World

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:

– Austrian leader to meet Putin –

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer is expected to raise alleged Russian war crimes in Bucha and other Ukrainian towns when he meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Nehammer will be the first European leader to meet with Putin since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

– Over 1,200 bodies found –

Ukraine says it has discovered 1,222 bodies in Bucha and other towns around the capital Kyiv from which the Russian army has retreated. 

At least two bodies were discovered in a manhole at a petrol station, an AFP reporter says.

– Kharkiv under attack –

At least 12 people were killed in bombardments around Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine over the weekend, according to regional governor Oleg Synegubov.

On Sunday, the United Nations says 4,232 civilian casualties had been recorded in Ukraine to date, with 1,793 killed and 2,439 injured.

– Evacuations from the east – 

Evacuations resume from Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine, where a missile strike killed 57 people at a railway station Friday. 

Nearly 50 wounded and elderly patients are evacuated in a hospital train by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

– Dnipro airport ‘destroyed’ –

The airport in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro is “destroyed” by shelling, the head of the city’s military administration, Valentin Reznichenko, says on Telegram. 

Dnipro airport already suffered extensive damage in attacks in mid-March.

– Societe Generale leaves Russia –

Societe Generale says it is ceasing its activities in Russia and selling its majority stake in Rosbank, weeks after scores of multinationals withdrew from the country.

France’s third-largest bank estimates that pulling out of Russia will cost it 3.1 billion euros ($3.4 billion).

– Pope urges Easter ceasefire –

Pope Francis calls for an Easter truce in Ukraine to pave the way for peace through “real negotiation”.

“Let the Easter truce begin. But not to provide more weapons and pick up the combat again — no! — a truce that will lead to peace, through real negotiation,” he urges.

– Pro-Russia rally in Germany –

Hundreds of pro-Russia protesters demonstrate in the Germany city of Frankfurt against the “hatred and harassment” they say they have experienced since the war began.

Germany is home to 1.2 million people of Russian origin and 325,000 from Ukraine. 

– Biden, Modi to discuss Ukraine –

US President Joe Biden will meet virtually Monday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, weeks after saying New Delhi has been “shaky” in its response to the invasion of Ukraine.

– Sixth round of EU sanctions –

EU foreign ministers meet to discuss a sixth round of sanctions on Moscow.

EU members are divided on whether to impose the sanctions that would hurt Russia the most, a boycott of its oil and gas exports, but diplomats acknowledge there are discussions about the measures.

– Ukraine economy collapses –

The World Bank predicts that the war will cause Ukraine’s economy to contract by 45.1 percent this year.

– More than 4.5 million flee – 

More than 4.5 million Ukrainian refugees have now fled their country, the United Nations refugee agency says.

Ninety percent of those who have left are women and children.

French President Emmanuel Macron and far-right rival Marine Le Pen Monday embarked on a final fortnight of bruising campaigning for a French presidential election run-off whose outcome is far more uncertain than their encounter five years ago.

With 97 percent votes counted, Macron came in first in Sunday’s first round of voting with 27.6 percent of the vote. Le Pen was second with 23.4 percent.

As the top two finishers, they advance to a second round on April 24.

Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon came close to beating Le Pen for the second spot, after a late surge gave him a score of just under 22 percent.

The duel between Macron and Le Pen is a re-run of the 2017 election final from which Macron emerged victorious with 66 percent. But this time polls predict a closer contest which will crucially hinge on voters who backed other candidates in the first round.

“Make no mistake: nothing is decided,” Macron told cheering supporters at his campaign headquarters Sunday night.

Le Monde daily headlined: “Macron-Le Pen — A more uncertain Act II.”

– ‘Really scary’ –

Macron said he would Monday be campaigning in northern France, while Le Pen is set to meet her campaign team before resuming her months-long grassroots efforts in small towns and rural France later in the week.

“A sad repetition,” left-leaning daily Liberation called the Macron-Le Pen duel on Monday, adding: “This time it’s really scary.”

Polls gauging second-round voting intentions mostly point to around 53 percent for Macron and 47 percent for Le Pen. One poll, however, by the Ifop-Fiducial group suggested Macron could have only a razor-thin win with 51 percent versus 49 percent.

