World

PARIS — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Wednesday backed closer ties between NATO and Russia, adding that if she won the presidency Paris would once again leave the military command of the US-led alliance.

Le Pen, who on April 24 faces President Emmanuel Macron in a run-off, said there should be a "strategic rapprochement" between NATO and Russia once the war launched by Moscow against Ukraine had ended.

"We must ask about the role of the alliance after the end of the Warsaw Pact," the Moscow-led military alliance that grouped Soviet bloc nations, she told journalists.

The news conference, designed to present Le Pen as a credible figure on the global stage, was briefly interrupted by a protester brandishing a heart-shaped picture of Le Pen and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was quickly dragged out by security guards.

Le Pen emphasised that better ties with Russia would also prevent Moscow from becoming too close to China, noting that she was echoing an argument made by Macron in the past.

"This is in the interest of France and Europe but also I think the United States... which has no interest in seeing a close Sino-Russian relationship emerging," Le Pen said.

She also reaffirmed her intention to repeat France's 1966 move of leaving NATO's integrated military command, while still adhering to its key article 5 on mutual protection.

"I would place our troops neither under an integrated NATO command nor under a future European command," she said, adding that she refused any "subjection to an American protectorate".

On Europe, Le Pen made clear that any "Frexit" along the lines of Britain's exit from the European Union was not on her agenda.

But she argued that French predictions that Brexit would prove "a cataclysm for the English" had not come true.

"The British got rid of the Brussels bureaucracy, which they could never bear, to move to an ambitious project of global Britain," she said.

But she added: "This is not our project. We want to reform the EU from the inside."

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Russian troops on Tuesday intensified a campaign to take the port city of Mariupol, part of an anticipated massive onslaught across eastern Ukraine, as President Vladimir Putin made a defiant case for the war on Russia's neighbour.

Moscow is believed to be trying to connect occupied Crimea with Russian-backed separatist territories Donetsk and Lugansk in Donbas, and has laid siege to the strategically located city, once home to more than 400,000 people.

Civilians were struggling to flee targeted zones, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemning alleged mass rapes in areas previously occupied by Russian troops, including sexual assaults of small children.

As the fighting dragged towards its seventh week, the Ukrainian army fought desperately to defend Mariupol against the Russian offensive.

"The connection with the units of the defence forces that heroically hold the city is stable and maintained," the Land Forces of Ukraine wrote on Telegram.

However, the Russian defence ministry said its army had thwarted an attempt to break the siege with "air strikes and artillery fire" at a factory in a northern district of the city.

In his nightly address, Zelensky on Monday made another plea to his allies for more weapons to boost the defence of the city.

“We are not getting as much as we need to end this war sooner. To completely destroy the enemy on our land... in particular, to unblock Mariupol,” he said.

Zelensky has said he believes Russia has killed “at least tens of thousands of people” in the city.

With little hope of a quick end to fighting, Putin pledged Moscow would proceed on its own timetable with its military operation, rebuffing repeated international calls for a ceasefire.

“Our task is to fulfil and achieve all the goals set, minimising losses. And we will act rhythmically, calmly, according to the plan originally proposed by the general staff,” Putin said during a televised press conference with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

He also dismissed as “fake” reports of the discovery of hundreds of dead bodies of civilians in the town of Bucha outside the Ukrainian capital Kyiv after the withdrawal of Moscow’s forces.

Images taken by journalists on the ground, including AFP reporters, of bodies littering the streets of Bucha sparked worldwide outrage and calls for an investigation into possible war crimes.

Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said on Tuesday that more than 400 people had been found dead so far and 25 women reported being raped, as the town prepares for the return of residents who fled the fighting.

“What people will find in their homes is shocking, and they will remember the Russian occupiers for a very long time,” he said.

Ukraine’s border force said on Tuesday that more than 870,000 people who fled abroad since the start of the war had returned to the country, including a growing number of women and children.

‘Helping people’ 

However, heavy bombardment continued in the east as civilians were urged to flee ahead of an expected Russian troop surge in the region.

Russian forces are reinforcing around the Donbas region, notably near the town of Izyum, but have not yet launched a full offensive, US Pentagon officials said on Monday.

They reported a Russian convoy had been observed heading for Izyum, an hour’s drive north of Kramatorsk, saying it appeared to be a mix of personnel-carriers, armoured vehicles and possible artillery.

Putin insisted that Russia’s own security was at stake in Donbas.

“What we are doing is helping people — rescuing them on the one hand and on the other taking measures to assure Russia’s security,” he said.

