World

SEOUL — US President-elect Donald Trump pledged his commitment to defending South Korea under an existing security alliance during a phone call with South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday, her office said.

Trump had said during the election campaign he would be willing to withdraw US military stationed in South Korea unless Seoul paid a greater share of the cost of the deployment. There are about 28,500 US troops based in South Korea in combined defence against North Korea.

Park said the alliance between the two countries had grown as they faced various challenges over the past six decades, adding she hoped the ties would develop further.

She asked Trump to join in the effort to help minimise the threat from the North, which has carried out a series of nuclear and missile tests in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions.

Trump agreed with Park and said: "We will be steadfast and strong with respect to working with you to protect against the instability in North Korea," the presidential Blue House said.

The official newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party said on Thursday the US wish for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme "is only a fantasy of a bygone era" and the policy of pressure and sanctions had failed.

"The only accomplishment of the Obama administration is that it is leaving behind for the new administration coming next year the burden of having to deal with a strong nuclear power," Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary.

JAKARTA/ISLAMABAD/CAIRO — Many Muslims around the world expressed dismay on Wednesday at Donald Trump's election as US president, saying they feared it might raise tensions between the West and Islam and contribute to radicalisation.

While Egypt's president made an early congratulatory call to Trump, ordinary Muslims were worried that his victory would be a propaganda gift to extremist groups. Others were apprehensive that the president-elect would implement campaign pledges to clamp down on Muslims entering the United States.

"Trump has espoused highly inflammatory rhetoric against Muslims. Voters there will expect him to fulfil his promises. That makes me worry about the impact on Muslims in the US and in the rest of the world," said Yenny Wahid, a prominent mainstream Muslim figure in Indonesia.

The world's 1.6 billion Muslims follow a multitude of sects and schools of thought, constitute a majority of the population in countries as varied as Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Senegal and Albania, and hold a vast array of political views.

Yet, Trump's previous comments about Muslims — saying that those from abroad should be barred entry or intensely scrutinised beforehand — and the presence of vocal anti-Islam activists among his supporters, have alarmed many.

During a bitter election campaign, Trump also attacked his opponents for what he characterised as their denial about the threat posed by militant Islam, which he said was "coming to our shores", adding that he would quickly form a commission on it.

"I'm worried about [my relatives in America] because they are Muslims, Egyptian Muslims... and he is not going to treat Muslims well," said Ali Nabil, a 20-year-old student in Cairo.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi was the first world leader to congratulate Trump on the phone, Sisi's office said, a welcome to the next president that was echoed by some other Arabs who disliked Hillary Clinton's Middle East policies.

But other Muslims saw Trump as a hostile figure.

"Whatever happens to America affects everybody and with all these promises of doom by Trump to the blacks, to the Muslims, the minority, so it's not something we're happy about," said Ganiu Olukanga, a Nigerian Muslim resident of Lagos.

Muslims who live as members of a religious minority in Western countries and have previously expressed fear at what they see as increasingly negative portrayals of their faith, also voiced worry at Trump's election.

"It is hugely worrying that a man who has called for discrimination against Muslims and other minorities has become the leader of a superpower nation," said Harun Khan, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, in a statement. He also congratulated Trump on his victory.

Radicalisation

Some Muslims said they feared Trump's election as president might encourage a view that the United States was hostile to Muslims and that this would hinder efforts in Islam to counter radicalisation.

"Trump's victory will be an enormous gift to a failing jihadist movement, that will have now have a renewed rallying cry," said Ammar Rashid, an academic and member of Pakistan's Awami Workers Party, on Twitter.

"If jihadi ideology has a source of sustenance, it is the image of the US as the evil anti-Muslim crusader. They will milk Trump's win dry," he added.

In jihadist social media forums, militants said Trump's election had merely revealed the true position of the United States towards Muslims. "The masks have slipped," one wrote.

But some other Muslims were more hopeful, including Umer Daudzai, a former Afghan minister of interior, citing the record of Ronald Reagan who was US president from 1981-89. "Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War. I hope Donald Trump will end all wars and become a hero of peace in the world," he told Reuters.

‘Negative, cynical’

Despite expressions of concern by some officials, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the body that represents Muslim states, issued no statement early on Wednesday.

In Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation, an official from the faith's top clerical body there said Trump's election could create new tension between the United States and the Islamic world.

Trump had made negative and cynical comments about Muslims in the past, Din Syamsuddin, a senior official at the Indonesian Ulema Council, told reporters in Jakarta. "He had forgotten that many Americans are immigrants."

 Saudi Arabia, a US ally that is both birthplace of Islam and home to its holiest places, issued a statement congratulating Trump on his election win without making further comment.

However, Awad Al Qirni, one of its most popular clerics with a Twitter following of 2 million, said in a social media post after the election — but without referring to Trump directly — that "America declines into collapse" and that "its internal crisis will grow severely".

In Pakistan, Sherry Rehman, a senator and former ambassador to Washington, said Trump's proposal last year to bar Muslims from entering the United States had disturbed many.

"Pakistan obviously cannot rule out engaging with whomever America elects, but his anti-Muslim rhetoric may cast a shadow on relations in times of uncertainty," he told Reuters.

