World

TOKYO — Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito said on Tuesday he will devote himself "body and soul" to his job as emperor, just days after a law was enacted allowing his father to abdicate, which would be the first abdication by a Japanese emperor in two centuries.

Emperor Akihito, 83, who has had heart surgery and treatment for prostate cancer, said in rare public remarks last year he feared age might make it hard for him to continue to fulfill his duties.

Japan's parliament on Friday enacted a law that will allow Akihito to step down and be succeeded by Naruhito, 57, which news reports say will take place late in 2018 or early in 2019.

Akihito, the first emperor to never have been considered divine, has worked for decades at home and abroad to soothe the wounds of World War II, fought in his father Hirohito's name — work that Naruhito, who said he had been "extremely moved" by his father's desire to step down, said he would continue.

"The emperor has worked for many years, taking each task to heart extremely seriously, serving as a symbol of the people and sincerely seeking out the proper way an emperor should be," Naruhito told a news conference ahead of a visit to Denmark.

Speaking at his palace in the heart of Tokyo, Naruhito added: "I intend to devote myself heart and soul to the duties he passes on to me."

 Naruhito, a student of mediaeval transport who espouses environmental causes and has called for more men to be hands-on fathers, will be the first Japanese emperor to have received a university degree, from Tokyo's Gakushuin University.

He defied palace officials to marry Masako Owada, a Harvard- and Oxford-educated diplomat. Masako, 53, has suffered from depression brought on by the stresses of palace life and demands she bear a royal heir, and her public appearances have been limited in recent years. 

Naruhito said that Masako had also been invited to visit Denmark, but that due to the demands of the trip as well as duties at home, the decision was made that he would go alone.

"Masako is continuing treatment and while taking care of her health is making efforts to carry out as much as possible, but she still has ups and downs in her condition so that what she can do — including foreign trips — cannot be expanded quickly," he said.

"At this point, it's difficult to judge about future foreign travel."

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON — A California-based federal appeals court on Monday dealt President Donald Trump another setback, refusing to revive his travel ban on people entering the United States from six Muslim-majority nations in a dispute headed to the US Supreme Court.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco largely left in place a ruling by a federal judge in Hawaii that blocked the president’s March 6 travel ban order, which Trump said was urgently needed to prevent terrorism in the United States.

A second court, the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals, on May 25 upheld a Maryland judge’s ruling that also blocked parts of the order. 

Even before Monday’s ruling, the case was on the fast-track to the Supreme Court, where the Trump administration on June 1 filed an emergency request seeking to reinstate the executive order. 

Hawaii federal Judge Derrick Watson blocked the executive order barring travellers from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days while the government put in place stricter visa screening. Watson also blocked a directive that suspended entry of refugee applicants for 120 days, as well as other instructions for the government to study tougher vetting procedures.

The 9th Circuit upheld the block on Trump’s travel ban and a cap on refugees. However, the appeals court vacated part of the injunction in order to allow the government to conduct internal reviews on vetting procedures. The court also declined to decide whether the order violated the US Constitution by discriminating against Muslims, ruling instead that it violated immigration law.

Lawyers for Hawaii, which challenged Trump’s ban in court and won a nationwide injunction blocking it, said in court papers filed with the Supreme Court on Monday that his executive order is a “thinly veiled Muslim ban”.

 The March ban was Trump’s second effort to implement travel restrictions through an executive order. The first, issued on January 27, led to chaos and protests at airports and in various cities before it was blocked by the courts. The second order was intended to overcome the legal issues posed by the original ban, but it was blocked by judges before it could go into effect on March 16.

The state of Hawaii filed a court challenge, arguing that its universities and tourism industry had been harmed by the travel ban.

Hawaii’s suit and a similar one filed by individuals in Maryland argued that the order violated federal immigration law and a section of the US Constitution’s First Amendment, which prohibits the government from favouring or disfavoring any particular religion.

In deciding whether to allow the ban to go into effect, the Supreme Court is set to weigh whether Trump’s comments as a presidential candidate can be used as evidence that the executive order was intended to discriminate against Muslims in violation of the US Constitution’s First Amendment ban on the government favouring one religion over another. Monday’s ruling also provides a roadmap for the court to avoid the constitutional issue.

Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”.

 Monday is the deadline for the ban’s challengers to respond to the administration’s request that the order be allowed to go into effect. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents people challenging the ban in a separate Maryland case, filed court papers urging the court not to hear that case, saying that the 90-day ban will become moot on Wednesday, 90 days from when the order was issued.

Hawaii’s court papers mentioned a series of Twitter posts that Trump wrote on June 5, after the administration sought Supreme Court intervention. Trump described the order, which replaced an earlier January 27 order that also was blocked by courts, as a “watered down, politically correct” version of his original plan.

Hawaii’s lawyers said that Trump has made “a series of barely veiled statements linking the orders to his promised Muslim ban”. If he had not done so, the order may not violate the Constitution, the lawyers said.

The administration has said courts should not second guess the president’s assertion that the ban was needed for national security reasons.

The Supreme Court could act on the administration’s request as soon as this week.

PARIS — French voters have put President Emmanuel Macron's party on course for a crushing parliamentary majority, though a record low turnout in the first round of voting raised concerns on Monday over the strength of his future mandate.

Projections showed Macron continuing his centrist revolution, with his Republique en Marche (Republic on the Move, REM) Party and its ally MoDem tipped to win between 400 and 445 seats in the 577-member National Assembly in next Sunday's second round.

Such a share would give Macron — who founded his party just a year ago — one of the biggest parliamentary majorities the modern French state has seen.

"France is back," Prime Minister Edouard Philippe declared triumphantly, calling the result a vote for the president's "confidence, will and daring".

But government spokesman Christophe Castaner admitted the 49 per cent turnout — the lowest for six decades in such a vote — was "a failure of this election" and that Macron's team would need to reach out to those who stayed away.

'Monochrome parliament' 

Former prime minister Alain Juppe of the rightwing Republicans said the mass stayaway by voters was a sign of "deep malaise" in the electorate and that a clean sweep by Macron would be bad for democracy. 

"The stakes of the second round are clear," said the Bordeaux mayor, calling for Republicans voters to turn out in force on Sunday. "Having a monochrome parliament is never good for democratic debate."

 Ifop pollster Frederic Dabi said a virtual monopoly on power would up the ante for Macron. "The French will expect results," he warned.

Only four MPs — two of them from Macron's slate — topped the 50 per cent mark needed for election at the first round.

Official final results showed his year-old REM and allies MoDem winning 32.32 per cent, ahead of the right-wing Republicans and its allies on 21.56 per cent and the far-right National Front (FN) of Marine Le Pen on 13.20 per cent. 

The Socialists and their allies secured just 9.51 per cent while the radical left and communists were on 13.74 per cent.

Macron's camp is expected to significantly boost its score in Sunday's second round with voters fed up with mainstream politics keen to try out his team, half of which is composed of rookie politicians.

They include Marie Sara, a retired bullfighter, who is running neck-and-neck with FN stalwart Gilbert Collard in southern France, and star mathematician Cedric Villani running for office in the southern Paris suburb of Essonne.

The Republicans — who had hoped to rebound from their humiliation in the presidential vote — are shown trailing in second with a predicted 70-130 seats.

The FN, which has long complained that France's winner-takes-all system discriminates against small parties, is meanwhile forecast to garner only between one and 10 seats.

The party's result showed it struggling to rebound from Le Pen's bruising defeat by Macron in May's presidential run-off.

The FN's deputy leader Florian Philippot admitted to "disappointment" and called on FN voters to turn out in force for the second round.

The radical France Insoumise (France Unbowed) of leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon and on-off Communist allies fell short of expectations.

The worst losses, however, were for the Socialists of Macron's deeply unpopular predecessor Francois Hollande, who are predicted to lose around 200 seats — a historic rout that has thrown the party's future into question.

Party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadelis and failed presidential candidate Benoit Hamon both crashed out of the running on Sunday.

'Conquering neophytes' 

France's youngest-ever president at 39 coasted to victory in Sunday's first round on the back of a strong debut.

