World

AMARI AIRBASE, Estonia — Two of the US Air Force's newest and most advanced jets landed in the Baltic state of Estonia for the first time on Tuesday, a symbolic gesture meant to reinforce the United States' commitment to the defence of NATO allies that border Russia. 

The visit of the F-35 stealth fighters, which flew from Britain and spent several hours in Estonia, is part of broader US jet pilot training across Europe as the NATO alliance seeks to deter Moscow from any possible incursion in the Baltics.

Russia denies having any such intention.

"This is a very clear message," Estonia's Defence Minister Margus Tsahkna told Reuters. "The United States is taking the show of unity very seriously," he said of the jets that are designed to avoid detection by conventional radar.

The deployment of NATO troops and equipment, as well as strong words of support from senior US officials, have helped to reassure Baltic leaders who had been worried about US President Donald Trump's commitment to defending Europe.

In last year's election campaign, Trump voiced admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and contacts between his aides and Russia before and after the November vote prompted concerns in Europe that Trump would seek a deal with Moscow.

Trump also described NATO as "obsolete", though as president he has expressed support for the alliance.

Earlier this month, the US Air Force said a small number of Lockheed Martin Corp F-35A jets, one of the smaller, lighter variants of the fighters, would come to Europe for several weeks of training with other NATO military aircraft. 

On Tuesday, the jets spent several minutes making low-flying passes over Estonia's Amari air base before landing.

"The significance is the demonstration of how NATO is seeking to evolve and develop its air power capabilities," said Stuart Evans, deputy commander of NATO's Allied Air Command (AIRCOM) at Ramstein Airbase.

F-35s are in use by the US Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, and by six other countries: Australia, Britain, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and Israel. Japan took delivery of its first jet in December.

Estonia and its Baltic neighbours Lithuania and Latvia are former parts of the Soviet Union and today are members of NATO.

They requested greater NATO support following Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014 and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. 

ATHENS — At least 16 people, including two children, drowned after an inflatable boat carrying refugees and migrants sank off Greece's Lesbos island, authorities said on Monday.

They are believed to be the first confirmed deaths in Greek waters this year of migrants or refugees making the short but dangerous crossing from Turkey on overcrowded rubber dinghies. 

Nine bodies were recovered in Greek territory and another seven in Turkish waters, Greek and Turkish coastguard officials said. Two survivors have been rescued. 

The two women, one of whom is pregnant, told the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR that 20 to 25 people were on board when the dinghy capsized around 1900 GMT on Sunday. The women are from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Though fewer than 10 nautical miles separate Lesbos from Turkish shores, hundreds of people have drowned trying to make the crossing since Europe's refugee crisis began in 2015.

In that year, Lesbos was the main gateway into the European Union for nearly a million Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans. But a deal in March 2016 between the EU and Ankara has largely closed that route. Just over 4,800 people have crossed to Greece from Turkey this year, according to UNHCR data. An average of 20 arrive on Greek islands each day. 

"The number of people crossing the Aegean to Greece has dropped drastically over the past year, but this tragic incident shows that the dangers and the risk of losing one's life remains very real," said Philippe Leclerc, UNHCR Greece representative. 

The number of refugees and migrants in Greece has swelled to about 62,000 in the last year, about 13,000 of whom are in camps on five eastern Aegean islands waiting for their asylum applications to be processed.

Violence has broken out in overcrowded camps on several occasions, as have protests against asylum delays. Twelve Syrian Kurds living in Lesbos's Moria camp for months began a hunger strike on Friday, the Athens News Agency reported.

SEOUL — North Korea said on Sunday it was ready to sink a US aircraft carrier to demonstrate its military might, as two Japanese navy ships joined a US carrier group for exercises in the western Pacific.

US President Donald Trump ordered the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group to sail to waters off the Korean Peninsula in response to rising tension over the North's nuclear and missile tests, and its threats to attack the United States and its Asian allies.