“The second round is the hardest one,” said Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on RTL radio. 

“Everything begins again with a new campaign.”

As well as campaigning on the merits of their respective programmes, both candidates will also scramble to woo voters of their defeated first-round rivals.

“We’re going to have to win over the French people who didn’t vote for Emmanuel Macron in the first round,” government spokesman Gabriel Attal told the France Inter broadcaster on Monday. 

“We’re going to have to fight for this election.”

– ‘Not us’ –

In an early boost for the president, Communist Party candidate Fabien Roussel, Socialist Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot of the Greens and right-wing Republicans candidate Valerie Pecresse said they would vote for him to prevent the far-right leader coming to power.

Without directly backing Macron, Melenchon in a crucial move also told his supporters not to give a “single vote” to Le Pen.

Meanwhile Le Pen’s far-right rival Eric Zemmour, who garnered just over seven percent on Sunday, threw his weight behind her.

Le Pen, 53, said the run-off would present “a fundamental choice between two visions”.

A pivotal moment in the next stage of the campaign will come on April 20 when the two candidates are set to take part in a TV debate broadcast live on national television.

Part of the battle will be to mobilise the 25 percent of registered voters who abstained in the first round. 

The candidates from France’s traditional parties of government — the Socialists and the Republicans — suffered humiliating defeats.

Sunday’s vote spelled humiliation for Socialist Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, who won only 1.7 percent, a historic low for the party which only a decade ago won the presidency.

The vote for the right-wing Republicans party, headed by nominee Valerie Pecresse, collapsed to 4.8 percent from 20 percent in 2017.

On Monday, Pecresse confessed her campaign finances, which included five million euros ($5.5 million) of her own money, were in a “critical” state, and called for donations from supporters.

– ‘New method’ –

The election has been overshadowed by the war in Ukraine, with surging prices of everyday goods making the cost of living a key issue.

The vote could have major implications for the European Union, which Le Pen says she wants to radically reform. She has also said she wants to pull out of NATO’s joint military command. 

Macron countered Sunday that he did not want a France which “once out of Europe, would only have the international alliance of populists and xenophobes as allies. That’s not us.”

While her opponents accuse her of being divisive and racist, Le Pen has sought to project a more moderate image in this campaign and has focused on voters’ daily worries over inflation.

But Macron is expected to target her past proximity with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, her policies on the EU, as well as the cost of her economic programme that includes massive tax cuts.

A win would give Macron, who came to power in 2017 aged 39 as France’s youngest president, five more years to push through reforms that would include raising the pension age and cutting taxes for businesses.

He also floated the idea Sunday night of a “large movement of political unity and action” and a “new method” of governing, which could see him invite rival parties to formally join his political movement. 

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Israeli forces launched a third day of operations Monday around the flashpoint West Bank city of Jenin following heavy gun battles in recent days and 20 arrests overnight, the army said.

Tensions have soared since a spree of attacks in Israel left 14 people dead in the past three weeks, with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warning the Jewish state is now “on the offensive”.

Four Palestinians were killed in separate incidents across the occupied territory Sunday, and militant groups in Jenin braced for more battles. 

The city as well as Bethlehem declared general strikes.

Thousands of mourners flooded the streets of Jenin on Monday for the funerals of those killed, many carrying Palestinian flags or rifles.

Abu Muadh, military spokesman of the armed factions in Jenin’s refugee camp, late Sunday called for “general mobilisation of our fighters to confront any incursion by the Zionist enemy”.

Israeli troops were targeting relatives of Raad Hazem, the 28-year-old Jenin man who last Thursday killed three Israeli civilians and wounded 12 at a Tel Aviv bar before he was shot dead following a massive manhunt.

Israeli soldiers Sunday engaged in an exchange of gunfire involving his brothers and also demanded the father hand himself in, ahead of the planned demolition of the family home.

A teen on a motorcycle who opened fire on the Israeli officers in that exchange, Mohamed Zakarneh, 17, was the latest fatality, succumbing to gunshot wounds overnight, the Wafa news agency said.

Another Palestinian from the Bethlehem area was shot dead Sunday after hurling a Molotov cocktail at Israeli troops, the army told AFP. 

