World

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump on Wednesday blasted his former national security adviser John Bolton as he emerged as a potential 11th hour witness in president's impeachment trial, complicating the White House's bid for a speedy acquittal.

Senators were poised to question the president's accusers and his lawyers for the first time later in the day as a fight over Bolton's testimony played out behind the scenes.

Democrats are pressing for the Senate to subpoena Bolton after reports that his coming White House tell-all book corroborates the abuse-of-power impeachment charge against Trump.

Bolton reportedly writes that the president personally told him in August that a freeze in military aid to Ukraine was directly linked to Trump's demand that Kiev announce investigations into Joe Biden, the current frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In an early-morning tweet, Trump said Bolton, whom he fired in September after 17 months as White House national security advisor, had shown poor judgement in a job he had begged for.

Bolton is "a guy who couldn't get approved for the Ambassador to the UN years ago, couldn't get approved for anything since", Trump wrote.

Trump said he hired the veteran diplomat and prominent "hawk" against the advice of others. But Bolton "got fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now."

"[He] goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?" Trump said.

Contentious 

witness vote 

With the 100-member Senate serving as the jury in his trial, Trump called on Republicans to reject a push for witnesses to testify when the issue comes up on Friday.

"Remember Republicans, the Democrats already had 17 witnesses, we were given NONE! Witnesses are up to the House, not up to the Senate. Don't let the Dems play you!" he wrote on Twitter.

The Senate trial, where Trump faces charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in the Ukraine affair, resumes Wednesday afternoon in Washington with senators submitting questions to the House prosecutors and Trump's defence team.

Both sides spent the last week presenting their cases for and against Trump, who is accused of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, as well as the constitutional underpinnings of the charges.

If convicted by the Senate, Trump would be removed from office. But a two-thirds majority is required for that and the Republicans' 53-47 Senate majority virtually assures Trump will be acquitted.

Only two other presidents before have been put on trial in the Senate, and neither was convicted and removed.

'Obligation and responsibility' 

Before the explosive revelations about what Bolton knew, the White House had assumed the trial could be wrapped up with no witnesses and a solid acquittal by this weekend, just in time for Trump's annual State of the Union address before Congress on Tuesday, February 4. 

Now Democrats hope that a minimum of four Republicans will side with them in calling for witnesses, with Bolton top on their list. The issue comes up for a vote Friday after the trial's questions phase is complete.

"We have an obligation and a responsibility to have a thorough trial. How do you have a trial without witnesses and evidence?" said Democratic Senator Joe Manchin on MSNBC.

"If you are going to have a fair trial... then we need relevant witnesses," said Hakeem Jeffries, one of the House impeachment managers who act as prosecutors in the trial.

"And who is more relevant in this particular instance that John Bolton, who had a direct conversation with President Trump about President Trump's desire to exchange phony political investigations into his rival for the release of $319 million in military aid?"

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell was reported to be no longer confident he could prevent enough members of his party from crossing over to give Democrats the needed 51 votes for witnesses.

John Cornyn, a senior Republican senator, however, told MSNBC he thought his side would be able to block the move and take the trial to a final vote at the end of the week.

"Evidence is undisputed. More witnesses are unnecessary and would allow House Managers to tie up the Senate for the indefinite future over protracted court fights over executive privilege," he said on Twitter.

WUHAN, China — President Xi Jinping said Tuesday China was in a struggle against a "demon" epidemic, as the death toll from the new SARS-like virus soared to 106 and the first cases of human-to-human contagion were detected abroad.

Xi made his remarks during talks with head of the World Health Organisation in Beijing as a host of nations prepared to airlift their citizens from Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak.

"Chinese people are currently engaged in a serious struggle against an epidemic of a new type of coronavirus infection," Xi told WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

"The epidemic is a demon, and we cannot let this demon hide," the Chinese leader said, pledging that the government would be transparent and release information on the virus in a "timely" manner.

His comments came after anger simmered on Chinese social media over the handling of the health emergency by local officials in central Hubei province, where the disease first emerged in December.

Some experts have praised Beijing for being more reactive and open about this virus compared to its handling of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic of 2002-2003.

