World

TAMPA, Florida — Even as his path to the presidency narrows, a defiant Donald Trump is insisting he is “winning” and urging his supporters to defy what he is calling an establishment conspiracy to deny the White House to his populist movement.

Trump, in the middle of a three-day swing through battleground Florida as thousands began voting there in person, hammered the “disgusting” media on Monday for its “phony polls” that he claimed were the latest signs of a “rigged election”.

“The media isn’t just against me. They’re against all of you,” Trump told cheering supporters in St Augustine. “They’re against what we represent.”

“I believe we’re actually winning,” he said.

But even as Trump publicly displayed his trademark bravado, his team conceded publicly as well as privately that he was trailing — and that crucial Pennsylvania may be slipping away to Democrat Hillary Clinton. That would leave him only a razor-thin pathway to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House on November 8.

In more bad news for Trump, a new poll shows young voters turning to Clinton now that the race has settled down to two main candidates. Clinton now leads among likely voters 18 to 30 years in age by 60 per cent to 19 per cent, according to a new GenForward survey.

Young black voters already were solidly in her corner, and now young whites are moving her way, according to the survey by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with the Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research.

With Trump on the defensive, Clinton worked to slam the door on his candidacy in swing state New Hampshire while eyeing a possible Democratic majority in the Senate.

The former secretary of state campaigned alongside New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, who is running for the Senate, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who was merciless as she seized on recent revelations of Trump’s predatory sexual language and several allegations of sexual assault.

“He thinks that because he has a mouth full of Tic Tacs, he can force himself on any woman within groping distance,” Warren charged. “I’ve got news for you Donald: Women have had it with guys like you.”

Trump has denied all the recent allegations, and he addressed a new one on Monday in an interview with WGIR radio in New Hampshire.

He called the accusations “total fiction” and lashed out at former adult film performer Jessica Drake, who said on Saturday that he had grabbed and kissed her without permission and offered her money to visit his hotel room a decade ago.

“One said, ‘He grabbed me on the arm.’ And she’s a porn star,” Trump said. He added, “Oh, I’m sure she’s never been grabbed before.”

With Election Day two weeks away, Trump’s electoral map looks bleak.

The Republican National Committee ignored him altogether in mailers to New Hampshire voters set to be distributed later this week, according to material obtained by The Associated Press. The mail focuses instead on Clinton’s credibility, featuring a picture of her and former President Bill Clinton and the words: “No More of The Lying Clintons.”

Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway outlined a path to 270 electoral votes on Sunday that banks on victories in Florida, Ohio, Iowa and North Carolina along with New Hampshire and Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. Assuming Trump wins all of those — and he currently trails in some — he would earn the exact number of electoral votes needed to win the presidency and no more.

Noticeably absent from the list was Pennsylvania, a state that a top adviser privately conceded was slipping away despite Trump’s aggressive courtship of the state’s white working-class voters. The adviser spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal discussions.

Florida was largely the focus on Monday as in-person early voting began across 50 counties, including the state’s largest.

Democrats would take the Senate majority if they pick up four seats and Clinton wins the White House.

QUETTA, Pakistan — The Daesh terror group said on Tuesday that fighters loyal to its movement attacked a police training college in Quetta in southwest Pakistan in a raid that officials said killed 59 people and wounded more than 100.

Pakistani authorities have blamed another militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), for the late-Monday siege, though Daesh claim included photographs of three alleged attackers.

Hundreds of trainees were stationed at the college on the city outskirts when masked gunmen stormed in. Some cadets were taken hostage during the raid, which lasted nearly five hours. Most of the dead were cadets.

“They just barged in and started firing point-blank. We started screaming and running around in the barracks,” one police cadet who survived told media. Other cadets spoke of jumping out of windows and cowering under beds as the attackers hunted them down. Video footage from inside one of the barracks showed blackened walls and rows of charred beds.

