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LA UNION, Colombia/ CHAPECO, Brazil — A charter plane carrying Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense to the biggest game in its history crashed in the Colombian mountains after an electrical fault, killing 75 people on board, authorities said on Tuesday.

Colombia’s worst air disaster in two decades killed all but three players on the up-and-coming team from Brazil’s top soccer league as it flew to face Atletico Nacional of Medellin in the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final, South America’s equivalent of the Europa League.

Global soccer was stunned with tributes pouring in from major figures including Pele, Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney.

The BAe 146 plane, en route from Bolivia where the team had a stopover, went down about 10:15pm on Monday night with 72 passengers and a crew of nine on board.

The aircraft had reported electrical problems and declared an emergency minutes earlier as it neared its destination, Medellin Airport officials said.

At the crash scene near the town of La Union in wooded highlands outside Medellin, dozens of bodies were laid out and covered with sheets around the wreckage.

The plane was shattered against a mountainside with the tail end virtually disintegrated. Rain hampered dozens of rescuers as they combed the muddy and forested area.

Colombia’s civil aviation authority said there were 75 confirmed fatalities. It identified the six survivors as players Alan Ruschel, Jackson Follmann and Hélio Neto; journalist Rafael Valmorbida; Bolivian flight attendant Ximena Suarez; and Bolivian flight technician Erwin Tumiri.

In addition to players, coaches and staff, 21 journalists had been on board the plane to cover the match, Brazilian news organisations said.

Neto and Valmorbida were in “very delicate but stable” condition in intensive care, Dr. Guillermo Molina, head of a clinic treating them, told Reuters. Neto suffered trauma to his head, thorax and lungs, as well as open wounds to his knees.

Ruschel also was in intensive care but in stable condition, Dr Ana Maria Gonzalez, director of another clinic also attending them, told Reuters. The two members of the flight staff were out of danger and under observation, she said.

Follman’s condition was not immediately available.

Landmark game

It was the first time Chapecoense, a small club from the southern Brazilian town of Chapeco, had reached the final of a major South American club competition.

Matches were cancelled around South America and Brazil declared three days of mourning. Atletico Nacional asked for Chapecoense to be awarded the trophy in honour of those who died.

“They were the hope of our city,” said Jean Panegalli, 17, a student in Chapeco, where fans were disconsolate. “They played for love of the shirt and not for money. They played with the commitment that only those who have lived here know.”

 The BAe 146 was produced by a company that is now part of the UK’s BAE Systems.

The team took a regular flight to Santa Cruz in Bolivia and then went from there to Medellin on the plane run by a Bolivian-based company called LAMIA with roots in Venezuela.

By early afternoon, rescuers had recovered 72 bodies, which were to be flown out by helicopter for identification and then repatriation.

“The weather is hampering efforts but we hope conditions will improve during the day,” said local fire official Misael Cadavid. “It’s a very rough topographical area and penetration is not easy.”

 The crash evoked memories of a series of soccer air disasters in the 20th century, including the Munich crash in 1958 that killed 23 people, among them eight Manchester United players, journalists and travelling officials.

World governing body FIFA said on Twitter its “thoughts were with the victims, their families, fans of Chapecoense and media organisations in Brazil on this tragic day”.

 Chapecoense qualified for the biggest game in its history after overcoming the Argentine club San Lorenzo in the semi-final on away goals following a 1-1 draw in Buenos Aires and 0-0 draw at home.

They were underdogs for the match against a club going for a rare double after winning the Copa Libertadores in July.

Chapecoense was the 21st biggest club in Brazil in terms of revenue in 2015, bringing in 46 million reais ($13.5 million), according to a list by Brazilian bank Itau BBA.

The club has built its success on a frugal spending policy that eschewed big-money signings and concentrated on blending young talent and experienced journeymen.

Several hundred dejected fans gathered around the team’s Conda stadium in Chapeco, many of them wearing Chapecoense’s green strip. At least one young fan burst into tears.

“It is still hard to believe what has happened to the Chapecoense team just when it was on the rise,” said Agenor Danieli, 64, a pensioner in the agricultural town of about 200,000 people in Santa Catarina state.

“We are in crisis. The town has come to a stop. Companies are giving people the day off so they can come here to the stadium. We need to pray. It still doesn’t feel real.”

Chapecoense’s best-known player was Cleber Santana, a midfielder whose best years were spent in Spain with Atletico Madrid and Mallorca. Coach Caio Junior also was experienced, having managed at some of Brazil’s biggest clubs, Botafogo, Flamengo and Palmeiras among them.

The crash prompted an outpouring of solidarity and grief on social media from the soccer community, with Brazilian top flight teams Flamengo and Santos tweeting messages of support.

