World

REDZIKOWO, Poland — The United States and Russia on Friday accused each other of mounting an aggressive military presence in northern Europe, with Moscow vowing to "end threats" posed by a US missile shield near its border.

The stepped-up war of words came as Poland on Friday broke ground on the northern section of a US missile defence shield launched in Romania a day earlier, which Russia slammed as a serious security threat despite US assurances to the contrary.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned Washington that Moscow will consider measures to "end threats" from the US anti-missile systems in Europe but said it would not be engaged in a new arms race.

"Now that these anti-missile elements have been installed, we will be forced to consider putting an end to the threats emerging in relation to Russia's security," Putin told defence officials in televised remarks.

US President Barack Obama hit back hours later, warning Russia about its military build-up in northern Europe, as he hosted leaders from five Nordic countries at the White House.

"We are united in our concern about Russia's growing aggressive military presence and posture in the Baltic-Nordic region," Obama said.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said last week that Moscow will set up three new divisions in the west and south of the country by the end of the year to counter NATO forces close to its border. 

Relations between NATO and Moscow have sharply deteriorated since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, sparking fears among other eastern European countries that they too could be targets of Russian aggression. 

NATO European shield

Located in Redzikowo, northern Poland, and Deveselu in southern Romania, the two US missile interceptor stations are part of NATO's larger European shield, due to become fully operational by 2018.

US and NATO officials insist the system is intended to counter the threat of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, particularly from so-called "rogue" states in the Middle East.

But with the Redzikowo station just 250 kilometres from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, Moscow views the system as a security threat on its very doorstep.

US Deputy Secretary of Defence Robert Work was on hand Friday for the start of construction on the Aegis Ashore-type missile defence facility in Redzikowo. 

It will include 24 land-based SM-3 missiles, as well as anti-aircraft systems.

The facility in Poland "is a US contribution to NATO missile defence", Work said at the ground-breaking ceremonies, adding that "when completed in 2018 it will be capable of defending the central and northern arc of NATO".

Work also said that "by the [NATO] Warsaw summit in July, we expect alliance leaders to declare initial operational capability for the NATO ballistic missile defence system."

"Although we joined NATO years ago, now we are seeing that NATO is truly entering Poland," Polish President Andrzej Duda said before ceremony participants took shovels in hand and began digging at the Polish air force base.

Launched in 2010, NATO's anti-missile shield system — based essentially on US technology — involves the progressive deployment of missile interceptors and powerful radar in eastern Europe and Turkey.

NATO and the United States said this spring that they will switch their defence doctrine from assurance to deterrence in eastern Europe in response to a "resurgent and aggressive Russia" following its annexation of Crimea.

The Pentagon said in March it would begin continuous rotations of an additional armoured brigade of about 4,200 troops in eastern Europe beginning in early 2017.

Spooked by Russian action towards Ukraine, eastern NATO members including the formerly Soviet-ruled Baltic states and Poland have lobbied the alliance to increase its presence in the region to guarantee security.

ABUJA — Regional and Western powers gathered in Nigeria on Saturday for talks on quelling the threat from Boko Haram as the UN warned of the militants' threat to African security and ties to the Daesh terror group.

French President Francois Hollande told reporters after meeting his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja that "impressive" gains had been made against the militants by greater cooperation.

But he warned: "This terrorist group nevertheless remains a threat."

Buhari has invited leaders from Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, whose troops will make up a new regional force against Boko Haram, which has been pushed to northeast Nigeria's borders around Lake Chad.

The 8,500-member force, which has African Union backing and is based in Chad's capital, N'Djamena under a Nigerian general, was supposed to have deployed last July.

Plugging gaps and improving coordination between armies that are currently operating largely independently is seen as vital in the remote region where borders are notoriously porous.

The waters of Lake Chad form the border between Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, which have all been attacked by the militants in raids and suicide bombings.

UN warning 

Nigeria is seeking closer military cooperation to bring to an end nearly seven years of violence, which has left at least 20,000 dead and displaced more than 2.6 million people in the northeast.