Daesh’s Amaq news agency published the claim of responsibility, saying three Daesh militants “used machine guns and grenades, then blew up their explosive vests in the crowd”.

 Mir Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister of the province of Baluchistan, whose capital is Quetta, said the gunmen attacked a dormitory where cadets rested and slept. “Two attackers blew themselves up, while a third was shot in the head by security men,” he said.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said authorities carried out the body of a teenaged boy who they said was one of the attackers and had been shot dead by security forces.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army chief General Raheel Sharif travelled to Quetta and took part in a special security meeting on Tuesday afternoon, the prime minister’s office said.

General Sher Afgun, a senior military commander in Baluchistan, told media that calls intercepted between the attackers and their handlers suggested they were from the LeJ, a sectarian Sunni militant group.

“We came to know from the communication intercepts that there were three militants who were getting instructions from Afghanistan,” Afgun said, adding the Al Alami faction of LeJ was behind the attack.

LeJ, whose roots are in the heartland Punjab province, has a history of carrying out sectarian attacks in Baluchistan, particularly against the minority Hazara Shiites. Pakistan has previously accused LeJ of colluding with Al Qaeda.

Authorities launched a crackdown against LeJ last year, particularly in Punjab province. In a blow to the organisation, Malik Ishaq, the group’s leader, was killed in July 2015 with 13 members of the central leadership in what police say was a failed escape attempt.

“Two, three days ago we had intelligence reports of a possible attack in Quetta city, that is why security was beefed up in Quetta, but they struck at the police training college,” Sanaullah Zehri, chief minister of Baluchistan, told the Geo TV channel.

The Hakeemullah Mehsud faction of the Pakistani Taliban also claimed responsibility for the attack in an e-mailed statement, but when members of the group were asked about the statement, they could not confirm it was authentic.

Daesh 

Pakistan has improved its security situation in recent years, but militant groups continue to pose a threat and stage attacks in the mainly Muslim nation of 190 million.

Daesh has sought to make inroads over the past year, hoping to exploit Pakistan’s sectarian divisions.

Monday night’s assault on the police college was the deadliest in Pakistan since a suicide bomber killed 70 people in an attack on mourners gathered at a Quetta hospital in August. That attack was claimed by Daesh, and also by a Pakistani Taliban faction, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar.

The military had dismissed previous Daesh claims of responsibility as “propaganda”, and last month said it had crushed the Middle East-based group’s attempt to expand in Pakistan.

A photograph of the three alleged attackers released by Daesh showed one with a striking resemblance to the picture of a dead gunman taken by a policeman inside the college, and shared with Reuters.

Analysts say Daesh clearly has a presence in Pakistan and there is growing evidence that some local groups are working with it. “The problem with this government is that it seems to be in a complete state of denial,” said Zahid Hussain, an Islamabad-based security analyst.

The White House condemned Monday’s attack, and said the United States would support Pakistan in its fight against terrorism.

MANILA — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's fiery rhetoric and deadly crime war are becoming a growing concern around the world, the top US envoy for Asia warned on Monday in Manila.

US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Daniel Russel, met the Philippines' defence and foreign ministers on Monday, after Duterte last week announced his nation's "separation" from the United States.

Duterte quickly walked back from the statement, saying he did not plan to sever their seven-decade alliance. But Russel signalled many people around the world were becoming increasingly worried about the Philippine president's repeated tirades. 

"The succession of controversial statements, comments and a real climate of uncertainty about the Philippines' intentions have created consternation in a number of countries," Russel told reporters.

"Not only in mine and not only among governments, but also growing concern in other communities, in the expat Filipino community, in corporate boardrooms as well. This is not a positive trend."

 Russel said he also directly conveyed to Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay American concerns about Duterte's war on crime, which has claimed about 3,700 lives in less than four months and raised fears about mass extrajudicial killings.

"I also reiterated the importance that we place and that others place on due process and respect for the rights of citizens as an important part of protecting our communities as well," Russel said.