Porto goalkeeper Iker Casillas tweeted: “My condolences for the plane accident that carried @ChapecoenseReal. Tough moment for football. Good luck and stay strong!”

 The South American football federation suspended all games and other activities following the crash.

It was Colombia’s worst air accident since more than 160 people died on an American Airlines plane in 1995 in a mountainous area near Cali.

Bolivian civil aviation authority DGAC said the plane departed Santa Cruz under perfect conditions.

“The crew had their licenses in order, everything was in order for the flight,” DGAC head Cesar Varela told journalists.

He said a team would head to Colombia to help investigate the crash.

LAMIA Bolivia is a private charter company certified by the DGAC for domestic and international flights and in operation for around a year, authorities said.

The nine crew members, including the pilots, were Bolivian.

“The pilots had significant experience because they were pilots from military air transport and they were used to flying this kind of plane,” said DGAC security director Julio Fortun. 

SEOUL — South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday asked parliament to decide how and when she can give up power over an influence-peddling scandal, taking the country’s political crisis deeper into uncharted terrain.

The main opposition Democratic Party rejected Park’s offer, calling it a ploy to escape being impeached, and said it would continue efforts to bring an impeachment motion in parliament, which it has sought to do as soon as Friday.

No South Korean president has failed to complete a single five-year term since the current democratic system was introduced in 1987.

“I will leave to parliament everything about my future including shortening of my term,” Park said in a brief televised speech.

Her dramatic manoeuvre puts the burden of resolving the crisis, involving a close friend accused of meddling in state affairs, on parliament, which has been controlled by a coalition of opposition parties since Park’s conservative Saenuri Party unexpectedly lost its majority in April elections.

The presidential office and Park’s lawyer have denied the accusations against her. She has immunity from prosecution in the case as long as she remains in office.

If Park resigns or an impeachment vote in parliament is upheld by the constitutional court, an election must be held in 60 days to nominate a president to serve a five-year term, with the prime minister leading the country in the interim.

That short-time frame could leave the main political parties looking to buy time in order to coalesce behind presidential candidates, and political analysts said it may take months for parliament to agree on an exit plan for Park.

“I will step down from my position according to the law once a way is formed to pass on the administration in a stable manner that will also minimise political unrest and vacuum after ruling and opposition parties’ discussion,” Park said, her voice firm.

Park Kwang-on, a Democratic Party lawmaker, said it looked like she was trying to stall proceedings.

“She is handing the ball to parliament when she could simply step down,” he told Reuters. “She is asking parliament to pick a date for her to resign, which she knows would lead to a discussion on when to hold the presidential election and delay everything.”

Park, 64, had apologised twice previously but until Tuesday resisted mounting public calls to quit. Her term is scheduled to end in February 2018.

“She doesn’t want the parliament to impeach her and she doesn’t think that the parliament can soon reach an agreement, so she is making things complicated and trying to shift some of her blame to the parliament,” said Shin Yul, a professor of political science at Myongji University.

Rock-bottom 

approval rating

Some lawmakers from Park’s Saenuri Party had asked her to resign under an agreement that would allow her to leave office with some dignity.

On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of South Koreans rallied for the fifth weekend in a row, calling for Park’s resignation. Organisers said the crowd totalled 1.5 million, while the police estimated the crowd at 260,000.

Opposition parties canvassing for support to impeach Park need votes from her own party to secure the two-thirds majority needed to pass such a motion.

A group of several ruling party lawmakers who previously favoured impeachment said after Park’s speech that lawmakers should first try to negotiate terms of her exit before seeking impeachment, Hwang Young-cheul, one of the lawmakers, told Reuters by telephone.

Park’s approval rating fell to just 4 per cent in a weekly survey released on Friday by Gallup Korea, an all-time low for a democratically elected South Korean president.

Park’s friend, Choi Soon-sil, and a former aide have been indicted in the case. Prosecutors named Park as an accomplice in an investigation into whether big business was inappropriately pressured to contribute money to foundations set up to back Park’s initiatives.

Park has acknowledged carelessness in her ties with Choi, who Park has said had helped her through difficult times.

“Not even for a moment did I pursue my own gains and I have lived without one iota of self-interest,” Park said on Tuesday.

The friendship dates to an era when Park served as acting first lady after her mother was killed by an assassin’s bullet intended for her father, then-president Park Chung-hee. Five years later, in 1979, Park’s father was murdered by his disgruntled spy chief.

NEW DELHI — An uneasy calm has fallen over the de facto border between the Indian and Pakistani-controlled portions of Kashmir after months of deadly firing and signs that the two countries were engaged in a brinkmanship not seen for decades.

