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KYIV, Ukraine — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Saturday in a "show of solidarity" with Ukraine a day after a missile strike killed dozens at a railway station in the country's east.

Six weeks into Russia's invasion, Moscow has shifted its focus to eastern and southern Ukraine after stiff resistance ended plans to swiftly capture the capital.

Western leaders mobilised to back President Volodymyr Zelensky as details emerged of the devastating attack on Kramatorsk's station with civilians seeking to flee a feared Russian offensive.

Johnson tweeted that Britain was "setting out a new package of financial and military aid which is a testament of our commitment to his country's struggle against Russia's barbaric campaign".

As part of the solidarity campaign, a global pledging event for Ukrainian refugees raised 10.1 billion euros ($11 billion), European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in Warsaw.

With thousands killed in fighting and more than 11 million fleeing their homes or the country, Zelensky said the Kramatorsk strike marked a fresh atrocity that required Western action.

"This is another Russian war crime for which everyone involved will be held accountable," he said in a video message, calling for "a firm global response to this war crime".

Zelensky later said he was "still ready" to continue talks with Russia to resolve the conflict, after talks with visiting Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer.

US President Joe Biden accused Russia of being behind a “horrific atrocity” in Kramatorsk, the de facto capital of the Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk region, and France condemned the strike as a “crime against humanity”.

Moscow denied responsibility for the rocket attack on Friday morning, which killed 52 people including five children and injured a further 109 victims, according to the latest official count.

The Ukrainian president said the bombing had been reported in Russia before the missiles had even landed and called for more weaponry to counter Moscow’s aggression.

“I am sure that the victory of Ukraine is just a matter of time, and I will do everything to reduce this time,” he added.

‘For our children’ 

Minibuses assembled at a church in Kramatorsk to collect shaken evacuees on Saturday. Almost 80 people, most of them elderly, took shelter overnight in the building, not far from the targeted station.

“There were around 300 to 400 people who rushed here after the strike,” Yevgeny, a member of the Protestant church, told AFP.

“They were traumatised. Half of them ran to shelter in the cellar, others wanted to leave as soon as possible. Some were evacuated by bus in the afternoon [on Friday].”

The station in Kramatorsk was being used as the main evacuation hub for refugees from the parts of the eastern Donbas region still under Ukrainian control.

AFP reporters at the station saw the remains of the missile tagged in white paint with the words “for our children” in Russian. The expression is frequently used by pro-Russian separatists in reference to their losses since the start of the first Donbas war in 2014.

The governor of Donetsk claimed a missile with cluster munitions was used in the attack, according to remarks published by the Interfax news agency.

The strike came as von der Leyen and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell were in Kyiv for talks with Zelensky and to visit the scene of civilian killings in Bucha.

Russia faces “decay” because of ever tougher sanctions and Ukraine had a “European future”, von der Leyen said at a news conference with Zelensky.

“My instinct says: If this is not a war crime, what is a war crime?” she said of the Bucha killings, calling for a thorough investigation.

Russian troops appear to be seeking to create a long-sought land link between occupied Crimea and the Moscow-backed separatist territories of Donetsk and Lugansk in the Donbas region.

“It’s clear that the war will be decided in the battle of Donbas,” Borrell said on Saturday as he and von der Leyen left Ukraine.

Civilians have been urged to flee the heavy shelling there that has laid waste to towns and complicated evacuation efforts.

The defence ministry in Moscow said Saturday that Russian forces had destroyed an ammunition depot in the Dnipro region, and struck 85 Ukrainian military targets in the previous 24 hours.

“There is no secret — the battle for Donbas will be decisive. What we have already experienced — all this horror — it can multiply,” warned Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday.

In the south, the Black Sea port city of Odessa braced for rocket attacks, imposing a weekend curfew.

Residents and Ukrainian officials returning after a Russian withdrawal from an area near Kyiv, meanwhile, were taking stock of the scale of the devastation.

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

But Zelensky warned worse was being uncovered.

“They have started sorting through the ruins in Borodianka,” northwest of Kyiv, he said. “It is much more horrific there. There are even more victims of Russian occupiers.”

