World

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar — At least 160 people have died in three months of clashes between the military and ethnic armed groups in Myanmar’s Shan state, a senior army official said Tuesday amid efforts to revive flagging peace talks.

More than 20,000 people have been displaced since fighting between the army and several armed ethnic groups erupted near the border with China in late November.

The unrest has rippled across the northern state of Shan and into neighbouring Kachin, hampering a push by Aung San Suu Kyi’s government to end the country’s decades-long borderland conflicts.

Military offensives that had been rumbling since mid-2016 intensified after several armed groups launched a major attack in November.

The army responded with heavy artillery and air strikes.

Experts say the fighting in the frontier areas is at its most intense since the 1980s.

That has prompted the UN to warn of a humanitarian crisis building in conflict areas, particularly in Kachin where some 100,000 people have been displaced since 2011.

Giving the army’s first comprehensive toll from the Shan clashes, the chief of the general staff said 74 soldiers, 15 police, 13 government militia fighters and 13 civilians have been killed.

“We have 45 dead bodies of enemies and arrested four,” General Mya Tun Oo told reporters in the capital, Naypyidaw, speculating hundreds more rebels may have died in the violence. 

The toll comes as Myanmar’s government prepares for a second round of peace talks, currently slated for March. The negotiations have repeatedly been put back in the past because of political deadlock with armed groups. 

Suu Kyi wants to broaden a ceasefire signed with some of Myanmar’s myriad ethnic insurgent groups in 2015 and known as the NCA.

The most recent negotiations were delayed after the powerful China-backed United Wa State Army (UWSA) militia held its own summit with non-signatories to the deal.

After that meeting attendees signed a statement rejecting the NCA.

Instead they called for an immediate halt to military offensives in ethnic areas and for the UN and China to be involved in the new talks.

They have also backed the UWSA’s calls for Myanmar’s major ethnic groups to be granted more control over their territories and resources. 

“The NCA is not fair,” a spokesman for the powerful Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which attended the talks, told AFP. 

“The army’s vision is not what the ethnic groups want.” 

The KIA is among several groups which are set to hold talks with Suu Kyi this week in the capital to try to break the deadlock over the peace process.

BEIJING — China’s top diplomat will visit the United States this week, as the two sides work to arrange a meeting between their presidents after a rocky start to the relationship under the administration of Donald Trump. 

State Councillor Yang Jiechi was to meet senior American officials on Monday and Tuesday to discuss “bilateral ties and issues of common concern”, the foreign ministry announced late Sunday. 

Relations have been strained by Trump’s criticism of China’s handling of North Korea and its trade policies, as well as his questioning of Washington’s longstanding “One China” policy. 

Yang, who outranks the foreign minister, will be the first senior Chinese official to visit the US since Trump took office.

One of his key duties will be making arrangements for a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Wu Xinbo, director of Fudan University’s Centre of American Studies, told AFP. 

Yang will also seek to connect with Trump’s diplomatic team and meet key figures such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defence James Mattis, he added. 

Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the two sides have been in “close contact and communication” about a possible meeting between the heads of state, but declined to give details of Yang’s schedule or the message he was carrying to Washington.

“He will exchange views on bilateral relations and issues of mutual interest with senior officials from the US,” Geng said.

Rocky start 

Before Xi and Trump can meet, the two countries must address some of the contentious issues thrust into the spotlight since Trump’s election, said Tao Wenzhao, an expert on Sino-US relations at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

They “will carry out a wide-ranging discussion on various global problems and form a consensus”, he told AFP. “On that basis, the two countries’ leaders can meet.”

 But the gap on many issues remains large, from China’s massive trade surplus with the US to friction over its building of military facilities on artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea. 

The relationship got off to a rocky start after Trump accepted a phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, angering China by breaking decades of diplomatic precedent.