The UN Security Council on Friday said talks should help develop "a comprehensive strategy to address the governance, security, development, socio-economic and humanitarian dimensions of the crisis".

But it also expressed "deep concern" at Boko Haram's threat to security in West and Central Africa and "alarm at... linkages with the Islamic State [Daesh]", which operates in Syria, Iraq and Libya. 

Boko Haram's shadowy leader Abubakar Shekau pledged allegiance to his Daesh counterpart Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi last year, although there has since been little evidence so far of direct support on the ground.

'Defeat' caution 

The summit — two years after a first such high-level gathering in Paris — comes as Nigeria's military pushes deep into Boko Haram's Sambisa Forest stronghold after recapturing swathes of territory.

Former military ruler Buhari has vowed to defeat Boko Haram before the end of his first year in office later this month and the army has portrayed the extremists as in disarray.

But there have been warnings against any premature declaration of victory.

Deputy US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Washington, which is flying surveillance drones over northeast Nigeria from a base in northern Cameroon, did not see Boko Haram as defeated.

But he conceded "they have been degraded" and said the US was "extremely vigilant" about the connections, amid reports of Boko Haram rebels fighting in lawless Libya and the group's ties to Al Qaeda affiliates in the wider Sahel region. 

"This is again something we are looking at very, very carefully because we want to cut it off," he told reporters in Abuja on Friday.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond also warned on Boko Haram's ties to Daesh and said progress was being made against the group with help from London, Paris and Washington.

"But we must maintain the momentum to win the war, and build the right conditions for post-conflict stability in the region," he added in a statement.

Humanitarian crisis

With Boko Haram on the back foot, attention has turned to the plight of the displaced. Two million Nigerians have been internally displaced and are living in host communities or camps.

The government of Borno state — the worst-hit by the violence has said the displaced face a "food crisis" and $5.9 billion (5.1 billion euros) was needed to rebuild shattered infrastructure.

US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, who visited northeast Nigeria and northern Cameroon last month, said 9.2 million people in the wider region were affected by the conflict.

DEVESELU, Romania — The United States switched on an $800 million missile shield in Romania on Thursday that it sees as vital to defend itself and Europe from so-called rogue states but the Kremlin says is aimed at blunting its own nuclear arsenal.

To the music of military bands at the remote Deveselu air base, senior US and NATO officials declared operational the ballistic missile defence site, which is capable of shooting down rockets from countries such as Iran that Washington says could one day reach major European cities.

"As long as Iran continues to develop and deploy ballistic missiles, the United States will work with its allies to defend NATO," said US Deputy Defence Secretary Robert Work, standing in front of the shield's massive grey concrete housing that was adorned with a US flag.

Despite Washington's plans to continue to develop the capabilities of its system, Work said the shield would not be used against any future Russian missile threat. "There are no plans at all to do that," he told a news conference.

Before the ceremony, Frank Rose, deputy US assistant secretary of state for arms control, warned that Iran's ballistic missiles can hit parts of Europe, including Romania.

When complete, the defensive umbrella will stretch from Greenland to the Azores. On Friday, the United States will break ground on a final site in Poland due to be ready by late 2018, completing the defence line first proposed almost a decade ago.

The full shield also includes ships and radars across Europe. It will be handed over to NATO in July, with command and control run from a US air base in Germany.

Russia is incensed at such of show of force by its Cold War rival in formerly communist-ruled eastern Europe. Moscow says the US-led alliance is trying to encircle it close to the strategically important Black Sea, home to a Russian naval fleet and where NATO is also considering increasing patrols.

"It is part of the military and political containment of Russia," Andrey Kelin, a senior Russian foreign ministry official, said on Thursday, the Interfax news agency reported.

"These decisions by NATO can only exacerbate an already difficult situation," he added, saying the move would hinder efforts to repair ties between Russia and the alliance.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's office said Moscow also doubted NATO's stated aim of protecting the alliance against Iranian rockets following the historic nuclear deal with Tehran and world powers last year that Russia helped to negotiate.

