,” he said, specifically mentioning the situation in Hong Kong. 

A spokesperson for the city’s Chinese foreign ministry office said it “firmly rejected and strongly condemned” Blinken and other US officials’ statements.

“Their political show interfered in China’s internal affairs under the guise of human rights and freedom, and smeared Hong Kong’s human rights and rule of law, in an attempt to incite hostility and confrontation and tarnish China’s image,” read a statement.

– Overseas vigils –

Vigils are being held globally on Saturday, with rights group Amnesty International coordinating candlelit events in 20 cities “to demand justice and show solidarity for Hong Kong”. 

“We want this spirit to carry on forever,” said Frank Ruan, a former Tiananmen Square protestor who said he was lucky to have survived, in Melbourne. 

In Tokyo, 52-year-old Daikichi Wakiyama said it was important to advocate for democracy. 

“I have to admit things are getting not better (in Hong Kong)… But all I can say is we shouldn’t give up hope,” he told AFP.

Connie Lui, a 65-year-old hospital worker who left Hong Kong a year and a half ago because of the political situation, told AFP at a commemoration event in Taipei that she had been “glued to the TV in 1989”.

“We came because this is the only place now where we can come to remember,” she said.

“I am here also on behalf of all my friends in Hong Kong who are unable to attend.”

Hong Kong authorities on Saturday detained multiple people as they pounced on any attempt at public commemoration of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, as China vies to remove all reminders of the deadly event. 

Discussion of June 4, 1989, when China set troops and tanks on peaceful protestors, is all but forbidden on the mainland.

Semi-autonomous Hong Kong had been the one place in China where large-scale remembrance was still tolerated — until two years ago when Beijing imposed a national security law to snuff out dissent after huge pro-democracy protests in 2019. 

AFP reporters saw at least half a dozen people being taken away by police on Saturday, the majority in the evening, including activist Yu Wai-pan from the League of Social Democrats (LSD) party.

LSD said Yu was later released without charge, while fellow member Lau Shan-ching was arrested for wearing a shirt with a portrait of late Chinese democracy activist Li Wangyang with a mask that read “mourn June 4”.

Police confirmed that an 80-year-old man was arrested for obstructing officers earlier in the day, but have yet to confirm the number of arrests made after nightfall.

Authorities had warned that “participating in an unauthorised assembly” on Saturday risked the maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. 

They also closed large parts of Victoria Park, once the site of packed annual candlelight vigils.

The park and adjacent Causeway Bay shopping district were heavily policed Saturday, with multiple people targeted for searches. 

Yu and two other LSD members, all wearing white masks with a black cross across the mouth, came to Causeway Bay in the evening and stood silently on the street. 

Within 30 seconds, police had taken them away for a search. 

They were released but as they approached Victoria Park they were stopped and Yu was taken away. 

“For 33 years it has always been peaceful, but today it’s like (police) are facing a big enemy,” Chan Po-ying, head of the LSD, said. 

“The candlelight will not go out; the hearts of people will live on.”

– ‘Hong Kong is dead’ –

Near the park in the evening, dozens of scattered people turned on their phone lights. 

Over a megaphone, police said to turn them off, warning the people they risked breaching the law on unauthorised assembly.

When asked why that would constitute a crime, an officer told AFP he would “leave it to my colleagues to explain in a press conference”.

Earlier, police had also told people turning on LED candles to desist. 

Police searched one man for over 20 minutes and then told him to leave. 

“They’re even afraid of an old person like me, I’m over 60,” the man, surnamed Chan, said. “Hong Kong is already dead.”

Others were stopped and searched for carrying flowers, wearing black and in one case, carrying a toy tank box. 

Some people left candles in phone booths or on street corners, or distributed small stickers with candles drawn on them. 

“We can’t make a big fuss, but there are still small ways… to tell everyone they are not alone,” one young woman told AFP.

Colombian superstar Shakira and FC Barcelona defender Gerard Pique announced Saturday they were calling time on their relationship of more than a decade.

The 45-year-old “Hips don’t Lie” songstress is one of the biggest names in the global music industry and has sold more than 60 million albums.

Spanish football hero Pique, 35, won the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 European Championship, and is a three-time Champions League winner with Barcelona. 

The couple share two sons and had been living together for years on the outskirts of Barcelona.

“We regret to confirm that we are separating. For the well-being of our children, who are our upmost priority, we request respect for (our) privacy,” they said in a statement.

With her mix of Latin and Arabic rhythms and rock influence, three-time Grammy winner Shakira is one of the biggest stars from Latin America, scoring major global hits with songs such as “Hips don’t Lie” and “Whenever, Wherever”.