He upped the ante by suggesting he might recognise Taiwan’s sovereignty unless China was willing to negotiate more favourable trade terms with the US — a non-starter for Beijing, which sees the self-ruled island as part of its own territory awaiting reunification.

Seeking to minimise the fallout, Tillerson met China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi earlier this month at a G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Germany. The Secretary of State urged Beijing to help rein in North Korea after its series of nuclear and ballistic missile tests. 

Tensions between the two countries have eased somewhat since Trump reaffirmed Washington’s “One China” policy in a conciliatory phone call with Xi earlier this month. 

Since then, Beijing has stepped up its pressure on Pyongyang by announcing a ban on imports of coal from North Korea — previously an economic lifeline for the isolated country. 

On the presidential campaign trail last year, Trump regularly accused China of stealing American jobs and running a massive and unfairly won trade surplus with the US, vowing to reverse it by whatever means necessary.

CASS’ Tao said he was “optimistic” the relationship would soon be back on track.

“Trump is a very smart person,” he said. “He knows that the Sino-US relationship is in America’s national interest.”

KUALA LUMPUR — Kim Jong-nam was dead within 20 minutes of being attacked and would have suffered a “very painful death” as his major organs shut down, Malaysia’s health minister said Sunday. 

The estranged half-brother of the North Korean leader was killed with lethal nerve agent VX, police have revealed, after he was ambushed at a Kuala Lumpur airport on February 13. 

Two women can be seen shoving something into Kim’s face in leaked CCTV footage of the brazen assassination before he sought help.

“He died in the ambulance. He fainted in the clinic,” Health Minister S. Subramaniam told reporters.

“From the time of the onset [of the attack] he died within 15 to 20 minutes.” 

Autopsy results suggested the 45-year-old died from “very serious paralysis” due to a lethal nerve agent, Subramaniam said earlier Sunday.

Police are holding two women suspected of staging the attack as well as a North Korean man. 

They want to speak to seven other North Koreans, including a senior embassy official, but four of the suspects fled Malaysia on the day of the murder.

VX is so deadly it is listed by the UN as a weapon of mass destruction, and overnight, the scene of the killing in the budget terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport was swept by civil defence personnel in hazmat suits, before being declared safe.

“VX only requires 10mg to be absorbed into the system to be lethal,” Subramaniam said. 

“The absorption level was so rapid that within a few minutes, the guy had symptoms.” 

Nerve agents prevent the proper operation of an enzyme that acts as the body’s “off switch” for glands and muscles.

Without that switch, glands and muscles are constantly being stimulated, eventually tire and become unable to sustain breathing.

“The muscle goes into a state of permanent contraction,” Subramaniam said, adding that the dose was “so high” in this case that the heart and lungs would have been rapidly affected. 

Investigation ongoing 

Police had cordoned off parts of the airport after authorities pledged to check all locations the female suspects were known to have visited. 

But the delay puzzled some travellers. 

Student Hariz Syafiq, 21, who was due to take a domestic flight later, told AFP: “Yes, I’m worried a bit. Why didn’t they quarantine the airport?” 

Both women suspected of carrying out the attack insisted they thought they were taking part in a prank video, although Malaysian police have said they knew what they were doing.

One of the two female suspects in custody, 25-year-old Indonesian Siti Aisyah, reportedly told a senior diplomat Saturday she had been paid just 400 ringgit ($90) for her role, adding that she believed she was handling a liquid like “baby oil”.

The other woman, Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, 28, told Hanoi officials she had been tricked into killing Kim and thought she was taking part in a prank for a comedy video.

Indonesia’s deputy ambassador to Malaysia Andreano Erwin, who was granted consular access to Siti Saturday, reportedly said she did not know Huong. 

Police have said one of the women arrested after the attack fell ill in custody, adding that she had been vomiting.

However, Erwin said Siti was physically healthy, while Vietnamese officials said Huong was “in stable health”.