Though guns have gone silent for the past five days, analysts say the two nuclear-armed neighbours have displayed unprecedented aggression this year without pursuing any real lines of diplomacy. They’ve amped up the artillery they’ve used and targeted infrastructure instead of just military outposts. The corpses of soldiers killed in battle have been found mutilated.

“The level of retaliation was definitely more intense than what India has done in the past,” said defence analyst C. Uday Bhaskar of the New Delhi-based think tank Society for Policy Studies.

“There is a danger of it spiraling out of control,” Bhaskar said. “If both sides decide that neither side will blink, then the collateral damage will only increase.”

 That could also mean recalling diplomats, halting the buses ferrying people back and forth across the border, or stopping all trade. In 2015, bilateral trade amounted to just $2.6 billion — far below the $10.9 billion Indian government economists say is possible under normal relations.

India and Pakistan have long been foes, fighting two of their three wars over their rival claims to the Himalayan region of Kashmir. Countless rounds of peace talks have yielded scant results.

The two sides reached a ceasefire agreement in 2003 which held for the first few years, but has seen frequent violations since then. Meanwhile, India accuses Pakistan of arming and training Kashmiri rebels fighting to oust India from the Muslim-majority region. Pakistan denies the allegation, saying it offers the rebels only moral support, and accuses India of an illegal military occupation of the disputed mountain territory.

Tensions began building this year as Kashmiri civilians on the Indian-controlled side rose up in rebellion, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan. Violent street protests and clashes with Indian forces left 90 civilians dead and thousands injured.

The situation escalated further in September after anti-India rebels launched an attack on an Indian army base in the western Kashmiri town of Uri, killing 19 soldiers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised “a befitting reply to those who dare to attack India”, and India retaliated by sending small groups of military commandos across the border for what it called “surgical strikes” on terror bases. India said a dozen suspected rebels were slain, which Pakistan denied.

Pakistan’s outgoing military chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, promised that “India will be taught a lesson.” The two sides then spent two months firing aggressively at each other. As days turned to weeks, villagers were evacuated from areas near the Line of Control, the de facto border that divides Kashmir into the separate territories administered by India and Pakistan.

Pakistan, along with some residents near the border, accused India of using the Uri attack to ramp up border hostilities in order to distract attention from the public protests within Indian-controlled Kashmir.

As the shelling intensified, schools near the frontier were shut down indefinitely. Farmers abandoned their crops to rot. Pakistani cinemas banned Bollywood films, while Indian filmmakers vowed to never hire Pakistani actors.

Last week, the body of one of three Indian soldiers killed by rebels was found mutilated, a month after another Indian soldier was found beheaded.

Indian military officers, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military rules, acknowledged the tensions have escalated to the highest level since the ceasefire came into effect.

“Our reaction time is swift and severe. It’s no more wait and watch, no more hold your fire to see what the higher bosses have to say,” an army officer in Kashmir said.

Indian officials said Pakistan has violated the ceasefire agreement more than 300 times in the last two months by firing and shelling military positions and villages, killing at least 17 Indian soldiers and 12 civilians in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

Pakistan has countered with its own list of 44 casualties, including 11 civilians that it said were killed when a civilian bus came under fire.

There were anxious moments last week as Pakistan shelled the border district of Gurez, close to a hydropower project that India is building, forcing authorities to suspend work.

There had been signs when Modi took office in 2014 that he might seek to work with Pakistan towards normalising relations. He invited his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, to his inauguration in New Delhi. A year later when returning to India from a trip abroad, Modi dropped in on Sharif at his home in Lahore to give him greetings on his birthday.

The bonhomie was short lived.

An attack on an Indian air force base in January and the assault on the army base in Uri eight months later left the 2003 ceasefire agreement in tatters.

Meanwhile, both countries face domestic pressure to take a harder line. Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, in campaigning for some state elections, has once again whipped up a jingoistic fervour against Pakistan.

In Pakistan, a new army chief was appointed over the weekend. But analysts in both India and Pakistan said they do not expect any major change in Islamabad’s position, as the army chief would not want to be seen as selling out.

PARIS — With the French right settled on its candidate in next year’s presidential election, the left was openly feuding on Monday over whether President Francois Hollande or his prime minister should be its standard-bearer.

Manuel Valls, whose loyalty to Hollande was once a badge of honour, was to lunch with his boss on Monday with rumours swirling that he may use the occasion to tender his resignation and seek the presidency.

The meeting comes the day after Francois Fillon, 62, won a solid victory in Sunday’s rightwing primary on an economically liberal platform, while Hollande has yet to announce whether he will stand for re-election.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen was already on the attack on Sunday, saying: “No candidate has ever gone so far in bowing to the ultra-liberal demands of the European Union.”

 The vice president of her anti-immigrant, anti-EU National Front followed up on Monday by branding Fillon the candidate of “rampant globalisation”.