And in Bangladesh, a government official who asked not to be named said: "I can't think what awaits us. Donald Trump was talking about fighting against Muslims. Are we going to see more wars?"

 In Dhaka, some citizens hoped the pressure of office would temper Trump's views.

"It is just unbelievable and I am a bit tense. I hope there will be a difference between Donald Trump and President Donald Trump. President Trump will be more mature than individual Trump," said Asif Iqbal, a private sector employee.

NEW YORK — Republican Donald Trump stunned the world by defeating heavily favoured rival Hillary Clinton in the US presidential election, ending eight years of Democratic control of the White House and sending America on a new, uncertain path.

A wealthy real estate developer and former reality TV host, Trump rode a wave of anger toward Washington insiders to win Tuesday’s White House race against Clinton, the Democratic candidate whose gold-plated establishment resume included stints as a first lady, US senator and secretary of state.

Trump’s victory marked a crushing end to Clinton’s second quest to become the first woman president. She also failed in a White House bid in 2008.

“Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead,” Clinton, 69, said in a concession speech in New York on Wednesday morning, joined by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and daughter Chelsea.

Speaking in front of a row of American flags, she told supporters her loss was painful “and it will be for a long time”, and that she had offered to work with Trump on behalf of the nation.

President Barack Obama, who campaigned hard against Trump, invited him to the White House for a meeting on Thursday.

“We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country,” Obama said at the White House, saying he and his staff would work with Trump to ensure a successful transition. “We are not Democrats first, we are not Republicans first, we are Americans first.”

 Trailing in public opinion polls for months, Trump pulled off a major surprise and collected enough of the 270 state-by-state electoral votes needed to win, taking battleground states where presidential elections are traditionally decided, US television networks projected.

His four-year term begins on January 20 and he will enjoy Republican majorities in both chambers of the US Congress. Television networks projected the party would retain control of the 100-seat Senate and the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats were up for grabs.

“He just earned a mandate and we now just have a unified Republican government,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters in Wisconsin, crediting Trump’s Election Day momentum with helping Republican victories that maintained the party’s control of Congress.

Worried that a Trump victory could cause economic and global uncertainty, investors fled risky global assets.

The US dollar, Mexican peso and world stocks fell on Wednesday but fears of the kind of shock that wiped trillions of dollars off world markets after Britain’s “Brexit” vote in June failed to materialise immediately.

But US stocks were little changed on Wednesday, rebounding from stunning overnight losses fueled by the election result. Sectors such as banking and steel that appeared poised to benefit from a Trump presidency led the charge.

Trump appeared with his family early on Wednesday before cheering supporters in a New York hotel ballroom, saying it was time to heal the divisions caused by the campaign and find common ground after a campaign that exposed deep differences among Americans.

“It is time for us to come together as one united people,” Trump said. “I will be president for all Americans.”

 He said he had received a call from Clinton to congratulate him on the win and praised her for her service and for a hard-fought campaign.

His comments were an abrupt departure from his campaign trail rhetoric in which he repeatedly slammed Clinton as “crooked” amid supporters’ chants of “lock her up”.

 But Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, on Wednesday did not rule out the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton’s past conduct, a threat Trump made in an election debate last month.

Despite losing the state-by-state electoral battle that determines the US presidency, Clinton narrowly led Trump in the nationwide popular vote, according to US media tallies.

Republican National Committee senior strategist Sean Spicer told MSNBC that Trump and his senior aides were meeting at Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday to “start the proper transition” to a Trump presidency.

Prevailing in a race that opinion polls had clearly forecast as favouring Clinton, Trump won avid support among white non-college educated workers with his promise to be the “greatest jobs president that God ever created”.

“Such a beautiful and important evening! The forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again. We will all come together as never before,” Trump wrote on Twitter early on Wednesday.

In his victory speech, he said he had a great economic plan, would embark on a project to rebuild American infrastructure and would double US economic growth.

Trump, who at 70 will be the oldest first-term US president, came out on top after a bitter and divisive campaign that focused largely on the character of the candidates and whether they could be trusted in the Oval Office.

The presidency will be Trump’s first elected office, and it remains to be seen how he will work with Congress. During the campaign Trump was the target of sharp disapproval, not just from Democrats but from many in his own party.

Trump survived a series of blows on the campaign, many of them self-inflicted, including the emergence in October of a 2005 video in which he boasted about making unwanted sexual advances on women. He apologised but within days, several women emerged to say he had groped them, allegations he denied. He was judged the loser of all three presidential debates with Clinton.

A Reuters/Ipsos national Election Day poll offered some clues to the outcome. It found Clinton badly underperformed expectations with women, winning their vote by only about 2 percentage points.

And while she won Hispanics, black and young voters, Clinton did not win those groups by greater margins than Obama did in 2012. Younger blacks did not support Clinton like they did Obama, as she won eight of 10 black voters between the ages of 35 and 54. Obama won almost 100 per cent of those voters in 2012.

During the campaign, Trump said he would “make America great again” through the force of his personality, negotiating skill and business acumen. He proposed refusing entry to the United States of people from war-torn Middle Eastern countries, a modified version of an earlier proposed ban on Muslims.