"The situation with Iran has changed dramatically," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Retaliation

The readying of the shield also comes as NATO prepares a new deterrent in Poland and the Baltics, following Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. In response, Russia is reinforcing its western and southern flanks with three new divisions.

Poland is concerned Russia may retaliate further by announcing the deployment of nuclear weapons to its enclave of Kaliningrad, located between Poland and Lithuania. Russia has stationed anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles there, able to cover huge areas and complicate NATO's ability to move around.

The Kremlin says the shield's aim is to neutralise Moscow's nuclear arsenal long enough for the United States to strike Russia in the event of war. Washington and NATO deny that.

"Missile defence ... does not undermine or weaken Russia's strategic nuclear deterrent," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the Deveselu base.

However, Douglas Lute, the United States' envoy to NATO, said NATO would press ahead with NATO's biggest modernisation since the Cold War. "We are deploying at sea, on the ground and in the air across the eastern flanks of the alliance ... to deter any aggressor," Lute said.

At a cost of billions of dollars, the missile defence umbrella relies on radars to detect a ballistic missile launch into space. Sensors then measure the rocket's trajectory and destroy it in space before it re-enters the earth's atmosphere. The interceptors can be fired from ships or ground sites.

The Romanian shield, which is modelled on the United States' so-called Aegis ships, was first assembled in New Jersey and then transferred to the Deveselu base in containers.

While US and NATO officials are adamant that the shield is designed to counter threats from the Middle East and not Russia, they remained vague on whether the radars and interceptors could be reconfigured to defend against Russia in a conflict.

The United States says Russia has ballistic missiles, in breach of a treaty that agreed the two powers must not develop and deploy missiles with a range of 500 km to 5,500 km. The United States declared Russia in non-compliance of the treaty in July 2014.

The issue remains sensitive because the United States does not want to give the impression it would be able to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles that were carrying nuclear warheads, which is what Russia fears.

BRASILIA — Suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff vowed on Thursday she would fight to prove her innocence after the senate voted to put her on trial for breaking budget laws, a historic decision fueled by deep recession and a sprawling corruption scandal.

Rousseff, a leftist in office since 2011, was replaced by her vice president, centrist Michel Temer, who took over as interim president for the duration of a senate trial that could take up to six months.

Speaking shortly before she left Brasilia's Planalto presidential palace, Rousseff told supporters she was notified of her suspension on Thursday morning. She reiterated what she has maintained since impeachment proceedings were launched against her last December by the lower house of congress.

"I may have made mistakes but I did not commit any crime," Rousseff said in an angry address, calling the impeachment "fraudulent" and "a coup".

Rousseff, 68, was flanked by dozens of ministers who were leaving with her administration. Even as many of them wept, Rousseff remained stolid.

"I never imagined that it would be necessary to fight once again against a coup in this country," Rousseff said, in a reference to her youth fighting Brazil's military dictatorship.

Shortly afterward, she addressed hundreds of supporters outside, many of them dressed in the red of her Workers Party, and already shouting "Temer out!"

"This is a tragic hour for our country," Rousseff said, calling her suspension an effort by conservatives to roll back the social and economic gains made by the Workers Party during its 13 years in power.

The party rose from Brazil's labor movement and helped pull millions of people out of poverty before running into recession and scandal, with many of its leaders tainted by corruption investigations.

The senate deliberated for 20 hours before voting 55-22 early on Thursday to put Rousseff on trial over charges that she disguised the size of the budget deficit to make the economy look healthier in the runup to her 2014 re-election.

Rousseff, an economist and former member of a Marxist guerrilla group who became Brazil's first woman president, has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing and has called the charges politically motivated.

Despite her vows to fight, she is unlikely to be acquitted in her trial.

The size of the vote to try her showed the opposition already has the support it will need to reach the two-thirds majority required to convict Rousseff and remove her definitively from office.