Sanctions bite 

Moscow has denied targeting civilians, but growing evidence of atrocities has galvanised Ukraine’s allies in the EU, which has approved an embargo on Russian coal and the closure of its ports to Russian vessels.

The bloc has frozen 30 billion euros in assets from Russian and Belarusian individuals and companies, it said on Friday.

It also blacklisted Putin’s two adult daughters and more than 200 others as part of its latest sanctions package, according to an official list.

The United States and Britain had already sanctioned the Russian leader’s daughters.

Borrell has pledged the EU would supply 7.5 million euros to train Ukrainian prosecutors to investigate war crimes allegedly committed by Russia. He was to meet with the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor on Sunday.

Ukraine has welcomed new pressure on Moscow, but it continues to push for harsher sanctions and more heavy weaponry.

“Either you help us now — and I’m speaking about days, not weeks — or your help will come too late and many people will die, many civilians will lose their homes, many villages will be destroyed,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said after meeting NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.

Britain said on Friday it was sending Ukraine more “high-grade military equipment” including Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles and 800 anti-tank missiles, while Slovakia said it had given Ukraine an S-300 air defence system.

Western companies have joined the effort to isolate Russia, with US video hosting service YouTube blocking the channel of the Russian lower house of parliament. Russian officials warned of reprisals.

As sanctions bite, credit rating agency S and P Global Ratings downgraded Russia’s foreign currency payments rating to “selective default” after Moscow paid a dollar-denominated debt in rubles this week.

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday hit out at his main election rival, far-right leader Marine Le Pen, as his narrowing lead in polls intensified concerns among supporters that winning a second term is far from assured.

Macron accused Le Pen of "lying" to voters on social policy, having a "racist" programme and showing "complacency" in her ties with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The president is projected to come out on top in Sunday's first round of voting, but far short of the majority needed to avoid a run-off between the top two candidates on April 24 — and with Le Pen close behind.

Adding to the intrigue, far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon is snapping at their heels in third place and still fancies his chances of causing an upset by reaching the second round.

While Macron easily beat Le Pen in the 2017 run-off, polls have shown a much tighter scenario this time, with the far-right leader reducing her gap with the incumbent each week.

The candidates of France's traditional parties, the right-wing Republicans and the Socialists on the left, are facing a debacle on election night, continuing a shake-up of French politics begun when the centrist Macron took power in 2017.

Friday is the last day of campaigning, with no more rallies, interviews or other campaign activities allowed from midnight (22:00 GMT) until after the polls close Sunday at 8:00pm.

Le Pen said on Thursday that she had never been "so close" to power at a jubilant final rally in her party's southern stronghold of Perpignan.

She urged people to turn out and vote with analysts predicting one quarter of French adults may abstain and the final turnout crucial for the outcome.

'Spirit of conquest' 

The war in Ukraine as well as strains on the health system after two years of COVID-19 are high among voter concerns, behind the biggest worries of all: I nflation and incomes.

Macron, criticised by some for doing only minimal campaigning as he dealt with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, sought Friday to regain the initiative by turning his fire on Le Pen.

In an interview with the Parisien daily, he accused her of deceiving France with promises of social spending that she would not be able to finance.

"She is lying to people as she would not be able to do this," he said.

After Le Pen called for any woman wearing the Islamic headscarf in public in France to be fined, he added: "It's a racist programme that plans to split society in the most brutal way."

With her party still paying back a loan from Russia, he said: "Mrs Le Pen is financially dependent on Mr Putin and his regime and has always showed complacency towards him."

Le Pen, speaking to franceinfo radio, slammed his comments as "extremely outrageous", saying she was "shocked" to be described as racist.

Asked by RTL radio if he feared losing, Macron said: "Nothing is taken for granted... [but] I have a spirit of conquest more than a spirit of defeat."

Seeking to show his popular touch, he also dropped into a local Paris market, chatting with a cheese seller and a fishmonger.