But others say local cadres had earlier been more focused on projecting stability than responding to the outbreak when it began to spread earlier this month.

Since then, the number of cases has soared — doubling to more than 4,500 in the past 24 hours.

WHO chief Tedros praised China's response to the crisis during a meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Contagion abroad 

The WHO last week stopped short of declaring the outbreak a global emergency, which could have prompted a more aggressive international response such as travel restrictions.

But global concern has been growing, with Japan and Germany on Tuesday reporting the first human-to-human infections outside China.

Until now, all cases in more than a dozen countries involved people who had been in or around Wuhan.

In Japan, a man in his sixties contracted the virus apparently after driving two groups of tourists from the city earlier in January, the health ministry said. He was hospitalised with flu-like symptoms on Saturday.

On the other side of the world, a 33-year-old German man caught the disease off a Chinese colleague from Shanghai who visited Germany last week, according to health officials.

The development came after countries including Sri Lanka, Malaysia and the Philippines announced tighter visa restrictions for people coming from China.

Experts believe the virus came from a wild animal market in Wuhan and then jumped to humans, with Chinese health officials saying Tuesday that people infect each other through sneezing or coughing, and possibly through contact.

Authorities initially sealed off Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province late last week, trapping more than 50 million people.

China then halted international and domestic group tours. It also imposed a wide range of travel restrictions inside China, suspending long-distance bus routes and more than 2,000 train services.

But with the death toll climbing and more fatalities reported in Chinese cities far away from Wuhan, authorities on Tuesday urged people to delay any foreign travel “to protect the health and safety of Chinese and foreign people”, the National Immigration Administration said.

Escape plans 

Wuhan, meanwhile, has been turned into a near ghost-town under a lockdown that has largely confined the industrial hub’s 11 million people to their homes.

With a ban on car traffic, the streets were nearly deserted apart from the occasional ambulance — although the city’s hospitals are overwhelmed.

“Everyone goes out wearing masks and they are worried about the infection,” said David, a Chinese man who works in Shanghai but ended up trapped in Wuhan after it was put under quarantine.

Many thousands of foreigners are also among those stuck in the city.

“It’s deeply stressful,” Joseph Pacey, a 31-year-old Briton who teaches English in Wuhan, told AFP.

“The biggest fear for me is that this thing will go on for months, and it will get harder and harder to get supplies, and to live.”

Japan said it would send a chartered flight on Tuesday evening to get about a third of its 650 nationals there.

“We will also bring aid supplies such as masks and protective suits for Chinese people as well as for Japanese nationals,” Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said in Tokyo.

If the mission succeeds, Japan would be the first country to airlift its citizens out of Wuhan.

A US-chartered flight bound for California is scheduled to leave Wuhan on Wednesday with consular staff and some American citizens, a day later than previously planned.

France and South Korea are also planning to fly out their citizens later this week, and several other countries, including Germany, were considering doing the same.

The United States, Turkey and Germany have urged their citizens to “reconsider” all travel to China.

Landlocked Mongolia — which is heavily dependent on trade with China — took the drastic step of closing the border with its huge neighbour to cars, as well as shutting down schools and banning large gatherings.

MANILA — Asian countries were ramping up defences against a deadly viral epidemic on Tuesday, sealing borders, shuttering public places and clamping down on visitors from China. 

Concern over the steadily expanding contagion, which has killed over 100 in China and sickened more than 4,500, is prompting an increasingly urgent push for protection.

Hong Kong, which has eight reported cases of the SARS-like disease, announced the sealing of six of its 14 border crossings to the mainland from Thursday.

The government in the semi-autonomous Chinese city of seven million had faced criticism for merely barring people from the outbreak's ground-zero, central Hubei province.

"The epidemic has spread to many Chinese provinces. Only blocking visitors from Hubei can't do much to help Hong Kong," lawmaker Helena Wong said.

Singapore, with seven confirmed cases of the virus, has announced it will ban visitors who have travelled to Hubei as well as those with passports issued in that Chinese province.

Government official Lawrence Wong said the travel restrictions were not taken lightly and will be expanded if necessary.

