World

VIENNA — Nearly final results for Austria's presidential election Sunday showed a right-wing politician neck-to-neck race with a challenger whose views stand in direct opposition to his rival's anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic message.

With 97 per cent of the vote counted, right-winger Norbert Hofer and Alexander Van der Bellen, a Greens politician running as an independent, each had 50 per cent support.

With the SORA polling institute putting the margin of error in the poll results at 0.8 per cent per cent, the final outcome remained unclear more than three hours after polls closed.

Absentee ballots, which will be counted by Monday, could be decisive.

Candidates backed by the dominant Social Democratic and centrist People's Party were eliminated in last month's first round, which means neither party would hold the presidency for the first time since the end of the war. That reflects disillusionment with the status quo and their approach to the migrant crisis and other issues.

Hofer and Van der Bellen drew clear lines between themselves during the campaign.

Asked as he arrived to vote Sunday what differentiated him from Hofer, Van der Bellen said: "I think I'm pro-European and there are some doubts as far as Mr. Hofer is concerned." 

Hofer, in turn, used his last pre-election gathering to deliver a message with anti-Muslim overtones.

"To those in Austria who go to war for the Islamic State [Daesh] or rape women — I say to those people: 'This is not your home,'" he told a cheering crowd.

Later, Hofer sought to soothe international fears that he is a radical far-righter. The Austria Press Agency cited him as telling foreign reporters Sunday that he is "really OK", and "not a dangerous person". 

The elections are reverberating beyond Austria's borders. A Hofer win would be viewed by European parties of all political stripes as evidence of a further advance of populist Eurosceptic parties at the expense of the establishment.

In Austria, the result could upend decades of business-as-usual politics, with candidates serving notice they are not satisfied with the ceremonial role for which most predecessors have settled.

Van der Bellen says he would not swear in a Freedom Party chancellor even if that party wins the next elections, scheduled within the next two years. Hofer has threatened to dismiss Austria's government coalition of the Social Democrats and the People's Party if it fails to heed his repeated admonitions to do a better job — and is casting himself as the final arbiter of how the government is performing.

KABUL — Afghanistan on Sunday said Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a US bombing raid, the first confirmation from regional officials of his death, which marks a potential blow to the resurgent militant movement.

The Taliban have not commented officially on Saturday’s attack, the first known US assault on a top Afghan Taliban leader on Pakistani soil, which could scupper any immediate prospect of peace talks.

The apparent elimination of Mansour, who had consolidated power following a bitter Taliban leadership struggle over the past year, could also spark new succession battles within the fractious movement.

US officials maintained they had no definitive proof of his death in multiple drone strikes, authorised by President Barack Obama, in the remote Pakistani town of Ahmad Wal in Balochistan province.

But both Afghanistan’s main spy agency, and the country’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, asserted that Mansour had been killed in the attack.

“Mansour was being closely monitored for a while... until he was targeted along with other fighters aboard a vehicle,” Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security said in a statement.

The deaths of Taliban leaders have often been falsely reported. Mansour himself was rumoured to have been killed last December.

Pakistani security officials said they recovered two bodies charred beyond recognition from a smouldering vehicle at the scene of the attack.

The passenger, who is suspected of being Mansour, was said to be returning from Iran and was using a Pakistani passport with the name Muhammad Wali.

The driver — who also died in Saturday’s attack — was a civilian who worked for a local rental company, according to the officials, contradicting the US account that he was a “second combatant”.

The Taliban have refused to confirm their leader’s death but a member of the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s leadership council, told AFP that Mansour had been unreachable on his mobile phone since Saturday night.

“We are not sure if something is really wrong or he purposely switched off his phone fearing an attack,” he told AFP on condition of anonymity. 

Mansour was formally appointed head of the Taliban in July last year following the revelation that the group’s founder Mullah Omar had been dead for two years.

The group saw a resurgence under the firebrand supremo with striking military victories, helping to cement his authority by burnishing his credentials as a commander.

Imminent threat

The Taliban briefly captured the strategic northern city of Kunduz last September in their most spectacular victory since they were toppled from power in 2001. 

The southern opium-rich province of Helmand is also almost entirely under insurgent control.

“Mansour posed... an imminent threat to US personnel, Afghan civilians and Afghan security forces,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said during a visit to Myanmar Sunday.

“He was also directly opposed to peace negotiations.” 