"And the growing uncertainty about this and other issues is bad for business as well."

 US Secretary of State John Kerry phoned Yasay on Monday to discuss the alliance, Russel said.

Duterte has frequently voiced deep anger at American criticism of his efforts to eliminate drugs in society, repeatedly branding President Barack Obama as a "son of a whore" and telling him to "go to hell" for expressing concerns.

Duterte, who describes himself as a socialist, has sought to diminish his nation's alliance with the United States in favour of closer ties with China and Russia.

Duterte's "separation" remark was made during a four-day state visit to China.

"America has lost. I've re-aligned myself in your ideological flow and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to [President Vladimir] Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines and Russia. It's the only way," Duterte said in Beijing.

Immediately upon returning to the Philippines, Duterte said he would not cut ties with the United States, but he nevertheless launched another profanity-laced critique.

In a briefing to local media posted live on the US embassy's website on Monday afternoon, Russel indicated Duterte's foul-mouthed abuse was being taken personally in Washington.

"It is hurtful and mystifing to be called names by a close friend, to be called names by the leader of a wonderful democracy," Russel said, adding such comments could impact ties.

"The series of statements that are controversial, sometimes shocking, sometimes distressing, sometimes confusing, do sometimes factor in the equation."

 Duterte has also repeatedly said the Philippines has not benefited from its ties with the US, particularly denigrating their military alliance that is anchored on a 1951 mutual defence treaty.

The nations typically hold more than two dozen war games of various sizes every year, but Duterte has said there will be no more. 

He has also said he eventually may no longer allow American troops on Filipino soil at all, and cancelled joint patrols in the South China Sea so as not to anger Beijing.

Nevertheless, the Philippines on Monday accepted a second-hand American C-130 transport plane at a handover ceremony in Manila.

"This will certainly boost our air transport facilities. The importance of this aircraft cannot be over-emphasised," Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said at the ceremony.

The plane was the second delivered this year under an agreement in which the Philippines buys surplus American military hardware.

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — With just over two weeks to go before Americans vote for a new president, Hillary Clinton — who has widened her lead over Donald Trump — is stepping up her efforts in key battleground states to consolidate her lead.

The Democratic former secretary of state vying to become America’s first female president leads the Republican real estate mogul among likely voters by 50 per cent to 38 per cent, according to a national ABC News poll. 

That is her highest score since the start of the race to succeed Barack Obama in the White House.

“We are behind,” Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway admitted on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press”, nevertheless insisting that the race was not over.

At an evening rally in Naples, Florida, the 70-year-old Trump called on his supporters to turn out en masse to “get rid of Crooked Hillary once and for all”, using one of his favorite nicknames for his 68-year-old rival.

“Numbers are looking phenomenal in Florida. Don’t believe the media,” he insisted. 

The Sunshine State is a key prize in the presidential race, one of several battleground states that are key for both candidates if they want to win on November 8. Most polls put Trump a few points behind Clinton there.

‘Systemic racism’ 

Conscious that winning the minority vote will help lead her to victory, the 68-year-old Clinton started her day on Sunday at a mainly black church in Durham, North Carolina — another of the swing states up for grabs.

Obama won the southern state by a razor-thin margin in 2008, but lost it to Mitt Romney four years later. Team Clinton is pulling out all the stops to put it back in the Democratic win column.

Before a congregation that included Sybrina Fulton — the mother of slain unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin, whose death shocked America in 2012 — Clinton called for awareness of the “systemic racism” seen across the country.

“If we are honest with each other, we know we face the continuing discrimination against African-Americans and in particular young African-Americans,” she said.

“These conversations can be painful for everybody, but we have got to have them.”

 She accused her Republican opponent of painting “a bleak picture of our inner cities” and ignoring the successes of black leaders “in every field and every walk of life”.