Officials said efforts are also underway to track down an estimated 2,000 people already in Singapore with a Hubei travel history for potenital quarantine.

Mongolia has taken a much more drastic line, closing its entire border with China to pedestrians and cars as well as ordering schools to close. It has no reported cases.

In Russia's Far-Eastern district, which shares some 4,500 kilometres of frontier with China, crossings that should have re-opened after Chinese New Year will stay closed for days or weeks.

Corralling the disease has become an effort at containing people's movements, and both Malaysia and the Philippines have taken steps to squelch the flow of Chinese visitors.

Manila has been issuing visas on arrival since 2017 to Chinese nationals, adding fuel to the boom in mainland visitors to the Philippines.

That policy is now suspended, though Chinese can still apply for a visa at a consulate or embassy in their home nation.

'Avoid people gathering' 

"We are taking this proactive measure to slow down travel, and possibly help prevent the entry [of the virus]," said Jaime Morente, immigration commissioner in the Philippines, which has no confirmed cases.

Thailand announced that all passengers flying in from Chinese airports are undergoing screening, as the number of confirmed infections hit 14 on Tuesday — the highest outside of China.

The outbreak is sending shock waves through Asia's tourism industry, which has become increasingly reliant on growing numbers of Chinese visitors.

The measures come amid a boom in Chinese foreign travel, with the number of tourists from the country increasing nearly tenfold since 2003, according to a report by research firm Capital Economics.

China has already imposed wide-ranging travel restrictions across the country and halted international tours, but on Tuesday called for all overseas travel to be postponed.

Authorities have also cracked down on public places where the disease could spread, with Mongolia barring events like conferences or sporting competitions.

From Wednesday, Hong Kong public facilities ranging from pools and sports centres to museums will all be closed.

Authorities say the restrictions have one primary purpose: "avoid people gathering".

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump's lawyers were to wrap up their defence at his Senate impeachment trial on Tuesday but their hopes for a swift acquittal may be in jeopardy amid calls for more witnesses.

Democrats want former national security adviser John Bolton to testify about Trump's dealings with Ukraine and there are growing indications that enough Republican senators may support the demand.

"I think it's increasingly likely that other Republicans will join those of us who think we should hear from John Bolton," said Utah Senator Mitt Romney, one of the few Republicans who has dared to publicly criticise Trump and risk his Twitter ire in the past.

Calling Bolton, and potentially other witnesses, to testify could prolong the historic trial and torpedo efforts by the White House and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring the proceedings to a close by the end of this week.

Trump is to deliver the nationally televised "State of the Union" speech to a joint session of Congress on February 4 and the White House clearly wants to have moved past impeachment by then.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused the White House and McConnell on Tuesday of seeking a "very short and incredibly rushed trial".

"Because the longer it goes on, the more likely that new evidence and more new evidence will come out that further implicates the president," Schumer said.

Bolton is looming large over the trial after The New York Times reported that an upcoming book by the 71-year-old foreign policy hawk contains revelations that could harm Trump's defense.

According to the Times, Bolton says in the book that Trump told him in August that he wanted to freeze military aid to Ukraine until Kiev opens an investigation into political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

The accusation that the funds were withheld for Trump's own political purposes was at the heart of his December 18 impeachment by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

16 hours of questions 

Trump's lawyers were to conclude their defense of the president before the 100 members of the Senate beginning at 1:00pm (18:00 GMT).

Once they wrap up, senators will have 16 hours to pose questions to White House lawyers and the seven members of the House who have served as prosecutors at just the third impeachment trial of a president in US history.

The questions will be submitted in writing to US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial and will read them aloud.

After that, the Senate is expected to debate whether witnesses should be subpoenaed.

Democrats will make the case that Bolton should appear while Republicans may demand the testimony of Hunter Biden or perhaps even that of his father, the former vice president who is seeking to challenge Trump in November's presidential election.

Four Republicans would need to join Democrats in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-47 edge, to allow testimony from Bolton and others.

While just 51 senators are required to allow trial witnesses, 67 senators — a two-thirds majority — are needed to remove Trump from office and despite some cracks in the Republican ranks he does not appear in any serious danger at the moment.