The tensions have surged during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, nearly a year after violence flared in the other Palestinian territory, the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, leading to 11 days of devastating conflict.

A total of 14 people in Israel have been killed in four attacks since March 22, including a shooting spree in Bnei Brak, an Orthodox Jewish city in greater Tel Aviv, carried out by a Palestinian from Jenin.

Over the same period, at least 14 Palestinians have been killed, including assailants, according to a count by AFP. 

President Joe Biden will announce new measures cracking down on so-called “ghost guns” on Monday, with an executive order set to increase restrictions on the weapons that can be assembled at home in minutes and are difficult to trace as they lack serial numbers.

The new rule, a year in the making, addresses a kind of weapon that law enforcement officials say has almost doubled in its appearance in police reports between 2020 and 2021.

“These are the criminal’s weapon of choice,” a Biden administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.

The new rule states that weapons part kits that can easily be assembled into a working firearm will be subject to the same requirements as commercially available fully assembled guns, administration officials said.

Dealers selling these weapons parts kits will now be required to conduct a background check on prospective buyers, according to the new regulations.

Gun kit manufacturers must also include a serial number on key weapon components, while licensed dealers who take a “ghost gun” into their inventory must add a serial number, the US Justice Department said in a statement.

Finally, in order to boost tracing efforts, the new rule states that federally licensed dealers of firearms must keep records for as long as they are in business, rather than for a 20-year period as is currently the case.

“This rule will make it harder for criminals and other prohibited persons to obtain untraceable guns, will help ensure that law enforcement officers can retrieve the information they need to solve crimes, and will help reduce the number of untraceable firearms flooding our communities,” said US Attorney General Merrick Garland.

From January 2016 to December 2021, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) received approximately 45,240 reports of suspected privately made firearms recovered by law enforcement, the Justice Department said. Those reports were linked to at least 692 homicide or attempted homicide investigations, it added.

The use of such weapons has been increasing, with the number of reports nearly doubling to more than 19,000 from 2020 to 2021, it said.

Over the past five-year period, the ATF could only trace 0.98 percent of suspected “ghost guns” handed in by law enforcement to an individual purchaser, the department said.

On Monday, the White House said that Biden will also nominate Steve Dettelbach, a former US attorney from Ohio, to run the ATF after the president’s first nominee, a gun control advocate, ran into opposition from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.

South Korea’s anti-feminist president-elect has vowed to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality. But actually getting rid of it will be tricky, experts say, and the incoming administration is already backing off its promise.

Since it was set up in 2001, the department has been a driver of social progress for South Korean women — for example, making it possible for single mothers to register their kids in their name.

Along the way, it has also become a flashpoint in South Korea’s increasingly bitter debates over sexism and gender, with detractors such as incoming President Yoon Suk-yeol claiming it is an obsolete backwater of “radical feminism”.

The ministry’s supporters, however, point to a track record of welfare policies that benefit a diverse cross-section of society — from teenage runaways to the children of North Korean defectors.

“My ex just moved out one day and never came back,” said single mother Jin Mi-ae, adding that her former husband refused to contribute financially to their child’s upbringing.

Failing to pay child support was criminalised in South Korea only last year. Many eligible parents — mostly women — still do not receive it but thanks to the ministry’s efforts, there are now mechanisms in place to help.

Jin filed a case with the Child Support Agency — set up by the ministry in 2015 — and said its assistance was crucial in her quest to get her ex-husband to help.

Yoon has said he will not renege on his abolition pledge, but last week, his transition team said they would keep the ministry for now.

Scrapping the ministry would require legislation to reorganise the government — a tricky ask as Yoon does not have a majority.

“The likely clash at the National Assembly may taint the new administration’s image,” Shin Yul, a political science professor at Myongji University told AFP.

With local elections coming up in June, he added, it is unlikely Yoon’s People Power Party would want to expend political capital on a bruising legislative fight and has put the issue “on hold”.

– ‘Symbolic target’ –

In recent years, South Korea’s #MeToo generation has mobilised on a host of issues, from legalising abortion to demanding prosecutions for “revenge porn”.

This has triggered online backlash against so-called “radical feminism”, with young South Korean men bemoaning their own lot — chiefly compulsory military service, from which women are exempt.