He has been praised for appointing a balanced Cabinet that straddles the left-right divide and taking a leading role in Europe's fight-back against US President Donald Trump on climate change.

Sunday's results show he will have relatively free rein to push through the ambitious labour, economic and social reforms he promised on the campaign trail.

The former investment banker who had never held elected office before becoming president will also have succeeded in ushering in a younger and more diverse parliament with more women and ethnic minorities.

His party fielded newcomers in around 200 constituencies, some of whom felled long-sitting former ministers at the first round.

"Emmanuel Macron is set to pull off the most spectacular grand slam of the Fifth Republic," wrote Laurent Joffrin of the left-leaning Liberation daily. "His one-year-old movement is ready to flood the parliament with conquering neophytes."

 Faced with a submissive parliament, opponents to Macron's plans to loosen labour laws are set to take to the streets.

A group of trade unions and NGOs have already thrown the gauntlet, calling for demonstrations in several cities on June 19.

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte said on Sunday he did not seek support from Washington to end the siege of a southern Philippines town by Islamist militants, a day after the United States said it was providing assistance at the request of the government.

Duterte told a news conference in Cagayan de Oro City, about 100 km from the besieged town of Marawi, that he had “never approached America” for help.

When asked about US support to fight the pro-Daesh militants in Marawi City on the island of Mindanao, Duterte said he was “not aware of that until they arrived”. 

The cooperation between the longtime allies in the battle is significant because Duterte, who came to power a year ago, has taken a hostile stance towards Washington and has vowed to eject US military trainers and advisers from his country. 

It is unclear whether the pro-American military went over Duterte’s head in seeking US help.  

The Philippines military said on Saturday US forces were providing technical assistance but had no “boots on the ground”, confirming a statement from the US embassy in Manila, which said the support had been requested by the government.

The seizure of Marawi on May 23 by hundreds of local and foreign fighters has alarmed Southeast Asian nations, which fear the ultra-radical group Daesh is trying to establish a stronghold on Mindanao that could threaten their region.

The Pentagon, which has no permanent presence in the Philippines but for years has kept 50 to 100 special forces troops in the south of the country on rotational exercises, confirmed it was helping the Philippine military in Marawi.

It said in a statement on Saturday it was providing Philippine forces with security assistance and training in the areas of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. It said it had an additional 300 to 500 troops in the country to support regular training and activities, without giving further details.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said support included aerial surveillance and targeting, electronic eavesdropping, communications assistance and training. A US P-3 Orion surveillance plane was seen over the town on Friday.

‘Our soldiers are pro-American’

Duterte, who declared martial law on Mindanao — an island the size of South Korea  — after the Islamist fighters overran Marawi, said that under martial law he has authority over the defence department.

He did not say the armed forces had gone over his head but noted that, because of years of training from the United States, “our soldiers are pro-American, that I cannot deny”.

 Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said in a statement US forces were participating directly in combat operations, which is prohibited by Philippines law.

“The fight against terrorism, however, is not only the concern of the Philippines or the United States, but it is a concern of many nations around the world,” he said. “The Philippines is open to assistance from other countries if they offer it.”

As of Saturday the number of security forces killed in the battle for Marawi stood at 58. The death toll for civilians was 20 and more than 100 had been killed overall.

At least 200 militants are holed up in a corner of the town. An estimated 500 to 1,000 civilians are trapped there, some being held as human shields, while others are hiding in their homes with no access to running water, electricity or food.

One of the main Islamist factions dug in around the heart of the city is the Maute group, a relative newcomer amid the throng of insurgents, separatists and bandits on Mindanao.

Maute joined forces with Isnilon Hapilon, who was last year proclaimed by Daesh as its Southeast Asia “emir”. Military officials believe Hapilon is still in the town.

The military has said it is aiming to end the siege by Monday, the Philippines’ independence day. 

WARSAW — Poland is keen to attract visitors seeking medical treatment from the Arab world and is looking forward to increased cooperation with partners in Jordan and the Middle East, according to Polish officials and private sector representatives.

In 2016, Poland attracted 16 million tourists, including hundreds of thousands who visited the central European country for medical treatment at the wide range of medical spas and treatment centres there. 