A Fillon presidency would be a continuation of Hollande’s on both immigration and identity issues, Florian Philippot told French television.

Le Pen, the anti-establishment candidate who is hoping to emulate Donald Trump’s shock victory in the United States, is the “candidate of the nation state and patriotism”, Philippot said.

Meanwhile Hollande and Valls were in open conflict, with the prime minister arguing he would be better placed to keep the Socialists in power.

Party Spokesman Olivier Faure painted the conflict in stark terms, saying that if Valls runs, “we are in a pretty unusual situation, what you could call a collective suicide”.

“The left will be eliminated for a long time,” he warned on French radio.

On Sunday, Valls gave the clearest indication yet that he intends to challenge his boss, telling the Journal du Dimanche: “I’m getting ready.”

 The 54-year-old premier said he would have a better chance given Hollande’s disastrously low approval ratings and the “disarray” on the left.

“In the face of the disarray, the doubt, the disappointment, the idea that the left has no chance, I want to dispel the notion that defeat is inevitable,” he told the weekly.

Valls first broke ranks with Hollande early last month after the publication of an explosive tell-all book in which the president took swipes at judges, the national football team and even his own government’s policies.

In the interview Sunday, Valls blamed the book, titled “A President Shouldn’t Say This”, for the Socialists’ disarray, with polls showing neither he nor Hollande would make it past the first round of the presidential poll on April 23.

‘Bedlam’ 

Fillon is the front-runner, both for the first round and the May 7 run-off, when he is expected to go on to win handily against Le Pen.

But analysts say Fillon may have to tone down some of his more draconian proposals such as eliminating half a million civil service jobs, as well as his staunchly Catholic views on marriage, to appeal to a broader base. 

Fillon has also taken a hard line on questions of identity and Islam that dominated the primary after a string of extremist attacks in France, issues that have bolstered Le Pen.

On the left, two presidential hopefuls have decided to go it alone, snubbing a leftwing primary in January — a contest whose shape will not be known until the Hollande-Valls feud is settled.

They are Hollande’s former economy minister Emmanuel Macron, who has set up his own centrist party, and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon.

Both are riding higher in the polls than Hollande and Valls, neither of whom would garner more than 9 per cent of the vote in the first round of the presidential election, according to the latest voter surveys on Sunday.

Nevertheless, an opinion poll last month showed more than twice as many people would prefer Valls to be the Socialist candidate over Hollande.

“It’s bedlam for the forsaken [Socialists],” wrote Michel Urvoy in the regional daily Ouest France.

“Manuel Valls, pushed on by his friends and irritated, worried by Francois Hollande’s paralysis, threatens to run. Time is of the essence for the splintered left.”

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — For months Donald Trump called the presidential election “rigged”. The president-elect has a different word — “scam” — for the recount effort aimed at revisiting the vote in three pivotal battleground states.

“The people have spoken and the election is over,” Trump declared on Saturday in his first comments about the growing effort to force recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He added, “We must accept this result and then look to the future.”

 Green Party nominee Jill Stein’s fight for a recount got a major boost on Friday when Wisconsin officials announced they were moving forward with the first presidential recount in state history.

The incoming president had been paying little if any attention to Stein’s recount push, but Democratic rival Hillary Clinton forced his hand on Saturday by formally joining the effort. Stein, who drew 1 per cent of the vote nationally, is raising millions of dollars to fund the recounts.

“Because we had not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology, we had not planned to exercise this option ourselves,” Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias wrote on Saturday in a blog post. “But now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides.”

 Elias said Clinton would take the same approach in Pennsylvania and Michigan if Stein were to follow through with recount requests those states, even though that was highly unlikely to change the election outcome.

Clinton leads the national popular vote by close to 2 million votes, but Trump won 290 electoral votes to Clinton’s 232, with Michigan still too close to call. It takes 270 to win the presidency.

Trump, who repeatedly challenged the integrity of the US election system before his win, called the recount push “a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded”.

 “The results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what Jill Stein is doing,” he said in the statement, which didn’t mention Clinton’s involvement.

Trump was expected to return to New York on Sunday after spending the Thanksgiving holiday weekend at his West Palm beach estate. His transition team said the president-elect had scheduled a series of Monday meetings with prospective administration hires.

Trump offered a one-line tweet on Saturday morning in reaction to the death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro — “Fidel Castro is dead!” — before issuing a more detailed statement.

“While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve,” Trump said.

Trump’s Cuba policy was inconsistent during the campaign. He first suggested he supported President Barack Obama’s orders loosening the US trade embargo on the island. He reversed himself less than a month before the election, however, vowing to overturn Obama’s order unless Cuba meets demands including “religious and political freedom for the Cuban people and the freeing of political prisoners”.