'Not 2017 scenario' 

Should he triumph on April 24, Macron will be the first French president since Jacques Chirac in 2002 to win reelection.

He would have a new five-year term to implement his vision of reforming France and consolidate his status as Europe's number one national leader after the departure from power of German chancellor Angela Merkel.

For his European supporters, Macron is a centrist champion against the populism prevalent in much of Europe, especially after election victories last weekend by the right-wingers Hungarian premier Viktor Orban and Serbian leader AleksanderVucic, who both have cordial ties with Putin.

Polls show Macron winning the first round against Le Pen by a handful of percentage points, with a score in the mid-to-high twenties, followed by Melenchon in the high teens.

The run-off is still projected to be won by Macron but only by slim margins and in stark contrast to 2017, where he won over 66 per cent of the vote.

Prominent political analyst Pascal Perrineau said there was "uncertainty" ahead of the first round, as in France there had never been so many voters who were undecided or had changed their minds.

"And as for the second round, it will not be the 2017 scenario with a large victory for Macron," he told AFP.

Ukraine war hit Macron's campaign 

A figure from Macron's party, who asked not to be identified, acknowledged that the campaign had not gone according to the original plans.

The Ukraine war "turned the initial campaign plan upside down" the official said.

Macron in his RTL interview admitted he had entered the campaign "later than I had wanted" due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Melenchon has enjoyed a last-minute poll bump and is talking up his chances of springing a surprise, helped by an innovative rally on Tuesday that saw him beamed by hologram into 11 French cities.

Greens candidate YannickJadot, the Republicans candidate Valerie Pecresse and the flagging Socialist nominee Anne Hidalgo appear certain to be ejected in the first round.

Far-right former TV pundit Eric Zemmour made a stunning entry into the campaign last year, but analysts say he has aided Le Pen by making her appear more moderate.

HONG KONG — Hong Kong's leader on Thursday defended her policy of temporarily banning flight routes that bring in coronavirus cases, as a leading airline industry figure warned the city had fallen "off the map" as an aviation hub.

The city's airport was previously one of the world's busiest but has been largely cut off throughout the pandemic as Hong Kong hews to China's strict zero-COVID policy.

"Circuit breaker" rules mean any airline that brings in three or more infected passengers on a single flight is suspended from flying that route for seven days.

City leader Carrie Lam defended the policy on Thursday, saying flights were bringing in infections "probably because of the very relaxed approach adopted in many places" around the world.

Authorities have given some ground, lifting a complete flight ban on nine countries earlier this month following growing anger from the business community and Hong Kongers stranded overseas.

Lam said more than 1,000 residents have returned to Hong Kong daily this month, compared to just 200 a day previously.

"It is not right to say that this travel easing has no impact," she said.

Her comments came as the director general of the International Air Transport Association, Willie Walsh, warned Hong Kong was "effectively off the map".

"[Hong Kong] is going to lag significantly behind the recovery that we're seeing elsewhere," Walsh told reporters on Wednesday in quotes carried by Bloomberg News and the South China Morning Post.

Temporary flight bans have been frequently invoked, throwing travel plans into chaos as residents scramble to book new routes and change mandatory hotel quarantine bookings.

Six airlines including Emirates and Cathay Pacific have had routes banned this week.

Emirates’ Dubai-Bangkok-Hong Kong route has been suspended six times for a total of 77 days this year, according to Bloomberg.

Walsh said Hong Kong’s restrictions have been “very severe and have led directly to the cancellation of a lot of services, with airlines effectively finding it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to operate there”.

Last month 11 airlines and logistics giants sent a letter to the government calling for the removal of COVID-19 testing requirements for flight crews before take-off and on arrival.

Prior to the pandemic, Hong Kong’s airport hosted about 200,000 passengers a day.

But the finance hub, which dubs itself “Asia’s World City” — is now one of the world’s most isolated places.

Lam’s administration says there can be no change from zero-COVID even though the controls proved largely ineffective this year when the Omicron variant tore through.

Hong Kong has since recorded one of the world’s highest mortality rates from the virus.

