World

KIEV — Angry protestors threw stones and eggs at the Russian embassy in Kiev on Sunday, breaking several of its windows after smashing cars and burning a Russian flag, as Ukrainians' anger boiled over at Moscow's refusal to free a hunger-striking pilot.

Hundreds of demonstrators rallied outside Moscow's diplomatic mission to demand the release of Nadiya Savchenko, a 34-year-old pilot who is on trial in Russia for the killing of two journalists.

Savchenko announced she was going on hunger strike on Thursday, rejecting both food and water, to protest delays in her controversial trial.

The protesters in Kiev also attached a makeshift gallows to the embassy fence, hanging an effigy of Russian President Vladimir Putin with a sign "murderer", an AFP correspondent reported. 

Several embassy windows were broken during the protest.

"The situation is rather tense," Oleg Grishin, spokesman for the Russian embassy, told AFP.

The incident came after around 10 people attacked the mission overnight, smashing several cars, apparently with a hammer, officials said. Grishin said they had thrown flares and smoke pellets.

'Hooliganism' probe 

Ukrainian police said a "hooliganism" probe was opened over the nighttime attack.

Earlier on Sunday more than a thousand people turned up on Kiev's iconic Maidan Square, shaming Putin and praising the pilot.

Savchenko is demanding that she be repatriated to Ukraine after a judge in the southern Russian town of Donetsk on Thursday unexpectedly postponed her final address to court as her trial nears an end.

Savchenko is seen by her compatriots as a symbol of resistance against the Kremlin accused of fuelling a conflict in eastern Ukraine which has claimed more than 9,000 lives since April, 2014.

Her supporters are concerned that by refusing to drink water she may damage her health irreparably or not live long enough to attend the next hearing set for Wednesday.

Some demonstrators held her portraits, while others held placards reading "Free Savchenko" and "Cannot break Nadiya”.

Savchenko's sister Vira, who attended the rally with their elderly mother, said it was hard for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fight "such a mean enemy that is the Kremlin”.

"Nadiya went all in. This is not a bluff and not a political project," she said.

Others, like Viktoriya Ivanenko, a 33-year-old university lecturer, expressed fears that the aviator may die.

"For me Savchenko is the face of Ukraine's liberation struggle and resistance."

'Dry hunger strike' 

In Russia, one of Savchenko's lawyers, Nikolai Polozov, said that she was in "satisfactory condition".

Writing on Facebook, he said she was being monitored and there was no need to force-feed her.

Refusing both food and water is known in Russia as a "dry hunger strike" and was a method of last resort for some Soviet dissidents under communism.

Polozov said that Russian human rights ombudsman Ella Pamfilova had informed Savchenko's sister Vira of her condition after her representatives visited her in a detention centre.

Savchenko has fasted before to protest the accusations against her but has never before refused both food and water.

Prosecutors say Savchenko was involved in the killing of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine in 2014 in her capacity as a volunteer in a Ukrainian battalion.

She denies the charges and says she was kidnapped and smuggled into Russia. 

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined this week to comment on Savchenko's hunger strike, saying the issue was not on the Kremlin agenda.

The US State Department has reiterated its call for Savchenko to be released "immediately”.

IDOMENI, Greece — Some 13,000 refugees are crammed in unhygienic conditions on Greece's border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, officials said Saturday, with all eyes on a key EU-Turkey summit on Monday that is seen as the only viable solution to the crisis.

The huge influx of refugees and migrants has caused major tensions and divisions within the European Union, but EU President Donald Tusk on Friday struck an upbeat note about Monday's summit in Brussels, which will include Turkey.

European leaders are expected to use the summit to press Ankara to take back more economic migrants from Greece and reduce the flow of people across the Aegean Sea.

Greece has been plunged at the heart of Europe's greatest migration crisis in six decades after a series of border restrictions along the migrant trail, from Austria to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has caused a bottleneck on its soil.

Over 30,000 refugees and migrants have been trapped in the country, around a third of them at Idomeni border crossing, where aid groups report food and tent shortages.

"There are 13,000 people here and nearly 20,000 in this prefecture, over 60 per cent of the country's entire refugee and migrant flow," Apostolos Tzitzikostas, regional governor of Greece's central Macedonia prefecture, told Skai television on Saturday.

"We can no longer shoulder this strain by ourselves."

Adding to the EU tensions, Bulgaria said Saturday it will send more than 400 troops and security personnel to guard its border with Greece, amid fears the migrant flow along the Balkan route will pick up with the onset of warmer weather. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel — a key player in the drama — meanwhile said Greece should have been quicker in preparing to host 50,000 people under an agreement with the European Union in October.

"Greece should have created 50,000 accommodation places for refugees by the end of 2015," Merkel told Bild newspaper in an interview to appear Sunday.

"This delay must be addressed as soon as possible as the Greek government must provide decent lodgings" to asylum claimants, she said.

Greece sent in the army in February to speed up the creation of open camps for migrants and refugees but has occasionally run into opposition from local authorities.

Tents and protests 

The Doctors Without Borders charity on Saturday began erecting additional tents at Idomeni to shelter over 1,000 people who could not fit in the camp and have been sleeping in muddy fields and ditches, an AFP reporter said. 

In past days, the mainly Syrian and Iraqi refugees have regularly held protests in front of the barbed-wire fence guarded by riot police in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, demanding to be allowed through.

Hussam, a 25-year-old Syrian, says the refugees are hoping that Monday's EU-Turkey summit will provide a breakthrough.