BEIJING — In the shadow of east Beijing’s soaring glass skyscrapers, elderly retirees still speak nostalgically about their Cuban brothers-in-arm, faraway comrades bound by communist solidarity.

But in central Beijing’s halls of power, Cuba is perhaps seen these days as something less romantic: a market for China’s booming private-sector exports.

Viewed from the world’s largest communist country, Fidel Castro’s death is a reminder of how the communist axis has changed beyond recognition since the ideologically charged era when the bearded revolutionary cut a dashing figure on the world stage alongside leaders like Mao Zedong.

After establishing diplomatic relations in 1960, the countries’ fortunes diverged over the ensuing decades: China began adopting free-market reforms in the 1980s and morphed into an economic powerhouse — communist mostly in name — while Castro persisted with Marxism, Cuba’s economy hobbling on.

Today, the two countries’ leaders frequently nod to their shared ideological history, but bilateral relations revolve more around jointly developed beach resorts or Chinese telecoms investments. In a September visit, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang offered to support Cuba’s development as a “comrade and brother”, while Castro congratulated China on the growth it has achieved and sought assistance in agricultural technology.

At around $2.2 billion a year, trade between the two countries is dwarfed by China’s commerce with the rest of Latin America, which totals $236 billion, according to Chinese state media. But China is Cuba’s top creditor and second-largest trading partner after Venezuela, and ties have deepened swiftly. In December, Air China launched a direct flight from Beijing to Havana largely to serve burgeoning Chinese tourists looking to spend holidays in the island nation.

“After China deepened reform and opened up in early 1990s, the development of bilateral ties between China and Cuba did not focus too much on ideology,” said Zhu Feng, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Nanjing University. “Economic development and cooperation, which were beneficial to economic and social development in both countries, became more important.”

 Geopolitical tectonics have realigned in other ways since Castro’s prime. Cuba restored diplomatic relations with the United States last year after a half-century freeze, a rapprochement that China viewed warily. Meanwhile, Washington lifted an arms embargo against Vietnam, another erstwhile communist enemy, and has backed Hanoi in maritime disputes against neighbouring China.

North Korea remains a communist holdout, but the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has increasingly exasperated China, which is collaborating with the United States to try to halt its erstwhile ally’s nuclear programme.

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said the 90-year-old Castro’s death had been anticipated and there will be no material change in China-Cuba relations, given that he relinquished power to his brother Raul years ago.

Still, Castro’s passing was being mourned with a deep and genuine sense of nostalgia in China, even if he feels like an icon from a bygone era.

Following news of his death, Chinese state television rolled out hours of historical footage on Saturday. Voiceovers highlighted Castro’s cigar-chomping charisma, ideological conviction and seeming “invincibility” while denouncing US diplomatic and intelligence activities against the Cuban leader.

From Jiang Zemin to current President Xi Jinping, who frequently grasps for Marxist-Leninist symbolism and language, generations of Chinese leaders have displayed an affinity for the distant ally at a personal level. Xi made a visit to Cuba in 2014 and, as he told an audience last year, sipped a mojito at Ernest Hemingway’s favoured bar.

Castro, likewise, was always greeted warmly in Beijing, and many older Chinese remember the 1995 visit when, decked in his tell-tale green fatigues, he stepped up to Mao’s memorial in Tiananmen Square and snapped a military salute. Even in his later years, Castro would often meet Chinese leaders with a bear hug, eliciting surprise and delight from his hosts.

In the alleyways near Beijing’s glittering World Trade Centre complex, elderly residents on Saturday pondered the legacy of a man who loomed large in their youths.

“He was a good person,” said a 78-year-old retired railway worker surnamed Zhang. “Cuba is our friend. I still remember joining the anti-US parade to support Cuba in my 20s. The sugar we had was from Cuba.”

 Liang Yongxing, 60-year-old retired civil servant, said he was astonished by news of Castro’s passing, calling it a momentous occasion for the international order.

“Aside from North Korea, I think he was the last person who clung to pure socialism,” he said.

HAVANA — Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has died aged 90, prompting mixed grief and joy on Saturday along with international tributes for the man whose iron-fisted rule defied the United States for half a century.

One of the world’s longest-serving rulers and among modern history’s most striking personalities, Castro survived 11 US administrations and hundreds of assassination attempts.

Fidel Castro crushed opposition at home from the moment he took power in 1959 to lead the Caribbean island through the Cold War. He stepped aside only in 2006 after intestinal surgery.

For defenders of the revolution, Castro was a hero who protected ordinary people against capitalist domination.

To opponents, including thousands of Cuban exiles living in the United States, he was a cruel communist tyrant.

Castro eventually lived to see the restoration of diplomatic ties with Washington last year.