PARIS — French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen vowed Thursday to issue fines to Muslims who wear headscarves in public, as candidates made a final push for votes three days ahead of an election seen as increasingly close.

President Emmanuel Macron built what seemed an unassailable lead ahead of the first round of polls Sunday but Le Pen has eroded the margin and feels she has a real chance of winning the run-off on April 24.

With France’s traditional right- and left-wing parties facing electoral disaster, far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon is on course to come third and he still believes he can sneak into a run-off. 

Speaking to RTL radio, Le Pen explained how her pledge to ban the headscarf in all public spaces would be implemented, saying it would be enforced by police in the same way as seatbelt-wearing in cars.

“People will be given a fine in the same way that it is illegal to not wear your seat belt. It seems to me that the police are very much able to enforce this measure,” she said. 

Le Pen has said she will use referendums to try to avoid constitutional challenges to many of her proposed laws on the basis that they are discriminatory and an infringement on personal freedoms.

Previous legislation in France banning obvious religious symbols in schools or full-face coverings in public was allowed on the basis that it applied to all citizens and in specific settings.

Le Pen, 53, has toned down her anti-immigration rhetoric during campaigning this year and has focused instead on household spending, putting her closer than ever to power, polls indicate.

The latest surveys suggest she is within striking distance of centrist Macron if the two of them come top in the first round of voting on Sunday.

A second round run-off is scheduled for April 24, with an average of polls indicating Macron has a slight lead of 54 per cent versus 46 per cent for Le Pen.

Melenchon is also rising strongly ahead of voting and is talking up his chances of springing a surprise.

The war in Ukraine as well as strains on the health system after two years of COVID-19 are high among voter concerns, behind the biggest priority: Inflation and incomes. 

Final rallies 

Le Pen is to hold her last campaign rally on Thursday evening in the southern stronghold of Perpignan where her National Rally Party has long had strong support and runs the local council.

The slogan “Vote!” underlines the priority for Le Pen in encouraging supporters to turn out on Sunday after high abstention rates resulted in a disappointing result for her in regional elections last June.

Greens candidate Yannick Jadot, Conservative Valerie Pecresse, far-right former TV pundit Eric Zemmour and flagging Socialist nominee Anne Hidalgo also have rallies planned on Thursday. 

Macron will give an interview to the Aujourd’hui newspaper in which he is expected to continue his strategy of promising steady leadership in a time of crisis, while portraying Le Pen as a dangerous extremist.

Despite entering the campaign late after being distracted by the war in Ukraine, he has no scheduled public events on Thursday.

“I’ve acquired experience of crises, international experience. I’ve also learned from my mistakes,” he told Le Figaro newspaper in an interview published Thursday.

He acknowledged that “results on immigration were insufficient” and that new arrivals had increased at the start of his term in 2017-2019. 

“Worries were created at this point. I didn’t succeed in reducing them and they have fed the (political) extremes,” he said in reference to Le Pen and Zemmour, who is promising “zero immigration”.

A recent poll found that a slim majority of French people (51 per cent) found Le Pen worrying, while 39 per cent considered she had the stature of a president, up from 21 per cent in 2017.

Around 65 per cent of French people thought Macron had the stature of a president, the survey from the left-leaning Jean-Jaures Foundation showed.

Le Pen laughed at the idea that she could be demonised on her third run for the presidency despite Macron’s intention of attacking her as economically reckless and xenophobic. 

“Scare-mongering which entails saying that unless Emmanuel Macron is reelected, it will be a crisis, the sun will be extinguished, the sea will disappear and we’ll suffer an invasion of frogs, no longer works,” Le Pen told RTL.

WASHINGTON — The United States stood on the cusp of history Thursday with the Senate on the verge of confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman ever to serve on the Supreme Court.

If the 51-year-old is confirmed, which is all but assured barring a dramatic reversal, white men will not be the majority on the nation's premier judicial bench for the first time in 233 years. 

"It will be a joyous day: joyous for the Senate, joyous for the Supreme Court, joyous for America," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor late Wednesday. 