Yoon appealed to disgruntled male voters, branding himself an anti-feminist and pledging to abolish the ministry.

It became a “highly symbolic target” as the conservative candidate courted young men who felt the government was unfairly “privileging the interests of women”, Sharon Yoon, a Korean studies professor at the University of Notre Dame, told AFP. 

Yoon claimed South Korean women do not suffer from “systemic gender discrimination” — despite much evidence to the contrary on the gender wage gap and female workforce participation.

He won the election in March — but by the narrowest margin ever, after young women mobilised against him.

Even so, activists say his victory is a huge blow.

“It’s devastating to have a president-elect who actively spreads prejudice and hatred,” Yujin, a 26-year-old female voter and activist, told AFP.

– ‘We are the fire’ – 

With a budget of some 1.41 trillion won ($1 billion) — compared with 54.61 trillion won for defence spending — the ministry has the least funding of any government department.

Even so, it has introduced a slew of programmes that supporters say help the most vulnerable, from stipends to tackle “period poverty” to projects that assist victims of domestic abuse.

Its most defining achievement was its role in the abolition of South Korea’s “hoju” registry, the patriarchal family record system.

But this vital work is not recognised, activist Kim Do-kyung told AFP. Like domestic labour, “it’s a lot of real and important work, but no one really considers it work,” she said.

The ministry declined AFP’s request for comment.

Yoon’s battle cry against it appears to have galvanised women — the left-leaning Democratic Party said it has signed up thousands of new female members, and other activists have announced forays into politics.

“We are ready to be the leaders of this country,” activist Haein Shim told AFP.

“Yoon’s administration will do all they can to make us burn to keep our mouths shut, but we don’t burn because we are the fire.”

Many experts now expect Yoon to “rebrand” rather than abolish the ministry, pointing to how his victory has refocused global attention on sexism in the country.

“South Korea does not exist in a vacuum,” Linda Hasunuma, a political scientist at Temple University, told AFP.

“The world is watching how it treats its women and girls.”

French President Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Monday kicked off a final fortnight of bruising campaigning for the French presidency in a run-off that polls predict risks being tight.

With 97 percent votes counted, Macron came in first in Sunday’s first round of voting with 27.6 percent of the vote. Le Pen was second with 23.4 percent.

As the top two finishers, they advance to a second round on April 24.

Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon came close to beating Le Pen for the second spot after a late surge gave him a score of just under 22 percent.

The duel between Macron and Le Pen is a re-run of the 2017 election final from which Macron emerged victorious with 66 percent. But this time polls predict a closer contest.

“Make no mistake: nothing is decided,” Macron told cheering supporters at his campaign headquarters Sunday night. “The debate that we are going to have over the next fortnight will be decisive for our country and Europe.”

Macron said he would be out campaigning on Monday in northern France, while Le Pen is set to meet her campaign team before resuming her months-long grassroots efforts in small towns and rural France later in the week.

“A sad repetition,” left-leaning daily Liberation called the Macron-Le Pen duel on Monday, adding: “This time it’s really scary.”

The candidates from France’s traditional parties of government — the Socialists and the Republicans — meanwhile suffered humiliating defeats.

Polls gauging second-round voting intentions mostly point to around 53 percent for Macron and 47 percent for Le Pen. One poll, however, by the Ifop-Fiducial group suggested Macron could have only a razor-thin win with 51 percent versus 49 percent.

– ‘Fundamental choice’ –

As well as campaigning on the merits of their respective programmes, both candidates will also scramble to woo voters of their defeated first-round rivals.

In a boost for the president, Communist Party candidate Fabien Roussel, Socialist Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot of the Greens and right-wing Republicans candidate Valerie Pecresse said they would vote for him to prevent the far-right leader coming to power.

Without backing Macron, Melenchon in a crucial move also told his supporters not to give a “single vote” to Le Pen.

But Le Pen’s far-right rival Eric Zemmour, who garnered just over 7 percent on Sunday, has already thrown his weight behind her and while Macron can expect to pick up many centre-left and centre-right votes he may struggle to persuade Melenchon voters to back him, analysts said.

Le Pen, 53, said the run-off would present “a fundamental choice between two visions”. It would be a “choice of society and even of civilisation”, she said.