National mourning 

President Raul Castro, who took power after his elder brother Fidel was hospitalised in 2006, announced the news on national television just after midnight on Friday (0500 GMT Saturday).

“The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this evening,” Raul Castro said in a solemn voice.

He gave no details of the cause of death. He said his brother would be cremated early Saturday.

The government decreed nine days of mourning.

From November 26 to December 4, “public activities and shows will cease, the national flag will fly at half-mast on public buildings and military installations”, said a statement from the state executive.

Castro’s ashes will be buried in the southeastern city of Santiago on December 4 after a four-day procession through the country, it added.

‘Symbol of an era’

Castro’s death drew strong reactions from world leaders.

“The name of this distinguished statesman is rightly considered the symbol of an era in modern world history,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telegram to Raul Castro.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said the late leader left a “deep mark in the history of mankind”.

 “Comrade Castro will live forever,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping in a message read on television. Castro was “a great man of our time... History and people will remember him”.

 French President Francois Hollande said Castro “represented, for Cubans, pride in rejecting external domination”.

 Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Cuba’s main ally in the region, said on Twitter: “It is up to us to continue his legacy and carry his flag of independence.”

 Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona hailed Fidel Castro as “a second father”.

Trump 

The White House said it extended a “hand of friendship” to the Cuban people.

But US President-elect Donald Trump wrote in a statment that the world was marking “the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades”.

Cuba’s warming ties with the United States risk taking a hit under Trump.

He threatened before winning the election to reverse the two countries’ historic 2014 rapprochement if Cuba didn’t budge on the sensitive issue of human rights and free political prisoners.

Cuba says it refuses to be dictated to by foreign powers.

Joy in Miami, 

grief in Havana 

In the streets of Miami, home to the bulk of the Cuban-American community, euphoric crowds waved flags and danced, banging on pots and drums and honking their car horns.

“It’s sad that one finds joy in the death of a person — but that person should never have been born,” said Pablo Arencibia, 67, a teacher who fled Cuba 20 years ago.

“Satan is now the one who has to worry,” he added, because “Fidel is heading there and is going to try to get his job.”

 Castro was loathed by many for stifling dissent, but loved by others for providing free universal healthcare and education.

“Losing Fidel is like losing a father — the guide, the beacon of this revolution,” said Michel Rodriguez, a 42-year-old baker in Havana.

‘Socialism or death’ 

Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 as a black-bearded, cigar-chomping 32-year-old, in a revolution against former dictator Fulgencio Batista.

“When this war is over, a much longer greater war will begin: the war that I am going to wage against them,” the United States, he had said in 1958.

“That will be my true destiny.”

Living by the slogan “socialism or death”, Castro kept the faith to the end, even as the Cold War came and went.

He endured more than 600 assassination attempts, according to his aides, and the disastrous US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion attempt in 1961.

“If I am considered a myth, the United States deserves the credit,” he said in 1988.

Castro was at the centre of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, as the world stood on the brink of nuclear war.

Revolution 

Born August 13, 1926 to a prosperous Spanish immigrant landowner and a Cuban mother of humble background, Castro was said to be a quick learner and a keen baseball player.

His formed a guerrilla opposition to the US-backed government of Batista, who had seized power in a 1952 coup.

After a failed uprising in 1953, Castro was put on trial. In a self-defence speech he said defiantly: “History will absolve me.”

 After two years of prison Castro went into exile in Mexico and organised followers for their ultimately triumphant uprising.

On December 2, 1956 the rebels sailed to southeastern Cuba on the yacht Granma. Twenty-five months later, they ousted Batista and Castro was named prime minister.

He threw Cuba’s lot in with the Soviet Union, which bankrolled his regime until 1989, when the Eastern Bloc’s collapse sent Cuba’s economy plunging.

Ceded power 

Fidel ceded power to his younger brother Raul, now 85, in July 2006. The revolutionary icon underwent intestinal surgery and largely disappeared from public view.

Castro married three times and is known to have fathered eight children.

He was last seen in public on his 90th birthday on August 13.

SEOUL — Up to 1.3 million protesters braved sleet and freezing temperatures in Seoul on Saturday to demand President Park Geun-hye resign over a corruption scandal or face impeachment, organisers said. 

Participants raised candles, sung and danced while chanting "Arrest Park Geun-hye" and "Throw Park into jail", with cries from the main rally site reportedly reaching the presidential Blue House some 1.5 kilometres away.

The figure offered by organisers would make this the largest of a series of huge weekly protests that began a month ago in the South Korean capital, after an influence-peddling scandal engulfed the president.

Police put the turnout at 260,000.

At 8pm demonstrators put out their candles, only to relight them a minute later as a warning that their protests would not burn out until Park left office.