TOKYO/SEOUL — Republican Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election will deepen Asian allies' anxiety about Washington's commitment to post-war security arrangements in the face of a rising China and volatile North Korea, and could bolster calls from conservatives in Tokyo for a more robust defence policy.

Trump's "America First" rhetoric and calls for allies to pay more of the cost for US troops in the region or face their possible withdrawal have worried officials in some Asian capitals. So has his opposition to a 12-nation pan-Pacific trade pact that was a lynchpin of Washington's "pivot" to the region.

"We should expect dramatic changes in the security environment," said South Korea's ruling Saenuri Party floor leader Chung Jin-suk in parliament on Wednesday.

But he added: "In any case, there should not be any wavering in the Korea-US military alliance, which has been the foundation of prosperity of this country".

 A Japanese government official, speaking before Trump clinched the election, urged the new president to send a reassuring message.

"The new president-elect should as soon as possible issue a statement reassuring the rest of the world that the strong commitment of the United States to its allies ... remains strong and reliable," said the official, who declined to be identified.

"We are certainly concerned about the comments [Trump] has made to date about the alliance and the US role in the Pacific, particularly Japan," the Japanese official said, although he added Trump's policies might not match his rhetoric.

Trump has made several comments that disturbed Washington's Asian allies, from insisting they must foot more of the two-way defence bill to suggesting it might be alright for Tokyo and Seoul to develop nuclear arms capability.

Footing the bill

In an article criticising US President Barack Obama's "pivot" to Asia as "talking loudly but carrying a small stick", two Trump advisers said he would beef up the US Navy while asserting it was "only fair" that Seoul and Tokyo pay more for defence.

"There is no question of Trump's commitment to America's Asian alliances as bedrocks of stability in the region," wrote University of California professor Peter Navarro and Alexander Gray, a former adviser to US politician Randy Forbes, in the article, which appeared in the November 7 edition of Foreign Policy.

The article also criticised the Obama administration for failing to halt China's aggressive maritime activities in the East and South China Seas, where Beijing has territorial rows with several countries in the region.

Trump has called for more ships for the US Navy. The "mere initiation of the Trump naval programme will reassure our allies that the United States remains committed in the long term to its traditional role as guarantor of the liberal order in Asia", the authors said.

Trump's approach to the North Asia security alliances could spark calls in Japan for a more independent security stance, although serious talk of acquiring nuclear weapons is unlikely to emerge in the only nation to suffer atomic bombings.

"I think they will have more legitimacy," said a Japanese diplomat, referring to those seeking a more robust security stance. "But the Japanese public is reluctant to go in that direction and we don't have the capacity in terms of budget or (military) personnel."

 TPP not just trade

Asian allies who joined the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, a lynchpin of Obama's Asia pivot, now fear the pact is dead, given Trump's harsh opposition.

That has implications not only for trade, but also for security, since Washington and Tokyo had seen the TPP as a way of creating a new regional, rule-based architecture to counter China.

"TPP was not just a trade deal, it was the United States and Japan, together ... these countries with shared values would create an advanced regional order with not just economic, but diplomatic and security implications," said Toshihiro Nakayama, a professor at Keio University in Tokyo.

"It was a symbol of America being committed to the region."

 Singapore-based security expert Tim Huxley warned of a period of potentially destabilising uncertainty ahead as the region waits for clearer strategic signs of precisely what a Trump presidency would mean for Asia.

"Unless Trump speaks reassuringly and soothingly about the continued US presence and commitment to the region, I won't be surprised to see long-held doubts awoken in the minds of many Asian leaders about the durability of the traditional US role," he said.

Policy makers expect it will take considerable time for Trump to work out personnel appointments and get down to policy formation. Divisive US politics could also slow things down. That could mean a worrisome vacuum, but also suggests no quick, dramatic changes are in store.

"It will take about half a year for Mr  Trump to firm up his foreign policies. He only has a transition team of about 200 people and his first focus will be domestic policy," said Masashi Adachi, head of the Japanese ruling Liberal Democratic Party's foreign policy panel.

"I don't think there will be a big change in his stance toward Japan. He has said the Japan-US alliance is important. What he is talking about is details like increasing what Japan pays for US troops in Japan," Adachi added.

WASHINGTON — Eager voters crowded into polling stations to choose a new US president on Tuesday after a wild and bitter contest between the billionaire populist Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Democrat seeking to become the first woman to win the White House.

In Virginia horse country, balmy south Florida, and busy Manhattan long lines snaked into the streets outside voting stations.

“I’m excited. I can’t believe I finally get to vote, said Jose Maria Molleda, 63, a new US citizen voting at a Presbyterian church in Clifton, Virginia, where a crowd of 150 gathered before dawn for the 6am poll opening in the swing state.

“Are you voting?” joked an election official in Palmetto, Florida, tickling the feet of a baby as her mother carried her into a voting station.

A crowd of admirers chanted “Madam President” as Hillary Clinton and husband Bill arrived to cast their ballots near their home Chappaqua, New York.

“I’m so happy, I’m just incredibly happy,” a beaming Clinton said as she emerged, shaking hands, mingling and chatting with the crowd.

“All my friends and my neighbours, it makes me so happy.”

 Clinton already had the vote of 74-year-old Leonor Perez, who cast her ballot in Hialeah, Florida, a must-win state for her Republican rival Trump.