The country is currently working on a plan to increase the number of those coming for medical treatment, Polish officials at the Polish Tourist Organisation said during a recent visit that included Warsaw, Kraków and other Polish cities.

Over the past 15 years, Poland attracted over 220 million tourists, of whom many came for medical treatments, according to the organisation.

“Poland is home to many medical treatment spas and  health resorts including a famous treatment spa located more than 130 metres underground in a salt mine,” an official at the organisation said during the recent familiarisation trip to Poland.

Recently, Jordan and the Arab world have become markets that Poland aims to attract more visitors from.

“We believe that the potential is huge for attracting individuals from Jordan and the Arab world for medical treatment,” Mariusz Szmit, Member of the Board Sales and Marketing at the Uzdrowisko Konstancin-Zdrój Group, said at a workshop during the visit.

“We are looking forward to building partnerships in this regard and for increased collaboration…At our medical treatment spas and centres that are distributed across Poland, we have high quality equipment and treatment methods,” Szmit said, stressing on the importance of exchanging information and raising awareness in this regard.

Agata Mezynska, chief specialist at the Economic Information Department affiliated to the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency, said Poland has attracted major investments in the field of medical tourism and is “taking pride” in attracting visitors from many countries in Europe.

Poland, the 6th largest country in the EU in terms of economy, population and area, is the largest recipient of EU funds, with around 100 million euros to be received between 2014 and 2020.

“We have attracted several investments in various sectors including medical treatment facilities and centres,” she said, adding that, by the end of 2015, the overall number of foreign direct investments in Poland reached 167 billion euros.

On Jordanian-Polish trade relations, the official said there is a room for increased collaboration.

“One of the sectors that both countries can work on to increase trade exchange is the cosmetics sector, as Jordanian industries are very popular in this regard. 

However, more promotion and engagement in exhibitions and business activities are needed from the Jordanian side,” the Polish official said.

Stressing that cooperation between the chambers of commerce between the two countries is vital to boost ties, Piotr Klodkowski, director of institute of research on civilisation at the University of Information Technology and Management, said the political relations between the two countries are excellent.

“Jordan and Poland enjoy great relations in various fields. I believe there is a potential to do more, especially when it comes to trade exchange,” he said during the visit.

Klodkowski added that cooperation in the field of academy and research exchange is another area where the two countries can boost coordination. 

MARAWI, Philippines — United States special forces are providing support to the Philippine military battling to dislodge extremist militants in a southern city, the US embassy said on Saturday, as 13 Filipino marines were killed in fresh fighting.

Philippine troops are struggling to defeat hundreds of fighters, who rampaged through Marawi on May 23 flying black flags of the Daesh terror group, and have used civilians as human shields, bomb-proof tunnels and anti-tank weapons to fortify their positions.

Friday’s ferocious, street-to-street gunbattles with the militants saw 13 troops killed, in a dramatic surge in the toll from the conflict, Philippine military spokesmen said. 

A 15-year-old boy was also killed by a stray bullet as he took part in Friday prayers at a mosque in Marawi as the skirmishes raged outside, an AFP video journalist said.

It was among the heaviest fighting seen in mainly Muslim Marawi as the air force battered parts of the city with strikes to support ground troops. Some 40 marines were wounded in the gunbattles that lasted 14 hours, according to military spokesman Colonel Edgardo Arevalo.

As the conflict intensified, the US embassy in Manila said American forces were providing assistance to the Filipino troops, although it declined to give details for security reasons.

“At the request of the government of the Philippines, US special operations forces are assisting the [Philippine military] with ongoing operations in Marawi,” the embassy said in a statement.

‘Intense firefights’ 

Marawi-based military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jo-ar Herrera confirmed the US help, adding that the special forces were not fighting, but “providing technical support”.

He told AFP Friday’s deaths amounted to the military’s biggest single-day loss in the campaign.

Herrera also said there are “strong indications” that Omarkhayam and Madie Maute, two leaders of the Marawi attack, were killed in separate operations.

But he added the military is still “validating” the report and there is no way of independently confirming it.