Selangor state police chief Abdul Samah Mat told reporters an investigation was continuing at an apartment complex in Kuala Lumpur in connection with the four North Koreans who fled Malaysia on the day of the killing. 

WORMERVEER, Netherlands — Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte took his bid for a third term to voters Saturday, mingling with shoppers in a small market town ahead of closely-watched March elections.

“The VVD makes the best coffee,” Rutte sang out, as he gathered people around a food truck handing out hot drinks to talk politics and promote his Liberal party’s policies.

After six years in power at the head of two coalition governments, Rutte is fending off a biting challenge from his far-right rival Geert Wilders in the March 15 elections.

His party is running neck-and-neck with Wilders’s Freedom Party (PVV) in the race for control of the 150-seat lower house of parliament.

Amid the rise of populist and far-right parties in Europe, the Dutch polls are being seen as a litmus test ahead of other elections this year, notably in France and Germany.

Dressed casually in jeans and a blue weatherproof jacket against the penetrating cold drizzle, Rutte patiently answered questions from curious shoppers in the tiny central town of Wormerveer and posed for selfies.

Some 28 parties are running in the elections. And amid the country’s fractured political landscape, all eyes are on who will emerge in the pole position to form the next coalition — which analysts predict could include up to five parties.

‘Very unstable times’ 

“We are living in very unstable and insecure times. My main task as prime minister is to keep this country safe and stable,” Rutte told AFP, among a small knot of journalists.

“That means that we have to reorganise the European Union, make NATO work better for all of us, invest in our defence.”

 But amid a polarising debate over immigration, he also argued the country’s 17 million people wanted to see The Netherlands defend its values.

“For example on immigration, for refugees we will always have a warm welcome, but not too many please. We have to keep the numbers limited,” he said.

There would always be a place for those fleeing war “but we have to be very clear about what kind of country we are”.

 Wilders has vowed to close Dutch borders to Muslim refugees, to ban sales of the Koran and to close mosques — a message which has found favour with growing number of voters on the back of Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.

In recent weeks Rutte has toughened his tone on immigrants, urging all citizens to adapt to Dutch values or leave.

The latest aggregate polling survey showed Wilders’ Freedom Party would garner 24 to 28 seats with Rutte’s VVD set to capture between 23 to 27 seats.

LAHORE, Pakistan — At least eight people were killed and 28 injured after a bomb ripped through Pakistan's Lahore Thursday, officials said, the 10th attack in just under a fortnight pointing to a resurgence in extremist violence. 

The blast, the second to hit the provincial capital this month, crumpled cars and sent panic rippling through the city after the wave of attacks across Pakistan killed more than 130 people.

"My God, my God, I saw so many bodies," said Imtiaz Ali, a barber in a Tony & Guy hair salon opposite the blast site in the posh Defence Housing Authority suburb of the city, replete with upscale boutiques and cafes.

The building where the bomb went off was under construction in a market crowded with people, including children, the 34-year-old told AFP.

"When I came out I first just saw smoke and dust... Bikes upturned. Cars destroyed. My own colleague's car windows blown out. My clients' cars blown out. I was close to fainting."

Police and administration officials confirmed it was a bomb attack, as the provincial health minister Khawaja Salman Rafique and rescuers supplied the casualty toll. 

"Four people died on the spot while another four died of their wounds in the hospital," Rafique said.

No group has yet claimed responsibility.

Just over an hour later, rumours of a second blast in another affluent area nearby sent ambulances racing to the scene, though authorities later said the reports were false.

Panic also spread on social media as citizens exchanged messages purporting to be warnings from intelligence agencies, including one that falsely stated a general curfew had been ordered over Lahore with shoot-on-sight orders.

The rumours underscored growing nervousness across the country as a series of assaults shook Pakistanis emboldened by what had been a prolonged lull in violence.

The attacks included a previous bomb in Lahore on February 13 which killed 14 people, and a devastating suicide blast at a Sufi shrine in the Sindh province that left 90 devotees dead.

