World

MANILA — Five people were killed and dozens were injured after a powerful earthquake hit the southern Philippines, authorities said on Thursday.

The 6.4-magnitude quake struck the Mindanao region on Wednesday night, reducing dozens of houses to rubble on the southern third of the Philippines.

On Thursday afternoon, authorities said five people were killed and 53 injured, mainly in a cluster of small farming towns.

Three people were killed in landslides while another was crushed by the collapsed wall of a house. The fifth suffered a fatal heart attack, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said.

No fatalities were reported in Mindanao’s major cities. Local authorities had earlier told AFP three children were among the dead.

The Philippine seismology office has recorded more than 300 weaker aftershocks in the area since the big quake, but authorities said they do not expect the toll to rise significantly.

The disaster council’s spokesman Mark Timbal told local television it had not received any reports of missing people from any of the quake-hit areas.

“People have returned home... They are OK now, unlike last night when they were terrified and slept on roads beside their homes,” Zaldy Ortiz, civil defence officer of Magsaysay town, told AFP.

Local school and government holidays were announced in Magsaysay, where the landslides struck, to allow building inspectors to check structures for damage, Ortiz added.

Power was being restored in the bigger cities, but there was substantial damage to some hospitals, government buildings, schools, churches and houses in the small towns, the council said in a report.

In General Santos City, firefighters on Thursday finally put out a blaze that started at a shopping mall shortly after the quake.

The Philippines is part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches from Japan through southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

NEW DELHI — The narrow lanes of Kumhar Gram are buzzing with activity ahead of Diwali as generations of potters race to create clay decorations for customers across the country — and beyond.

Known as the "Potter's Village", the settlement is home to around 500 families from India's traditional pottery community, who moved to the area half a century ago.

Their skills and artistry have made Kumhar Gram one of the most popular spots for earthenware in the nation but in the run up to Diwali — October and November depending on when it falls — the place transforms.

The streets throng with shoppers buying every type of clay decor from pots and lamps to flower vases and statues of Hindu gods and goddesses.

Diwali, known as the "festival of lights", is a Sanskrit word meaning rows of lighted lamps. The "diya" oil lamps have traditionally been made out of clay and placed around a home during celebrations.

Potter Dinesh Kumar, like many others in the village, learnt about clay from his father and is now passing on the skills to his young children.

"I am teaching them the same way I learnt from my father, he learnt from his father and so on," Kumar tells AFP as he sat at a wheel with many fresh clay pots behind him.

"People come to us from across India and not just Delhi," he added.

In many households, entire families are involved in the steps to make the finished products.

Jagmohan, who only goes by one name, shares the process with his brothers, their wives, his parents and their children.

The 48-year-old sits at the wheel churning different types of pots, lamps and flower vases throughout the day, particularly in weeks leading up to the famed Festival of Lights.

One of his brothers carves designs on them, then the women of the family take the finished works to the roof, where they are left to dry under the sun.

Once dry, they are placed in a rooftop wood oven to bake.

The finished products are loaded onto rickshaws dotted around the congested pathways to be taken to nearby markets and other buyers.

The rickshaw drivers must carry their cargo while navigating the winding alleys filled with stacks of dry clay, finished or unfinished products, and people painting them.

At a market in the village, Sushil Panwar is buying decorations for his home as he gears up for the festivals.

"I have been coming here for a decade now. We take all clay decoration items for our home, like flower pots and earthen lamps from here," Panwar tells AFP.

Besides him, his wife Pratibha holds their purchases which have been carefully wrapped in worn newspapers.

"People come here from all over India around festivals because the [clay] oil lamps here are special," market vendor Kumar Prajapati explains.

He adds: "Whatever you need is available here... which you won't find anywhere else."

By Bhuvan Bagga

ATHENS — Scientists have for the first time found evidence of Neanderthals on the Greek island of Naxos, pushing back human activity in the Aegean by thousands of years, a new study shows.

“The excavation... has produced the kind of robust data required to support a claim for earlier Paleolithic cultural activity in the Aegean basin,” the team of anthropologists and archaeologists wrote in the Science Advances journal, released online late Wednesday.

“The data... indicate that the Aegean was accessible to archaic and modern humans tens of millennia earlier than previously thought.”

“Paleodosimetric dates suggest that hominins” — the extended family of modern and extinct humans — “were present in the region by [up to 200,000 years] ago”, the study said.