The United States has not specified where the carrier strike group is as it approaches the area. US Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday it would arrive "within days" but gave no other details.

North Korea remained defiant. 

"Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with a single strike," the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, said in a commentary.

The paper likened the aircraft carrier to a "gross animal" and said a strike on it would be "an actual example to show our military's force".

The commentary was carried on page three of the newspaper, after a two-page feature about leader Kim Jong-un inspecting a pig farm.

Speaking during a visit to Greece, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said there were already enough shows of force and confrontation at present and appealed for calm.

"We need to issue peaceful and rational sounds," Wang said, according to a statement issued by China's foreign ministry.

Adding to the tensions, North Korea detained a Korean-American man in his fifties on Friday, bringing the total number of US citizens held by Pyongyang to three.

The man, Tony Kim, had been in North Korea for a month teaching accounting at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, the institution's chancellor Chan Mo-park told Reuters. He was arrested at Pyongyang International Airport on his way out of the country.

North Korea will mark the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People's Army on Tuesday. 

It has in the past marked important anniversaries with tests of its weapons.

North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests, two of them last year, and is working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles that can reach the United States.

It has also carried out a series of ballistic missile tests in defiance of United Nations sanctions.

North Korea's growing nuclear and missile threat is perhaps the most serious security challenge confronting Trump.

He has vowed to prevent the North from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile and has said all options are on the table, including a military strike.

Worry in Japan

North Korea says its nuclear programme is for self-defence and has warned the United States of a nuclear attack in response to any aggression. It has also threatened to lay waste to South Korea and Japan.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday North Korea's recent statements were provocative, but had proven to be hollow in the past and should not be trusted.

"We've all come to hear their words repeatedly; their word has not proven honest," Mattis told a news conference in Tel Aviv, before the latest threat to the aircraft carrier.

Japan's show of naval force reflects growing concern that North Korea could strike it with nuclear or chemical warheads.

Some Japanese ruling party lawmakers are urging Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to acquire strike weapons that could hit North Korean missile forces before any imminent attack.

Japan's navy, which is mostly a destroyer fleet, is the second largest in Asia after China's.

The two Japanese warships, the Samidare and Ashigara, left western Japan on Friday to join the Carl Vinson and will "practice a variety of tactics" with the US strike group, the Japan Maritime Self Defence Force said in a statement.

The Japanese force did not specify where the exercises were taking place, but by Sunday the destroyers could have reached an area 2,500km south of Japan, which would be east of the Philippines.

From there, it could take three days to reach waters off the Korean Peninsula. Japan's ships would accompany the Carl Vinson north at least into the East China Sea, a source with knowledge of the plan said.

US and South Korean officials have been saying for weeks that the North could soon stage another nuclear test, something the United States, China and others have warned against.

South Korea has put its forces on heightened alert.

China, North Korea's sole major ally, opposes Pyongyang's weapons programmes and has appealed for calm. The United States has called on China to do more to help defuse the tension.

Last Thursday, Trump praised Chinese efforts to rein in "the menace of North Korea", after North Korean state media warned the United States of a "super-mighty pre-emptive strike".

PARIS — France was on edge Saturday on the eve of its most unpredictable presidential election in decades, which will take place under heightened security after the extremist killing of a policeman. 

The Daesh terror group-claimed slaying of the officer on Paris' Champs Elysees avenue thrust questions of security to the fore of campaigning after nine months of relative calm.

Nearly a quarter of voters are still undecided, and surveys showed until now the French to be more concerned about jobs and the economy than terrorism. But analysts warned Thursday's shooting could change that.

The top two vote getters in Sunday's tight, four-way contest will head to a run-off on May 7. 

Authorities in Paris have offered additional guards for hundreds of polling stations in the capital, which will come on top of an already major security plan across the country. 

"An extra guard or reinforcement of staff will be provided to any polling station that needs it," Paris town hall official Colombe Brossel said. 