Power grab 

Trump's lawyers launched a concerted attack on the Bidens on Monday, arguing that the president's demand that they be investigated was motivated by concerns about corruption not personal political gain.

The White House also rolled out two high-profile lawyers to defend the president — Clinton impeachment investigator Ken Starr and Harvard constitutional expert Alan Dershowitz.

Dershowitz, who has made a career defending unpopular positions and controversial clients — O.J. Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein to name just two — argued that the House case against the president was "unconstitutional" and amounted to a congressional power grab.

He also sought to neutralise the Bolton developments. "Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of abuse of power or impeachable offense," Dershowitz said.

Trump attacked his former advisor, whom he fired in September, tweeting that he "NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats" and suggested Bolton was making the allegations "only to sell a book".

Starr, whose exhaustive investigation led to the 1998 impeachment of president Bill Clinton for perjury for lying about his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, lamented that the Senate was being called "all too frequently" to try impeachments.

BUDAPEST — Hungarian border guards on Tuesday fired warning shots to deter dozens of people from crossing from the Serbian side following a reported spike in attempts to get into the EU's passport-free zone.

Police presented camera footage dated 05:30am local time showing people, many wearing backpacks, jumping over a wall and running past an iron gate at the Roszke border-crossing point.

"A group of some 60-70 illegal migrants tried to enter Hungarian territory from Serbia in an organised and aggressive way," Karoly Papp, a senior police official, told reporters in Budapest.

"One of the three armed security guards on duty fired three warning shots into the air, after which most of the group ran back into Serbia, while police reinforcements arrived," he added.

Four men who ran some 60 to 70 metres into Hungary were later caught and arrested, he said, adding that police had "hermetically sealed off" the area around Roszke.

A police spokesman for the area Gergely Varkonyi told AFP that "some" of the group were still at large, without giving further details.

Gyorgy Bakondi, an adviser to nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, cited police statistics which he said showed a sharp rise in irregular attempts to cross Hungary's southern borders.

There had been 3,400 attempts made so far this month, compared to just several hundred a month last year, he said.

Earlier this month, Hungarian police said it had sent reinforcements to the border and launched a boat patrol on the river Tisza, which forms part of its frontier with Serbia.

In 2015, at the peak of the migration surge in Europe, would-be migrants and asylum seekers clashed with Hungarian riot police at Roszke, a day after the border was sealed with a razorwire-topped fence.

The hardline anti-immigration Orban says he is defending a border of the EU's passport-free Schengen zone. But he has drawn fire from Brussels and rights groups for his tough border security policy.

WUHAN, China — China's capital on Monday recorded its first death from a deadly coronavirus as it struggles to contain a rapidly spreading disease that has sparked global alarm, with countries scrambling to evacuate their citizens from the epicentre of the epidemic.

The death in Beijing raises the death toll from the new virus to 82, with more than 2,700 people infected across the nation and cases found in more than a dozen other countries.

Mongolia closed its vast border to vehicles from China while Germany urged its citizens to avoid travelling to the country and Malaysia banned people from central Hubei province, where the pneumonia-like virus emerged, from entering its soil.

In a sign of the mounting official concern, Premier Li Keqiang visited ground zero to oversee containment efforts in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people where the disease first appeared late last month.

The government has sealed off Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province, effectively trapping tens of millions of people, including thousands of foreigners, in a bid to contain the virus as the Lunar New Year holiday unfolds.

The Communist government decided to extend the holiday, initially due to end on January 30, for three days to limit population flows and control the epidemic.

US President Donald Trump said the United States has offered China “any help that is necessary” in combatting the virus.

Beijing’s health commission said a 50 year-old-man who visited Wuhan died of respiratory failure on Monday, only 20 days after visiting the city.

More than 700 new infections were confirmed in the country, while the number of suspected cases doubled over a 24 hour period to nearly 6,000.

The youngest infected patient was a nine-month-old baby being treated in Beijing.

In Wuhan, AFP reporters saw construction workers making progress in the building of one of two field hospitals that China is racing to complete by next week to relieve overcrowded facilities swamped with people waiting hours to see doctors.