"While we still have a long way to go, America... will take a giant step to becoming a more perfect nation."

Schumer said the upper chamber will hold an initial procedural vote on Jackson's nomination at 11:00 am (15:00 GMT) before a final vote around 1:45 pm.

Jackson picked up support from three Senate Republicans during a relatively short but grueling confirmation process, delivering President Joe Biden a bipartisan vote for his first high court nominee.

It is a huge moment for the president, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1980s and 90s, meaning he has the unprecedented distinction of both naming and overseeing the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice. 

At 42 days, the process will be among the shortest in history, although longer than it took to seat Donald Trump's last pick as president, Amy Coney Barrett.

'Corrosive politicisation' 

Four of the justices will be women once Jackson takes her seat, making it the most diverse bench in history, although every justice went to law school at Harvard or Yale.

Jackson replaces the retiring liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, for whom she clerked at the turn of the century.

So while her confirmation is a milestone, it won't change the 6-3 conservative majority on the court, and that took some of the sting out of a fight that could have been even more vitriolic. 

Nevertheless Schumer, who has had to endure a 50-50 Senate longer than any majority leader in history, had to steer Jackson through a contentious and at times emotionally draining confirmation process.

Republicans accused the Washington appeals court judge of being "soft" on child pornographers, despite her sentencing record being in line with other federal judges.

Others implied that she was sympathetic to terrorists due to her work as a federal public defender representing detainees from the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay and one even suggested that she would have been sympathetic to Nazi war criminals.

Lisa Murkowski, one of a Republican trio of Jackson backers, said in a statement her endorsement was a “rejection of the corrosive politicisation of the review process.”

Another Republican Jackson supporter, Susan Collins, lamented how partisan the process had become, noting that senators used to give presidents from the opposing party more deference on Supreme Court picks.

“This is the approach that I plan to continue to use for Supreme Court nominations because it runs counter to the disturbing trend of politicising the judicial nomination process,” she said.

While the process was highly divisive, Jackson has maintained strong backing among the voters paying attention to her confirmation.

A new Politico/Morning Consult poll shows almost half of voters say the Senate should support her. Just 26 per cent don’t think she should get a yes vote, while 25 per cent had no opinion.

SYDNEY — Australia’s oldest human remains, dating back at least 40,000 years, will be reburied near the Outback site at Mungo Lakes where they were first uncovered, the Australian government announced on Wednesday.

The ancestral remains of 108 people, including the most famous bones known as the Mungo Man and Lady, will be interred near their original resting place in the Mungo National Park — about 11 hours drive west of Sydney, NSW Environment Minister James Griffin said.

“While the discovery of Mungo Man and Mungo Lady helped scientists establish that Aboriginal people have been in Australia for more than 42,000 years, it’s time to let their spirits rest in peace,” Griffin said.

The discoveries at Lake Mungo and Willandra Lakes between 1960 and 1980 redefined the anthropological understanding of Australia, pushing back the estimates of when humans first arrived on the continent by tens of thousands of years.

Mungo Lady is still among the earliest evidence of cremation in the world.

Further research of rock shelters in the Northern Territory has since extended evidence of Indigenous Australians, believed to be the world’s oldest continuous culture, to at least 65,000 years.

After their excavation, the remains were removed from the site and taken away for study without permission from traditional owners.

Decades of campaigning by Indigenous elders led to the return of the remains to the World Heritage site at Mungo National Park in 2017.

Patsy Winch — chair of the Aboriginal Advisory Group representing Paakantji, MutthiMutthi and Ngiyampaa people from the area — welcomed the decision.

“Finally, after all that time has passed, the voices of the elders have been heard, and I am thankful that these ancestral remains will finally be laid to rest the traditional way, in country,” Winch said in a statement.

The government said the decision to rebury the bones was decided after an “extensive community consultation” and will be carried out in accordance with the wishes of the traditional owners of the land.

LIMA — Peruvian President Pedro Castillo on Tuesday announced the end of a curfew in the capital Lima aimed at containing protests against rising fuel prices following crisis talks with Congress.