“There were intense firefights, house-to-house gunbattles,” Herrera said at a news conference in Marawi earlier in describing Friday’s gunbattles, adding that the total number of government troops killed in the conflict was 58.

Over 20 civilians have been confirmed killed due to the fighting, according to the government, but the true number is likely to be higher with authorities yet to fully assess the roughly 10 per cent of Marawi still being held by the militants.

Tens of thousands have fled Marawi, which is the Catholic country’s most important Muslim city, as the fighting ripped through residential neighbourhoods, with more than 200,000 displaced people now living in precarious conditions and vulnerable to deadly health risks, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned on Friday.

About 2,000 people are also believed to still be trapped in militant-held areas as insurgents continue to entrench themselves two weeks ito the conflict, which saw them take a Catholic priest hostage, open up two jails and destroy many buildings.

Herrera said security forces were struggling to contain the fighters without causing civilian casualties.

“The local terrorist groups are using the mosque, they are entrenched there. They also used civilians as human shields... we are very precise in our operations to avoid collateral damage.”

 President Rodrigo Duterte has said the militant attack was part of a wider plot by Daesh to establish a base in the southern region of Mindanao, and declared martial law there to quell the threat.

The announcement of US help in the embattled southern region of Mindanao comes after Duterte has sought to reduce the Philippines’ reliance on the United States and build much closer ties with China and Russia.

The US Embassy said Washington would “continue to work with the Philippines to address shared threats to the peace and security of our countries, including on counter-terrorism issues” in its statement on Saturday.

The US on Monday gave the Philippines hundreds of machine guns, pistols and grenade launchers, which a local commander said would be used in the fight against extremist militants.

Philippine military leaders have said their troops unexpectedly interrupted plans by the fighters to take over Marawi in a spectacular event to show that Daesh had arrived in the Philippines and was intent on carving out territory.

They initially estimated there were about 100 gunmen but later said there were as many as 500, supplemented by foreign fighters from Chechnya, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

The gunmen have also had a surprisingly large arsenal of military hardware, including rocket-propelled grenades and a so-far inexhaustible amount of ammunition.

SEOUL — North Korea launched a volley of surface-to-ship cruise missiles off its east coast Thursday, Seoul's defence ministry said, Pyongyang's fifth test in less than a month in defiance of global pressure to rein in its weapons program.

The launches came less than a week after the United Nations expanded sanctions against Kim Jong-un's regime in response to recent ballistic missile tests.

"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles," the defence ministry said, adding the short range missiles flew some 200 kilometres before falling into the Sea of Japan.

Pyongyang has ordered three ballistic missile launches, a surface-to-air missile, and Thursday's cruise missile tests since the South's President Moon Jae-in took power in early May.

Moon advocated reconciliation with Seoul's isolated, unpredictable neighbour but has taken a more stern position in the wake of the missile tests, which pose a policy challenge to the left-leaning leader.

"The only thing North Korea will earn through provocations is international isolation and economic hardship, and it will lose opportunities for development," Moon said at a meeting of the national security council Thursday, according to Blue House spokesman Park Soo-hyun.

Seoul "will not take a single step back or make compromises over the issue of national security or the safety of its people", Moon said, according to his spokesman.

Thursday's launch "was aimed at showing off various missile capabilities and antiship precision strike capability", a spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters, adding it did not appear to have violated UN sanctions.

Cruise missile tests do not contravene UN regulations, Korea Defence Network analyst Lee Il-woo told AFP, adding they were "much slower than ballistic missiles and can be shot down by anti-aircraft guns".

Any North Korean tests using ballistic missile technology are banned by UN resolutions. 

"North Korea is carrying out carefully calibrated provocations... but restraining from ICBM tests or nuclear explosions which could bring about military retaliations by (US President Donald) Trump," he added.

Thursday's launch is also aimed at pressuring Seoul and Washington ahead of a planned summit between Moon and Trump late June, said Hong Hyun-ik, analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank.

"The North is trying to flaunt its presence... and to pressure Moon to offer a big favour in order to ease tension, like the resumption of a joint economic project," Hong said.