Neanderthals could have accessed the area during a glacial “lowstand” when exposed land connected Anatolia to continental southeast Europe, by seafaring, or both, the study said.

The team of experts from Canada, Greece, France, Serbia and the US has been excavating a hill 152 metres above sea level at Stelida, western Naxos since 2013.

They found scrapers, piercers and other stone tools consistent with those used by Neanderthals.

Naxos is the largest island of the Cycladic archipelago in the Aegean.

“Until now, the earliest known location on Naxos was the Cave of Zas, dated to 7,000 years ago. We have extended the history of the island by 193,000 years,” project director Tristan Carter, an anthropologist at Ontario’s McMaster University, told Greek state agency ANA.

“It was believed widely that hominin dispersals were restricted to terrestrial routes until the later Pleistocene”, the study said, namely as recently as 5,000 years ago.

“Recent discoveries are requiring scholars to revisit these hypotheses,” it noted.

SAO PAULO — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro is attacking basic human rights and putting the country’s democracy at risk, Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned on Wednesday in a scathing assessment of the far-right leader.

In a series of criticisms, HRW chief Kenneth Roth accused Bolsonaro of giving a green light to police to use lethal force without proper justification and undermining efforts to fight torture.

Roth also charged Bolsonaro with attacking environmental activists and encouraging illegal logging in the Amazon rainforest, where widespread fires in recent months sparked a global outcry and diplomatic spat over Bolsonaro’s handling of the crisis.

“What we see President Bolsonaro doing is frontally attacking with his rhetoric and his policies the most basic human rights,” Roth told AFP in Sao Paulo.

Roth’s comments come after HRW held a board meeting in Brazil for the first time to “demonstrate our concern” and help Brazilians fighting back against these “anti-rights policies”.

During their visit this week, HRW directors met with Rodrigo Maia, the powerful head of the lower chamber of Congress, and Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo in the capital Brasilia.

But neither Bolsonaro nor senior members of his government accepted HRW’s requests for face-to-face talks, Roth said.

Justice Minister Sergio Moro “only told us that he would meet with us as we were on the plane leaving Brasilia yesterday, so after he knew that we were no longer there”, Roth told reporters.

Bolsonaro’s office did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for a comment.

Rio de Janeiro state Governor Wilson Witzel also declined to meet with HRW.

A supporter of Bolsonaro’s anti-crime rhetoric, Witzel has adopted a hardline security strategy that has fueled a surge in police killings this year.

The tough-talking Bolsonaro frequently lambasts opponents or critics in Brazil and abroad — including political leaders, activists and media outlets — sometimes resorting to vulgar rhetoric to insult them.

Since taking power in January, Bolsonaro has been the target of massive nationwide demonstrations over his policies ranging from education budget cuts to a loosening of gun laws.

His fans have taken to the streets in a show of support, but generally in smaller numbers.

In early September, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet expressed concern over “a narrowing of the democratic space” in Brazil.

Roth warned Brazil’s democracy, though strong, was at stake in a political battle for the country’s “soul”.

“It’s not clear which way the battle is going to go,” he said.

Roth suggested Brazil was on the path to becoming an “elected dictatorship”.

“A president, just because he is elected, is not above the law,” he told reporters.

“Many autocrats around the world try to place themselves above the law, they say ‘I was elected, I don’t need to follow the law, I don’t need to respect human rights’.”

“That’s how you become an autocrat, that’s how authoritarian governments emerge, that’s how you get this kind of elected dictatorship.”

SEOUL — New pictures of Kim Jong-un riding a white horse uthrough a winter landscape to the summit of Mount Paektu, a sacred peak for North Koreans, have fuelled speculation that the young leader may be set for a major policy announcement.

The images released by the official KCNA news agency were accompanied by a gushing text, that noted the “noble glitters” in Kim’s eyes, and labelled his snowy, horseback ride “a great event of weighty importance” for the nation.

Accompanying officials were left convinced that “there will be a great operation to strike the world with wonder again and make a step forward in the Korean revolution”, the agency said.

Analysts said the hike may signal a new policy direction for the nuclear-armed North.

“In the past, Kim has climbed Mount Paektu ahead of major political decisions,” said Shin Beom-chul, an analyst at the Asan Institute of Policy Studies.

Kim hiked to the peak in December 2017 before launching diplomatic overtures that led to his first ever summit with US President Donald Trump.