"It is a bitter though necessary medicine," opposition Senator Jose Serra, named on Thursday as the new foreign minister under Temer, said during the marathon Senate debate. "Having the Rousseff government continue would be a bigger tragedy."

Economic challenges

With Brazil's economy mired in its deepest recession in decades, the incoming Temer administration sought to show it would act rapidly.

Temer aides said the incoming government would announce a series of austerity measures to help reduce a massive budget deficit. An immediate effort would seek to reform Brazil's costly pension system, possibly setting a minimum age for retirement, said one adviser.

Temer appointed Henrique Mereilles, a former central bank president and banking executive who is popular with foreign investors, as finance minister, a press officer said.

Rousseff earlier dismissed her cabinet, including the sports minister, who is in final preparations for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August, Brazil's Official Gazette showed. The central bank governor, who has ministerial rank, was not included in the decree.

As suspended head of state, Rousseff can continue to live in her official residence, and is entitled to a staff and use of an Air Force plane.

Fireworks erupted in cities across Brazil after the senate vote. Police briefly clashed with pro-Rousseff demonstrators in Brasilia during the vote, but the country was calm early Thursday, with scattered celebrants in Sao Paulo and other cities draping themselves in Brazil's green, yellow and blue flag.

Temer, 75, a constitutional scholar who spent decades in Brazil's congress, now faces the challenge of restoring economic growth and calm at a time when Brazilians, increasingly polarised, are questioning whether their institutions can deliver on his promise of stability.

In addition to the gaping deficit, equal to more than 10 per cent of its annual economic output, Brazil is suffering from rising unemployment, plummeting investment and a projected economic contraction of more than 3 per cent this year.

"Only major reforms can keep Brazil from moving from crisis to crisis," says Eduardo Giannetti da Fonseca, an economist and author in Sao Paulo who has written extensively about the country's socioeconomic problems.

But those changes, including an overhaul of pension, tax and labour laws and a political reform to streamline fragmented parties in a mercenary congress, could remain elusive at a time of turmoil.

In a statement on Thursday, Moody's Investors Service said continued political tension was likely to make reforms difficult. "Brazil still faces significant credit challenges including the need to reverse the ongoing economic contraction and to achieve meaningful fiscal consolidation," the ratings agency said.

Wild cards remain for Temer himself, including still-pending investigations by an electoral court into financing for his and Rousseff's 2014 campaign.

Then there is the far-reaching kickback probe around state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, which has ensnared dozens of corporate and political chieftains, and helped set the scene for the discontent that hobbled Rousseff.

LONDON — Countries from Britain to Afghanistan pledged on Thursday to set up public registers of company ownership in a collective effort to make it harder to launder the proceeds of corruption around the globe.

Prime Minister David Cameron announced the steps at a global anti-corruption summit he was hosting; but critics said the registers might have no meaningful impact unless tax havens, many ultimately controlled by Britain, also ended secrecy.

The build-up to the London event was marred by Cameron being caught on camera describing Nigeria and Afghanistan, which are both taking part, as "fantastically corrupt"; but he later said that the leaders of both countries were tackling the problem.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, addressing a plenary session at the summit, said he had been shocked by the degree to which he found corruption "pandemic" around the world.

"It is a contributor to terrorism in many different ways and the extremism that we see in the world today comes to no small degree from the utter exasperation that people have with the sense that the system is rigged," Kerry said.

"We see this anger manifesting itself in different forms in elections around the world, including ours," he said, alluding to the unexpected success of Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders in the US presidential primaries.

Britain, France, the Netherlands, Nigeria and Afghanistan pledged to launch public registers of true company ownership while Australia, New Zealand, Jordan, Indonesia, Ireland and Georgia announced initial steps towards similar arrangements.

Kerry said the United States had already announced measures to improve transparency on business ownership.

The countries taking part in the summit issued a 34-point communique outlining pledges to tackle issues ranging from doping and match-fixing in sports to tax evasion and bribery.

The summit organisers also published separate statements from 40 countries, each one setting out commitments for which, Cameron said, civil society, media and others should hold governments to account. 