Hillary and Michelle 

Clinton will return to North Carolina on Thursday with the woman who has emerged as one of her best campaign weapons — Michelle Obama. It will be their first joint rally for the former and current first ladies.

“The choice in this election really is about what you want, what you believe for yourself and your future,” Clinton told a rally in Charlotte, notably mentioning the need to respect women — an allusion to Trump’s woes over allegations of sexual misconduct.

The new ABC News poll said 69 per cent of likely voters disapprove of Trump’s response to questions about his treatment of women, after a series of women alleged he either groped or forcibly kissed them in years past. 

Trump has strongly denied those allegations, and on Saturday threatened to sue the “liars” who came forward with claims about his past behaviour.

Clinton is leading nationally in both two-way and four-way contests by an average of about six points, according to RealClearPolitics. She is also ahead in most of the crucial battleground states.

The 70-year-old Trump is clinging to an edge — but only a slight one — in traditionally Republican strongholds like Texas, where he has a three-point lead.

‘Not over yet’ 

Team Clinton is gunning for a landslide win, using its momentum to push ahead in the battle for control of Congress. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are now in Republican hands, and the Democrats would like to change that.

“We’re not taking anything for granted at all,” campaign manager Robby Mook told “Fox News Sunday”. 

“You know, this is not over yet.”

 While Clinton has received several major newspaper endorsements, Trump got his first major thumbs-up, from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“Mr Trump represents neither the danger his critics claim nor the magic elixir many of his supporters crave,” the paper wrote, adding he would instead shake up the US capital’s “political elites”.

 In Vegas, Obama hit the campaign trail for Clinton and Nevada’s Democratic Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto.

For the president, Democrats have the winning hand.

“You’ve got an ace, and you’ve got a jack,” he said, giving in to the urge to use a blackjack metaphor in Sin City.

“But you’ve got to make sure to turn over the card by voting,” he added.

“The game ends on November 8th!”

TOKYO — A retired soldier was killed and several people injured by twin blasts at a Japanese park on Sunday in what may have been a bizarre suicide, police and reports said.

A festival was under way at the park when the 72-year-old former member of Japan's Self Defence Forces apparently set off an explosive device that killed him and left three people injured including two seriously, Kyodo News reported, citing police.

"One person was found dead," a local fire department spokesman told AFP without elaborating.

Around noon police found pensioner Toshikatsu Kurihara at the park in the city of Utsunomiya, some 100 kilometres north of Tokyo, after receiving a call about a person engulfed in flames following what sounded liked a blast, reports said.

Police suspect that Kurihara killed himself and a suicide note with his name on it was found inside a sock he was wearing, Kyodo said.

"I pay with my life," the note reportedly said, expressing concerns about family issues.

A 64 and 58-year-old men were seriously injured in the blast while a 14-year-old junior high school student was left with minor injuries.

Several cars, including Kurihara's, were found burning in a nearby parking lot at around 11:30am local time, following reports of blasts there. No one was injured in those explosions, Kyodo said.

One man told public broadcaster NHK that he "smelled gunpowder in the area" after the explosions.

The festival was called off following the blasts, the paper added.

Meanwhile, Kurihara's house in the city, where he reportedly lived alone, was burnt to the ground Sunday morning. 

Explosions of this kind are rare in Japan, although small pipe bomb blasts linked to extreme leftists occasionally hit near US military bases.

In November last year a homemade pipe bomb exploded at a controversial Tokyo war shrine, damaging the toilets at the facility. No one was hurt.

A South Korean man was later arrested and sentenced to four years in prison after admitting detonating the bomb at the Yasukuni shrine. It has been targeted by activists who see it as a symbol of Japan's militaristic past.

GETTYSBURG, Pennsylvania — Donald Trump is laying out an ambitious agenda for his first 100 days as president but pointedly noting that he will find time to sue the numerous women who have accused him of groping and other unwanted sexual behavior.