But Mansour’s apparent death was not immediately seen as likely to push the Taliban closer to peace talks. It could press them to show they are still able to wage an aggressive battle, observers say.

“The war has been going on for so long, the Taliban has so many leaders and so much ability to function at the local level even without strong central guidance, that we would be well advised to keep expectations in check,” said Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution think-tank.

The drone attack came just days after representatives from the US, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan held another round of negotiations in Islamabad aimed at reviving long-stalled direct peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

However pressure has been building in recent months for the United States to return to direct attacks on the Taliban, particularly via air strikes.

NATO ended its combat mission in Afghanistan in December 2014, pulling out the bulk of its troops, although a 13,000-strong residual force remains for training and counterterrorism operations.

The Taliban, who announced the start of their annual spring offensive last month, have already stepped up their campaign against the Western-backed Kabul government for the season.

If Mansour’s death is confirmed, his two newly named deputies — influential religious leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Sirajuddin Haqqani — could likely step up to fill the power vacuum.

Omar’s son Mullah Yakoub, although deemed young and inexperienced, is also favoured by some Taliban commanders for the leader’s post. 

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan on Sunday denounced the US drone strike believed to have killed the Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour as a violation of its air space and said only negotiations could bring a lasting peace to Afghanistan.

The statement, issued by Pakistan’s Foreign Office late Sunday, said one of the victims of the attack was a driver named Muhammad Azam while the identity of the second “is being verified”.

“On late Saturday 21st May, 2016, the United States shared information that a drone strike was carried out in Pakistan near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area,” in which Mansour was targeted, it said. 

“This information was shared with the Prime Minister and the Chief of Army Staff after the drone strike.” 

The statement denounced the drone attack as a “violation of [Pakistan’s] sovereignty, an issue which has been raised with the United States in the past as well”. 

It said that a four-country group comprising the United States, China, Afghanistan and Pakistan last met on Wednesday to discuss ways to restart stalled peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban and that the group had collectively decided “a politically negotiated settlement was the only viable option for lasting peace in Afghanistan”.

TAIPEI — Taiwan’s new president, Tsai Ing-wen, was sworn in on Friday, pledging to focus on internal reforms and expressing willingness to “pursue possibilities for cooperation and collaboration” with mainland China.

In reaction to Tsai’s inaugural address, Beijing warned Taiwan’s 14th president against seeking independence, warning that peace would be "impossible" if she made any moves to formally break away.

But analysts said the newly sworn-in president, who belongs to the traditionally pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, expressed “goodwill” and a sense of practicality in her planned approach to cross-strait relations with China.

“We are also willing to engage in candid exchanges and pursue possibilities for cooperation and collaboration with the other side of the strait on our common participation in regional development,” Tsai told more than 20,000 people at the presidential palace in Taipei.

She took office as the island's first female president after winning a landslide victory in January to defeat the ruling Kuomintang, ending an eight-year rapprochement with Beijing under outgoing president Ma Ying-jeou, according to Agence France-Presse.

China and Taiwan split in 1949 after the Kuomintang nationalist forces lost a civil war to the Communists, although Taiwan has never declared an official breakaway. But Beijing still sees self-ruling Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification.

“The two governing parties across the strait must set aside the baggage of history, and engage in positive dialogue, for the benefit of the people on both sides,” the president added, expressing desire to have Taiwan play a larger role in addressing regional peace, stability and development.

She also said Taipei will continue to deepen ties “with friendly democracies including the United States, Japan and Europe to advance multifaceted cooperation”.

Commenting on Tsai’s remarks on relations with China, Taiwan’s biggest trade partner and export market, Wen-Cheng Lin, the president of the Institute for National Policy Research, told an international media delegation that the new president expressed “utmost goodwill” to Beijing and signalled a commitment to maintain the status quo in cross-strait relations.

I-Chung Lai, vice president of the Taiwan Thinktank, had a similar view, noting that Tsai showed that she is interested in dialogue between both sides, but she also has a responsibility to safeguard the territory of the Republic of China (Taiwan).

China warned after the inauguration that “if 'independence' is pursued, it will be impossible to have peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits", AFP reported, quoting a statement released by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office.

"Independence is the greatest disaster for the peaceful development of peace in the Taiwan Straits and the peaceful development of cross-strait relations," it said.

Domestic focus

The inaugural address mainly focused on domestic issues as the country is currently navigating a recession.