The incidents, most of which were claimed by the Daesh group or the Pakistani Taliban, have dented optimism after the country appeared to be making strong gains in its decade-and-a-half long war on militancy.

"After some relief over the last year or two, it's turmoil again, it's very troublesome," Asha'ar Rehman, the Lahore editor of leading daily Dawn, told AFP.

'Baiting' militants 

Islamabad launched a crackdown in the wake of the attacks, saying it has killed dozens of "terrorists" in recent days and carried out air strikes on militant hideouts along the Afghan border.

On Wednesday the military announced a nationwide anti-terrorist operation, which defence analyst and retired general Talat Masood told AFP would "target sanctuaries... of militants in the Punjab province and restrict their movements".

Pakistan had vowed to hold the final of its hugely popular Pakistan Super League in Lahore next month despite the surge in violence, promising "head of state level" security for foreign players taking part.

Rehman said such vows may have amounted to "baiting" militants.

"There are so many who feel that it invites the wrath of militants unnecessarily," he said.

The city, Pakistan's second largest metropolis, was also the scene of an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team bus in 2009. Pakistan has not hosted high-level visiting teams since then.

Much of the uptick in security across the country over the past two years has been credited to an earlier military operation targeting militants in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan has accused Afghanistan of harbouring the militants who have carried out the most recent attacks. Kabul and Islamabad routinely accuse one another of giving militants safe haven.

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's military announced the launch of a nationwide anti-terrorist operation on Wednesday, days after a series of bloody extremist assaults killed dozens of people across the country.

"Pakistan army launches 'Operation Radd-ul-Fassad' [elimination of violence] across the country," a military statement said.

The announcement came after army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa chaired a high-level security meeting in the eastern city of Lahore.

Troops and police have been on high alert in Pakistan after last week's wave of attacks — including one in Lahore and another on a Sufi shrine in the Sindh province — killed more than 100 people. 

After the attacks, Islamabad launched a violent crackdown, with Pakistani forces saying they had killed dozens of "terrorists" and carried out strikes on militant hideouts along the border with Afghanistan.

"Pakistan air force, navy, civil armed forces and other security/law enforcing agencies... will continue to actively participate/intimately support efforts to eliminate the menace of terrorism from the country," the statement said.

Thursday's devastating assault on the Sufi shrine was claimed by the Daesh terror group and came after a series of violent attacks, including a Taliban suicide bomb in Lahore on February 13 which killed 13 people and wounded dozens.

The emergence of Daesh and a Taliban resurgence would be a major blow to Pakistan, and the attacks have dented growing optimism over security after a decade-long war on militancy.

Analysts said the military was seeking to limit militants' movements from one place to another by carrying out a nationwide operation.

"This operation will basically target sanctuaries... of militants in the Punjab province and restrict their movements," defence analyst and retired general Talat Masood told AFP.

Prior to last week's attacks, Pakistani forces have been engaged in a series of offensives, mainly in the country's troubled northwestern tribal region, in pursuit of Taliban and Al Qaeda linked militants.

MELBOURNE — A light aircraft smashed into shops and exploded into a “massive fireball” killing all five on board, including four American passengers reportedly golfers on the trip of a lifetime, officials in Australia said Tuesday.

The twin-engined Beechcraft plane veered just after take-off into a shopping centre, that was still closed, next to Essendon Fields airport near Melbourne.

“Five on the aircraft and looks like no one has survived the crash,” said Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Leane.

Premier Daniel Andrews described it as “the worst civil aviation accident that our state has seen for 30 years”.

The private charter from Essendon, north of Melbourne, to King Island, 55 minutes to the south, came down just short of a major motorway packed with the heavy traffic of early morning commuters.

Live television footage showed burned out wreckage, flames and major damage at the shopping centre and adjacent buildings.

A column of thick black smoke rose into the air as witnesses spoke of an explosion.