"I don't think Park would step down voluntarily, but we need to raise our voice as much as possible to encourage parliament to push through with its move to impeach her," Lee Seung-cheol, a 23-year-old student, told AFP.

The largely peaceful rallies — which have been attended by parents and their children, university students and Buddhist monks — are among the biggest seen in South Korea since the pro-democracy protests of the 1980s. 

Park has issued public apologies over the scandal involving her long-time confidante Choi Soon-sil, who has been arrested for fraud and abuse of power, but has defied repeated calls to resign.

Choi is also accused of interfering in government affairs, despite holding no official position.

The 60-year-old allegedly leveraged her relationship with Park to coerce donations from conglomerates, including SK, Lotte and Samsung, to non-profit foundations which she set up and used for personal gain.

Park has promised to submit herself to an expanding probe by prosecutors, as well as a separate investigation by an independent special prosecutor to be appointed by parliament.

Nevertheless her approval ratings have plunged to a record low for a sitting president as top advisers and some of South Korea's most powerful companies are caught up in the ever-widening scandal.

The headquarters of SK, Lotte and Samsung were raided by state prosecutors this week along with the offices of the finance ministry and state pension fund. 

A parliamentary vote to impeach Park could take place as early as next week as a growing number of ruling party politicians back the opposition-led campaign to oust the president. 

 People power 

A poll this week indicates that nine out of 10 South Koreans want Park kicked out of office.

"I came here because I wanted to show my children that it's the people who own this country, not those in power," Shim Kyu-il, a 47-year-old company employee, told AFP.

There was a festive mood among protesters, with many wearing raincoats and clutching umbrellas to protect themselves from the cold and wet weather.

Top singers joined the protest, turning the event into something like a giant rock concert interspersed with chanted slogans and mass dances. 

Food, placards and leaflets were handed out, while street vendors sold candles and chairs. 

Buddhist monks wearing grey robes recited a sutra while other protesters simulated Park, Choi and Samsung scion Lee Jae-yong being led into prison. 

Trucks carried loudspeakers blaring "Park get out now".

Yang Duk-joon, 53, said he and other farmers had taken a bus from the southern provincial city of Muan to join the protest. 

"We're here to oust Park who ruined this country," he said, adding the rice price had fallen 40 per cent this year compared with a year earlier. 

If parliament passes the impeachment motion, Park would be suspended from official duties and replaced by the prime minister. The Constitutional Court would need to approve the impeachment.

"Even though the Constitutional Court is deemed conservative, they would be unable to defy the people's wish to oust Park," Kang Won-taek, a political science professor of the Seoul National University, told AFP.

TEKNAF, Bangladesh — Horrifying stories of gang rape, torture and murder are emerging from among the thousands of desperate Rohingya migrants who have pushed into Bangladesh in the past few days to escape unfolding chaos in Myanmar.

Up to 30,000 of the impoverished ethnic group have fled their homes, the United Nations says, after troops poured into the narrow strip where they live earlier this month.

Bangladesh has resisted urgent international appeals to open its border to avert a humanitarian crisis, instead telling Myanmar it must do more to prevent the stateless Muslim minority from entering.

The scale of human suffering was becoming clear on Thursday, as desperate people like Mohammad Ayaz told how troops attacked his village and killed his pregnant wife.

Cradling his two-year-old son, he said military men killed at least 300 men in the village market and gang-raped dozens of women before setting fire to around 300 houses, Muslim-owned shops and the mosque where he served as imam.

“They shot dead my wife, Jannatun Naim. She was 25 and seven months pregnant. I took refuge at a canal with my two-year-old son, who was hit by a rifle butt,” Ayaz told AFP, pointing to a cut on the boy’s forehead. 

Ayaz sold his watch and shoes to pay for the journey and has taken shelter along with at least 200 of his neighbours at a camp for unregistered Rohingya refugees.

‘Deep concern’ 

Many of those seeking shelter in Bangladesh say they have walked for days and used rickety boats to cross into the neighbouring country, where hundreds of thousands of registered Rohingya refugees have been living for decades.

The Rohingya are loathed by many in majority Buddhist Myanmar who see them as illegal immigrants and call them “Bengali”, even though many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Most live in impoverished western Rakhine state, but are denied citizenship and smothered by restrictions on movement and work.

As the crisis deepened, Bangladesh said late Wednesday it had summoned the Myanmar ambassador to express “deep concern”.

“Despite our border guards’ sincere effort to prevent the influx, thousands of distressed Myanmar citizens including women, children and elderly people continue to cross [the] border into Bangladesh,” it said. 

“Thousands more have been reported to be gathering at the border crossing.”