“I voted for Hillary because it’s time for a woman to wear the pants in this country,” Perez said.

The name of the winner was not expected to be known before 0300 GMT. Clinton has a slim lead in the polls but no one was ruling out a Trump victory.

A polling average by tracker site RealClearPolitics gave Clinton a 3.3-percentage point national lead, but Trump is closer or even has the advantage in several of the swing states that he must conquer to pull off an upset.

Radically different visions 

As a nervous world watched and waited, Americans chose between radically different visions of the future of the world’s biggest power offered by Democratic frontrunner Clinton and Republican maverick Trump.

The 69-year-old former first lady, senator and secretary of state — backed by A-list musical stars and incumbent President Barack Obama — urged the country to unite and vote for “a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America”.

Trump meanwhile pressed his message with voters who feel left behind by globalisation and social change, wrapping up with a flourish on his protectionist slogan of “America first”.

“Just imagine what our country could accomplish if we started working together as one people, under one God, saluting one American flag,” the 70-year-old former reality television star told cheering supporters.

Some 40 million Americans have already cast ballots in states that allow early voting, and opinion polls suggest Clinton has a slight edge.

In a kick-off midnight vote, the residents of tiny Dixville Notch in New Hampshire cast their traditional first-in-nation ballots with a total of eight votes — Clinton getting four and Trump, two.

The others went to a fringe candidate and Mitt Romney, the failed Republican hopeful in 2012.

‘Corrupt elite’ 

Trump has repeatedly warned that a “corrupt Washington and media elite” is seeking to rig the race and he said last month that he may not concede defeat if he thinks voting is unfair.

He has also threatened to lodge lawsuits against up to a dozen women who have come forward during the race to accuse him of sexual assault or inappropriate behavior.

Clinton has pushed a more optimistic vision, despite a wobble in the final weeks of her campaign when the FBI reopened an investigation into whether she had put US secrets at risk by using a private e-mail server — only to close the probe again on Sunday.

In a radio interview on the last night of the campaign, she said the matter was behind her, and she courted voters at her final rallies in Philadelphia with Obama and rocker Bruce Springsteen, and in North Carolina with pop diva Lady Gaga. 

“Tomorrow, we face the test of our time,” she declared in front of 40,000 people in Philadelphia, a record for her in a campaign where despite her opinion poll lead she has struggled to match her Republican opponent’s passionate and raucous crowds. 

“There is a clear choice in this election. A choice between division or unity, an economy that works for everyone, or only for those at the top; between strong, steady leadership, or a loose cannon who could put everything at risk.” 

At the same time, Trump, who hijacked his conservative party and turned it into a vehicle for populist bombast, concluded a last-gasp tour of swing states by painting his rival as doomed to defeat and the corrupt creature of a discredited elite.

‘I will fight for you’ 

Promising to end “years of betrayal”, tear up free trade deals, seal the border, halt the drug trade and subject Syrian refugees to “extreme vetting”, Trump told his supporters in New Hampshire: “I am with you and I will fight for you and we will win.” 

Voters on Tuesday are also electing candidates for 34 seats in the 100-member Senate and the entire 435-member House of Representatives, as well as deciding on state ballot initiatives around the country.

Trump’s campaign spooked world markets seeking stability after the recent global slowdown.

Last week, US stocks as measured by the S&P 500 index fell for nine straight days for the first time since 1980, only to recover a little when the FBI confirmed Clinton would not face prosecution over her emails.

HONG KONG — More than 1,000 Hong Kong lawyers dressed in black marched through the heart of the city in silence on Tuesday to condemn a move by China that effectively bars two elected pro-independence lawmakers from taking their seats in the legislature.

The former British colony returned to China in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" agreement that ensured its freedoms, including a separate legal system. But Beijing has ultimate control and some Hong Kong people are concerned it is increasingly interfering to head off dissent.

Local and foreign lawyers walked from the high court to the city's highest court, underscoring growing concern among Hong Kong's legal elite with how Beijing has handled affairs in the "special administrative region" of Communist Party-ruled China.

Organisers said more than 2,000 took part in the fourth and largest silent protest by the city's lawyers since 1997. Police said 1,700 attended at the peak.

The lawyers bowed their heads to observe three minutes' silence outside the colonial Court of Final Appeal building, lit up beneath the statue of Lady Justice.

"I thank you, I salute you, I love you all," veteran pro-democracy barrister Martin Lee, looking pained, told the crowd at the end of the rally.

The demonstration follows a decision by China's parliament to interpret Hong Kong's mini-constitution, or Basic Law, to effectively bar the independence lawmakers from taking their oaths of office.

Beijing's ruling on Monday that oaths for Hong Kong lawmakers must be taken accurately, sincerely and solemnly for them to be valid, just as a local judicial review of the case was under way, rattled many in the legal profession, political circles and beyond.

The interpretation came as the high court was set to decide if pro-independence lawmakers Baggio Leung, 30, and Yau Wai-Ching, 25, may be disqualified after they displayed a "Hong Kong is not China" banner during a swearing-in ceremony in October which resulted in their oaths being invalidated.

"I'm very disappointed, not just for Hong Kong but for China," said solicitor John Clancey who marched at the front of the procession.