“The pilot unfortunately attempted to return to Essendon but has crashed into the DFO (Direct Factory Outlet) at Essendon Fields,” Leane told reporters.

The centre was not due to open for another hour and the authorities confirmed no one inside was hurt.

A taxi driver called ABC radio and told of the “massive fireball” and a landing wheel bouncing onto the motorway.

“I saw this plane... when it hit the building there was a massive fireball,” said the man called Jason.

“I could feel the heat through the window of the taxi, and then a wheel -- it looked like a plane wheel -- bounced on the road and hit the front of the taxi as we were driving along.”

 Victoria Police Superintendent Mick Frewen said investigations centred on a “catastrophic engine failure”.

The highly experienced 60-year-old Australian pilot made a May-Day call before crashing.

A shopworker called Ash told Sky News he saw “the fireball go up into the air”, adding it “felt like a bomb had gone off”.

“The fire was just so hot we could not get anywhere near it,” he said. “We could see the wreckage, or what was left of it.”

 The US embassy in Canberra said the four passengers were American citizens. 

“We extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who died in today’s tragic crash,” a spokeswoman said. 

Melbourne’s Herald Sun identified two of the dead as Greg De Haven, 70, a retired FBI agent and lawyer Russell Munsch, both from Texas, who were travelling with two unnamed friends, the daily said.

Plumber Michael Howard, 29, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation he saw a “blue flash”.

“I was... just looking out the window... and then all of a sudden I just saw a blue flash come down and then all of a sudden there was a massive fireball.”

 “It was like something from a movie,” Howard said.

Melbourne fire brigade chief Paul Stacchino tweeted that “more than 60 firefighters have worked hard to bring the fire... under control. Crews to remain on scene for some time”.

Essendon Fields was closed and all traffic diverted to Melbourne’s two larger airports Tullamarine and Avalon.

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Monday his government’s investigation of the killing of the North Korean leader’s half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, will be “objective”, as tension rose between the countries.

Earlier on Monday, Malaysia said it has recalled its envoy from Pyongyang and summoned North Korea’s ambassador in Kuala Lumpur, who again cast doubt on the impartiality of Malaysia’s investigation into the murder and said the victim was not Kim Jong-nam.

“We have no reason why we want to do something to paint North Korea in a bad light, but we will be objective,” Najib told reporters in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

CCTV footage obtained by Reuters appeared to show Kim Jong-nam being attacked at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Monday last week by a woman, who is believed to have wiped a fast-acting poison on his face. 

Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the video, and police officials were not immediately available for comment. 

Kim Jong-nam, 46, who had been living in the Chinese territory of Macau under Beijing’s protection, had spoken out publicly against his family’s dynastic control of isolated, nuclear-armed North Korea.

South Korean legislators last week cited their spy agency as saying the young and unpredictable North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, had issued a “standing order” for his half-brother’s assassination, and that there had been a failed attempt in 2012.

Malaysian police are hunting four North Koreans who fled from the country on the day of the attack, having already detained one North Korean man, a Vietnamese woman, an Indonesian woman, and a Malaysian man.

At least three of the wanted North Koreans caught an Emirates flight to Dubai from Jakarta late on the day of the attack, an immigration official in Indonesia told Reuters. 

Malaysia’s Star newspaper reported that all four had returned to North Korea. 

North Korea had sought to prevent Malaysia from conducting an autopsy, insisting the body be handed over. Its envoy in Kuala Lumpur accused Malaysian authorities of “delaying” the release of the body.

“At the moment we cannot trust the investigation by the Malaysian police,” Ambassador Kang Chol told reporters after talks at the foreign ministry.

He said the embassy had only identified the victim as Kim Chol, based on the passport found on the dead man, and suggested a joint investigation with Malaysian authorities. Kim Jong-nam had been caught using fake travel documents in the past.

Malaysia’s foreign ministry announced the withdrawal “for consultations” of its ambassador in North Korea and said the body would be handed over to the next of kin, although none had come forward. 

