SYDNEY (Reuters) -Voting in Australia's general election ended on Saturday with early returns showing both Prime Minister Scott Morrison's conservative coalition and the Labor opposition losing ground to smaller parties and climate-focussed independents.

President Joe Biden and his new South Korean counterpart agreed on Saturday to hold bigger military drills and deploy more U.S. weapons if necessary to deter North Korea, while offering to send COVID-19 vaccines and potentially meet Kim Jong Un.

Russia claimed victory in a months-long battle for Mariupol's Avostal steel plant, taking it a step nearer to its goal of controlling Ukraine's Donbas region, and halted gas exports to Finland in an escalation of an energy payment dispute with Western nations.

The Chinese dissident artist known as Badiucao shows his support for Ukraine in new work that has gone on show in Prague, while also taking aim at the leaders of Russia and China.

(Reuters) -U.S. authorities were blocked by a federal judge on Friday from lifting COVID-19 restrictions that empower agents at the U.S.-Mexico border to turn back migrants without giving them a chance to seek asylum.

Representatives of the United States and several other nations walked out of an Asia-Pacific trade ministers meeting in Bangkok on Saturday to protest Russia's invasion of Ukraine, officials said.

Shanghai cautiously pushed ahead on Saturday with plans to restore part of its transport network in a major step towards exiting a weeks-long COVID-19 lockdown, while Beijing kept up its defences in an outbreak that has persisted for a month.

Russia's Gazprom on Saturday halted gas exports to neighbouring Finland, in the latest escalation of an energy payments dispute with Western nations.

Russia pressed for control of Ukraine's Donbas region, claiming victory in the months-long battle for Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant and launching a major offensive on the remaining Ukrainian-held territory in the province of Luhansk.

Boeing's new Starliner crew capsule docked for the first time with the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, completing a major objective in a high stakes do-over test flight into orbit without astronauts aboard.