Putin accused Ukraine of “inconsistency on fundamental points” which he said was slowing down talks on ending the war.

Kyiv admitted that ongoing talks with Russia to end the war were “extremely difficult”.

“The Russian side adheres to its traditional tactics of public pressure on the negotiation process, including through certain public statements,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said in written comments to reporters.

Meanwhile, the toll on towns previously occupied by Russian forces during their month-long offensive to take Kyiv was still coming to light.

Ukrainian prosecutors said on Tuesday that six people had been found shot dead in the basement of a building outside the capital, the latest discovery fuelling allegations of Russian atrocities.

AFP on Monday saw the bodies of three men in civilian clothes exhumed from gardens in Andriivka, 33 kilometres west of Kyiv as relatives gathered to learn the fate of their kin.

The UN Security Council — which on Monday held a session on the plight of women and children in Ukraine — will hold another meeting next week on the humanitarian situation there, in a bid to keep pressure on Russia despite its veto power over the body, diplomats said.

‘Rape and sexual violence’ 

Officials called for a probe into assaults against women during the conflict.

“We are increasingly hearing of rape and sexual violence,” Sima Bahous, director of the UN women’s agency, told the Council. “These allegations must be independently investigated to ensure justice and accountability.”

Zelensky on Tuesday voiced anger about the repeated accounts of sexual violence against Ukrainians.

“Hundreds of cases of rape have been recorded, including those of young girls and very young children. Even of a baby!” he told Lithuanian lawmakers via video link.

More than 4.6 million Ukrainian refugees have now fled their country, the United Nations refugee agency said — 90 per cent of them women and children.

The war has displaced more than 10 million people overall.

One of those was Tatyana Kaftan, just weeks away from giving birth to her first child, who spoke to AFP at an aid distribution point in the western city of Lviv.

Her husband, who is waiting to be called up to the army, stood by her side.

“We left everything at home,” said the 35-year-old travel agent, who drove with her husband all the way from Mykolaiv to escape Russian shelling.

“We have nothing.”

Chemical weapons allegations 

Late Monday, Britain said it was trying to verify reports that Russia had also used chemical weapons in Mariupol.

Ukrainian lawmaker Ivanna Klympush said Russia had used an “unknown substance” and that people were suffering from respiratory failure.

But deputy defence minister Ganna Maliar said the purported chemical attack was more likely phosphorous munitions.

“Officials conclusions will be made later,” she told Ukrainian television.

As the war sent energy and food prices soaring, Oxfam warned that fallout from the conflict, growing inequality and COVID could force more than a quarter of a billion people into extreme poverty this year.

BUNGA, Philippines — Rescuers hampered by mud and rain on Tuesday used their bare hands and shovels to search for survivors of landslides that smashed into villages in the central Philippines, as the death toll from tropical storm Megi rose to 42.

Tens of thousands of people fled their homes as the storm pummelled the disaster-prone region in recent days, flooding houses, severing roads and knocking out power.

At least 36 people died and 26 were missing after landslides slammed into multiple villages around Baybay City in Leyte province — the hardest hit by the storm — local authorities said. Just over 100 people were injured.

Three people were also killed in the central province of Negros Oriental and three on the main southern island of Mindanao, according to the national disaster agency.

Most of the deaths in Leyte were in the mountainous village of Mailhi where 14 bodies were found after a “mudflash” buried homes, army Captain Kaharudin Cadil told AFP.

“We recovered most of the bodies embedded in the mud,” said Cadil, spokesman for the 802nd Infantry Brigade.

Drone footage showed a wide stretch of mud that had swept down a hill of coconut trees and engulfed Bunga, another community devastated by the storm.

At least seven people had been killed and 20 villagers were missing in Bunga, which was reduced to a few rooftops poking through the mud.

“It’s supposed to be the dry season but maybe climate change has upended that,” said Marissa Miguel Cano, public information officer for Baybay City, where 10 villages have been affected by landslides.

Cano said the hilly region of corn, rice and coconut farms was prone to landslides, but they were usually small and not fatal.

Apple Sheena Bayno was forced to flee after her house in Baybay City flooded. She said her family was still recovering from a super typhoon in December.

“We’re still fixing our house and yet it’s being hit again so I was getting anxious,” she told AFP.

‘Nothing to go back to’ 

Rescue efforts were also focused on the nearby village of Kantagnos, which an official said had been hit by two landslides.