On Sunday, around 50,000 police and 7,000 soldiers will be deployed to protect voters around France.

Voters headed to the polls on Saturday in many of France's overseas territories like Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, as well as in the US.

France was still shaken two days after 39-year-old gunman Karim Cheurfi shot dead a police officer and wounded two others before being killed, in an attack that sent tourists on the Champs Elysees rushing for cover.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen moved quickly to present herself as the strongest defender against Islamist radicals in a country under a state of emergency since a string of terror attacks that began in 2015, which have killed more than 230 people.

‘Don’t give in to fear’ 

The 48-year-old leader of the anti-immigration National Front (FN) called for France to “immediately” take back control of its borders from the European Union, and deport all foreigners on a terror watchlist.

“This war against us is ceaseless and merciless,” she said, accusing the Socialist government of a “cowardly” response to the threat.

Centrist Emmanuel Macron and conservative Francois Fillon also hastily convened televised briefings in which they vowed to protect the country.

“Some haven’t taken the full measure of the evil,” 63-year-old Fillon said, promising an “iron-fisted” approach.

Macron, a 39-year-old moderate whom Fillon has portrayed as too inexperienced for the top job, said France was paying for the intelligence jobs cuts made when Fillon was prime minister between 2007 and 2012.

Describing the Champs Elysees shooting as an attack on democracy, he urged voters: “Do not give in to fear.”

Communist-backed firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, 65, was the only one of the four to stick to his schedule. He called for a “Europe of rebels”, during a rally in Paris with Pablo Iglesias, the head of Spain’s far-left Podemos Party.

“Several Europes are possible, it doesn’t have to be just their Europe,” said Melenchon, a eurosceptic who has pledged to renegotiate treaties with the bloc.

‘Exploiting’ attack 

A BVA poll conducted on Thursday and Friday showed Le Pen and Macron tied on 23 per cent, ahead of Melenchon with 19.5 per cent and Fillon on 19 per cent.

Though the race has four main contenders, a total of 11 are in the running, most of whom are polling in single digits. 

Police continued Saturday their probe as a clearer picture has emerged of Cheurfi’s violent past. 

He was arrested in February on suspicion of plotting to kill police officers but released because of a lack of evidence. 

A serial offender, he spent nearly 14 years in prison for a range of crimes including attacks on the police. He had shown “no signs of radicalisation” while in custody, said France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor, Francois Molins.

The shooting came days after two men were arrested in Marseille on suspicion of planning an imminent attack and follows a series of deadly strikes around Europe in the past month, targeting Stockholm, London and the Saint Petersburg metro.

Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve accused Le Pen of attempting to make political hay out of the killing, saying she was “seeking, as she does after every tragedy, to take advantage of it”.

Adelaide Zulfikarpasic of BVA pollsters said: “If it were to benefit someone that would clearly be Marine Le Pen who has dominated this issue throughout the campaign, or Francois Fillon.”

US President Donald Trump tweeted that he thought the attack in Paris “will have a big effect” on the election.

Some voters, though undecided, were unmoved by the latest attack on French soil.

“I don’t like any of them, they’re all disappointing, said 73-year-old Ghislaine Pincont of Lille. “At worst, I’ll cast a blank vote. In any case the attack on the Champs Elysees won’t have any impact on my choice.”

CARACAS — Venezuelans marched in silence on Saturday against President Nicolas Maduro, a test of his government’s tolerance for peaceful protests after three weeks of violent unrest that has left 20 people dead.

Dressed in white, protesters marched to the Catholic Church’s episcopal seats nationwide in a quiet show of condemnation of the leftist leader’s government.

In Caracas, the police and national guard were out in force along major roads and around the headquarters of the conference of bishops.

“I’m sure they’ll meet us with the usual [tear] gas, which is how they preach peace,” said 71-year-old protester Hector Urbina.

The centre-right opposition accuses the government of repressing peaceful protests and sending armed thugs to attack them.