“All of these liars will be sued once the election is over,” Trump said on Saturday during an event near the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg that was meant to be policy-driven. He added: “I look so forward to doing that.”

Asked about Trump’s remarks, Hillary Clinton told reporters between rallies in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia that she was done responding to what her Republican opponent is saying as Election Day nears and would instead focus on helping elect other Democrats.

Yet even as Clinton appeared to be strengthening her lead, her campaign was careful not to declare premature victory.

“We don’t want to get ahead of our skis here,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said on Sunday. He said the “battleground states” where both candidates are campaigning hardest “are called that for a reason”.

Trump’s campaign, too, took a cautious approach while acknowledging the Republican has been trailing Clinton in the polls. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway laid out a path to the requisite 270 electoral votes that goes through make-or-break states Florida, Iowa, North Carolina and Ohio.

“We’re not giving up. We know we can win this,” Conway said.

A day earlier, Clinton attacked Pennsylvania’s Republican senator, Pat Toomey, saying in Pittsburgh that he has refused to “stand up” to Trump as she praised his Democratic challenger, Katie McGinty. Noting Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants and his attacks on a Muslim-American military family, she said of Toomey: “If he doesn’t have the courage to stand up to Donald Trump after all of this, then can you be sure that he will stand up for you when it counts?”

Toomey spokesman Ted Kwong said Clinton’s comments highlight McGinty’s lack of independence.

“Today is just further proof that hyper-partisan, ethically challenged Katie McGinty will be a rubber stamp for everything Hillary Clinton wants to do in Washington,” he said. “Pat Toomey has been, and will continue to be, an independent leader in the Senate on issues ranging from gun safety to ending Wall Street bailouts.”

Clinton rejected Trump’s allegation, offered without evidence, that the dozen or so women who have come forward are being prompted by her campaign or the Democratic National Committee. The accusers emerged after the former reality TV star boasted of kissing women and groping their genitals without their consent. On Saturday, an adult film actress said the billionaire kissed her and two other women on the lips “without asking for permission” when they met him after a golf tournament in 2006.

Trump has denied that all the other allegations, while insisting some of the women weren’t attractive enough for him to want to pursue. His broadside against the women Saturday came at the start of an otherwise substantive speech that sought to weave the many policy ideas he has put forward into a single, cohesive agenda.

SAN FRANCISCO — Cyber attacks pounded the underpinnings of the Internet on Friday, crippling Twitter, Netflix and other major websites with the help of once-dumb devices made smart with online connections.

Waves of attacks incapacitated a crucial piece of Internet infrastructure, hampering or outright blocking access to popular online venues.

“When I see something like this, I have to think state actor,” said Carbon Black national security strategist Eric O’Neill, a former “spy hunter” on the FBI counter-intelligence force.

“This is not some hacker sitting in his basement typing away on a keyboard.”

 The attack was said to put a troubling new spin on an old hacker attack known as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), where millions of devices in the fast-growing Internet of things took part in the cyber onslaught.

Armies of computers infected with malicious code are typically used in DDoS attacks intended to overwhelm targets with simultaneous online requests.

Hacker software referred to as Mirai that takes control of IoT devices was evidently linked to the attack, with the broad range of devices making requests helping get past Dyn defences.

“We are seeing attacks coming from a number of different locations,” Level 3 Communications Internet services company Chief Security Officer Dale Drew said in a video posted online.

“We are seeing attacks coming from an Internet-of-things botnet that we identified called Mirai also involved in this attack.”

Possible probe 

Heavyweight cyber attacks that seem to yield trouble but no apparent payoff could be probing defences to refine tactics for use on high value targets such as utilities or transportation systems, according to O’Neill and other computer defence specialists.

The attack could also have been meant as a message from a foreign power, cyber security analysts told AFP.

The onslaught commanded the attention of top US security agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“DHS and the FBI are aware and are investigating all potential causes” of the outages, a spokeswoman said.