In 2020, she performed with Jennifer Lopez at the halftime show of the NFL’s Super Bowl championship final in Miami, typically one of the most-watched half-hours in US television.

The couple announced their separation just over a week after Spanish court documents inched Shakira closer to standing trial in Spain for tax fraud after a Barcelona court dismissed an appeal from the singer.

Spanish prosecutors accuse her of defrauding the Spanish tax office out of 14.5 million euros ($15.5 million) on income earned between 2012 and 2014.

They say she moved to Spain in 2011 when her relationship with Pique became public but maintained official tax residency in the Bahamas until 2015.

Her defence lawyers say she moved to Spain full time only in 2015 and insist that her “conduct on tax matters has always been impeccable in all the countries she had to pay taxes”.

In an interview with AFP in 2019, Shakira said temporarily losing her voice two years earlier had been “the darkest moment of her life” and affected her “deeply”. 

She later recovered her voice naturally, without needing to undergo surgery as recommended by doctors and subsequently carried out a world tour in 2018.

Hong Kong authorities strove on Saturday to stop any public commemoration of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, with police warning gatherings could break the law as China vies to remove all reminders of the deadly event. 

On June 4, 1989, Beijing sent troops and tanks to break up peaceful protests, crushing demonstrations calling for political change and curbs on official corruption.

Hundreds, by some estimates more than 1,000, were killed in the crackdown.

Discussion of what happened is all but forbidden on the mainland.

Semi-autonomous Hong Kong had been the one place in China where large-scale remembrance was still tolerated — until two years ago when Beijing imposed a national security law to snuff out dissent after huge pro-democracy protests in 2019. 

Authorities have warned the public that “participating in an unauthorised assembly” on Saturday risks a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. 

They have also closed large parts of Victoria Park, once the site of packed annual candlelight vigils attended by tens of thousands.

The park and nearby Causeway Bay shopping district were heavily policed Saturday, and multiple people were stopped and searched.

– ‘Nothing to see here’ –

One man, wearing a black T-shirt and carrying a white chrysanthemum, a sign of mourning, spoke to reporters after being searched. 

“The police warned me not to do anything to attract people to gather,” said the man, surnamed Lau. “But people are going to work and I am just passing by with a white chrysanthemum.” 

“This is infringing on Hong Kong people’s individual freedom.” 

Lau said he used to join the vigil every year. 

Pedestrian areas where pro-democracy groups would in the past set up booths were cordoned off. 

“Keep going. Nothing to see here,” an officer told passersby through a loudspeaker. 

AFP journalists saw one man in a black T-shirt being taken away in a police van. 

The previous night, a performance artist who whittled a potato into the shape of a candle and held a lighter to it was also taken away from the same area.

Security was heightened in Beijing on Saturday as well, with officer numbers bulked up, and ID checks and facial recognition devices set up on roads leading to Tiananmen Square. 

China has gone to exhaustive lengths to erase the crackdown from collective memory, omitting it from history textbooks and scrubbing references to it from the Chinese internet and social media platforms.

A similar approach is now beginning to be applied to Hong Kong, as authorities remould the city in the mainland’s image. 

Since last September, the Victoria Park vigil’s organisers have been arrested and charged with subversion, their June 4 museum has been closed, statues have been removed and memorial church services cancelled. 

Commemoration events in Macau were also cancelled this year.

One Hong Konger told AFP that in place of the Victoria Park vigil, she had lit a candle at home, and would walk around the city wearing a T-shirt with June 4 numerals as a more “subtle” form of remembrance.

– ‘Political show’ –

Multiple Western Consulates General in Hong Kong on Saturday posted Tiananmen tributes on social media, despite local media reports that they had been warned by the city’s Chinese foreign ministry office to refrain from doing so. 

The European Union’s office confirmed to AFP that they had received a call. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday released a statement pledging to continue to “honour and remember those who stood up for human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

“While many are no longer able to speak up themselves, we and many around the world continue to stand up on their behalf,” he said, specifically mentioning the situation in Hong Kong. 

A spokesperson for the city’s Chinese foreign ministry office said it “firmly rejected and strongly condemned” Blinken and other US officials’ statements.

“Their political show interfered in China’s internal affairs under the guise of human rights and freedom, and smeared Hong Kong’s human rights and rule of law, in an attempt to incite hostility and confrontation and tarnish China’s image,” read a statement.

Still, vigils will be held globally, with rights group Amnesty International coordinating candlelit events in 20 cities “to demand justice and show solidarity for Hong Kong”. 