It blames Maduro for the unraveling of oil giant Venezuela’s once-booming economy, which has left the country mired in shortages of food, medicine and basic goods.

Some protesters silently prayed, others carried Christian-themed banners or images.

“I’m not afraid,” said protester Jessica Muchacho, 33.

“We’ve got nothing left to lose. The government’s already taken everything, all possibility of living our lives with dignity.”

 The opposition plans to return to a more confrontational strategy on Monday, when it is calling for Venezuelans to block roads in a bid to grind the country to a halt.

That is the sort of protest that has repeatedly descended into violent unrest all month, as police fire tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to break up demonstrators, who fight back with stones and Molotov cocktails.

The last protests, on Thursday, descended into a night of clashes, riots and looting that left 12 people dead in Caracas. More pockets of violence erupted Friday night.

The two sides blame each other for the unrest.

Vice President Tareck El Aissami accused the opposition of sponsoring a “spiral of terrorism” to trigger a coup.

Senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles fired back that the government’s “savage repression” was causing the violence.

Fourth week on edge 

Maduro, the heir of the leftist “Bolivarian revolution” launched by the late Hugo Chavez in 1999, says the protests against him are part of a US-backed coup plot. 

Pressure on the socialist president has been mounting since 2014, when prices for Venezuela’s crucial oil exports started to plunge.

The crisis escalated on March 30, when the supreme court moved to seize the powers of the legislature, the only lever of state authority not controlled by Maduro and his allies.

The court partly backtracked after an international outcry. But tension only increased when the authorities slapped a political ban on Capriles on April 7.

According to pollster Venebarometro, seven in 10 Venezuelans disapprove of Maduro, whose term does not end until 2019.

The opposition is demanding elections to exit the crisis.

The secretary general of the Organisation of American States, Luis Almagro — one of Maduro’s harshest critics — accused the government of “cowardice”.

“When the political leadership gives the order to open fire on its own people, that’s a very strong signal of cowardice and weakness,” he told AFP.

War of attrition 

Residents described terrifying scenes on Thursday night and early on Friday in the Caracas neighborhoods hit by unrest.

“It was like a war,” said Carlos Yanez, a resident of the southwestern district of El Valle.

“The police were firing tear gas, armed civilians were shooting guns at buildings.”

Eleven people were killed in the neighbourhood, according to officials.

As residents and workers cleaned up the destruction on Friday, groups of people, including children, scavenged for food amid the wreckage.

A man was also shot dead in protests in the eastern neighbourhood of Petare, the local mayor said. Prosecutors said they had opened an investigation.

In recent days, unrest has erupted in the flashpoint western city of San Cristobal and several other cities — most of which were seeing new marches on Saturday.

SEOUL — North Korean state media warned the United States of a “super-mighty preemptive strike” after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States was looking at ways to bring pressure to bear on North Korea over its nuclear programme.

US President Donald Trump has taken a hard line with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who has rebuffed admonitions from sole major ally China and proceeded with nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of UN Security Council sanctions.

The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, did not mince its words.

“In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only US imperialists’ invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the US mainland and reduce them to ashes,” it said.

Reclusive North Korea regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States and has shown no let-up in its belligerence after a failed missile test on Sunday, a day after putting on a huge display of missiles at a parade in Pyongyang.

“We’re reviewing all the status of North Korea, both in terms of state sponsorship of terrorism as well as the other ways in which we can bring pressure on the regime in Pyongyang to reengage with us, but reengage with us on a different footing than past talks have been held,” Tillerson told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.

US Vice President Mike Pence, on a tour of Asian allies, has said repeatedly an “era of strategic patience” with North Korea is over. 

US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said during a visit to London the military option must be part of the pressure brought to bear.

“Allowing this dictator to have that kind of power is not something that civilised nations can allow to happen,” he said in reference to Kim.