“We will with immediate effect remove this immobility [curfew]. We call on the Peruvian people to be calm,” said the leftist leader, alongside Congress President Maria del Carmen Alva.

Police and soldiers patrolled the largely empty streets of the capital earlier on Tuesday after Castillo announced the curfew shortly before midnight on Monday for Lima and the neighbouring port city of Callao.

It was due to last until midnight on Tuesday as authorities attempted to curtail protests against rising fuel and toll prices amid growing economic hardship.

But news of the curfew’s end was met with cheers by hundreds of protesters outside Congress and in other parts of the capital, AFP journalists noted.

“The people did it!” said opposition legislator Alva on Twitter.

Shops and schools were closed and bus services mostly suspended but many workers, at hotels or hospitals for example, ignored the shut-down, which was widely criticised on social media.

The measure took many in Lima by surprise, given that the most violent protests in recent days took place far from the capital.

Many had no choice but to take a taxi or walk to their place of work.

“It was a very late and improvised” announcement, complained Cinthya Rojas, a nutritionist who waited patiently for one of the handful of buses still running to get to work at a hospital east of Lima.

A hotel employee told AFP she had to pay the equivalent of $8, a small fortune on her salary, for a taxi to work.

Some tourists had difficulty finding food, with restaurants and supermarkets closed, but domestic and international flights continued as normal from Jorge Chavez airport, its concessioner said.

Residents of some Lima neighbourhoods beat pots and pans at their windows in protest against the lockdown at noon.

Soaring food prices 

“The measures taken, like those taken yesterday, are not against the people but in order to save the lives of compatriots,” said Castillo, balked by the first social protests of his eight-month-old presidency.

He had said the curfew move was “to reestablish peace” after countrywide protests amidst biting food inflation.

“There was information from a source that there were going to be acts of vandalism today. That is why we have taken this step,” Defence Minister Jose Gavidia said earlier on Tuesday.

While Lima was under curfew, protests continued and roads were blocked in several smaller cities elsewhere in Peru.

Like much of the rest of the world, Peru’s economy is reeling from the damages wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.

The country’s Consumer Price Index in March saw its highest monthly increase in 26 years, driven by soaring food, transport and education prices, according to the national statistics institute.

In an attempt to appease protesters, the government over the weekend eliminated the fuel tax and decreed a 10 per cent increase in the minimum wage from May 1.

But the General Confederation of Workers of Peru — the country’s main trade union federation — considered the measures insufficient and took to the streets again on Monday in Lima and several regions in Peru’s north.

Some protesters set fire to toll booths on highways, looted shops and clashed with police.

Others burned tires and blocked the north-south Pan-American highway, the country’s most important artery for people and goods.

The disruptions halted public transport and closed schools on Monday.

“Social protest is a constitutional right, but it must be done within the law,” Castillo, a 52-year-old former rural school teacher, pleaded during his brief TV appearance late on Monday.

‘Authoritarian measure’ 

Two-thirds of Peruvians disapprove of Castillo’s rule, according to an Ipsos opinion poll in March.

Castillo’s announcement of a curfew came a week after he escaped impeachment by Congress, where opponents accuse his administration of a “lack of direction” and of allowing corruption in his entourage.

It also coincided with the 30th anniversary of a coup staged by ex-president Alberto Fujimori, jailed over his regime’s bloody campaign against insurgents.

“The measure dictated by President Pedro Castillo is openly unconstitutional, disproportionate and violates people’s right to individual freedom,” tweeted lawyer Carlos Rivera, a representative of Fujimori’s victims.

Political analyst Luis Benavente told AFP the curfew was “an authoritarian measure” that revealed “ineptitude, incapacity to govern”.

A large proportion of Lima’s 10 million residents work in the informal sector, as street sellers and other traders, meaning the curfew left them without income for the day.

A Copa Libertadores football match between Peruvian Club Sporting Cristal and Brazil’s Flamengo, which had been thrown into doubt, would go ahead as scheduled on Tuesday night in Lima, regional governing body CONMEBOL said on Instagram.