Under the new rules announced by Cameron, foreign companies that own a property in Britain or want to buy one or to bid for a central government contract will have to join the register.

The aim is to expose those who hide behind obscure shell companies to own properties, a particularly acute problem in London which has been hit by repeated scandals involving luxury homes owned by corrupt foreign politicians and businesspeople.

"We await to see the detailed requirements, how it will be policed and the penalties for non-compliance in order to judge whether the proposed legislation will actually have any teeth," said Chris Burdett, a partner at law firm Clyde&Co.

Critics said real progress on money-laundering and tax evasion would only come if tax havens were also compelled to open up about who owns offshore-registered companies.

"Tax dodgers can still sleep easily tonight," said Susanna Ruiz, tax expert at charity Oxfam.

The release of the "Panama Papers", leaked documents from law firm Mossack Fonseca, put tax avoidance at the top of the global agenda by showing the extent to which tax havens were used by politicians and businesspeople from around the world.

Anti-corruption protesters who gathered close to the summit venue, some dressed as bankers with bowler hats reclining on deck chairs as they fanned themselves with banknotes, said what was needed was an outright abolition of tax havens.

The British Virgin Islands, a British overseas territory that the Panama Papers suggested was home to more than half of the 200,000 companies set up by Mossack Fonseca, was not represented at the London summit.

Britain also seized the opportunity of the summit to bring forward plans to introduce a criminal offence for companies that fail to stop employees facilitating tax evasion, pledging to introduce legislation to that effect this year.

John Milner, head of business crime and fraud at law firm IBB Solicitors, said this was a step in the right direction in tackling what he called Britain's "unenviable and growing reputation as a soft touch for laundering dirty money".

However, he expressed doubts as to whether the already stretched white collar crime investigating body would be able to enforce the new rule.

ANKARA — A deal to grant Turks visa-free travel to most of the European Union was hanging by a thread Thursday after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defiantly vowed Ankara would not fulfil a key condition set by Brussels.

With alarm growing over the deal's future, European Commission Chief Jean-Claude Juncker bluntly told Erdogan that Turks would only enjoy travel to the passport-free Schengen area if all conditions were met and it would be "his problem" if this failed to materialise.

The promise of visa-free travel is a key pillar of the landmark March accord for Turkey to stem the flow of migrants to the EU and this could now also be in peril.

Erdogan accused the European Union of "hypocrisy" for telling Ankara to adapt its counter-terror laws in return for visa-free travel while it was in the throes of fighting Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels.

"The EU stands up and says 'soften your approach over the terrorist organisation'," Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara, referring to the PKK. 

"Since when are you running this country? Who has given you the authority?" he asked, in one of his most stinging attacks in recent weeks on the EU.

"They believe they have a right for themselves [to fight terror] but find it a luxury and unacceptable for us. Let me say it clearly — this is called hypocrisy."

'Not my problem, his problem' 

Turkey concluded a deal with the EU in March to curb the migrant flow to Europe in return for political incentives including the visa-free travel as well as billions of euros in aid from Brussels for refugees.

Ankara however is obliged to meet the remaining five out of 72 conditions for its citizens to enjoy visa-free travel to Europe.

But with the Turkish military battling the PKK in the Kurdish-majority southeast, Turkey says it cannot change its counter-terror laws.

Juncker's comments indicated the EU saw no room for negotiation if Turkey did not fulfil all the conditions.

"We consider that it is important for these conditions to be fulfilled, otherwise this deal between the EU and Turkey will not happen," Juncker said in Berlin.

"If Mr Erdogan wants to pursue his strategy, then he has to answer to the Turkish people why Europe is denying free travel to Turks. That's not my problem, that will be his problem."

'Difficulties arise' 

European parliament president Martin Schulz said that the deal was struck not with an individual but with the Turkish government, in reference to the departure of Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

"We also believe that mutual understanding is better than mutual threats," he said.

The EU wants Ankara to sharply narrow its definition of "terror" to prevent recent cases like the prosecution of academics and journalists for publishing "terror propaganda".