Ryan said he was encouraged by the results of efforts to work with China to reduce tension, but that it was unacceptable North Korea might be able to strike allies with nuclear weapons.

North and South Korea are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

‘Max thunder’

South Korea’s acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, at a meeting with top officials on Thursday, repeatedly called for the military and security ministries to maintain vigilance.

The defence ministry said US and South Korean air forces were conducting an annual training exercise, codenamed Max Thunder, until April 28. North Korea routinely labels such exercises preparations for invasion.

“We are conducting a practical and more intensive exercise than ever,” South Korean pilot Colonel Lee Bum-chul told reporters. “Through this exercise, I am sure we can deter war and remove our enemy’s intention to provoke us.”

South Korean presidential candidates clashed on Wednesday night in a debate over the planned deployment in South Korea of a US-supplied Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system, which has angered China. 

Frontrunner Moon Jae-in was criticised for leaving his options open before the May 9 election.

On Monday, Hwang and Pence reaffirmed their plans to go ahead with the THAAD, but the decision will be up to the next South Korean president. For its part, China says the system’s powerful radar is a threat to its security.

The North has said it has developed a missile that can strike the mainland United States, but officials and experts believe it is some time away from mastering the necessary technology, including miniaturising a nuclear warhead.

Russia, US at adds

The United States and Russia clashed at the United Nations on Wednesday over a US-drafted Security Council statement to condemn North Korea’s latest failed ballistic missile test.

Diplomats said China had agreed to the statement. 

Such statements by the 15-member council have to be agreed by consensus.

Previous statements denouncing missile launches “welcomed efforts by council members, as well as other states, to facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue”. The latest draft statement dropped “through dialogue” and Russia requested it be included again.

“When we requested to restore the agreed language that was of political importance and expressed commitment to continue to work on the draft... the US delegation without providing any explanations cancelled the work on the draft,” the Russian UN mission said in a statement.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China believed in the Security Council maintaining unity.

“Speaking with one voice is extremely important to the Security Council appropriately responding to the relevant issue on the peninsula,” he told reporters.

There has been some confusion over the whereabouts of a US aircraft carrier group after Trump said last week he had sent an “armada” as a warning to North Korea, even as the ships were still far from Korean waters.

The US military’s Pacific Command explained that the USS Carl Vinson strike group first had to complete a shorter-than-planned period of training with Australia. It was now heading for the Western Pacific as ordered, it said.

China’s influential Global Times newspaper, which is published by the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official paper, wondered whether the misdirection was deliberate.

“The truth seems to be that the US military and president jointly created fake news and it is without doubt a rare scandal in US history, which will be bound to cripple Trump’s and US dignity,” it said.

PARIS — Centrist Emmanuel Macron clung on to his status as favourite to win France’s presidential election in a four-way race that is too close to call, as the camp of far-right challenger Marine Le Pen ramped up its eurosceptic rhetoric in a row with Brussels.

A closely-watched Cevipof opinion poll published on Wednesday showed frontrunners Macron and Le Pen both losing some momentum ahead of Sunday’s first round, and conservative Francois Fillon and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon still in contention for the second round run-off.

With millions of French voters still undecided or planning to abstain, the vote is the most unpredictable in France in decades and investors are nervous about potential last minute surprises that could trigger market turmoil.

Le Pen and Melenchon, who both pitch themselves as defender of French workers, say they could take France out of the European Union and the euro currency. Banks have requisitioned their staff to be at their desks through the night on Sunday to enable them to respond fast to the outcome.

Le Pen has pressed hard her anti-immigration, anti-globalisation message as she seeks to mobilise voters.

As she prepared for the last big rally of her campaign in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, her camp became embroiled in an angry Twitter exchange with the European Commission.

Reacting to Le Pen’s refusal to appear on France’s TF1 television channel on Tuesday unless the EU’s yellow-starred blue flag was removed, the commission tweeted: “Proud of our flag, a symbol of unity, solidarity and harmony between the people of Europe. Let’s not hide it.”