"I think China recognises that one of the most precious things we have here is the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law," he said. "In the guise of putting forth an interpretation, they really have attempted to legislate for Hong Kong... The disappointment comes in because I think they really rushed things through... to interfere with the court decision."

 The Hong Kong Bar Association, which represents more than 1,000 barristers, expressed regret over the interpretation, saying it would "do more harm than good" and gave the impression that Beijing was effectively legislating for Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has thrived as a financial and legal centre thanks in part to its independent rule of law, which many now perceive to be under threat.

"For [Beijing], politics is more important than the legal system. I think with this interpretation we can see politics trumps all," said solicitor David Hui as he marched.

"When we were young, we believed we could have democracy after the handover, and we could have 'one country, two systems'. But now we know we have been lied to."

As the lawyers marched, about a dozen pro-Beijing protesters taunted them outside of the high court, some shouting obscenities through loudspeakers. One Beijing loyalist held up a placard that read: "Rioters mess up Hong Kong."

Chinese officials said the interpretation was beneficial to Hong Kong's rule of law.

"It has not and it will not affect the judicial independence in Hong Kong," said deputy commissioner of the commissioner's office of the ministry of foreign affairs in Hong Kong, Song Ru'an.

"On the contrary, it will only improve and strengthen Hong Kong's rule of law with the Basic Law at its core."

The last march by the legal community, in June 2014, was in response to a white paper by China's Cabinet that declared "loving the country" was a basic political requirement for all Hong Kong administrators, including judges and judicial personnel.

Hong Kong was also rocked by months of street protests calling for democracy in 2014 and more recently by calls for independence.

PITTSBURGH — A campaign shadow lifted by the FBI, Hillary Clinton on Monday promised to build a "big-hearted" America out of the wreckage of a strikingly divisive presidential race. Donald Trump told his supporters this was their last chance to buck a broken political system.

With the end in sight, both candidates set exhausting schedules for the final day of a campaign that has wearied the entire nation, each visiting major cities deep into the night.

Clinton delivered a closing argument that began to look ahead to how she would govern, promising she would listen even to those voters who rejected her and making a late plea for "more love and kindness”.

"We have gotten to rise above all of this," she told a cheering crowd in Pittsburgh. "We don't have to accept a dark and divisive vision for America. Tomorrow, you can vote for a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America."

Trump's campaign also promised a positive message in the final hours, although the candidate delivered a sprawling stump speech that kept up the broadsides that have won him his most loyal followers. He railed against Washington, the healthcare system and Clinton. He continued to pound her for her use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state.

Trump also questioned the legitimacy of the FBI's rapid review of a Clinton aide's emails, saying it could not have been thorough.

"Hillary Clinton is being protected by a totally rigged system," Trump said at a rally in Sarasota, Florida.

The comments were a reminder that FBI Director James Comey’s news, delivered in a letter to lawmakers on Sunday, was a doubled-edged sword for Clinton. While it vindicated her claims that the e-mails would not yield new evidence, it ensured that the final hours of her campaign would be spent talking about a subject that has damaged her credibility.

Clinton’s campaign said she would not be discussing the news Monday as she campaigned in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan. She instead shifted to message of reconciliation after a rough campaign.

“I think I have some work to do to bring the country together,” she told reporters as she boarded her plane for her last battleground tour. “I really do want to be the president for everybody.”

Her campaign said it would make its closing argument in a 2-minute television ad set to air during NBC’s “The Voice” and CBS’ “Kevin Can Wait”. The campaign said the “personal and positive” message would reach some 20 million people just hours before polls open nationwide.

After seeing her solid lead shrink as her e-mail woes resurfaced, Clinton appears to have retained a solid edge in the final days. Her campaign says it has been buoyed by strong turnout in states that vote early. Trump’s path to victory remained narrow. He must win nearly all of the roughly dozen battleground states up for grabs to take the White House.

More than 42.4 million people have already voted and roughly half the states with advance voting are reporting record levels, including states with booming Hispanic populations, a possible good sign for Clinton.

In Florida, Hispanic participation is up by more than 453,000 votes, nearly double the 2012 level. Black turnout is up compared to 2012, but that share of the total vote is lower due to bigger jumps among Latinos and whites, according to University of Florida professor Daniel Smith.

In Nevada, where more than three-fourths of expected ballots have been cast, Democrats also lead, 42 per cent to 36 per cent.

Besides Clinton’s own rallies, high-wattage allies fanned out across the country, including President Barack Obama, who started his day with a get-out-the-vote event in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a state that has been showered by candidate attention in recent days.

Clinton was to campaign in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as well as Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Raleigh, North Carolina. It was a round-the-clock schedule that included a major rally in Philadelphia with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, along with rock stars Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi.

Trump, too, planned to keep up the breakneck campaign pace through Tuesday. After the rally in Floirda, he was headed to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. After voting in New York Tuesday morning, Trump was expected to return to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and New Hampshire later in the day.

Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday the White House would “neither defend nor criticise” Comey’s decision to send the new letter to Congress. Earnest used the same phrasing after Comey initially announced the new review of e-mails found on a computer belonging to Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman and estranged husband of Abedin, the Clinton aide.