But negotiations have been gridlocked since a second summit between Kim and Trump collapsed in February and the North has been raising tensions through a series of missile tests.

The sight of North Korean leaders riding white horses across snow-capped peaks — and in particular Mount Paektu — have been a dominant theme of past photos, posters and portraits of Kim’s father Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim Il-sung.

According to B.R. Myers, a professor at Dongseo University in South Korea who specialises in North Korean propaganda, the images present an imperial motif of a leader protecting the cultural and ideological purity of the nation from corrupt, outside forces.

Kim also visited the site of a giant construction project in nearby Samjiyon county, KCNA reported, and blamed US-led international sanctions for his country’s hardships.

“The situation of the country is difficult owing to the ceaseless sanctions and pressure by the hostile forces and there are many hardships and trials facing us,” Kim was quoted as saying.

North Korea is under multiple sets of UN sanctions for its nuclear and missile programmes.

Pyongyang and Washington restarted working-level talks this month in Sweden only for it to quickly break down, with the North blaming the US for not giving up its “old attitude”.

North Korea tested this month what it said was a submarine-launched ballistic missile that marked a “new phase” in its capabilities — the most provocative in a series of weapons tests it carried out since 2018.

ATHENS — Europe must be ready for the possibility of a new refugee influx, Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Wednesday, as an unfolding Turkish offensive in Syria could see more people flee the conflict-ridden region.

"Europe must be prepared for the eventuality of a new migratory and refugee wave coming through Greece," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told AFP in an exclusive interview 100 days after taking office.

With some 70,000 asylum-seekers on its soil, — including nearly 33,000 on islands near Turkey — Greece is concerned that the Turkish offensive against Kurdish-controlled areas will overwhelm already overcrowded camps.

Turkey houses some 3.6 million Syrian refugees, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already threatened to "open the gates" to allow more to leave for Western countries if his plans to resettle them in northern Syria fail.

Mitsotakis, who has already met with Erdogan in New York, rejects this as blackmail.

"The idea that Europe can be blackmailed by a threat of unleashing waves of refugees and migrants within Europe is not acceptable as a proposition," he said.

He added the EU had been "generous" with Ankara, a fact he said was not fully acknowledged by the Turks.

The UN refugee agency this week said Greece in 2019 had received over 46,000 people — more than Spain, Italy, Malta and Cyprus combined.

Though these numbers are a far cry from the near-million that arrived in 2015, Greece is struggling to accommodate the asylum-seekers already on its soil.

"It's clear if you just look at the number that cross the Aegean sea this summer in comparison to last summer, we are facing a problem [of] acute proportion," Mitsotakis said.

Camps at breaking point 

On the islands, many asylum-seekers sleep in tents or makeshifts shacks as the camps have exceeded their capacity many times over.

Aside from hygiene concerns, the migrants and refugees face hours-long queues for food and an even longer wait for their asylum applications to be processed, leading to additional mental strain.

This week, at least three people were hurt in a clash between Syrians and Afghans on the island of Samos. A fire later broke out at the camp, burning dozens of tents.

Mitsotakis, who came to power in July, plans to address the problem by sending 10,000 people back to Turkey and speeding up the asylum process.

"Our number one priority [is to] accelerate the asylum process. When someone is not entitled to asylum, then he or she needs to return to Turkey," the conservative leader says.

But he insists that Greece will need "more European support, the technology to identify the boats even before they leave the Turkish shore, the ability to communicate with the Turkish coast guard so the boats are actually stopped within Turkish territorial waters".

Mitsotakis is also critical of the refusal of several EU states, mainly in eastern Europe, to take in even unaccompanied minors.

"There need to be consequences for those who choose not to participate in this exercise of European solidarity," he says, adding that he planned to raise the issue at the EU council starting on Thursday.

"We have between 3,000 and 4,000 unaccompanied minors in Greece, it wouldn't be very difficult for European countries to divide this number and take some of the burden from Greece in managing this problem."

 'Ready for robust recovery' 

Mitsotakis' other main goal is to restart Greece's flagging economy and renegotiate some of the country's fiscal goals that are dragging down recovery.

He hopes to eventually win agreement to cut the annual target of 3.5 per cent of primary budget surplus which Greece's previous leftist government had pledged to maintain to 2022.