 Le Pen’s deputy Florian Philippot fired back: “You’ll see, we’ll soon be sticking your oligarchic rag in the cupboard.” 

The election race for a successor to the deeply unpopular Francois Hollande has become increasingly tense as the gap between the leading candidates shrinks.

Security in focus

The Cevipof poll of 11,601 people showed first round support for Le Pen falling 2.5 percentage points since early April to 22.5 per cent and backing for Macron down 2 points to 23 per cent.

Melenchon, a firebrand left-winger who has surged in recent weeks, was on 19 per cent, while Fillon, whose campaign has been hurt by a financial scandal, received 19.5 per cent of support.

Macron would win a head-to-head contest against National Front chief Le Pen, the poll showed. It projected an abstention rate of 28 per cent - near a record level that helped Marine’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, make it to the runoff in 2002.

Another poll, a daily survey by Opinionway, gave similar projections to Cevipof for the top candidates and projected Macron beating Le Pen in the May 7 second round by 65 per cent to 35.

Fillon, 63, an ex-prime minister whose campaign was derailed by an embezzlement inquiry targeting him, his wife and children, got last-minute public endorsements from ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy and ex-prime minister Alain Juppe - two men he beat to win the presidential race ticket of his party, The Republicans.

Fillon, who says he is victim of a “dirty tricks” campaign, said in comments reported by Le Parisien newspaper that he would work to ensure France’s institutions better protected the confidentiality of sensitive information.

For large parts of the campaign, sleaze allegations have overshadowed hot button themes like unemployment and how to revive France’s sluggish economy. 

However, security and tackling the threat posed by Islamists has returned to the fore after the arrest of two men in Marseille on Tuesday suspected of plotting an imminent attack.

The Paris prosecutor said on Tuesday that a video linked to the two Frenchmen and intercepted in early April had featured a machine gun placed on a table as well as a newspaper which had one of the presidential candidates on the front page. 

A source close to the investigation said on Wednesday that the candidate featured on the newspaper cutting was Fillon. 

France’s internal intelligence agency had warned the main candidates of a threat, campaign officials said.

CHENNAI, India — One of the worst droughts in decades across south India is forcing tens of thousands of farmers and labourers to take out loans to survive, pushing them into debt bondage and increasing the risk that they may be exploited for work, activists said.

Villages across southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have been declared drought affected by the government, following the failure of the 2016 monsoon rains.

With soaring temperatures, parched reservoirs and little agriculture-based employment, villagers are being forced to take loans to buy food, water and pay for school and medical fees, activists said, calling it the "point of no return" for farmers.

"The debts are mounting across villages," said Gladston Xavier, professor at Chennai's Loyola College, who is monitoring the impact of the drought in Tamil Nadu.

"People are being pushed into demeaning labour and more routes for trafficking have opened up. The risk has never been so severe or obvious."

 Debt bondage is the most prevalent form of forced labour in India where an estimated 18 million people live in some form of modern slavery, according to the latest Global Slavery Index by Walk Free Foundation.

In India, borrowing from moneylenders and labour agents at high interest rates forces debtors into offering themselves for work in brick kilns, rice mills or farms as security against the loan they have taken or have inherited from a relative. 

They spend months — or more — working to pay it back and are trapped in the cycle of debt bondage, rights activists say.

R. Murali of the rights charity People's Union for Civil Liberties, which is preparing a report on drought in the Delta region of Tamil Nadu, said existing government safety nets, such as guaranteed employment schemes, weren't enough.

"Villagers are being forced to pick up all kinds of loans, knowing very well that it will mean a lifetime of some form of bondage to repay it. Or they are just killing themselves."

Suicides

Hit by consecutive years of drought, unseasonal rains and fluctuating global commodity prices, more than 12,600 farmers and agricultural labourers committed suicide in 2015, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

According to the National Human Rights Commission, over 100 farmers committed suicide in Tamil Nadu in January 2017. 