Malaysia’s health minister said autopsy results could be released by Wednesday.

Malaysia is one of the few countries that maintains ties with the reclusive state and the dispute could further isolate impoverished North Korea. 

‘Getting bolder’ 

South Korea, acutely sensitive to events in its volatile neighbour, convened a meeting of its National Security Council.

Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn told the meeting that it was nearly certain that North Korea was behind the killing.

“The murder carried out in public at an international airport of a third country is an unforgivable and inhumane criminal act and clearly demonstrates the recklessness and brutality of the North Korean regime that will spare no avenues when it comes to perpetuating itself,” Hwang said.

“The North Korean regime’s terrorism tactics are getting bolder so we must be more vigilant.”

South Korean and US officials had earlier said the killing was probably carried out by North Korean agents. 

The grainy CCTV images showed Kim, wearing a light-coloured jacket and trousers and with a backpack on one shoulder, heading for an automatic check-in counter in the airport departure hall.

A woman approaches Kim from behind on the left and another — identified by Fuji as the Vietnamese woman, wearing a white shirt — walks rapidly up behind him from his right, before what appears to be a scuffle takes place.

In footage taken from another angle, the woman in the white shirt appears to lunge from behind and throw something over his head, locking her arms around him briefly.

As the woman in white quickly walks away, the second woman also moves off rapidly in another direction.

Later footage shows the portly, balding middle-aged man stumbling, wiping his face, and seeking help from people while gesturing to his eyes before being escorted to a clinic.

The mother of the detained Indonesian woman told Reuters that her daughter, Siti Aishah, had been duped into believing she was part of a television show or advertisement.

According to Malaysian media, the Vietnamese suspect, Doan Thi Huong, told police she had been tricked into taking part in what she thought was a practical joke.

There is speculation that China’s patience with North Korea could be tested by the killing because Kim had been living in Macau, where he was headed when he was attacked.

China said on Saturday it had suspended coals imports from the North, a vital source of revenue.

China is seen to be irritated by the North’s repeated aggressive behaviour, including two nuclear tests since early 2016 and a February 12 intermediate-range ballistic missile launch, the latest in a series of missile tests. 

MELBOURNE, United States — President Donald Trump turned back the clock Saturday with a bold and aggressive Florida speech straight out of his 2016 campaign playbook, enthralling fans while insisting all is well in the White House despite weeks of turbulence.

He also took aim at his favourite foil, the "dishonest" news media that he said has become "part of the corrupt system”.

 At the end of a stormy first month in office, the billionaire took the power of the presidency on the road, revisiting the style and substance of the campaign trail.

After stepping down from Air Force One to a deafening cheer, he was drawn into the collective bosom of several thousand of his dearest followers — mostly white, mostly male middle-class Americans who feel they have been left behind by the country's shifting economy.

"I'm here because I want to be among my friends and among the people," he said.

Trump employed a loud and muscular delivery — one which won over millions of voters on the campaign trail last year — to assure Americans he is fulfilling promises to shrink government, rebuild the military, restrict immigration, and tear up healthcare reforms enacted by predecessor Barack Obama.

"This will be change for the ages," the president said at the event in Melbourne, a sun-bleached city on Florida's Space Coast.

But Trump was completing his first month in office under a cloud in Washington, where lawmakers pledged to further investigate his possible pre-election ties to Russia, his national security adviser was forced to resign in disgrace, and a Cabinet nominee withdrew amid controversy.

"The White House is running so smoothly, so smoothly," Trump stressed, before going on an extended rant about the US media.

"I also want to speak to you without the filter of the fake news," Trump said. 

"They've become a big part of the problem. They are part of the corrupt system," he said, continuing the open warfare with the media that has marked his young presidency.

First Lady's prayer 

Aside from the fact that Trump is now leader of the free world, the event was eerily similar in style to his campaign — from the layout, to the recorded music, to the president's largely impromptu delivery.