"Greece could be a pleasant surprise within the eurozone. After a decade of crisis, I think we're ready for a robust recovery and I think it's already beginning to happen," the PM said.

Athens is currently borrowing at record-low levels, and the government is aggressively promoting privatisation efforts, such as the development of the former Athens airport as a commercial and tourism hub.

Mitsotakis' reforms include a labour overhaul setting stricter rules for strikes that often hamstring key sectors.

"I don't expect any real reaction, you don't get the sense that this country is on the verge of any social unrest," he says.

"We're in the process of leaving the crisis behind us, this is what I promised this is what I have to deliver."

Paris — France’s Emmanuel Macron will hold talks on Wednesday with Germany’s Angela Merkel for the second time in a week to chart a united front on issues ranging from Brexit to Syria ahead of this week’s EU summit.

Macron goes into the two-day meeting in Brussels starting Thursday still smarting from the rejection of his pick for European commissioner, Sylvie Goulard.

The resounding “No” by European MEPs to Goulard, who has been caught up in an investigation into fake jobs for parliamentary assistants, was seen as a blow to Macron’s drive to boost France’s influence in Brussels.

On Wednesday, the French and German governments will hold a joint ministerial meeting in the southwestern French city of Toulouse to discuss how to move forward with some of the European projects that Macron has championed.

The ministerial council is the first since the two countries signed a treaty in January committing to wide-ranging cooperation on areas such as foreign policy, defence and energy.

In a video podcast, Merkel said she and Macron wanted to arrive in Brussels with “common positions in so far as possible”.

After a dinner with Merkel in Paris on Sunday, Macron warned that Europe could “not afford the luxury of petty quarrels” at what he called a “worrisome” time for the international order.

They will be joined later Wednesday in Toulouse for talks by incoming European Commission chief, Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen.

Battle tank 

Von der Leyen’s visit — also her second to France in under a week — is part of a diplomatic blitz by Macron, who also hosted EU Council president Donald Tusk for talks in Paris on Monday.

The ardently pro-EU Macron is expected to use Wednesday’s ministerial council in Toulouse — home of European planemaker Airbus which he and Merkel will visit — to press Germany on closer defence and industrial ties.

Merkel said the two governments would discuss Franco-German plans to develop a European battle tank and fighter jet.

French presidential sources said Paris and Berlin would also attempt to develop common rules on arms exports, a bone of contention between the two powers, with France failing to follow Germany’s lead last year in halting arms sales to Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

A French presidential advisor defended Franco-German cooperation, saying that while it was “often put to the test”, in the end it “always moves forward on the essential topics”.

Macron and Merkel are also expected to discuss the make-up of the incoming European Commission after the thumbs-down for Goulard, as well as the Hungarian and Romanian candidates.

But a French presidential aide said Tuesday that Macron would not announce a new candidate until he was assured of the support of the main groups in the European Parliament, who voted down Goulard.

Brexit ‘momentum’ 

Turkey’s offensive in northern Syria and the tentative progress made in talks between the EU and Britain on a revised Brexit deal are also expected to loom large over Wednesday’s talks in Toulouse and the EU summit in Brussels.

EU leaders have condemned Turkey’s operation against the Kurdish fighters who toppled Daesh’s so-called caliphate earlier this year, warning that the Sunni extremists could take advantage of the offensive to regroup.

Britain, France and Germany have halted arms sales to Ankara, but EU foreign ministers on Wednesday stopped short of imposing an EU-wide weapons embargo on fellow NATO member Turkey.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told parliament on Tuesday that the decision by the US to withdraw its troops from northern Syria, seen as a green flag for the Turkish invasion, had underscored the need for “European sovereignty” and “European strategic autonomy”.

On Brexit, by contrast, there was an air of cautious optimism in Paris on Tuesday, with a French presidential aide hailing the “positive momentum” in talks on the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU.

The remarks represented a marked departure in tone from Paris, which has said repeatedly in recent weeks that it considers a no-deal Brexit on October 31 the most likely scenario.

LUXEMBOURG — EU leaders at a summit this week will consider bids by Albania and North Macedonia to start accession talks despite opposition from some member states, officials said on Tuesday.

Finnish Foreign Minister Tytti Tuppurainen, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said the issue was being put on the summit agenda after EU ministers failed to come to a decision.

“Unfortunately today [Tuesday], the council [of EU foreign ministers] was not able to reach a unanimous decision,” she said in Luxembourg, ahead of the summit on Thursday and Friday.