But Obama later suggested he thought the investigation was marred by “innuendo” and “incomplete information”.

Comey’s move capped a stunning chapter in the bitter, deeply divisive contest.

WASHINGTON — Even if, as most polls predict, he loses Tuesday's US presidential election, Donald Trump's populist charge will leave its mark on the American body politic.

The 70-year-old billionaire tycoon is the Republican flag-bearer even though part of the Grand Old Party's establishment has rejected him, and others are voting for him while holding their noses.

But Trump has managed to craft his own political brand, building a movement among the party's disaffected rank-and-file.

Asked whether Trump or House Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest-ranking Republican elected official, better represent the party's values, 51 per cent  of members choose Trump and 33 per cent  favour Ryan. 

As the presidential race comes down to the wire, and the right faces the prospect of Democrat Hillary Clinton in the White House, some party leaders are coming back to the fold.

But Trump has divided the party, both with his brash style and by overturning conservative orthodoxy with his opposition to free trade, isolationist foreign policy and flexible stance on welfare and deficits.

The maverick newcomer has even campaigned for paid parental leave, anathema to the small-government conservative right. 

"Basically, the Republican leadership hates Trump," Robert Shapiro, professor of political science at Columbia University, told AFP.

"They would like his supporters, but his supporters are attached to Trump," he warned, predicting that the phenomenon Trump calls his "movement" will continue after Election Day. 

"His supporters are still going to be there, and they are going to have their positions on trade and immigration and all these other issues," Shapiro said.

"And what will also remain is the hate for the Democrats and Hillary Clinton and also the mainstream Republican Party."

Aggressive rhetoric 

But it is not just the foregrounding of a different set of issues that will endure. Trump's in-your-face style and aggressive rhetoric will leave a mark on future campaign strategies.

"He has changed political campaigning," Jeanne Zaino, a professor at Iona College, told AFP.

"We are likely to see more candidates trying to replicate what he has done, trying to work outside the party, to use social media to go over the head of the party," she predicted.

"And we are going to see a lot of rough talk out there, because people will think: 'It worked for Trump, I am going to give it a shot'."

And this change in campaigning style may cross the liberal-conservative divide, as Democrats and progressives respond with heightened rhetoric of their own. 

"There is a strain of enormous populism in both the Republican and the Democratic parties and we are going to see that for a long time," Zaino said. 

"It is going to be a challenge for these two umbrella parties to recapture this really frustrated base." 

Frustrations 

Trump has played masterfully on frustrations with the Washington and Wall Street elites, vowing to champion blue-collar male white voters' concerns about economic exclusion.

But as he has done so, he has insulted or managed to offend women, immigrants, African Americans, Muslims and the handicapped — deepening America's divides.

Trump has had no problem filling vast halls with motivated voters, but his 60 per cent  unfavourable opinion poll rating would have sunk a less shameless campaigner.

And his campaign has energised, at least on social media, the American right's racist and anti-Semitic underbelly — last week, the Ku Klux Klan's newspaper endorsed him. 

This toxic coalition may be unique, and mainstream Republicans may be able to distance themselves from the bigoted extremes, but it will not disappear overnight.

Populist message 

This in itself is a victory for Trump's more ideological supporters, like his political advisor Roger Stone. 

"The party isn't going to go back to being the country club party of Jeb Bush," Stone told liberal news site Vox.

"It's not going to go back to being the Washington establishment party of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell," he warned mainstream conservatives. 

"The Trump movement is going to be dominant in the party. It's going to be influential and important in the party."

 Expert opinion is divided about whether Trump himself will want to remain in frontline politics, or whether he will try to rebuild his business brand.

Some of his supporters appear to be maneuvering to create a Trump-branded media platform that could monetise his populist message in a polarised news landscape.

But at the very least, his team has built an enormous database of supporters and donors that will be of inestimable value to whoever next seeks to up-end the apple cart. 

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton has one of the strongest resumes of anyone ever to run for US president, with stints as first lady, senator and secretary of state, but she is also a polarising figure and a Washington insider with decades of political baggage.

Should Democrat Clinton, 69, defeat Republican Donald Trump, 70, in Tuesday's election, she would become the first woman elected US president, having already been the only first lady to win elected office and the first woman nominated for president by a major US party.

Clinton fell short in her first presidential bid in 2008, losing her party's nomination to Barack Obama.

Her time on the American political scene has come during an era of intense partisanship and gaping divisions in US society. Americans hold dramatically differing views of Clinton.

Clinton's admirers consider her a tough, capable and sometimes inspirational leader who has endured unrelenting efforts by political enemies to chop her down. Her detractors consider her an unscrupulous and power-hungry opportunist.

Clinton entered the 2016 race as her party's odds-on favourite, but was perceived as an establishment figure and the ultimate insider at a time when voters seemed enamored with outsiders. She staved off an unexpectedly stiff challenge from US Senator Bernie Sanders, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, to claim the Democratic nomination in July.

For decades Clinton has battled conservatives and Republican adversaries and weathered controversies including her husband Bill Clinton's infidelity, a failed Republican effort to remove him from office, investigations into past business dealings and her use of a private e-mail server as secretary of state.

She famously complained in 1998 during her husband's presidency about a "vast right-wing conspiracy".