On day five under quarantine, residents shouted “Go Wuhan” from their windows, according to videos posted online, and AFP journalists saw a building with the words lit up in red in front of the Yangtze river.

“I’m getting more concerned every day,” Do Quang Duy, a 32-year-old Vietnamese masters student in Wuhan, told AFP.

Global fears spread 

Landlocked Mongolia, which is heavily dependent on trade with China, closed the border with its huge neighbour to cars.

Mongolian schools and universities will be shut until March 2, while public gatherings involving sports and entertainment are also suspended.

Malaysia banned visitors from Wuhan and its surrounding Hubei province. Turkey advised its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to China altogether.

In Germany, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the government was holding crisis talks with health experts to discuss the spread of the virus.

“Travellers should consider delaying or cancelling any unnecessary trips to China,” Maas said.

A US-bound flight is scheduled to leave Wuhan on Tuesday with consular staff and some American citizens. France plans to fly citizens out of the city in the middle of this week. Japan will also bring its citizens home.

Belgium, Bangladesh, India and Spain said they were working to repatriate their nationals, while Germany was considering the possibility.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) last week stopped short of declaring the outbreak a global emergency, which could have prompted international trade or travel restrictions.

But the world body said Monday that the global risk from the deadly virus in China was “high”, admitting an error in its previous reports that said it was “moderate”.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus headed to Beijing for discussions with Chinese officials.

Global stock markets and oil prices plunged on Monday over coronavirus fears.

China shuts down 

The virus is believed to have jumped to people from animals in a Wuhan market that sold a wide range of exotic wild game.

China on Sunday banned all wildlife trade until the emergency subsides.

The virus has caused global concern because of its similarity to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed hundreds across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003 and was also traced to the wild game trade.

Authorities around China have already imposed aggressive curbs on transport during the usually high-traffic Lunar New Year season to keep the virus from spreading.

At Beijing’s main international airport, almost all passengers wear masks. Fever checks are conducted at subway and railway stations.

Typically, hundreds of millions of people criss-cross China in jam-packed buses and trains during the holiday, a time for family reunions.

But the festivities have been ruined this year by coronavirus, which can be transmitted between humans, with people told to avoid gatherings.

Countless popular public attractions and seasonal festivals have been shut down. Several Beijing malls shortened their opening hours, according to state media.

The nationwide measures threaten to put a dent in an economy that was already slowing down.

Beijing and Shanghai were among places mandating stringent checks and 14 day observation periods for people arriving from Hubei.

Wuhan’s Mayor Zhou Xianwang said around 5 million people had left the stricken city during the new year travel rush in January, highlighting fears the virus could spread further.

BRUSSELS — Bloodlines bind them to people on opposite sides of a violent divide. One is the mother of a jailed terrorist, the other the mother of a victim wounded in a bloody 2016 attack in Brussels.

But these two Belgian women shared tears, and compassion, and finally an idea to write a book together to tell the world what unites them beyond the differences.

Fatima Ezzarhouni, a 48-year-old born in Morocco and raised since the age of four in the city of Antwerp where she works as a care assistant, said she “just clicked” with Sophie Pirson, a 61-year-old employee in a contemporary arts museum who lives in Brussels.

“We connected immediately,” confirmed Pirson.

They met in 2018 in a therapy group started by clinical sociologists that brought together mothers of terrorists and of the victims of a wave of attacks that rocked Europe two years earlier.

The deadliest in Belgium occurred in the capital on March 22, 2016, when double attacks claimed by the Daesh group killed 32 people and wounded 340 others.

Pirson’s younger daughter Leonor, then aged 30, was travelling in a Brussels metro train that day when a suicide bomber in her carriage set off his bomb. More than a dozen people were killed. Leonor, mutilated and made deaf, ended up being treated for a long time in hospital.

Living a ‘nightmare’ 

Sitting by her daughter’s bed in intensive care, Pirson said her thoughts turned “to the mothers of the bombers” that day.

“I said to myself, it must be horrible for them to to have their son killed and nobody being able to understand the pain those mothers were going through,” she told AFP.