The outages left Internet users unable to post messages, shop, watch videos and play games online for parts of the day.

Dynamic Network Services Inc., which manages Internet traffic, said around 1100 GMT that its infrastructure had been hit by a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attack in the eastern part of the United States.

The initial attack was resolved within about two hours but the company, known as Dyn, was slammed with a second DDoS wave.

DDoS attacks involve flooding websites with more traffic than they can handle, making them difficult to access or taking them offline entirely. 

Domain name servers are a crucial element of Internet infrastructure, converting numbered Internet Protocol addresses into the domain names that allow users to connect to Internet sites. 

The DDoS attack hit what is akin to a directory assistance service used to route online traffic to the right addresses, meaning that even though networks such as Level 3 were running normally they couldn’t be reached.

A map published by the website downdetector.com showed the effect was felt across the US and into Europe

“The critical point is how fragile our Internet is that these attacks can happen,” O’Neill said.

He worried what damage such attacks might do in less computer security savvy sectors such as finance, energy or transportation.

Dyn put out a status update at 2217 GMT saying the incident had been resolved.

Amazon Web Services, which hosts some of the most popular sites on the Internet, including Netflix and the homestay network Airbnb, said that it also staved off one attack, only to be hit with similar problems several hours later.

Battle of the Bulge 

DDoS attacks have been in the hacker arsenal for quite some time, but abated as companies learned how to defend against them. Security analysts say there has been a resurgence.

According to Verisign, the number of DDoS attacks rose 75 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter of this year. 

Such attacks have escalated “thanks largely to the broad availability of tools for compromising and leveraging the collective firepower of so-called Internet of Things devices — poorly secured Internet-based security cameras, digital video recorders and Internet routers,” cyber security specialist Brian Krebs wrote in a post at krebsonsecurity.com.

Attackers use DDoS attacks for a range of purposes, including censorship, protest and extortion.

The loose-knit hacktivist network Anonymous in 2010 targeted DNS provider EveryDNS and others as retribution for efforts to block the anti-secrecy organisation WikiLeaks.

Roland Dobbins, principal engineer at the networks security company Arbor Networks, told AFP that, though it was spectacular, the attack was a constant and relentless fact of life on the Internet.

“It’s like a combination of the Wild West, Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge on the Internet every day,” he said.

He felt that the attack’s scale did not necessarily mean the attackers had large resources.

“It does not require a nation-state to launch a DDoS attack of this magnitude or impact,” he said. “When it comes to DDoS attacks, states are just another player.”

 James Scott, co-founder of the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, said the attacks demonstrated well-known vulnerabilities of the Internet.

“Simply put, the Internet in its original and modern form was not designed with security in mind,” he told AFP.

BEIJING — China has slammed the US for sailing a warship near disputed territory in the South China Sea, saying the move was a “serious illegal act” and “deliberately provocative”.

In a statement on its website late Friday night, the country’s defence ministry said two Chinese naval vessels warned off a US ship after it entered “Chinese territorial waters” near the Paracel Islands, known as Xisha in Chinese.

China controls all of the islands, which are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.

The ship’s “entrance into China’s territorial waters is a serious illegal act and a deliberately provocative act”, it said, adding that the ministry had made “solemn representations” to Washington.

In a separate online statement, the foreign ministry said the action had “seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security interests, and had seriously broken relevant Chinese law and international law”. 

The Pentagon said on Friday it had sent the destroyer USS Decatur close to the Paracel Islands, but that the ship had not passed within the 12 nautical mile zone that international law defines as territorial waters.

The ships transited the area in “a routine, lawful manner without ship escorts and without incident”, a spokesman said.

The manoeuvre was the third South China Sea “freedom of navigation” operation conducted this year by the US, which has repeatedly stressed it will ignore China’s “excessive” maritime claims.

Friday’s operation was the first since a tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in July ruled there was no legal basis to China’s claims to nearly all of the sea — a verdict Beijing dismissed vehemently.