A European diplomat told AFP: "We don't have a plan B" if the deal — which so far helped migrant flows to Europe fall sharply — collapsed.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who spearheaded efforts to conclude the deal, said, "We must recognise that we need such an agreement with Turkey in any case and that it is worth the effort to negotiate it even if difficulties arise."

Erdogan remained defiant and said it was a "historic mistake" for Turkey's relations with the EU to be determined by "the terrorist organisation [PKK] and the politicians' demands that are guided by it".

He said if the EU preferred to take the "terrorist organisation" as its interlocutor instead of Turkey, "there's no problem from our perspective”.

Turkey has for decades sought to become a member of the EU but its bid has hit repeated stumbling blocks, sparking increasing bitterness in Ankara.

The Turkish president, who has sought to build closer relations with key Arab and Asian states during his presidency, said Turkey had alternatives to the EU.

"In the period ahead of us, either we will develop our relations with the EU and finally get on this road or we will find a new road for ourselves," he said. 

"We prefer to build new Turkey together with our European friends. We will now await our European friends' decision."

WASHINGTON — US Democratic White House candidate Hillary Clinton lost the primary to Bernie Sanders in economically struggling West Virginia on Tuesday, possibly signaling trouble for her in industrial states in the November general election.

The defeat slowed Clinton's march to the nomination, but she is still heavily favoured to become the Democratic candidate in the November 8 election to face presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Trump, 69, has zeroed in on Clinton's long battle with Sanders, the 74-year-old US senator from Vermont. He has taunted Clinton in recent days, saying she "can't close the deal". The billionaire Republican won contests in West Virginia and Nebraska handily on Tuesday.

Trump has begun to release more policy specifics as he nears his party's nomination and in the last month has contacted at least two top conservative economists, Larry Kudlow of CNBC and Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation, for help revising his tax package, Politico reported on Wednesday.

His tax plan has been under scrutiny as he has worked to tone down remarks about raising taxes on wealthy Americans, saying the rich might simply get a smaller tax cut than he originally proposed.

For Clinton, 68, her failure to win over voters deeply sceptical about the economy underscored how she still needs to court working-class voters in the Rust Belt, including key states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. West Virginia has one of the highest unemployment rates in country.

Sanders, who has vowed to take his campaign all the way to the Democrats' July 25-28 convention in Philadelphia, has repeatedly said he is the stronger candidate to beat Trump in November, and following his West Virginia win, he emphasised economic themes.

Trump is set to meet with party leaders in the US Congress on Thursday, including US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan.

After Ryan said last week that he was not ready to endorse Trump, the presumptive nominee said he would have to decide whether he still wanted Ryan to preside over the party's July convention.

Trump said in a Fox interview on Tuesday night that he would like Ryan to chair the convention as planned. "He's a very good man, he wants what's good for the party," he said.

Also, Trump said he had narrowed his potential vice presidential choices to five or six experienced politicians, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, told the AP in an interview he had not ruled out New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a former rival now supporting Trump's bid for the White House.

In West Virginia, roughly six in 10 voters said they were very worried about the direction of the US economy in the next few years, according to a preliminary ABC News exit poll. The same proportion cited the economy and jobs as the most important issue.

A remark Clinton made at an Ohio town hall in March that the country would "put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business" may have hurt her with voters in coal-mining states such as West Virginia.

During Clinton's visit to West Virginia and Ohio last week she repeatedly apologised to displaced coal and steel workers for her comment and discussed her plan to help retrain coal workers for clean energy jobs.

DHAKA — Clashes erupted in Bangladesh on Wednesday after the execution of a top Islamist leader, heightening tension in a country reeling from a string of killings of secular and liberal activists.

Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami Party, was hanged at a Dhaka jail late on Tuesday for the massacre of intellectuals during the 1971 independence war with Pakistan.

Police said they fired rubber bullets after hundreds of Nizami's supporters attacked them with stones in the northwestern city of Rajshahi, where a liberal professor was killed by suspected militants last month.