Kantagnos resident Daniel Racaza, 26, said he was asleep when an avalanche of mud and water swept over the riverside community.

He managed to escape with his boyfriend and 16 relatives, but an aunt was caught in the torrent.

“I only managed to save my cellphone and we have nothing to go back to,” Racaza told AFP by telephone from a high school where they are sheltering.

Some other residents also fled in time or were pulled out of the mud alive, but four villagers have been confirmed dead and many are still feared trapped.

A Philippine coast guard video on Facebook showed six rescuers carrying a mud-caked woman on a stretcher, while other victims were piggybacked to safety.

“We’re looking for many people, there are 210 households there,” Baybay City Mayor Jose Carlos Cari told local broadcaster DZMM Teleradyo.

First major 

storm of 2022 

The military has joined coast guard, police and fire protection personnel in the search and rescue efforts, which have been hampered by bad weather

By late afternoon Tuesday, it was suspended due to losing light.

A state of calamity was declared in Baybay City, freeing up funds for relief efforts and giving local officials power to control prices.

National disaster agency spokesman Mark Timbal said landslides around Baybay City had reached settlements “outside the danger zone”, catching many residents by surprise.

Tropical storm Megi — known in the Philippines by its local name Agaton — is the first major storm to hit the country this year.

Whipping up seas, it forced dozens of ports to suspend operations and stranded more than 9,000 people at the start of Holy Week, one of the busiest travel periods of the year in the mostly Catholic country.

The storm comes four months after super typhoon Rai devastated swathes of the archipelago nation, killing more than 400 and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

Scientists have long warned typhoons are strengthening more rapidly as the world becomes warmer due to climate change.

The Philippines — ranked among the most vulnerable nations to its impacts — is hit by an average of 20 storms every year.

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan lawmakers on Monday elected Shehbaz Sharif as the country's new prime minister following the weekend ouster of Imran Khan, who resigned his national assembly seat — along with most of his party members — ahead of the vote.

Khan was dismissed on Sunday after losing a no-confidence vote, paving the way for an unlikely alliance that faces the same issues which bedevilled the cricket star-turned-politician — a weak economy, rising militancy, and soured relations with the West.

Sharif immediately announced a raft of populist measures, including a new minimum wage of 25,000 rupees (around $135), pay rises for civil servants and development projects in rural areas.

He also said he wanted better relations with neighbour India, but a solution needed to be found for Kashmir — the contested Himalayan territory at the heart of decades of their conflict.

Sharif, leader of the centrist Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), was the only candidate for premier after Khan loyalist Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the former foreign minister, withdrew his candidacy and resigned his seat.

“It’s a victory of righteousness, and evil has been defeated,” he said in his maiden speech as premier, suggesting no end to what has been a bitter political battle.

His first task will be to form a Cabinet that will also draw heavily from the centre-left Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), as well as find space for the smaller conservative Jamiat-ulema-e-Islam-F group.

Bitter rivals 

The PPP and PML-N are dynastic parties that have dominated Pakistani politics for decades — usually as bitter rivals — but their relations are sure to fray in the lead-up to the next election, which must be held by October 2023.

“History knows there is no ideological convergence among them,” Qureshi said before storming out.

They need to tackle soaring inflation, a feeble rupee and crippling debt, while militancy is also on the rise.

“The situation is very bad, but I am sure that we will change it with the blessing of Allah and with hard work,” said Sharif.

The new premier may also rethink Pakistan’s global alignment, which drifted away from Washington under Khan and closer to Russia and China — a vital economic partner.

“On the foreign policy front we have to face a lot of debacles. Our strategic partners left us,” he said.

Pakistan’s stock exchange gained over 3 per cent  on Monday on the hope of more stability, while the rupee also strengthened.

Sharif is the younger brother of three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and Pakistan media are already speculating the latter may soon return from exile in Britain.

“It’s a victory of righteousness, and evil has been defeated,” he said in his maiden speech as premier, suggesting no end to what has been a bitter political battle.

His first task will be to form a Cabinet that will also draw heavily from the centre-left Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), as well as find space for the smaller conservative Jamiat-ulema-e-Islam-F group.

Bitter rivals 

The PPP and PML-N are dynastic parties that have dominated Pakistani politics for decades — usually as bitter rivals — but their relations are sure to fray in the lead-up to the next election, which must be held by October 2023.

“History knows there is no ideological convergence among them,” Qureshi said before storming out.

They need to tackle soaring inflation, a feeble rupee and crippling debt, while militancy is also on the rise.