She added: “I regret that. However, the discussion was useful to clarify the positions of member states.”

For the talks with Albania and North Macedonia to start, all EU countries have to agree.

French European Affairs Minister Amelie de Montchalin said her country was against opening accession talks for the two Western Balkan countries.

“The [EU] countries have very divergent positions,” she told AFP.

She said that The Netherlands and Denmark also opposed Albania’s bid, and that France did not want to separate Albania’s case from that of North Macedonia — which has broader EU support — as suggested by Finland.

“Nobody said no,” she told reporters on leaving the meeting.

“France says it is not asking for anything new. We’re not saying no. We are just asking that criteria set back in June 2018 be fully applied.”

She highlighted needed reforms that she said Albania and North Macedonia had not yet completely met, such as setting up a special prosecutor’s office in Skopje.

She said a “very, very large majority” of EU countries supported a reform of the accession process.

France’s opposition has drawn anger from other EU countries.

One EU diplomat said France was isolated as the only country refusing to compromise on starting North Macedonia talks now and putting off a decision on Albania until March next year.

There are concerns that if the EU does not swiftly make good on its promise to start the membership process with those two countries, other powers — Russia or China — might swoop in to bring them into their orbit.

Germany’s minister for European affairs, Michael Roth, warned a “possible political vacuum” in the region “will be filled by other powers that certainly have little in common with democracy and the rule of law”.

Critics of EU enlargement, however, say it risks importing problems into the bloc, pointing to the ongoing corruption and justice issues in Romania and Bulgaria, which joined in 2007.

WESTERVILLE, United States — Twelve Democrats square off Tuesday for a historically crowded presidential debate overshadowed by an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, who has dragged chief rival Joe Biden into the Ukraine crisis.

It is an extraordinary moment. Washington's impeachment brawl has dominated US politics for weeks and denied Democratic candidates the attention they crave ahead of what could be a pivotal showdown in the race to see who will face Trump in 2020.

Trump's July 25 phone call to his Ukrainian counterpart seeking help in investigating the Bidens, and the discredited charge by Trump that the former US vice president intervened in Ukraine to protect his son Hunter, has roiled the race and put Biden in the spotlight.

The debate at Ohio's Otterbein University features Biden, who is struggling to maintain front-runner status, rising-star progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren nipping at his heels and liberal Senator Bernie Sanders, eager to move on from a recent mild heart attack that raised questions about his fortitude.

Also on stage are South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg; senators Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar; ex-congressman Beto O'Rourke; entrepreneur Andrew Yang and Obama-era Cabinet member Julian Castro.

Each is seeking a breakout moment so their campaigns can maintain viability.

While debates are expected to help winnow the field ahead of the first votes in the nomination process, the Democrats have actually expanded from the 10 candidates in September's event to 12 Tuesday, the largest debate in modern US political history.

Guns blazing 

Two others who qualified are congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who had threatened a boycott arguing that the Democratic Party was trying to "hijack" the election process, and billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who for two years has sought Trump's impeachment.

The scandal over Trump's communications with Ukraine has engulfed the White House, and will surely colour the debate proceedings.

An embattled Trump has come out with guns blazing against Biden and his son Hunter, repeatedly claiming without merit that they are corrupt.

Biden could flip the attention to his advantage, convincing voters that Trump's quest for dirt shows that he's the Democrat the president fears most.

Biden has begun criticizing Trump more forcefully, tweeting late Monday that "Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in modern American history".

Early Tuesday, Hunter Biden, who once worked for a Ukrainian energy company, broke his silence, telling ABC News in an interview that while he may have exercised poor judgement in his business dealings in Ukraine and China, he broke no laws.

"Did I make a mistake based on some ethical lapse? Absolutely not," Biden, 49, insisted.

Democratic rivals may pounce on Biden to argue that his son’s international work had at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Capitalist, socialist 

The usual debate subjects are likely to be addressed, including health care, climate change, immigration, gun control and the economy.

Current events likely will play a major role in the evening, notably Trump’s controversial withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria, which critics say effectively green-lighted an invasion by neighbouring Turkey.

Warren, meanwhile, takes the stage as the candidate on the rise, having drawn even with Biden in recent weeks. She slipped back this week, however, with new polls showing Biden about 10 points ahead.

The 70-year-old senator’s campaign trail success raises the likelihood that debate rivals will go after her.