Tsai stressed the need to reform the pension system and education, in addition to find a new model for economic development and address environmental issues. 

She expressed commitment to improving the social safety net, the childcare system and the judicial system of the country of around 23 million people, while also paying attention to youth issues, such as low wages.

“It is the solemn duty of the new administration to help young people overcome difficulties, achieve generational justice and deliver to the next generation a better country,” Tsai said.

Shih-Chung Liu, senior policy adviser at the Taiwan Brain Trust (TBT), told reporters during a meeting at the think tank that the president’s speech reflected public opinion by focusing on internal issues, citing a TBT study that put cross-strait relations in fourth place on what people care about after domestic issues related to economy and reform.

A TBT survey covering a sample of 1,068 Taiwanese people conducted in April reveals that 84 per cent of the respondents identify as Taiwanese, compared with 6.9 per cent who identify as Chinese and 9.1 per cent who had no opinion.

The study also found that 58.2 per cent of the sample disapproves of the cross-strait policy of outgoing president Ma.

ISTANBUL — Global leaders and key NGOs gather in Istanbul on Monday for an unprecedented UN-backed summit aimed at transforming the world’s response to humanitarian crises, despite scepticism the talks will have little impact.

With an estimated 60 million people displaced around the world and conflict and climate change posing a growing risk, there is widespread agreement among governments and aid groups that the current humanitarian system is in desperate need of an overhaul.

The two-day summit aims to establish a set of “concrete actions and commitments” that would help countries better prepare to fight crises, lay out a new global approach to manage forced displacement, and secure dependable financing to respond to such situations. 

But participants will need to overcome deep scepticism about the summit’s ability to realise its ambitious agenda, and not turn into yet another international talking shop with good intentions but zero outcome.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has pulled out of the event, fearing it could be a “fig leaf” for a lack of global action.

The choice of Istanbul is symbolic, with Turkey itself hosting at least 2.7 million of the estimated 4.84 million refugees who have fled the conflict in Syria.

If delegates step outside the metal security barriers separating the luxury venue from the outside world, they will see the desperate faces of Syrian refugees begging and selling low-value goods on many Istanbul street corners.

‘System failing profoundly’ 

But with 60 world leaders due to attend including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, participants hope the summit will at least start to make a difference.

“Expectations for the summit have gradually reduced. We still have the feeling there is a lot of good faith going into Istanbul. We also have a restricted view of what is possible to achieve,” said Rob Williams, chief executive of charity War Child, which supports and protects children around the world affected by conflict.

“The number of people in the world who really understand how the world humanitarian system is failing is really small,” he told AFP in a telephone interview.

“If that number of people increases during the summit then that would have been worth it. But I think we are in the early days of the world being honest with itself.”

He said the current humanitarian system was “failing children quite profoundly” and the summit had to come up with “concrete agreements” to punish war crimes, improve education of children and protect their welfare in camps.

Turkey, which has spent some $10 billion in hosting the Syrian refugees and repeatedly complained of the West’s failure to shoulder the burden, is emphasising the importance of the summit and has set up Olympic Games-style countdown clocks around the city.

UN Secretary General Ban has described the event as a “singular opportunity” to show that “we will not accept the erosion of humanity which we see in the world today”.

“History will judge us by how we use this opportunity,” he said last month.

‘Less bureaucracy, fewer overheads’ 

Kerem Kinik, the chairman of the Turkish Red Crescent, said the summit needed to be a “milestone” for updating the humanitarian relief system and setting development targets.

“We are expecting less bureaucracy from the humanitarian system. The system must empower the local actors — the small actors, in the local areas, who are facing directly the humanitarian crises.”

“The structure must empower these small and medium-sized NGOs through localisation,” he added, calling for a more sustainable financial system with fewer overheads.

The credibility of the event was dealt a blow by the decision to pull out by MSF, who lamented the summit’s agenda failed to reinforce the obligations of states to uphold humanitarian law and that any commitments made would be non-binding.

Sandrine Tiller, MSF’s programme advisor on humanitarian issues, told AFP that the current global humanitarian system was “bureaucratic and risk-averse” and the summit risked making no difference to people suffering from conflicts in places like Syria and Yemen.

“The current content and format of the summit make it difficult to see it as more than a gathering which will state good intentions but not make any real change.”

WASHINGTON — A US Secret Service officer shot a man with a gun who approached a checkpoint outside the White House and refused to drop his weapon, the Secret Service said.