“The situation is very bad, but I am sure that we will change it with the blessing of Allah and with hard work,” said Sharif.

The new premier may also rethink Pakistan’s global alignment, which drifted away from Washington under Khan and closer to Russia and China — a vital economic partner.

“On the foreign policy front we have to face a lot of debacles. Our strategic partners left us,” he said.

Pakistan’s stock exchange gained over 3 per cent  on Monday on the hope of more stability, while the rupee also strengthened.

Sharif is the younger brother of three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and Pakistan media are already speculating the latter may soon return from exile in Britain.

Conspiracy theory 

Khan tried everything to stay in power after losing his majority in parliament — including dissolving the assembly and calling a fresh election.

But the supreme court deemed all his actions illegal and ordered them to reconvene and vote.

Khan insists he has been the victim of a “regime change” conspiracy involving Washington and his opponents, and has vowed to take his fight to the streets in the hope of forcing an early election.

Sharif promised an investigation into Khan’s allegations.

“If an iota of evidence is provided against us, I will immediately resign,” he told parliament.

The mass PTI resignations signal that Khan intends to make good a threat to disrupt the new administration and take his fight to the streets, and he called again for mass protests across the country.

“Whether his agitation ability has grown or shrunk in last few weeks remains to be seen,” said analyst Mosharaf Zaidi.

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron embarked Monday on a final fortnight of campaigning against his far-right rival Marine Le Pen for a French presidential run-off shaping up to be a much closer fight than their contest five years ago.

Macron came out on top in Sunday's first round of voting with 27.85 per cent, with Le Pen second at 23.15 per cent. As the top two finishers, they advance to a second round on April 24.

Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon came close, after a late surge gave him a score of just under 22 per cent.

The Macron-Le Pen duel is a replay of the 2017 election final from which Macron emerged victorious with 66 per cent. This time however, polls suggest it will be a closer contest.

Making an aggressive start to the next phase of the campaign, Macron spent hours meeting voters in Denain, a former steel town in northern France where he finished third on Sunday behind Le Pen and Melenchon.

"I'm not going to pretend nothing happened, I have heard the message from those who voted for the extremes, including those who voted for Mrs Le Pen," Macron told a scrum of journalists who followed him.

"I realise that people will vote for me to stop her, but I want to convince people. So I may possibly round out my project" with more social welfare measures, he said.

'Work for it' 

Le Pen met with her campaign team Monday before resuming her months-long grassroots efforts in small towns and rural France later in the week, starting with a visit to a grain farm southeast of Paris.

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

Polls gauging second-round voting intentions mostly point to around 53 per cent for Macron and 47 per cent for Le Pen.

One poll, however, by the Ifop-Fiducial group suggested Macron could have only a razor-thin win with 51 per cent versus 49 per cent.

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.

“The second round is the hardest one,” Macron’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told RTL radio. “Everything begins again with a new campaign.”

Both candidates will now 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.

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.

Melenchon told his supporters not to give a “single vote” to Le Pen, but he stopped short of backing Macron directly.

“If Macron wants to convince our voters, he’s going have to work for it,” said Melenchon’s campaign director, Manuel Bompard.

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

A pivotal moment in the next stage of the campaign will come on April 20 when the two candidates take part in a live TV debate, just like five years ago when a better-prepared Macron won the day.

But this time will be different, said political scientist Brice Tenturier. Macron, he said, “is no longer the new candidate representing a kind of freshness” while Le Pen “is no longer the person people automatically reject”.

Macron is expected to target her past admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, an explosive issue during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

‘Critical state’ 

Part of the battle will be to mobilise the 26 per cent of registered voters who abstained in the first round, a sharp increase from the first round of five years ago.

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

Sunday’s vote spelled disaster for Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris, who won only 1.75 per cent, 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 Pecresse, collapsed to 4.78 per cent from 20 per cent in 2017.

On Monday, Pecresse admitted 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.

Public campaign spending reimbursements are drastically reduced for candidates who fail to reach 5 per cent.

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Ukraine steeled itself on Monday for what could be the imminent fall of Mariupol to Russian troops as President Volodymyr Zelensky said he believed "tens of thousands" of people had been killed in Moscow's assault on the strategic southern port city.

With the war grinding towards its seventh week, Ukrainian forces said they were also bolstering their positions in the east ahead of an anticipated massive Russian campaign.

Austria's chancellor, meanwhile, became the first European leader to visit Moscow since the Russian invasion, saying he would raise alleged war crimes in devastated areas around Kyiv that had been under Russian occupation.