Sanders, a self-declared Democratic socialist, publicly distanced himself from his friend and fellow progressive for the first time on Sunday, saying there were “differences” between his outlook and Warren’s.

“Elizabeth I think, as you know, has said that she is a capitalist through her bones. I’m not,” he told ABC’s “This Week”.

Sanders, 78, is grappling with his own setback, a heart attack that put his health and age into question.

It tangentially raises concerns about Biden, who turns 77 next month and has been criticised for lacking vitality in debates.

Ohio voted twice for Barack Obama and then flipped to Trump in 2016. Democrats are targeting to take it back next year.

LUXEMBOURG — A Brexit deal could yet be reached this week, the chief EU negotiator said on Tuesday, but member states warned they will not allow Britain to open a back door to their single market.

British and EU officials are scrambling to draft a deal on Britain's exit terms before the European summit on Thursday, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson seeks to fulfil his vow to take Britain out on October 31.

European diplomats said Britain has already given ground on customs rules for Northern Ireland, but must go further quickly if a deal is to be done this month.

As he arrived in Luxembourg to brief the other 27 EU states on the progress of the closed-door talks, chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier struck a cautiously upbeat note.

"This work has been intense all along the weekend and yesterday because even if the agreement will be difficult — more and more difficult to be frank — it's still possible this week," Barnier told reporters.

"Obviously any agreement must work for everyone — the whole of the United Kingdom and the whole of the European Union. Let me add also that it is high time to turn good intentions into legal text."

A European diplomat told AFP that the "goal" was to get a draft text of a deal ready later in the evening Tuesday, but warned: "Time is running out, but the window for agreement is still narrowly open."

Another diplomat explained that if Britain wants a deal agreed at the summit this week, then a text would need to be ready "today or tomorrow morning" to allow EU and member state parliamentary procedures to be completed.

Glimmer of hope 

British Brexit Minister Stephen Barclay joined Barnier in Luxembourg in what was seen as a positive sign for progress in the talks — which have been shrouded in secrecy since the weekend as the two sides seek to avoid potentially damaging leaks.

"The talks are ongoing. We need to give them space to proceed but detailed conversations are under way and a deal is still very possible," Barclay said as he arrived.

After weeks of gloom and growing fears Britain would crash out of the bloc with no divorce arrangements in place, the last few days have given a glimmer of hope that an agreement can be reached — though there has so far been no decisive breakthrough.

More than three years after Britain's 2016 referendum vote to leave, talks remain stuck on how to avoid customs checks on the border between British-ruled Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland.

The EU has reservations about London's proposed customs arrangements and the role for Northern Ireland's Stormont assembly in giving consent to the plans.

"It's not done yet but we're trying. The British want a deal and they have moved on customs and Stormont," a senior European diplomat told AFP, referring to the role of the Northern Irish provincial assembly.

"We'll have to see if it's enough to be turned into a legal text. We must be cautious."

Talks on Monday went on to 11pm, according to a British spokesman, who said there had been "back and forth and new texts... shared by both sides".

With no majority in parliament, Johnson is reliant on support from other parties, particularly his coalition partner, the small Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

The prime minister held talks with the DUP leadership on Monday in a bid to win them round.

 No NI backdoor

Johnson on Monday repeated that Britain would come out on October 31 and not seek another delay to Brexit, but this hangs on the outcome of the ongoing talks.

If he cannot get reach a deal by Saturday, Johnson will fall foul of a British law demanding he ask the EU to postpone Brexit for a third time rather than risk a potentially disastrous "no deal" departure.

European ministers arriving to hear from Barnier insisted Britain still had to give more ground on its customs plans to protect the integrity of the EU single market from potential smuggling.

"For the Netherlands it is extremely important that there is no unfair competition from outside the EU using the Irish-Northern Irish border," Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said.

"The UK proposal contained some steps forward, but not enough that the internal market will be protected."

Germany's junior Europe Minister Michael Roth echoed this, saying any deal must protect the single market and honour the Good Friday peace agreement that ended decades of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.

While London insists it will brook no more delays to Brexit, Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne suggested late on Monday that talks could continue after this week's EU summit.

"In my opinion, it is virtually impossible for us to reach agreement before the meeting. We need to have more time and negotiate after the meeting," Rinne, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, told reporters in Helsinki, quoted by news agency STT.