The White House was briefly placed on a security alert after the Friday afternoon shooting, which happened within view of sightseers as sidewalks were crowded with families, school groups and government workers.

The armed man approached the checkpoint on E Street shortly after 3pm, and ignored repeated orders from the officer to drop his gun, according to a statement from David Iacovetti, a Secret Service deputy assistant director.

The officer fired one shot at the man and the gun was recovered at the scene, Iacovetti said. The man was transported in critical condition to a nearby hospital, an emergency medical services spokesman said.

President Barack Obama was away playing golf, but Vice President Joe Biden was in the White House complex and was secured during the lockdown, his office said. The security alert was lifted about an hour later.

The gunman never made it inside the White House complex, and no one else was injured, the Secret Service said.

A US law enforcement official said Friday evening that authorities had identified the gunman as Jesse Oliveri of Ashland, Pennsylvania. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorised to release the information.

Federal agents found ammunition inside a Toyota sedan, parked nearby on Constitution Avenue, that the gunman was believed to have driven, the official said.

Sightseer Jenna Noelle of Austin, Texas, said she had just taken a photo of the White House when she noticed a man harassing an agent.

Then, “as we were walking away we heard a shot fired, then some people started running away and agents had guns and were evacuating people”.

“I had a panic attack,” she added. “I’m doing OK now, but it was pretty freaky to be right there a second before it happened. Not really the experience we wanted,” she added.

Community activist Akil Patterson said he heard a single gunshot while waiting in a security line. Within seconds, a security guard shouted to drop to the ground, and then he was evacuated to the street.

Patterson said he was at the White House to get a presidential award for his work with Baltimore teens.

He says his community work aims to “get rid of the notion that gun violence is the answer”.

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s ruling party named a loyal ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the new prime minister Thursday, with the incoming premier immediately vowing to “work in total harmony” with the strongman leader.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) will officially appoint Transport Minister Binali Yildirim as its chairman Sunday, meaning he will automatically become prime minister.

Yildirim will replace Ahmet Davutoglu, who stepped down after a struggle with Erdogan, as the president seeks to concentrate more power in the presidential office.

“We will work in total harmony with all our party comrades at all levels, beginning with our founding president and leader,” said Yildirim after being named party head, referring to Erdogan.

The 60-year-old Yildirim is seen as one of Erdogan’s closest longtime confidants and has served an almost unbroken stint from 2002 to 2013 as transport minister and then again from 2015.

They are both strongly opposed to resuming talks with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdish militant group that has claimed responsibility for several attacks across Turkey since a two-year-long ceasefire collapsed in 2015.

The new prime minister’s main task, observers say, will be to pilot a change in the constitution to transform Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential system, placing more power in Erdogan’s hands.

“And now it’s time for the presidential system,” Yildirim said earlier in May just after Davutoglu’s resignation.

Another critical task facing the new prime minister will be to negotiate with the European Union on a crunch visa deal, a key plank of an accord aimed at easing the EU’s migrant crisis.

The visa deal has been in jeopardy over Ankara’s reluctance to alter its counter-terror laws, a key requirement of the agreement, prompting Erdogan to make a series of critical statements about the EU in recent weeks.

Yildirim vowed Thursday to “rid Turkey of the calamity of terrorism”.

The new prime minister is a relative newcomer to foreign politics and his first high profile outing will be the opening of the first World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul Monday, attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Analysts expect that Yildirim — who has never stepped out of line with the president on a policy issue — will prove a far more pliable figure for the president than Davutoglu.

After the official appointment expected on Sunday, “the post of prime minister will have changed its meaning”, said Fuat Keyman, the head of the Istanbul Policy Center think tank.

“The president will become the head of the executive. The prime minister will become a functional cog,” Keyman told AFP.

Crazy’ projects 

After the announcement of a single candidate, Yildirim will likely be approved as new AKP leader by an extraordinary congress of the party on Sunday.

According to AKP convention, the posts of party chief and head of government automatically go to the same figure.

Erdogan will then give the new AKP leader the mandate to serve as prime minister early next week, after which a new Cabinet will be announced.

As a ferry company chief and then as transport minister, Yildirim has for the last two decades worked in the transport sector, an absolutely key area in Turkey which is trying to catch up its lag in infrastructure with vast new projects.