China that month held a week of military drills around the Paracels in the northern part of the South China Sea, during which other ships were prohibited from entering the waters.

Several other nations across the region including the Philippines and Vietnam have rival claims to various parts of the South China Sea.

The US action came as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte wrapped up a four-day state visit to China, where he pledged to increase cooperation with Beijing, while at the same time slamming his country’s long-time ally Washington.

In a joint statement at the end of his trip, the Chinese and Philippine leaders pledged to resume talks over their own territorial dispute in the South China Sea.

BEIJING — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced his “separation” from the United States on Thursday, declaring that it had “lost” and he had realigned with China as the two agreed to resolve their South China Sea dispute through talks.

Duterte made his comments in China, where he is visiting with at least 200 businesspeople to pave the way for what he calls a new commercial alliance as relations with longtime ally the United States deteriorate.

His trade secretary, Ramon Lopez, said $13.5 billion in deals would be signed

Duterte’s efforts to engage China, months after a tribunal ruling in the Hague over South China Sea disputes in favour of the Philippines, marks a reversal in foreign policy since the 71-year-old former mayor took office on June 30.

“America has lost now,” Duterte told Chinese and Philippine businesspeople at a forum in the Great Hall of the People, attended by Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli.

“I’ve realigned myself in your ideological flow and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to [President Vladimir] Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world — China, Philippines and Russia. It’s the only way,” he added.

“With that, in this venue, your honours, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States,” Duterte said to applause. “I have separated from them. So I will be dependent on you for all time. But do not worry. We will also help as you help us.”

 China has pulled out all the stops to welcome Duterte, including a marching band complete with batton-twirling band master at his official welcoming ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People, which most leaders do not get.

Red carpet welcome

President Xi Jinping, meeting Duterte earlier in the day, called the visit a “milestone” in ties.

Xi told Duterte that China and the Philippines were brothers and they could “appropriately handle disputes”, though he did not mention the South China Sea in remarks made in front of reporters.

“I hope we can follow the wishes of the people and use this visit as an opportunity to push China-Philippines relations back on a friendly footing and fully improve things,” Xi said.

Following their meeting, during which Duterte said relations with China had entered a new “springtime”, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said the South China Sea issue was not the sum total of relations.

“The two sides agreed that they will do what they agreed five years ago, that is to pursue bilateral dialogue and consultation in seeking a proper settlement of the South China Sea issue,” Liu said.

China claims most of the energy-rich South China Sea through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.

In 2012, China seized the disputed Scarborough Shoal and denied Philippine fishermen access to its fishing grounds.

Liu said the shoal was not mentioned and he did not answer a question about whether Philippine fishermen would be allowed there. He said both countries had agreed on coastguard and fisheries cooperation, but did not give details.

Sea row takes ‘back seat’

Duterte’s tone towards Beijing is in contrast to the language he has used against the United States, after being infuriated by US criticism of his bloody war on drugs.

He has called US President Barack Obama a “son of a bitch” and told him to “go to hell” while alluding to severing ties with the old colonial power.

On Wednesday, to the cheers of hundreds of Filipinos in Beijing, Duterte said Philippine foreign policy was veering towards China.

“I will not go to America anymore. We will just be insulted there,” Duterte said. “So time to say goodbye my friend.”

 The same day, about 1,000 anti-US protesters gathered outside the US embassy in Manila calling for the removal of US troops from the southern island of Mindanao.

Duterte on Wednesday said the South China Sea arbitration case would “take the back seat” during talks, and that he would wait for the Chinese to bring up the issue rather than doing so himself.

Xi said issues that could not be immediately resolved should be set aside, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

China has welcomed the Philippines approaches, even as Duterte has vowed not to surrender any sovereignty to Beijing, which views the South China Sea Hague ruling as null and void.

China has also expressed support for his drug war, which has raised concern in Western capitals about extrajudicial killing.