Ezzarhouni’s son Abdellah Nouamane wasn’t involved in those Belgian attacks. But he was a Daesh militant. Recruited online aged 18 while in Antwerp, he left without word for Syria in 2013 to join the so-called “caliphate”.

Ezzarhouni said that since then she has lived “a nightmare” over the fate of her eldest child.

In 2018, a telephone caller said Nouamane had been killed in Syria. But a year later a Belgian TV crew tracked him down to a Kurdish-run prison where he was held with other Daesh fighters.

Nouamane told them he “regretted” his decision to become a militant and wanted to return to Belgium, where he has been convicted in absentia on terrorism charges. He remains locked up in northeast Syria with little chance of repatriation.

Ezzarhouni said the bits of information she gets about her son are rare and sometimes contradictory — especially about “the two children he had with a Dutch woman. I have no idea where they are”.

Today, she also spends part of her time speaking in schools about her experience as the mother of a radicalised boy.

Friendship from tragedy 

After meeting at the therapy session, the two women discovered, beyond their anguish, shared values that have forged a new bond.

They have built their common esteem for being welcoming and open, and of their status as grandmothers into a friendship — a relationship that could serve as a platform to pass on something positive from the tragedies they have lived.

“If we have been able to come together to write this book, with our differences, with what has happened to each of us, I hope that it will make people think about what we can do together today to fight barbarism,” Pirson said.

“For me, it’s to pass on a message,” added Ezzarhouni, who said she gave more of herself than she ever had before to write the book, confiding to her friend painful secrets she had long kept hidden.

Their book is a collection of joint interviews between the two women. They hope to have it published in March, in time for the fourth anniversary of the Brussels attacks.

BOLOGNA, Italy — Italy's populist leader Matteo Salvini failed to win a key regional election and topple the country's fragile coalition government, official results showed on Monday.

The defeat was a major rebuff of Salvini and his far-right League, which had hoped to score a historic upset and force snap elections in the regional vote in Emilia Romagna, but a high turnout favoured the incumbent centre-left candidate.

The Democratic Party's (PD) Stefano Bonaccini won 51.36 per cent of the vote against the anti-immigrant League candidate Lucia Borgonzoni's 43.68 per cent, according to official results released by the interior ministry on Monday.

The wealthy centre-north region of Emilia Romagna has been a stronghold of the Italian left for over 70 years, but while left-wing values still hold sway in its cities, the right had rallied serious support in towns and the countryside.

The League's defeat now makes it harder for the party to win other key upcoming regional elections, such as Tuscany and Puglia, where it hopes to sway voters to the right.

Editorialist Stefano Polli wrote in La Repubblica that Salvini will have to change his strategy if he hopes to prevail: "Even if the man doesn't seem capable of any other strategy besides rallies and TV talk shows".

Pre-election polls in Emilia Romagna had showed the League neck-and-neck with the PD, which governs Italy in coalition with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S).

Turnout in the key region was almost double at around 67 per cent compared with 37 per cent in 2014, potentially thanks to the support of the anti-populist youth-driven Sardines movement.

In the smaller southern region of Calabria, the candidate of former premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, Jole Santelli, won handily with 55.71 per cent of the vote.

For months, the League has been hoping for a repeat of its historic win in October in Umbria, which had been a left-wing fiefdom for 50 years.

League candidate Borgonzoni, 43, was overshadowed by Salvini, who held daily rallies and inundated social media with snaps of him sampling delicacies in the Parma ham and Parmesan cheese heartland.

Salvini infuriated the left on Saturday when he broke the pre-election silence — which under Italian law means candidates cannot campaign the day before a vote — by tweeting about the "eviction notice" he was set to deliver to the government.

"Arrogance never pays," PD candidate Bonaccini said later in his victory speech, scoffing at Salvini's promises to "liberate" the region.

The PD candidate had hoped his track record in the region — which boasts low jobless figures and is home to "Made in Italy" success stories such as Ferrari and Lamborghini — would translate into victory.

He also benefitted from the Sardines movement, which was born in the region just a couple of months ago but has fast become a national symbol of protest against the far right.

Still, analysts said many local family-run, artisanal firms were disgruntled and feeling left behind by the march of globalisation.