As such, he has been a key lieutenant of Erdogan in implementing what the president likes to call his “crazy” projects to create a “New Turkey”, almost always pictured in the press wearing a hard hat and flourescent jacket.

According to the columnist for the Hurriyet daily Abdulkadir Selvi, the only serious difference between the two men is that Erdogan supports the Fenerbahce football side and Yildirim their arch Istanbul rivals Galatasaray.

The two have been close allies since Erdogan was elected mayor of Istanbul in 1994.

Despite Davutoglu’s shock announcement earlier this month that he was stepping down, the AKP has been keen to promote an image of unity in public.

“There’s not one millimetre of difference between the AKP faithful and the president,” said party spokesman Omer Celik.

However financial markets have not appreciated the political uncertainty, with the Turkish lira losing five percent in value against the US dollar over the last month.

TOKYO — A group representing Japanese survivors of US atomic bombings urged President Barack Obama to hear their stories and apologise when he visits Hiroshima next week.

Two leaders of the Tokyo-based nationwide group told a news conference Thursday that many survivors still want an apology, though they have long avoided an outright demand for one out of fear that it would be counterproductive.

Toshiki Fujimori, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, said he found it awkward to hear local and central government officials say they are not asking for an apology.

“I suspect there was a pressure [not to seek an apology] to create an atmosphere that would make it easier for Obama to visit Hiroshima,” Fujimori said, declining to identify where the pressure was coming from. “But many of the survivors don’t think they can do without an apology at all.” 

He said the survivors want Obama to know that their suffering is not limited to immediate damage and visible, physical scars. They also suffered discrimination at work, in marriage and in other areas of their lives, from their own people in Japan, said Fujimori, who nearly died in the blast at age 1.

The US atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, killed 140,000 people and nearly destroyed the city. A second atomic attack three days later on Nagasaki in southern Japan killed 73,000 more people. About 180,000 people recognised by the government as survivors are still alive. Many have remained unmarried and without children because of concerns about birth defects, or have suffered from cancer and other radiation-induced illnesses.

Obama is to visit Hiroshima on May 27 after the Group of Seven summit in central Japan, becoming the first serving American president to do so. In announcing Obama’s visit, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he will escort him and suggested that no apology is necessary.

A Cabinet-approved statement signed by Abe last August states that the US atomic bombings “caused an extremely regrettable humanitarian situation because of its widespread damage,” but does not call them war crimes. It says it is more important to make an effort towards achieving a nuclear-free world “rather than seeking an apology and remorse from the United States at this point, 70 years after the war”. 

Washington said Obama won’t apologise and a meeting with survivors is unlikely. Japan’s government has also told US officials that it is not expecting an apology, according to Japanese and American officials.

That apparently prompted the survivors to try to let Obama know their feelings and hope that he will be committed to a nuclear-free world, which they say can be achieved only by learning and coming to terms with the past.

Terumi Tanaka, a survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bombing who serves as secretary general of the Japan Confederation of A and H Bomb Sufferers Organisations, said he wishes that Obama will apologise at least to the survivors.

“Families of the victims, those who lost their children. They deserve an apology and I really hope Mr Obama will at least apologise to them,” he said, adding that he hopes Obama will be touched and gain a deeper understanding from being in Hiroshima.

But Shizuka Kamei, a national lawmaker from Hiroshima whose sister died in the blast, said Obama is not welcome without an apology.

“If he is not going to show remorse or offer an apology, he shouldn’t come,” he told a separate news conference. “Is he going to Hiroshima for sightseeing? Then please come after stepping down as president. I’ll be there to welcome him.”

ARANAYAKA, Sri Lanka — Hopes faded on Thursday for the survival of about 130 people trapped under the mud and rubble of two landslides in Sri Lanka, as heavy rain hampered rescue operations and the death toll from the disaster rose to 58.

Days of torrential rains have forced around 300,000 people from their homes across the island nation, official data showed. Thirty bodies have been retrieved at the landslide sites.

That figure is likely to rise sharply as authorities battling muddy conditions begin to give up hope of reaching 132 people believed to be trapped beneath the landslides.

"I don't think there will be any survivors," Major General Sudantha Ranasinghe, the officer in charge of the rescue operation, told Reuters.

"There are places where the mud level is up to 30 feet. We will keep going until we can recover the maximum." 