About the only thing missing was attacks on his 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Trump acknowledged that he is always in campaign mode.

"Life is a campaign," he told reporters on Air Force One ahead of the rally. "To make America great again is absolutely a campaign. It's not easy, especially when we're also fighting the press."

 During his speech, Trump reiterated his pledge to crack down on terrorism, saying he has "ordered decisive action to keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country”.

 And he said his administration would submit "in a couple of weeks" a plan to repeal and replace "the disaster known as Obamacare”.

 Republican leaders in Congress have said they will unveil their health care plans in the coming weeks as well.

Meanwhile, First Lady Melania Trump, who is usually soft-spoken, broke with form by reciting the Lord's Prayer to begin the event, then issuing a scathing rebuke of her husband's enemies and her critics.

"I will always stay true to myself and be truthful to you, no matter what the opposition is saying about me," she said.

At one point, the president broke security protocol by inviting a supporter to hop a barrier and join him onstage.

"Mr President, thank you, sir," said Gene Huber, a car salesman from West Palm Beach who said he arrived at 4 am to be first in line for the event.

"This is a world leader now who's taking control," Huber told AFP earlier. "No jitters at all."

 'Total garbage' 

The commander-in-chief was clearly seeking to reconnect with his tribe in a reassuring environment.

Tensions have soared in recent days as lawmakers pressed for more information about the Trump campaign's connections with Russia. On Thursday, Trump held a news conference that was startling in its vitriol against the media.

He later took to Twitter to call the media the "enemy of the American People”.

 White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus warned the media not to brush off Trump's denunciation.

"I think you should take it seriously," Priebus told CBS in an interview Saturday, which will air in full on Sunday. 

"I think that the problem we've got is that we're talking about bogus stories like the one in The New York Times, that we've had constant contact with Russian officials. The next day, The Wall Street Journal had a story that the intel community was not giving the president a full intelligence briefing. Both stories grossly inaccurate, overstated, overblown, and it's total garbage."

 Robert Sponsler, 64, a retired railroad worker from Jacksonville who was attending the rally, turned his nose up at the stew in the capital.

"We don't care," he said of the various controversies. "He don't owe nobody nothing. I'm with him 100 per cent."

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — Thousands of Mexicans linked arms Friday to form a “human wall” on their country’s border with the United States, protesting President Donald Trump’s plan to build a massive barrier between the countries.

The protest, organised by local authorities and Mexican advocacy groups, brought together people armed with flowers, including politicians, social leaders and crowds of students to the border town Ciudad Juarez — which already is separated by extensive fencing from its American neighbor city El Paso.

Protestors hurled slogans at Trump, whose plans to build the wall to keep undocumented immigrants out of the US — and make Mexico foot the bill — has enraged many people here.

“The wall is one of the worst ideas,” said Carolina Solis, a 31-year-old student. “It won’t stop anything — not drugs or migrants.”

 “It’s just a symbol of Donald Trump’s hatred, the president’s racism.”

 Under the watchful eye of US Border Patrol officers, protestors — among them El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser — formed a human barrier of nearly 1.5 kilometres. 

Many people on both sides of the border cross it daily, calling one country home while going to work in the other.

“Ciudad Juarez and El Paso are one city — we will never be apart,” said Leeser, who was born on the Mexican side of the border. 

His Ciudad Juarez counterpart Mayor Armando Cabada vowed to help resettle migrants deported from the US. 

“Trump only generates fear in our US compatriots. We must show solidarity with them and tell them that they have our support,” he said.

“If they are deported, we will welcome them with open arms.”

 Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested some 680 people across the United States as part of a crackdown by the new administration on the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

Officials insist the raids targeted known criminals, but rights advocates say people with no serious criminal records were also detained.

A similar protest was planned on Mexico’s Pacific coast, at the border between the city of Tijuana and its US neighbour San Diego.