Connie Lui, a 65-year-old hospital worker who left Hong Kong a year and a half ago because of the political situation, told AFP at a commemoration event in Taipei that she had been “glued to the TV in 1989”.

“We came because this is the only place now where we can come to remember,” she said.

“I am here also on behalf of all my friends in Hong Kong who are unable to attend.”

Ukraine said Saturday its forces were managing to push back against Russian troops in fierce fighting in Severodonetsk despite Russia “throwing all its power” into capturing the strategic eastern city.

Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said in an interview posted on his official social media that the invading forces had captured most of the city “but now our military have moved them”.

“The Russian army, as we understand, is throwing all its power, all its reserves in this direction,” said Gaiday, who on Friday claimed that Ukrainian troops had won back a fifth of the city.

Severodonetsk is the largest city still in Ukrainian hands in the Lugansk region, where Russian forces have been making gradual advances in recent weeks.

Thousands of people have been killed, millions sent fleeing and towns turned into rubble since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine 101 days ago.

The advance of Russian forces has been slowed by stiff Ukrainian resistance, repelling them from around the capital Kyiv and forcing Moscow to focus on capturing the east.

The press service of Ukraine’s presidential office on Saturday said Russian attacks killed four civilians in the Lugansk region as a whole.

The situation in Lysychansk — Severodonetsk’s twin city, which sits just across a river — looked increasingly dire.

About 60 percent of infrastructure and housing had been destroyed, while internet, mobile networks and gas services had been knocked out, said its mayor Oleksandr Zaika.

In the city of Sloviansk, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Severodonetsk, the mayor has urged residents to evacuate in the face of intense bombardment, with water and electricity cut off.

Ukraine also reported two victims from a missile strike on the port of Odessa in the southwest, without specifying if they were dead or injured.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had struck a “deployment point for foreign mercenaries” in the village of Dachne in the Odessa region.

It also claimed a missile strike in the northeastern Sumy region in a place where it said Ukrainian soldiers were receiving training from foreign instructors on using howitzers.

– ‘Shame and hatred’ –

Russian troops now occupy a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and Moscow has imposed a blockade on its Black Sea ports.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was defiant on Friday.

“Victory will be ours,” he said in a video speech marking the 100th day of the war.

Later, in his nightly address, he dismissed the Russian army as being reduced to “war crimes, shame and hatred” after failing military objectives.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “certain results have been achieved”, pointing to the “liberation” of some areas from what he called the “pro-Nazi armed forces of Ukraine”.

The West has sent ever-more potent weapons to Ukraine and piled on ever more stringent sanctions against Moscow, with the European Union on Friday formally adopting a ban on most Russian oil imports.

Putin’s alleged girlfriend, former gymnast Alina Kabaeva, was also added to an assets freeze and visa-ban blacklist.

– Food crisis –

The war has sparked fears of a global food crisis — Ukraine and Russia are among the top wheat exporters in the world.

The United Nations said it was leading intense negotiations with Russia to allow Ukraine’s grain harvest to leave the country.

Putin in a televised interview Friday said there was “no problem” to export grain from Ukraine, via Kyiv- or Moscow-controlled ports or even through central Europe.

The UN has warned that African countries, which imported more than half of their wheat consumption from Ukraine and Russia, face an “unprecedented” crisis.

Food prices in Africa have already exceeded those in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings and the 2008 food riots.

On Friday, Putin met the head of the African Union, Senegalese President Macky Sall, at his Black Sea residence in Sochi.

After the meeting, Sall said he was “very reassured”, adding that Putin was “committed and aware that the crisis and sanctions create serious problems for weak economies”.

French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, said Putin had made a “historic” error in starting the war.

But he said the Russian leader should not be “humiliated”, and to leave room for diplomacy.

– Media driver killed –

A driver transporting two Reuters journalists in eastern Ukraine was killed and the two reporters were lightly wounded, a spokesman for the international news agency said.

A French volunteer fighter in Ukraine was also killed in combat, the French foreign ministry said.

In areas around the capital Kyiv, which Russian troops retreated from at the end of March, some residents remain in desperate need of assistance.

At an aid distribution point in Horenka, northwest of Kyiv, on Friday a tearful Hanna Viniychuk, 67, said she had joined the long queue in search of some basic necessities after losing her home to Russian bombardment.

“I’m grateful for this help,” she said.

Arkadiy Maznychenko, 75, said: “A lot of houses were burnt, damaged, so people have nothing at all. Everything is shattered, destroyed.”

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