"There were 500 Jamaat activists who were protesting the execution. We fired rubber bullets as they became violent," Rajshahi police inspector Selim Badsah told AFP, adding that about 20 were arrested.

Jamaat and ruling party supporters also clashed in Chittagong, where about 2,500 Islamists attended a service for the executed leader, the port city's deputy police chief Masudul Hasan told AFP.

Security was tight across the country, with checkpoints erected on main roads in Dhaka to deter violence and thousands of police patrolling the capital.

Nizami, a 73-year-old former government minister, was the fifth and the most senior opposition figure executed since the secular government set up a controversial war crimes tribunal in 2010.

Security was also stepped up in Nizami's ancestral district of Pabna, where his body was taken under armed escort for burial in his family's grave.

"At least 16 activists of Jamaat were arrested [in Pabna] Tuesday night as part of the security clampdown," local police inspector Ahsanul Haq said.

Jamaat called a nationwide strike for Thursday in protest at Nizami's execution, saying the charges against him were false and aimed at eliminating the party's leadership.

Jamaat 'death knell' 

Executions of Jamaat officials in 2013 triggered the country's deadliest violence in decades. Around 500 people were killed, mainly in clashes between Islamists and police.

But a fresh wave of bloodshed is considered unlikely following a major crackdown by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government that has seen tens of thousands of Jamaat supporters detained.

Secular protesters cheered the midnight hanging, with hundreds gathered outside the jail and at a square in central Dhaka overnight to celebrate what they described as an historic moment. 

Mubashar Hasan, an assistant professor at Bangladesh's University of Liberal Arts, said Tuesday's execution may sound the death knell for the already embattled Jamaat.

"With the execution of Nizami, the Jamaat leadership who revived the fortune of the party in the post-1971 period are now almost gone," he said. 

It comes amid a wave of gruesome murders by suspected militants, with an atheist student, two gay rights activists, a professor, a Hindu tailor and a Sufi Muslim leader hacked to death since last month. 

The Daesh terror group and a Bangladesh branch of Al Qaeda have claimed responsibility for several murders, but the government blames homegrown extremists and accuses the opposition of trying to destabilise the country.

Nizami took over as Jamaat leader in 2000 and played a key role in the victory of an Islamist-allied government in the 2001 general election. 

The 1971 conflict, one of the bloodiest in world history, led to the creation of an independent Bangladesh from what was then East Pakistan.

Prosecutors said Nizami was responsible for setting up the pro-Pakistani Al Badr militia, which killed top writers, doctors and journalists in the most gruesome chapter of the war.

He was convicted in October 2014 by the International Crimes Tribunal, which has sentenced more than a dozen opposition leaders for war crimes in trials criticised by rights groups. 

CARACAS/PUNTO FIJO — Soldiers fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters on Wednesday as Venezuela's opposition marched to pressure electoral authorities into allowing a recall referendum against unpopular leftist President Nicolas Maduro.

The Democratic Unity coalition has ramped up its push to oust Maduro amid a worsening economic crisis, but says the government-leaning electoral body is intentionally delaying the verification of signatures in favour of the referendum.

Waving flags and blowing whistles, hundreds marched in the capital of Caracas as well as the provinces — where food scarcity and power cuts are worse — but authorities blocked them.

Dozens of protesters and National Guards squared off on a Caracas highway, where demonstrators chanted "freedom", held their hands in the air and waved copies of the constitution.

Some covered their faces and tossed stones.

"They don't let us vote. They don't let us march. They don't let us eat. They don't let us live peacefully. What else can we do? We have to fight however we can against this tyranny," said Juan, declining to give his surname as he donned a mask.

A new election would be held if the opposition succeeds this year in recalling Maduro, whose term ends in 2019.

But if a successful recall referendum is held in 2017, the presidency would fall to the vice president, a post currently held by Socialist Party loyalist Aristobulo Isturiz.

The opposition says Maduro, elected in 2013, is incapable of solving the OPEC country's deepening recession and is pushing Venezuela towards economic catastrophe.