Ukrainian authorities say over 1,200 bodies have been found in the area so far and that they are weighing cases against "500 suspects", including President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials.

French investigators arrived in Ukraine to help probe suspected Russian atrocities in the area, as the European Union earmarked 2.5 million euros ($2.7 million) to the International Criminal Court for future Ukraine cases.

Russia is believed to be trying to link up occupied Crimea and Moscow-backed separatist territories Donetsk and Lugansk in Donbas and has laid siege to Mariupol, once a city of more than 400,000 people.

"Today will probably be the last battle, as the ammunition is running out," the 36th marine brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces said on Facebook.

“It’s death for some of us, and captivity for the rest,” it added, saying it had been “pushed back” and “surrounded” by the Russian army.

A pro-Russia rebel leader, Denis Pushilin, said separatist forces had already taken control of the city’s port, in comments reported by the RIA Novosti news agency.

Speaking to South Korea’s national assembly by video link in an appeal for military assistance, Zelensky said Russia had “completely destroyed” the city and “burned it to ashes”.

“At least tens of thousands of Mariupol citizens must have been killed,” he said.

Russian forces are also turning their focus to the Donbas region in the east, where Zelensky said Russian troops were preparing “even larger operations”.

“They can use even more missiles against us... But we are preparing for their actions. We will answer,” Zelensky said.

Lugansk Governor Sergiy Gaiday warned that the region could suffer as badly as Mariupol.

‘War on civilians’ 

Over the weekend, further strikes hampered evacuations in and around Kharkiv in the northeast, killing 11 people including a seven-year-old child, regional governor Oleg Synegubov said.

“The Russian army continues to wage war on civilians due to a lack of victories at the front,” he said on Telegram.

In Dnipro, an industrial city of around 1 million inhabitants, Russian missiles rained down on the local airport, nearly obliterating the facility, local authorities said.

Gaiday said a missile strike on a railway station in the city of Kramatorsk on Friday, which killed 57 people, had left many afraid to flee.

He again urged people to leave the region, with five humanitarian corridors agreed for Monday.

“You are alive because a Russian shell has not yet hit your house or basement — evacuate, buses are waiting, our military routes are as secure as possible,” he wrote on Telegram.

Russia has denied carrying out the strike.

Over the weekend, nearly 50 wounded and elderly patients were transported from the east in a hospital train by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the first such evacuation since the Kramatorsk attack.

Electrician Evhen Perepelytsia was rescued after he lost his leg in shelling in his hometown of Hirske.

“We hope that the worst is over — that after what I’ve been through, it will be better,” said the 30-year-old after arriving in the western city of Lviv.

EU talks sanctions 

On the diplomatic front, EU foreign ministers were meeting on Monday to discuss a sixth round of sanctions, with concerns that divisions over a ban on Russia gas and oil imports could blunt their impact.

Austria is an EU member, but does not belong to NATO, and Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s spokesman said Brussels, Berlin and Kyiv had been informed about the talks with Putin, held at the president’s residence in Moscow.

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said earlier that Nehammer would tell Putin that he “is isolating Russia, that he will lose this war morally, and that he is doing everything wrong that can be done wrong”.

US President Joe Biden meanwhile will hold virtual talks on Monday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, just weeks after saying New Delhi had been “shaky” in its response to the invasion.

A US spokeswoman said the two leaders would consult on ways to offset the “de-stabilising impact [of the war] on global food supply and commodity markets”.

Russia was responsible for an escalating global food crisis because of its bombing of wheat stocks and preventing ships from carrying grain abroad, the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said Monday.

The World Bank warned on Sunday that Ukraine’s economy would collapse by 45 per cent this year — far worse than it predicted even a month ago — while Russia would see an 11 per cent decline in GDP.

‘Prevent one massacre’ 

Despite Kyiv’s allegations of Russian atrocities, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Sunday told NBC’s “Meet the Press” he was still open to negotiating with Moscow.

“If sitting down with the Russians will help me to prevent at least one massacre like in Bucha, or at least another attack like in Kramatorsk, I have to take that opportunity,” he said.

Bucha — where authorities say hundreds were killed, some with their hands bound — has become a byword for the brutality allegedly inflicted under Russian occupation.

More than 4.5 million Ukrainian refugees have now fled their country, the United Nations refugee agency said — 90 per cent of them women and children.

At least 183 children have died and 342 were injured in Ukraine in 46 days of the Russian invasion, the prosecutor general’s office said on Telegram.