Torture and rape 

Since the latest violence flared up, Bangladesh’s secular government has been under intense pressure to open its border to prevent a humanitarian disaster.

Instead, Bangladesh border guards have intensified patrols and coast guards have deployed extra ships. Officials say they have stopped around a thousand Rohingya at the border since Monday.

Farmer Deen Mohammad was among the thousands who evaded the patrols, sneaking into the Bangladeshi border town of Teknaf four days ago with his wife, two of their children and three other families. 

“They [Myanmar’s military] took my two boys, aged nine and 12 when they entered my village. I don’t know what happened to them,” Mohammad, 50, told AFP.

“They took women in rooms and then locked them from inside. Up to 50 women and girls of our village were tortured and raped.”

Mohammad said houses in his village were burned, echoing similar testimony from other recent arrivals.

Human Rights Watch said on Monday it had identified more than 1,000 houses in Rohingya villages that had been razed in northwestern Myanmar using satellite images.

The Myanmar military has denied burning villages and even blamed the Rohingya themselves.

Jannat Ara said she fled with neighbours after her father was arrested and her 17-year-old sister disappeared, she believes raped and killed by the army.

“We heard that they tortured her to death. I don’t know what happened to my mother,” said Ara, who entered Bangladesh on Tuesday. 

Rohingya community leaders said hundreds of families had taken shelter in camps in the Bangladeshi border towns of Teknaf and Ukhia, many hiding for fear they would be sent them back to Myanmar.

Police on Wednesday detained 70 Rohingya, including women and children, who they say they will send back across the border.

“They handcuffed even young girls and children and then took them away with a view to pushing them back to Myanmar,” said one community leader who asked not to be named, adding they faced “certain death” if made to return.

BRUSSELS — European Parliament President Martin Schulz is returning to German politics, raising the prospect he may challenge Angela Merkel as chancellor and prompting speculation of a reshuffle in European Union institutions.

Schulz told a news conference he would not stand for re-election as speaker of the EU legislature and would instead campaign for a seat in Germany's federal parliament next year.

He made no comment on suggestions he may succeed departing Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier or become the Social Democrat candidate to challenge the conservative Merkel's bid for a fourth term in September's parliamentary election.

Schulz, 60, had been pushing for a third 30-month term as EU parliament president in defiance of a deal that he make way for a speaker from the centre-right, the chamber's biggest group.

Should the conservatives, who have formed an effective grand coalition in Brussels with Schulz's centre-left, secure the presidency in January, all three main EU political bodies would be headed by the centre-right — a possibility that has raised talk of change at the European Commission and European Council.

Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had pressed his fellow conservatives in Parliament to let Schulz stay on in the interests of stability following Britain's vote in June to leave the bloc. He denied threatening to resign if Schulz were forced out but said on Thursday he "regretted" him leaving.

Juncker, from Luxembourg, has a five-year mandate running until October 2019. Council President Donald Tusk, who will chair Brexit negotiations, has a mandate expiring in May.

At an unrelated news conference, Juncker and Tusk brushed off a question about whether either of them might resign.

Tusk has support among EU states for a second term, though not from his native Poland, where opponents now hold power.

The conservative leader in Parliament, Manfred Weber from Merkel's Bavarian allies, said his group would choose a nominee for speaker next month. Frenchman Alain Lamassoure and Mairead McGuinness of Ireland declared their candidacies.

Weber, 44, has been cited himself as Schulz's successor, a position that could raise his profile for a future career in Germany and something Schulz also used to his advantage.

Weber did not, however, rule out that his group might back a "consensus candidate" from another of the mainstream, pro-EU blocs in the chamber, which include liberals and greens. That could dampen complaints of a centre-right lock on institutions while, as Weber said, maintaining a centrist front against the chamber's vocal minority of eurosceptic and extremist parties.

Weber's centre-left counterpart said he would resist a conservative sweep of EU jobs.

"A right-wing monopoly on the EU institutions would be unacceptable," said Italian Gianni Pittella. "Political balance must be ensured."

Speculation that Schulz would return to German politics grew after Merkel's grand coalition with the Social Democrat SPD backed Schulz's party ally Steinmeier to take over in February as Germany's figurehead president. Senior SPD members see Schulz as the party's clear favourite to succeed Steinmeier.

Whoever takes over the role will have an overflowing in-tray as the EU's powerhouse tries to unite a divided post-Brexit Union, contain an assertive Russia and forge a new relationship with Washington under incoming President Donald Trump.

Opinion polls favour Merkel to win again. The SPD trails badly but could end up in a new grand coalition under her.

A member of the SPD leadership said it would decide by January whether Schulz or party leader Sigmar Gabriel would be its candidate for chancellor. One poll this week showed Germans thought Schulz has a somewhat stronger chance of ousting Merkel.