The UN Security Council last Friday unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, a move Pyongyang said was "mean".

China, the reclusive regime's sole major ally, has made it clear that a push for talks — and not more sanctions — is its priority.

"Talks deserve another chance and peace is still within our grasp," Beijing Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Thursday.

The new tests came a day after South Korea suspended deployment of a controversial US missile shield — an apparent concession to China, which is strongly opposed to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

'Provocative actions' 

"North Korea has been stepping up missile tests... in order to project an image to the world that international sanctions can never bring it to its knees," Professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP.

"It is also expressing displeasure of the arrival of a US nuclear submarine in South Korea."

The 6,900-tonne USS Cheyenne, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, arrived in the South Korean port of Busan Tuesday, as the US steps up its own muscle-flexing in the region.

The North has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States — something President Trump has vowed "won't happen".

Early last month, the North test-fired what appeared to be its longest-range ballistic missile to date, but analysts doubt that the North has developed an ICBM or a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop a missile.

But most agree that the country has made significant progress under Kim Jong-un, who took power after the death of his father and longtime ruler, Kim Jong-il, in December 2011.

NORWICH/LONDON — British politicians made their final pitches to voters on Wednesday, the eve of an election that will define Britain's approach to leaving the EU but has been overshadowed by two deadly attacks in as many weeks.

Prime Minister Theresa May unexpectedly called the election seven weeks ago, seeking to boost her parliamentary majority ahead of the start of Brexit negotiations and to win more time to deal with the impact of the divorce from the European Union.

But the campaign has seen a series of unexpected twists, including the bloodiest militant attack in Britain since 2005 and the shrinking of May's once-commanding poll lead of more than 20 percentage points over the opposition Labour Party.

The attacks by extremist militants in Manchester and London threw the spotlight onto security. And May was forced to backtrack dramatically on a social care policy pledge, in a move pundits said was unprecedented in British election campaign history.

On the eve of the parliamentary vote, May tried to bring the campaign back to Brexit.

"When it comes to the election tomorrow, I think the choices and the questions that people need to ask are exactly the same today as they were right at the beginning of the campaign," she told a campaign rally in Norwich.

"And the first is a question of who do you trust to actually have the strong and stable leadership that is going to deliver the best deal for Britain in Europe."

 May and her husband Philip started the day with a visit to a London meat market, where they were greeted with jeers of "Vote Labour".

Later in the morning she enjoyed a warmer reception 112km away at a bowls club in Southampton, while Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader, started the day in the Scottish city of Glasgow.

May has repeatedly said only she can deliver the right Brexit deal for Britain and that her opponents would lead its $2.5 trillion economy to ruin in the negotiations with the EU. 

Pollsters expect May to win a majority.

But if she fails to surpass handsomely the 12-seat majority her predecessor David Cameron won in 2015, her electoral gamble will have failed and her authority will be undermined both inside her Conservative Party and at talks with the 27 other EU leaders.

When May stunned political opponents and financial markets by calling the snap election, her poll ratings indicated she could be on course to win a landslide majority on a par with the 1983 majority of 144 won by Margaret Thatcher.

May's poll lead has shrunk over the past three weeks. Latest surveys put her party between 12 and one point ahead. One projection said she would win a majority of 64 seats.

At least five opinion polls are expected before voting begins at 0600 GMT on Thursday.

Britons have until 2100 GMT to vote, and there will be an exit poll as soon as voting ends. The first handful of seat results are expected to be announced by 2300 GMT, with the vast majority of the 650 consituencies due to announce results between 0200 GMT and 0500 GMT on Friday morning.

‘Give hope a chance’

Britain's top-selling newspaper The Sun urged its readers to back the Conservatives, nicknamed the Tories.

"The Tories alone are committed to seeing Brexit through in full," the Sun said in a full-page editorial.

The right-wing Daily Mail said a vote for May was a "vote to save Britain".

But opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran leftist once written off by many as a no-hoper leading his party to its worst election defeat, has run a strong campaign.

The Daily Mirror urged voters to "give hope a chance" and back him in Thursday's vote.