Many Democrats back her for championing women's rights at home and abroad, social justice and access to healthcare, but opinion polls show a majority of US voters do not trust her. 

Against Trump, she portrayed her candidacy as a bulwark against a unique threat that she said the real estate developer posed to American democracy.

As President Obama's secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, she grappled with civil wars in Syria and Libya, Iran's nuclear programme, China's growing clout, Russian assertiveness, ending the Iraq war, winding down the Afghanistan war, and an unsuccessful bid to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Clinton was already running for president when, during a testy 11-hour congressional hearing in October 2015, she deflected Republican criticism of her handling of a 2012 attack by militants in Benghazi, Libya, in which the US ambassador died.

That hearing and another in January 2013 while she was still secretary of state focused on allegations of State Department security lapses related to the attack.

'What to make of me'

A mistrust of rivals and the media has long prompted Clinton to keep her guard up.

"The truth is, through all these years of public service, the 'service' part has always come easier to me than the 'public' part," Clinton said in accepting the 2016 Democratic nomination. "I get it that some people just don't know what to make of me."

At the same convention, Obama cited her years of experience and said, "There has never been a man or woman, not me, not Bill — nobody more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States."

Republicans have accused Clinton of breaking the law while corresponding through a private e-mail server as secretary of state. In July, FBI Director James Comey called Clinton "extremely careless" in her handling of classified information by e-mail, but Obama's Justice Department accepted his recommendation not to bring criminal charges.

"If I had to do it over again, I would, obviously, do it differently," Clinton said during a September 26 debate with Trump, referring to her use of the private server as a "mistake" for which she took responsibility.

The controversy flared again on October 28, 11 days before the election, when Comey told US lawmakers the FBI was investigating a new trove of e-mails as part of its probe.

On Sunday, Comey said the FBI found nothing in those e-mails to change the agency's July decision not to bring charges against Clinton, lifting a cloud over her campaign just two days before the election.

Trump seized on the probe into Clinton's e-mail, deriding her as "Crooked Hillary", saying he would seek to put her behind bars if elected and encouraging his supporters to chant "lock her up".

Clinton portrayed Trump as a racist hate-monger, a sexist and a tax-dodger enamored with Russian President Vladimir Putin and unfit to serve as president and commander in chief.

"Such a nasty woman," Trump retorted during their October 19 debate when she suggested he would try to get out of paying the higher taxes she advocates for the wealthy.

Midwestern roots

Born in Chicago on October 26, 1947, Hillary Rodham Clinton was the eldest of three children of a small-business owner father she called a "rock-ribbed, up-by-your-bootstraps, conservative Republican" and a mother who was a closet Democrat.

She said she inherited her father's distinctive laugh — she called it "a big rolling guffaw" — and Americans have heard it frequently.

She attended public schools, then enrolled in 1965 at all-female Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where she headed the Young Republicans Club.

In a Wellesley commencement address, she seized the spotlight by starting her speech with extemporaneous remarks challenging comments made by the preceding speaker, a US senator.

Her political views changed during the 1960s civil rights struggles and Vietnam War escalation. She attended the 1968 Republican convention that nominated Richard Nixon, but soon became a Democrat.

At Yale Law School, she met a similarly ambitious fellow student from Arkansas, Bill Clinton, and they became a couple. She moved to Washington to work for a congressional panel in the impeachment drive against Nixon, who resigned as president in 1974 during the Watergate scandal.

She moved to Arkansas to be with Bill, married him in 1975, and was hired by a top law firm. He jumped into politics, eventually being elected governor, at age 32, in 1978. She gave birth to the couple's only child, daughter Chelsea, in 1980.

As Arkansas' first lady, she was a high-powered lawyer in the capital Little Rock and a Wal-Mart corporate board member.

Most Americans were introduced to her during her husband's bid for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination. Bill Clinton said voters would get "two for the price of one" if they elected him. She unapologetically said she was not a woman who "stayed home and baked cookies".

After a woman named Gennifer Flowers accused Bill Clinton during the campaign of a sexual affair, Hillary Clinton appeared on TV with her husband and referred to singer Tammy Wynette's song, "Stand by Your Man".

"You know, I'm not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette," she said, adding that she loved and respected her husband. "And you know, if that's not enough for people, then heck, don't vote for him," she added.

Conservative critics painted her as a radical feminist and a threat to traditional family values.

White House controversies

Bill Clinton defeated incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush in November 1992. As first lady from 1993 to 2001, she was unusually exertive, diving into policy matters unlike many of her predecessors.

Critics assailed her failed effort to win congressional passage of healthcare reform, deriding it as "Hillarycare".

At a 1995 UN conference in China on women, she declared that "human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights".

She and her husband faced a long investigation into past business dealings but ultimately no criminal charges were brought. A real estate venture known as Whitewater faced scrutiny, spawning an independent counsel investigation that later encompassed Bill Clinton's sexual relationship with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky.

Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster, a figure in the Whitewater controversy and a close friend of the Clintons from Arkansas, was found dead of a gunshot in 1993. His death was ruled a suicide. In a 2003 memoir, Hillary Clinton blasted "conspiracy theorists and investigators trying to prove that Vince was murdered to cover up what he 'knew about Whitewater'."