The election campaign has been overshadowed by the war in Ukraine, with surging prices of everyday goods making the cost of living a key issues.

The vote’s outcome will have major implications for the European Union, which Le Pen says she wants to radically reform. She has also said she wants to pull out of NATO’s joint military command. 

Macron countered Sunday that he did not want a France which “once out of Europe, would only have the international alliance of populists and xenophobes as allies. That’s not us.”

A pivotal moment in the next stage of the campaign will come on April 20 when the two candidates are set to take part in a TV debate broadcast live on national television which often has a crucial impact on the final outcome.

While her opponents accuse her of being divisive and racist, Le Pen has sought to project a more moderate image in this campaign and has focused on voters’ daily worries over inflation.

But Macron is expected to target her past proximity with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, her policies on the EU, as well as the cost of her economic programme that includes massive tax cuts.

– ‘New method’ –

A win would give Macron, who came to power in 2017 aged 39 as France’s youngest president, five more years to push through reforms that would include raising the pension age to 65 from 62 and enacting further tax cuts for businesses.

He also floated the idea Sunday night of a “large movement of political unity and action” and a “new method” of governing, which could see him invite rival parties to formally join his political movement. 

Among the other candidates, Sunday’s vote spelled humiliation for Socialist Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, who won only 1.7 percent, a historic low for the party which only a decade ago won the presidency.

The vote for the right-wing Republicans party, headed by nominee Valerie Pecresse, also collapsed to an estimated 4.8 percent, down from 20 percent in 2017. 

“The traditional parties have been smashed,” said Jerome Jaffre, a political scientist at Sciences Po university in Paris.

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A veteran Hong Kong journalist was arrested by national security police on Monday for allegedly conspiring to publish “seditious materials”, police said.

The arrest is the latest blow to the local press in Hong Kong, which has seen its media freedom rating plummet as Beijing cracks down on dissent.

Allan Au, a 54-year-old reporter and journalism lecturer, was arrested in a dawn raid by Hong Kong’s national security police unit, multiple local media outlets reported. 

A senior police source confirmed Au’s arrest to AFP on a charge of “conspiracy to publish seditious materials”.

Police later confirmed the arrest of a 54-year-old male on the same charge in a statement that did not name Au, which is local practice.

“Further arrests may be made,” the statement warned.

Au is a former columnist for Stand News, an online news platform that was shuttered last December after authorities froze the company’s assets using a national security law.

Two other senior employees of Stand News have already been charged with sedition.

National security charges have also been brought against jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai and six former senior executives of Apple Daily.

Once Hong Kong’s most popular tabloid, Apple Daily collapsed last year when its newsroom was raided and assets were frozen under the security law. 

Soon after Stand News was shut down, Au began to write “good morning” each day on his Facebook page to confirm his safety.

One of the city’s most experienced local columnists, he was a Knight fellow at Stanford University in 2005 and earned a doctorate from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

In 2017 Au published a book about censorship in Hong Kong titled “Freedom Under 20 Shades of Shadow”.

Au spent more than a decade working for RTHK, Hong Kong’s government broadcaster, running a current affairs show.

But he was axed last year after the authorities declared a shake-up that began transforming the once editorially independent broadcaster into something more resembling Chinese state media. 

– Colonial legacy law –

First penned by colonial ruler Britain in 1938, sedition was long criticised as an anti-free speech law, including by many of the pro-Beijing local newspapers now praising its use.

By the time of the 1997 handover, it had not been used for decades but remained on the books.

It was dusted off by police and prosecutors in the wake of massive and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019. 

Over the last two years sedition has been wielded against journalists, unionists, activists, a former pop star and ordinary citizens.

Sedition is currently separate from the sweeping national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020.

But the courts treat it as a national security offence, which means that bail is often denied for those charged.

Next month Hong Kong is expected to install a new Beijing-anointed leader, former security chief John Lee, who oversaw the police response to the 2019 democracy protests and subsequent crackdown.

Asked on Monday whether Au’s arrest would worsen press freedom, Lee declined to comment, only saying all investigations should be carried out independently.

Outgoing leader Carrie Lam also declined to comment on Au’s arrest.