Most suicides are related to bankruptcy and indebtedness or farming-related issues, said the NCRB.

K. Srinivas, head of drought management in the Indian agriculture ministry said teams had assessed needs in the drought-hit areas and greater assistance would be offered to rural workers.

"Funds are being released and 50 additional days of work under the rural employment guarantee scheme has been approved by the Indian government to provide more livelihood," he said.

But with payments for the livelihood programme being delayed and a cash crunch in the rural economy, many are desperately looking for jobs, campaigners say.

Many from the marginalised Dalit and tribal communities who worked as agricultural labourers are suddenly without work, leaving them to turn to village moneylenders.

"In Nagapattinam district, there are over 300,000 agricultural labourers who have lost an entire year's livelihood," Prema Revathi of non-profit Vanavil Trust told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Across the region, young men and their wives have left their homes in search of employment on construction sites and as day labourers in towns and cities.

"They are travelling very far from home, away from familiar places of work. It puts them at great risk of exploitation," she said.

SEOUL — US Vice President Mike Pence warned North Korea on Monday not to test Donald Trump’s resolve, declaring that “all options are on the table” in curbing its missile and nuclear weapons programmes.

Defying international pressure, the North Sunday test-fired another missile as fears grow that it may be preparing for its sixth atomic weapons test.

“We hope to achieve this objective [the North’s denuclearisation] through peaceful means but all options are on the table,” Pence told a press conference in the South Korean capital after his trip to the tense border with the North.

“Just in the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan.

“North Korea would do well not to test his resolve, or the strength of the armed forces of the United States in this region,” Pence said at the press conference with South Korea’s acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn.

Tensions between Pyongyang and Washington have soared in recent weeks, as a series of North Korean missile tests have prompted ever-more bellicose warnings from Trump’s administration.

The new and inexperienced US president has indicated he would not allow North Korea to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the western United States.

Pence declared that the era of US “strategic patience” in dealing with the North was over, after more than two decades.

North Korea “answered our overtures with wilful deception, broken promises and nuclear and missile tests”, he said.

The US, which stations 28,500 troops in South Korea, would “defeat any attack and we will meet any use of conventional or nuclear weapons with an overwhelming and effective response”.

Pence’s trip earlier Monday to the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas — one of the most heavily fortified frontiers on the planet — underscored Washington’s changing policy towards the isolated state.

The visit came after a huge military parade Saturday during which North Korea showcased apparent intercontinental ballistic missiles, and as a US carrier group converges on the Korean peninsula.

It also came the day after North Korea’s latest launch — which failed when the missile blew up seconds after blast-off.

Speaking at the village of Panmunjom inside the DMZ, Pence said America’s relationship with South Korea was “ironclad and immutable”.

Tensions 

Pyongyang insists it needs a powerful arsenal — including atomic weapons — to protect itself from what it says is the ever-present threat of US invasion.

A top White House foreign policy adviser on Sunday became the latest Trump official to warn that while diplomatic pressure was preferable, US military action is very much on the table.

Pence urged the international community to join US and regional demands for an end to the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

“It is heartening to see China commit to these actions. But the United States is troubled by China’s economic retaliation against South Korea for taking appropriate steps to defend itself,” he said, referring to the US THAAD missile defence system.

The system being installed in South Korea is designed to shoot down missiles from North Korea or elsewhere. But China furiously objects to its deployment, saying it could spy on its own defence installations, and has taken apparent retaliatory action against South Korean firms operating in its country.

Pence said he and Trump “have great confidence that China will properly deal with
 North Korea”.

“But as President Trump made clear just a few short days ago, if China is unable to deal with North Korea, the United States and our allies will.”

 This is Pence’s first visit to South Korea — part of an Asia swing that will also include stops in Japan, Indonesia and Australia — and although it was conceived months ago, could hardly come at a time of higher
tension.