"The choice is quite simple. Five more years of a Tory government, five more years of austerity, five more years of cuts. Or something different," Corbyn told supporters in Colwyn Bay, north Wales, to cheers and applause.

The last week of campaigning has been held in the shadow of an attack by three Islamist militants who on Saturday drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing and slashing dozens of people in bars and restaurants with knives.

British police confirmed the death toll had risen to eight after they found a body in the River Thames. They made another arrest in east London in connection with the attack. 

The suicide bombing at a Manchester concert hall on May 22 killed 22 people. Security has been increased nationwide and the violence has dominated the final weeks of campaigning.

Corbyn has criticised May for a drop in police numbers during her time as interior minister. May hit back with a pledge to crack down on extremism and strengthen police powers.

"If human rights laws get in the way of doing these things, we will change those laws to make sure we can do them," May said in an interview with the Sun.

Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg, former deputy prime minister, called the remarks a "crass last minute attempt to divert attention from the much more difficult questions around our anti-terrorism policy". 

Two of the three London Bridge attackers, who were all shot dead at the scene by police, had been known to authorities beforehand. 

Italy said it had flagged Youssef Zaghba as a potential risk after he moved to England last year, while Khuram Butt was known to British security services.

NEW DELHI — Human traffickers in India are luring village girls into sex slavery with promises of visiting the Taj Mahal, a charity said on Monday, as criminal gangs find new ways to enslave the poor.

Rishi Kant, of anti-trafficking charity Shakti Vahini, said 15 girls and young women were last week rescued from a brothel in the northern city of Agra, home to the 17th century white marble mausoleum which draws millions of tourists annually.

“For many days we were looking for six girls reported missing by their families in West Bengal state and finally managed to trace them to a brothel in Agra’s red light district,” Kant told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“With police, we conducted a raid and found the six girls, and nine others. They had been confined there for two months and forced to have sex with customers. They said they had gone with the trafficker as he promised to take them to see the Taj.”

 Almost 46 million people are enslaved worldwide — trafficked into brothels, forced into manual labour, victims of debt bondage or even born into servitude — according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index.

Forty percent, or more than 18 million, are in India. Many are from poor rural regions and lured with the promise of good jobs or marriage but end up sold into prostitution, domestic work, or industries such as brick kilns or textile units. 

Kant said interviews with the rescued girls suggested that using the Taj Mahal to lure victims was “an emerging trend” employed by traffickers, who are constantly finding new ways to enslave people as public awareness of the crime spreads.

“There are many initiatives in trafficking-prone areas such as public campaigns to inform people about human trafficking and how these traffickers operate,” said Kant. 

“But these criminal gangs are also very clever and using new ways to cheat poor illiterate communities. We need to know about these methods and incorporate them into our public awareness work.”

 The six girls, all aged between 17 and 19 and from villages in the impoverished district of South 24 Parganas on India’s eastern border with Bangladesh, were reported missing in March, said Kant. 

They were initially taken to Delhi where they were kept in a small flat for six days and then transported to Agra in Uttar Pradesh state — 230 km from the capital — where they were sold to a brothel, he added.

One of girls had managed to phone her family and police traced the mobile phone to Agra. They raided the brothel on Thursday and found the girls hidden in a secret bunker under a bed in one of the rooms. Two of the girls are pregnant.

There were also nine other victims in the brothel.

The victims have been reunited with their families, said Kant, adding that the priority was to ensure they were given medical and psychological support.

The brothel owner, a 24-year-old woman, has been arrested. Police are still looking for the traffickers, added Kant.

LONDON — Britain’s election campaign resumed in earnest on Monday with Prime Minister Theresa May’s opinion poll lead narrowing and the focus firmly on her security record after an attack by marauding extremists killed seven people in the heart of London.

In Britain’s third attack in as many months, three men rammed a van into pedestrians on London Bridge on Saturday night before running into the bustling Borough Market area, where they slited throats and stabbed people indiscriminately.

All three attackers were shot dead by police, who made at least a dozen arrests in east London on Sunday and carried out further raids on Monday morning.

The attackers’ identities are known but have not been disclosed, with British media refraining from publishing names at the request of police.