Duterte’s overtures to China have been accompanied by signs of improving business ties with the world’s second largest economy.

China’s Liu said Beijing will restore Philippine agricultural exports to China and provide financing for Philippine infrastructure.

LAS VEGAS — Donald Trump sailed into another political tempest on Thursday after threatening not to recognise the outcome of the US presidential election in a final debate with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner.

With the November 8 elections just 19 days away, the face-off in Las Vegas was seen as the Republican nominee’s last best chance to turn around a sinking White House bid.

But with millions watching on television, a defiant Trump turned what many thought began as his strongest debate performance yet into a gift to Clinton and another major headache for Republicans.

Asked point-blank whether he would accept the results of the elections no matter what, the 70-year-old reality television star said: “I’ll tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense, OK?”

 Clinton declared herself “appalled” by what she said was an attack on 240 years of US democracy.

Quoting her former rival Bernie Sanders, she called Trump the “most dangerous person to run for president in the modern history of America”.

 Trump’s shattering of political convention dominated US newspaper headlines and television coverage.

Worried Republicans 

Republicans worried about the impact of Trump’s remarks on Republicans in down-ballot races.

Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, offered assurances on MSNBC. “Barring massive voter fraud, of course he is going to accept the results of the elections,” he said. 

But Republican Senator Jeff Flake said Trump was “beyond the pale” and onetime presidential candidate Senator Lindsey Graham said if Trump loses, it will be “because he failed as a candidate”.

Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, defended the candidate Thursday against charges of undermining US democracy.

“If anybody has added to American democracy in the last year and a half it’s Donald Trump,” she told CNN, while insisting her boss would respect the vote result “absent, widespread fraud or irregularities”.

 Democrats called on Republican leaders to repudiate “Trump’s utter contempt for our democracy”, as Nevada Senator Harry Reid put it.

“What he said tonight is part of his whole effort to blame somebody else for his campaign, and where he stands in this election,” Clinton told reporters as she flew home to New York. 

Trump left Las Vegas immediately after the debate, heading to swing state Ohio for a day of campaigning.

He meets up with Clinton again at the end of the day in New York at the Al Smith Dinner, an annual charity event where the candidates traditionally engage in a “friendly roast”.

 But the animosity between them seems almost certain to get in the way.

They would not even shake hands at Wednesday night’s debate, and at one point Trump interrupted Clinton to call her “a nasty woman”.

‘Relieved and very grateful’ 

Clinton, who is vying to become the first woman president of the United States, told reporters she was “both relieved and very grateful” that the debates were now behind her.

Polls show her leading by more than six points and making gains even in states like Arizona, Texas and Georgia that have long been in the Republican column.

“Hillary Clinton almost certainly will win the election, but the question is what is going to be the effect on Republican Senate, House and other candidates,” said Robert Erikson, a political science professor at Columbia University.

On Thursday, Michelle Obama will be stumping for Clinton in Arizona and President Barack Obama will speak at a rally in Miami.

Obama earlier in the week told Trump to “stop whining” about a rigged election and go try to get people to vote for him.

But the New York billionaire plowed ahead anyway, paying no heed.

“The media is so dishonest and so corrupt and the pile-on is so amazing,” Trump said, referring to reports citing women accusing him of sexual assault, which he said were “fiction” and drummed up by Team Clinton.

He alleged that millions of fake voters had been registered and that the 68-year-old Clinton should not even have been allowed to run because she mishandled classified State Department emails.

 ‘Puppet’ talk 

The former secretary of state scored an early hit against the Republican real estate mogul, alleging that Russian President Vladimir Putin was backing his run for office.

Trump argued that he might have better relations with Moscow than Clinton would, declaring: “Putin, from everything I see, has no respect for this person.”

 Clinton’s response was sharp: “Well, that’s because he would rather have a puppet as president of the United States.”

 Trump blustered back: “No puppet. You’re the puppet.”