'Cling to power' 

The League triumphed in Emilia Romagna at the European Parliament elections in May, becoming the leading party with nearly 34 per cent of the votes, topping the PD's 31 per cent.

Just five years earlier it had taken home a mere five percent, compared to the PD's 53 per cent.

On Sunday, voter Andrea Setti told AFP he felt it was even more important than usual for him to cast his ballot, as the region's political "colour", or allegiance, was no longer clear.

"Now you cannot really know which way it's going to go," he said.

Fellow voter Lisa Zanarini, 31, said she hoped people would not be seduced by "easy words and easy promises".

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had dismissed fears of a government crisis were Salvini's party to win, saying the election had no bearing on national politics.

The coalition's main stabilising factor is a joint fear of snap elections which would likely hand power to Salvini, whose party is well ahead in national polls.

Analysts had warned that a League victory could cause the collapse of the M5S, which is riven by infighting and whose head, Luigi DI Maio, resigned on Wednesday.

LIMA — Peru's Keiko Fujimori-led opposition suffered a crushing blow at legislative elections, losing dozens of seats in the Congress it had dominated since 2016, according to early results on Monday.

A rapid count by the Ipsos research firm showed Fujimori's Popular Force Party's share of the vote has dropped from 36.3 per cent in 2016 to just 6.9 per cent.

Having dominated congress with 73 of the 130 seats, it is now set to be only the sixth largest party with fewer than 20 seats, according to projections.

The first official results for Lima, which elects almost a third of the legislators, look set to confirm the drubbing, with Popular Force in fifth place on 7.33 per cent. The centrist Partido Morado was leading with 14.42 per cent, followed by right-wing Podemos Peru and the centrist Popular Action both on 12.69 per cent.

"It's the collapse of Fujimorism, it's a very deep fall, a very hard blow," analyst Luis Benavente, director of the Vox Populi consultancy, told AFP.

"We don't know how many legislators they will have, but the first projections indicate it will be a 10th of their 2016" result, added analyst Fernando Rospigliosi.

It's a big victory for centre-right President Martin Vizcarra, who dissolved parliament in September and called snap legislative elections in a bid to end a political crisis between the executive and Congress.

The elections have produced a hung parliament dominated by centrist parties more likely to approve of Vizcarra's anti-corruption reforms previously blocked by Popular Force.

The largest single party is set to be Popular Action with 10.1 per cent of the vote, according to Ipsos.

After the Christian fundamentalist party Frepap (8.8 per cent) come Podemos Peru (8.25), centre-right Progress Alliance (8) and the centrist Partido Morado (7.7).

Vizcarra said he wants to establish with the new Congress "a responsible, mature relationship that seeks a consensus that benefits Peru".

Paying for 

Odebrecht scandal 

Fujimori's Popular Force looks to have paid for its leader's implication in the sprawling Odebrecht corruption scandal.

Fujimori is accused of accepting $1.2 million in illicit party funding from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht for her unsuccessful 2011 presidential election campaign.

Odebrecht has admitted to paying at least $29 million to Peruvian officials since 2004, and bribing four former Peruvian presidents.

The scandal destroyed the popularity of the 44-year-old daughter of jailed former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000).

She has already spent 13 months in pre-trial detention before being released in November, and on Tuesday faces a judge's decision on whether to send her back to jail.

It wasn't just Popular Force losing badly, but also its main ally, the social-democratic APRA of former president Alan Garcia, who committed suicide in April as police turned up at his home to arrest him in a corruption case related to the Odebrecht scandal.

APRA is Peru's oldest political party but with only 2.6 per cent of the vote, according to Ipsos, it "will lose its party registration and be left out of congress", Benavente told AFP.

'A more bearable relationship' 

There were more than 2,300 candidates representing 21 parties in Sunday's election.

The vote — the first time legislative elections have been held separately from presidential voting — came 15 months ahead of the next general election.

It came about after Vizcarra dissolved Congress on September 30, a move that was widely popular amongst Peru's 25 million population.

The opposition accused him of a "coup d'etat" and swore in Vice President Mercedes Araoz as "acting president" but she resigned the following day.