 PARIS — One wants to ban Pokeman Go, another lays claim to knowing France the best of all 11 candidates for president after crisscrossing the country on foot for nine months.

But with the main candidates hogging the limelight in a rollercoaster race full of upsets and scandals, the underdogs are struggling for the voter’s ear.

Thanks to France’s strict electoral rules on equal time, the candidates who are scoring in the low single digits have been enjoying a somewhat higher profile in the final two weeks before voters cast their first ballots on April 23.

Trotskyist Nathalie Arthaud, who says she has no interest in actually becoming president, seizes every chance at the microphone to attack the “power of money” with gusto.

“If I came to power — if my ideas came to power — that would mean there’s been a societal upheaval, it would mean millions of women and men have decided to fight and to take their destiny into their own hands,” Arthaud, 47, said Thursday on TF1 television.

The standard-bearer of the Lutte Ouvriere (Workers’ Struggle), who won 0.56 per cent in the 2012 election, wants to ban layoffs, raise wages and give workers control over companies.

Arthaud, a schoolteacher, has a soulmate in Philippe Poutou, the only other candidate with a “normal” job — in his case as a mechanic at a Ford factory where he is also a union leader.

In an April 4 debate among all 11 candidates, Poutou pleaded for the “millions who suffer in this society and are sick to death of this capitalist steamroller that destroys everything in its path”.

The 50-year-old head of the New Anti-Capitalist Party also took on conservative candidate Francois Fillon and far-right contender Marine Le Pen, both dogged by scandal.

“When we’re called in by the police, there’s no worker’s immunity!” he said in a dig at Le Pen, who may see her immunity lifted at the European Parliament over an expenses investigation. 

Also running “against the political elite that has made a pact with the empire of money” is 75-year-old Jacques Cheminade, even though he attended the training ground for France’s elite, the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA).

Running for a third time after winning 0.25 per cent of the vote in 2012, the retired civil servant who is the oldest candidate in the race has opted for a more down-to-earth approach after being written off as an oddball five years ago for proposing the colonisation of Mars.

One of his pledges this time around is to ban Pokemon Go, saying the virtual treasure hunt is an “expression of the mental state of our society that is both ridiculous and appalling”.

Southwestern twang 

Unlike most of his rivals, one-time shepherd Jean Lassalle is brimming with confidence that he will become France’s next president in May, despite his 1.5 per cent standing in the latest Ipsos poll. 

Critics say “I am incapable of doing anything besides keeping sheep,” Lassalle, an MP since 2002, told France Info radio in his thick southwestern twang.

But “I am the candidate who knows France the best in all its contours,” said the 61-year-old who covered more than 5,000 kilometres during his cross-country trek in 2013.

He also staged a 39-day hunger strike in 2006 over a threat to jobs in his constituency nestled in a valley of the Pyrenees.

On the right side of the aisle are candidates Francois Asselineau and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who both take pains to set themselves apart from Le Pen and Fillon.

Asselineau, 59, is a former tax inspector who bills himself as the “national liberation” candidate, vowing to pull France out of the European Union and the euro, as well as NATO.

‘Vote with their hearts’ 

An ENA graduate like Cheminade, Asselineau advocates leaving the EU immediately — unlike Le Pen who says she will put the proposal to a national referendum within the first six months of her presidency.

Calling for a withdrawal from NATO, he says France has become “a satellite of Washington, which drags us into illegal and neocolonial wars, especially in the Middle East”.

As for 56-year-old Dupont-Aignan, head of Debout la France (France Stand Up), he favours a withdrawal from the eurozone, but said that unlike Le Pen, “I want to change the rules without shattering everything”.

 On Friday, Dupont-Aignan, who won 1.79 per cent of the vote in 2012 and is now polling at around 3.5 per cent, railed against tactical voting in the two-stage election.

“I want the French to free themselves from the tyranny of the system and vote with their hearts,” he said.