“This was an attack on London and the United Kingdom, but it was also an attack on the free world,” May said. A Canadian and a French national were among those who died, while the 48 injured included people of many nationalities.

The national health authority said 18 people remained in a critical condition.

A parliamentary election takes place on Thursday and May’s spokeswoman said the government was working closely with police on security for the vote.

With the London attack dominating attention, a reduction in the number of police officers in England and Wales by almost 20,000 during May’s six years as interior minister from 2010 to 2016 shot to the top of the election agenda.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, of the opposition Labour Party, was among those who raised the issue.

“It’s just a fact that, over the last seven years, we as a city have lost 600 million pounds from our budgets. We have had to close police stations, sell police buildings, and we’ve lost thousands of police staff,” he said.

May did not answer repeated questions on the cutbacks but said counter-terrorism budgets had been protected and police had the powers they needed.

Her main opponent, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, backed calls for her resignation over the police cuts.

He said many people were “very worried that she was at the Home Office for all this time, presided over these cuts in police numbers, and now is saying that we have a problem”.

May’s Conservative Party’s lead over Labour has narrowed markedly from 20 points or more when she called the election in April to a range between one and 12 points now, although the Conservatives are still widely expected to win a majority.

The pound rose on currency markets, which favour May over Corbyn, after the latest ICM poll, taken between June 2 and June 4 and published on Monday, suggested the Conservatives were ahead by 11 points.

‘Tell them chrissy 

sent you’

After chairing a meeting of the government’s crisis response committee on Monday morning, May said the official threat level remained at “severe”, meaning an attack was highly likely, and additional security measures were in place.

Christine Archibald, a 30-year-old Canadian who had moved to Europe to be with her fiance, was the first of those who died to be named. In a statement, her family said she had worked in a shelter for the homeless.

“Please honour her by making your community a better place. Volunteer your time and labour or donate to a homeless shelter,” they said. “Tell them Chrissy sent you.”

 A vigil to honour the victims was due to take place at 6pm (17:00 GMT) at Potters Fields Park near London City Hall, which stands by the River Thames, a short walk from London Bridge.

The rampage came less than two weeks after a suicide bomber killed 22 children and adults at a pop concert in Manchester. In March, five people died after a man drove a van into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge and stabbed a policeman.

The Daesh militant group, which is losing territory in Syria and Iraq to an offensive backed by a US-led coalition, claimed responsibility for the London Bridge attack, though it is unclear whether the attackers had links to the group.

London police chief Cressida Dick said that, while some of the recent attacks in Britain had international dimensions, they had a largely domestic “centre of gravity”. Both the Westminster and Manchester attackers were British-born.

Khan, the first Muslim to be elected mayor of a major Western European city, was among those who denounced the ideology behind the recent attacks.

“I am angry and furious that these three men are seeking to justify their actions by using the faith that I belong to,” Khan said. “I condemn this terrorist act but also the poisonous ideology these men and others follow.”

 Police numbers

With the issue of security now dominating the election agenda, May responded to the latest violence by saying Britain should be tougher in stamping out extremism.

The police response to the rampage, which saw officers shoot dead the attackers within eight minutes of police receiving the first call, has been widely praised.

But that did not stop the questions to May about police numbers during her time as interior minister. According to official data, officer numbers decreased every year that she was in the post, from 2010 to 2016. The number of authorised firearms officers in England and Wales fell to just under 5,700 in 2016 from nearly 7,000 in 2010.

Asked whether she regretted presiding over the cuts, May did not answer the question, saying London’s Metropolitan Police was well resourced and had powerful counter-terrorism capabilities.

“We have protected counter-terrorism policing budgets, we have also provided funding for an increase in the number of armed police officers,” she said.

May tried to deflect the pressure onto Corbyn, a pacifist who has opposed some security legislation in parliament and expressed reservations in the past about police responding to armed attackers with “shoot-to-kill” tactics.

He sought to end that earlier controversy on Sunday by stating that he backed the “full authority for the police to use whatever force is necessary to protect and save life as they did [at Borough Market], as they did in Westminster in March”.