In 2000, the independent counsel investigation concluded there was insufficient evidence to show the Clintons had been involved in any criminal behavior related to Whitewater.

In December 1998, the Republican-led House of Representatives voted to impeach a president for only the second time in US history, charging Bill Clinton with "high crimes and misdemeanors" for allegedly lying under oath and obstructing justice to cover up his relationship with Lewinsky.

The Republican-led Senate acquitted Clinton in February 1999. Hillary Clinton called the impeachment an abuse of power by Republicans with a "Soviet-style show trial" and condemned what she called "an attempted congressional coup d'etat".

She also said she "wanted to wring Bill's neck" for the affair and upbraided him privately. Ultimately, she said, she decided she still loved him and remained after they went through counselling.

"All I know is that no one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does," she wrote in her 2003 book "Living History".

Hillary Clinton soon launched her own bid for elected office. She bought a house in the town of Chappaqua to officially become a New York resident. She won election as a US senator the same month her husband left office in January 2001. She served until 2009.

She entered the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination as the front-runner, but then-senator Obama won the party's nomination and beat Republican John McCain to become the first black president.

In 2016, Obama campaigned vigorously for her against Trump.

"What sets Hillary apart is that through it all, she just keeps on going, and she doesn't stop caring, and she doesn't stop trying. And she never stops fighting for us, even if we haven't always appreciated it," Obama told a September rally.

HONG KONG/BEIJING — China's parliament passed a ruling on Monday that effectively bars two elected Hong Kong pro-independence politicians from taking office, Beijing's most direct intervention in the territory's legal and political system since the 1997 handover.

The rare move by Beijing came after Yau Wai-ching, 25, and Baggio Leung, 30, pledged allegiance to the "Hong Kong nation" and displayed a banner declaring "Hong Kong is not China" during a swearing-in ceremony for the city's Legislative Council in October.

The National People's Congress in Beijing ruled that lawmakers must swear allegiance to Hong Kong as part of China and that candidates would be disqualified if they changed the wording of their oath of office or if they failed to take it in a sincere and solemn manner.

The prospect of the ruling sparked protests in the former British colony on Sunday and it is now on high alert for any repeat of the weekend clashes. Members of the city's legal profession are planning a rare silent march on Tuesday night amid pressure for them to take even stronger action.

Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese control in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula that gives the territory wide-ranging autonomy, including judicial freedom guided by a mini-constitution called the Basic Law.

The protests on Sunday night were reminiscent of pro-democracy protests in late 2014 that paralysed parts of the Asian financial centre and posed one of the greatest political challenges to the central government in Beijing in decades.

"This incident shows us the Basic Law is a handicapped legal document and the so-called mini-constitution can be amended and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party at will," said Joshua Wong, 20, one of the leaders of the 2014 protests.

Foreign diplomats were watching closely, stressing the importance of the rule of the law to the city's international reputation.

Britain said it was concerned.

"We urge the Chinese and Hong Kong [special administrative region] governments, and all elected politicians in Hong Kong to refrain from any actions that fuel concerns or undermine confidence in the one country, two systems principle," a foreign office spokeswoman said.

While the decision effectively bars the two Hong Kong politicians from being sworn in, a court in the city must still rule on the case in a judicial review, taking Beijing's decision into consideration.

The promotion of independence has long been taboo in Hong Kong amid fears in Beijing it could spread among other activists and challenge the central government's rule.

‘Grave dangers’

"The nature of Hong Kong independence is to split the country. It seriously violates the one country, two systems policy," said Li Fei, chairman of the parliament's Basic Law Committee.

"The Central Government is highly concerned about the grave dangers the Hong Kong independence forces bring to the country and to Hong Kong."

 Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying, who has governed during some of the city's most violent and divisive times in decades, said his government would fully implement China's interpretation of the mini-constitution.

But Legislative Council president Andrew Leung said the Hong Kong judicial review needed to be completed before confirming if the pair were disqualified.

Simon Young, a professor at Hong Kong University's law school, said he was still evaluating the ruling but it did seem to bar Leung and Yau from taking office.

"I do worry we are only going to see more interpretations, and attempts by the NPC to flesh out local laws, if they really want to stop the separatists," Young told Reuters, referring to China's parliament.

Darragh Paradiso, a spokesperson for the US Consulate General Hong Kong and Macau, said by phone the United States strongly valued Hong Kong's independent judiciary.

"It is unfortunate that this particular situation was not resolved within Hong Kong's Legislative Council or within its well-respected courts," she said.

The Basic Law grants China's NPC a power of interpretation above Hong Kong's highest court. While it has made four other rulings since 1997, this ruling is its first move to preempt an ongoing Hong Kong court case.

Hong Kong Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen said he still believed the oath-taking controversy could be resolved locally, but he also had every confidence that the city's judiciary would uphold the rule of law.

Beijing's decision represents some of the worst privately held fears of senior judges and some government officials in Hong Kong, according to sources close to them.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lu Kang said at a regular press briefing he hoped the international community would see the decision reflected the will of the Chinese people.

James To, a lawmaker with the Democratic Party, said the central government had undermined Hong Kong's judicial process.

"In future, people's confidence in one country, two systems will worsen," To said.