The opposition took its case to the constitutional court, which ruled in Vizcarra's favour.

Demonstrators took to the streets to support Vizcarra and his anti-corruption push.

Polls showed 90 per cent support for the president's daring move.

Vizcarra doesn't have a party himself but before the vote, political analyst Augusto Alvarez told AFP that the president would "achieve a more bearable relationship with the centrist parties that achieve a majority in congress" than he had done with Fujimori.

However, Alvarez had expected Popular Force to remain "a relevant force", which no longer appears the case.

The new lawmakers will sit for only 16 months until the April 2021 general election, and a new president is due to take office three months after that.

Neither Vizcarra nor any of the new lawmakers will be eligible for re-election in 2021, so only 16 sought to stand again.

The election was observed by the European Union and the Organisation of American States.

BOLOGNA, Italy — Italians voted on Sunday in a key regional election which the far-right hopes will shake the country’s fragile coalition government to its core and return strongman Matteo Salvini to power.

The wealthy centre-north region of Emilia Romagna has been a stronghold of the Italian left for over 70 years, but while left-wing values still hold sway in its cities, the right has been rallying serious support in towns and the countryside.

The last polls published before the pre-election media blackout showed the anti-immigrant League neck-and-neck with the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), which governs Italy in coalition with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S).

Some 3.5 million citizens are eligible to cast ballots to elect the region’s president between 7am (06:00 GMT) and 11pm, alongside similar regional elections in the smaller southern region of Calabria.

Turnout in Emilia Romagna was high at midday (11:00 GMT), at over 23 per cent, compared to just 11 per cent at the same time during the last regional elections.

The League is hoping for a repeat of its historic win in October in Umbria, which had been a left-wing fiefdom for 50 years.

Its candidate in Emilia Romagna, Lucia Borgonzoni, 43, has been overshadowed by Salvini, who has held daily rallies and inundated social media with snaps of him sampling delicacies in the Parma ham and Parmesan cheese heartland.

Salvini infuriated the left Saturday wehn he broke the pre-election silence — which under Italian law means candidates cannot campaign the day before a vote — by tweeting about the “eviction notice” he was set to deliver to the government.

The PD’s candidate Stefano Bonaccini is the incumbent president and hoping to win on his track record in the region, which boasts low jobless figures and is home to “Made in Italy” success stories such as Ferrari and Lamborghini.

He may also benefit from the youth-driven Sardines movement, which was born in the region just a couple of months ago but has fast become a national symbol of protest against the far-right.

But analysts say many local family-run, artisanal firms are disgruntled and feeling left behind by the march of globalisation.

Others say the traditional left has abandoned those it once sought to defend for big banking interests.

‘Cling to power’ 

The League triumphed in Emilia Romagna at the European Parliament elections in May, becoming the leading party with nearly 34 per cent of the votes, topping the PD’s 31 per cent.

Just five years earlier it had taken home a mere 5 per cent, compared to the PD’s 53 per cent.

Voter Andrea Setti, a 34 year-old bank employee, told AFP he felt it was even more important than usual for him to cast his ballot, as the region’s political “colour”, or allegiance, was nowhere near as clear cut as it used to be.

“Now you cannot really know which way it’s going to go,” he said.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has dismissed fears of a government crisis should Salvini’s party win, saying the election concerns the region alone and has no bearing on national politics.

The coalition’s main stabilising factor is a joint fear of snap elections which would likely hand power to Salvini, whose party is well ahead in national polls.

The government “will cling on to power in the near term”, said Agnese Ortolani, analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit.

But a League victory would increase tensions considerably, with the PD likely to blame the M5S for refusing to join forces behind a single candidate — thus splitting the anti-Salvini vote.

And analysts have warned it could cause the M5S, which is riven by infighting and has been haemorrhaging members, to collapse.

Contested M5S head Luigi Di Maio resigned Wednesday in a bid to stave off a crisis — but political watchers cautioned that it may not be enough.

“If the PD were to lose another regional bastion after Umbria three months ago, it may conclude that it would have more to lose from staying in alliance with the ever-weaker M5S than from risking new elections,” Berenberg Economics said on Friday.