One recent poll showed almost 70 per cent of Venezuelans want Maduro, 53, gone this year.

"We have to suffer a queue of nine to 10 hours for corn flour, we walk from pharmacy to pharmacy looking for medicine," said Irma Rojas, a community leader protesting in northwestern Falcon state.

"For that and so much more, we want this man out."

In the opposition hotbed of Tachira in western Venezuela, protesters brandished signs readings "we don't want to do die of hunger" while some masked youths blocked streets with trash and prepared Molotov cocktails.

The Socialist Party blasts protesters as dangerous coup-plotters and held a separate march on Wednesday. Officials have said a referendum is unlikely this year and have cast doubt over the legitimacy of the signatures.

The opposition submitted roughly 1.85 million signatures on May 2. If they are validated, the opposition must then request another petition drive and gather around 4 million signatures to finally trigger a referendum.

DHAKA — Bangladesh on Tuesday executed the leader of the country's largest Islamist party for war crimes, officials said, a move set to exacerbate tensions in the volatile Muslim-majority nation.

Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami Party, was hanged at a prison in the capital Dhaka, just days after the nation's highest court dismissed his final appeal to overturn the death sentence for atrocities committed during the country's 1971 war of independence with Pakistan.

Law and Justice Minister Anisul Huq told AFP the 73-year-old leader was hanged just before midnight (1800 GMT) after he refused to seek mercy from the country's president.

"He was executed between 11:50pm and 12:00am midnight," Huq said.

The execution has sparked fears it could trigger a fresh wave of violence in the majority Sunni Muslim country, which is reeling after a string of killings of secular and liberal activists and religious minorities by suspected militants.

In 2013, the convictions of Jamaat officials for war crimes triggered the country's deadliest violence in decades. Around 500 people were killed, mainly in clashes between Islamists and police, and thousands were arrested.

Nizami is the fifth and highest-ranked opposition leader — and the fourth from Jamaat — to have been executed since December 2013 for war crimes despite global criticism of their trials.

"We've been waiting for this day," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters, adding that people "will remember this day forever".

Security stepped up 

Hours before the hanging, family members of Nizami met him for the last time at the Dhaka Central Jail, as hundreds of police and elite security forces cordoned off the British colonial-era prison.

Security has been stepped up in the capital and in Nizami's home district of Pabna in the country's west, with magistrates being deployed to hand down instant prison terms to any law-breakers.

"If anyone tries to commit sabotage, our security forces are ready to identify them and take proper measures," Khan told reporters. 

Since last month an atheist student, two gay rights activists, a liberal professor, a Hindu tailor who allegedly made derogatory comments against Prophet Mohammad and a Sufi Muslim leader have been hacked to death in Bangladesh.

Jamaat has said the charges against Nizami, a former government minister, are false and aimed at eliminating the leadership of the party.

Nizami took over as party leader in 2000 and played a key role in the victory of an Islamist-allied government in the 2001 general election. He was made a key minister in the Islamist-allied Cabinet of 2001-6.

The 1971 conflict, one of the bloodiest in world history, led to the creation of an independent Bangladesh from what was then East Pakistan.

Prosecutors said Nizami was responsible for setting up the pro-Pakistani Al Badr militia, which killed top writers, doctors and journalists in the most gruesome chapter of the war.

Their bodies were found blindfolded with their hands tied and dumped in a marsh at the outskirts of the capital.

The trial heard Nizami ordered the killings, designed to "intellectually cripple" the fledgling nation.

He was convicted in October 2014 by the International Crimes Tribunal, which was established in 2010 by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government and has sentenced more than a dozen opposition leaders for war crimes.

Rights groups say the trials fall short of global standards and lack international oversight, while the government says they are needed to heal the wounds of the conflict.

Amnesty International had called for an immediate halt to Nizami's execution, citing concerns over the fairness of the trials.

The government says up to three million people died in the 1971 war, while independent researchers put the figure at between 300,000 and 500,000.