Rescue efforts have focused on the town of Aranayaka, 100km northeast of the capital, Colombo, where three villages with at least 66 houses were buried late on Tuesday in the central district of Kegalle.

Military officials used hoes and shovels to shift mud as they scrambled to find survivors amid heavy rain that made walking in the hilly terrain difficult.

Material from destroyed homes littered the area, including mud-swathed dog cages and water tanks, while a three-wheeler was seen partially buried.

The military pulled three bodies and parts of another two from rubble at the site of the second landslide that buried 16 people, Ranasinghe said.

H.P. Kamalawathi, 41, said she is still looking for her mother and two elder sisters, who were buried on Tuesday.

"We may get only the dead bodies," the mother of two said as tears rolled down her cheeks. She and her family had sought safety in a near by Buddhist temple.

"We can't take any chance. We will dig and see," Disaster Management Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa told reporters in Colombo after briefing diplomats and international bodies. Sri Lanka is seeking assistance to deal with the worst landslides in its history.

Health officials said they are monitoring for waterborne disease outbreaks while Yapa said the government has sought foreign aid in the form of motors, boats and purifying tablets.

Aid agencies in Colombo canvassed for boats to rescue hundreds of people trapped by rising river waters. Disaster management authorities said around 300,000 people displaced across the country by the disaster had been sent to 610 safe locations.

Troops also used boats and helicopters in rescue operations. The torrential rains since Sunday have caused floods and landslides in 19 of the country's 25 districts.

Flooding and drought are cyclical in Sri Lanka, which is battered by a southern monsoon between May and September, while a northeastern monsoon runs from December to February.

WASHINGTON — After splitting wins in contests on Tuesday, Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders head into the final stretch of a longer than expected and sometimes acrimonious battle to represent their party in November's White House election.

Clinton narrowly edged out Sanders in Kentucky, a state where she had not been expected to win. Sanders won Oregon, a state that played to his strengths.

The protracted fight for the Democratic nomination has boiled over into strife in recent days, prompting party leaders to weigh in and urge unity.

The next contests will be held June 7, including in the delegate heavy states of California and New Jersey, with the final contest in Washington DC on June 14.

While Clinton is expected to win the party nomination, Tuesday's divided outcome means she is still more than 100 delegates short of sealing the deal and so cannot yet turn her attention fully to the general election and taking on presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

In Kentucky, the two candidates will likely split the 55 delegates up for grabs. In Oregon, Sanders will take only a handful more of the 61 delegates that were awarded.

Trump, who locked up his party's nomination after the rest of his rivals dropped out in early May, has begun to organise his campaign for the November 8 election. On Tuesday, he signed a joint fundraising agreement with the Republican National Committee (RNC). The agreement allows him to raise $449,400 from a single donor by splitting the funds between his campaign, the RNC and state Republican parties.

Trump, a billionaire real estate developer, had so far insisted on mostly self-funding his campaign and the shift to a more traditional fundraising approach could anger some of his supporters.

Nevada still rankles

On the Democratic side, both candidates' camps kept up a dispute on Tuesday after violent outbursts by Sanders supporters ended the Nevada Democratic convention over the weekend.

Sanders supporters were angered when Nevada state party officials chose to end their convention and block efforts to award the US senator from Vermont more delegates than he initially won in the February caucus. Clinton won the caucus.

One Sanders supporter threw a chair. Others daubed chalk graffiti on a party building. Some circulated a picture of the state party chairwoman, Roberta Lange, online with her cellphone number and encouraged others to complain.

Lange said she and her family had received death threats, including a voicemail message saying "people like you should be hung in a public execution”.

On Wednesday, Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman Schultz slammed such actions and called for civility. "We have a process set up that is eminently fair," she told CNN. "No one should be subjected to death threats."

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid also said he has spoken to Sanders directly.

Sanders has said he condemns violence and harassment but leveled some of the same complaints his supporters did. He argued Lange did not allow a headcount on a disputed rules change and 64 delegates to Nevada's convention were not given a hearing before being ruled ineligible.

The state party disputed the claim, saying some delegates did not show up at the convention and others were disqualified because they were not registered as Democrats in time.

Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who is not a registered Democrat, used the incident to boost his call for the party to allow participation by non-party members in the primary process.

Clinton's campaign continued to express confidence that she will be able to unify the party. Her campaign manager, Robby Mook, said Clinton was grateful for Nevadans who participated in the process but that no one should be intimidated, harassed or threatened.