"We are calm now because we are hoping for a positive outcome on Monday, that they will help us pass," Hussam said. "If there isn't one, I don't know what will happen."

According to Greek officials, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has allowed some 2,000 people through its borders in the last two weeks. The same number of people fleeing war and poverty arrive in Greece from neighbouring Turkey in two days.

Some 200 people were allowed through between Friday and Saturday, with police in the  Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia calling into question registration documents handed to refugees by Greek police at the islands.

In many cases, the documents do not carry full dates of birth, only the year, while disputes over the correct colour of a police stamp can also hold up the process for hours.

Athens is building additional facilities to house the refugees and migrants, but many prefer to go to the border in the hope of eventually getting through, and are stuck there for days and weeks.

"I haven't bathed in 15 days," said Almuthanna, a 35-year-old Iraqi stranded at the camp with his family for eight days.

"One of my sons is ill and there's no medicine. This is war too, only they don't kill you with a gun, but slowly," he told AFP.

"We hope the politicians will reach a solution on Monday. Hope is all we have left. It will be disastrous if no solution is found," he said.

Greece has asked the EU for 480 million euros ($526 million) in emergency funds to help shelter 100,000 refugees. A senior UN migration official has warned that the numbers stuck in Greece will probably reach 70,000 in the coming weeks. 

KABUL — The Taliban on Saturday refused to hold direct peace talks with the Afghan government, dealing a blow to international efforts to revive long-stalled negotiations aimed at ending the deadly 14-year insurgency.

The announcement, which comes as face-to-face talks were expected to start in Islamabad this week, stressed longstanding preconditions for dialogue including the departure of foreign troops from Afghanistan.

The Taliban's seemingly intractable position follows a string of military victories for the insurgent group after NATO formally ended its combat operations more than a year ago.

"We want to repeat our stance once again that until the occupation of foreign troops ends, until Taliban names are removed from international blacklists and until our detainees are released, talks will yield no results," the group said in a statement.

The announcement marks a setback in efforts by Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the United States to restart negotiations aimed at ending the insurgency.

Delegates from the four countries met in Kabul late February for a fourth round of talks aimed at reviving the nascent peace process, which stalled last summer.

The quartet had called for a direct meeting between the Taliban and Kabul by this week, a deadline that some analysts called "completely unrealistic".

"We unequivocally state that the esteemed leader of Islamic Emirate [Taliban] has not authorised anyone to participate in this meeting and neither has the Leadership Council of Islamic Emirate decided to partake in it," the Taliban statement added.

The group also accused the United States of duplicity, saying it had boosted troop numbers, increased air strikes and night raids against the insurgents in tandem with its efforts to restart talks.

Spike in violence 

The Taliban have also stepped up attacks on government and foreign targets in Afghanistan — even in the winter months when fighting usually abates — underscoring a worsening security situation.

Afghan security forces have suffered record casualties since NATO ended its combat mission in December 2014, leaving them to battle the resurgent Taliban largely on their own.

In recent months the Taliban briefly captured the northern city of Kunduz, the first urban centre to fall to the insurgents, and have seized territory in the opium-growing southern province of Helmand.

Observers say the intensifying insurgency highlights a push by the militants to seize more territory in an attempt to wrangle greater concessions if and when the talks resume.

"The Taliban may say 'no' today but one day they will want to take part in talks — from a position of great strength," Kabul-based military analyst Atiqullah Amarkhil told AFP.

"That explains why their insurgency is getting increasingly bloodier."

Kabul has repeatedly called for all Taliban groups to sit at the negotiating table though President Ashraf Ghani has said his government will not make peace with those who kill civilians.

A recent UN report highlighted more than 11,000 civilian casualties in 2015 including 3,545 deaths, a new record since 2009 when the agency began tabulating the statistics.

Pakistan — the Taliban's historic backers — hosted a milestone first round of talks directly with the Taliban in July.

But the negotiations stalled when the insurgents belatedly confirmed the death of longtime leader Mullah Omar, sparking infighting within the group.

ISTANBUL — A leading Turkish newspaper opposed to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and seized by authorities warned of the "darkest days" in the history of the press in a defiant edition Saturday as police used rubber bullets to disperse a new protest.

The late-night swoop against the Zaman newspaper raised fresh concerns over declining media freedoms in Turkey, a key European Union ally, ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to Brussels Monday for a crucial summit meeting with EU leaders.

Zaman, closely linked to Erdogan's arch-foe, the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, was placed on Friday under administration after a court order which critics said was another attempt to silence opposition media.

"The Constitution is suspended," the newspaper, which managed to print its latest issue despite the takeover, said on its front page in large font on a black background.

"Yesterday [Friday] marked one of the darkest days in the history of Turkish press," it said.

Turkish riot police on Saturday fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse a new protest by the newspaper's supporters outside its Istanbul headquarters.

"Free press cannot be silenced," a group of demonstrators shouted.

Police used large amounts of tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to disperse around 500 people, an AFP photographer at the scene reported.

Zaman, with an estimated circulation of 650,000, went to print earlier than usual on Friday evening before the police raid and the number of its pages was reduced to 16 from 24, one of its journalists said. 

Sevgi Akarcesme, the editor-in-chief of the paper's English language edition Today's Zaman, said on Twitter on Saturday that the raided building had had all Internet connections cut.

"We are not able to work anymore," she wrote.

During Friday's raid, police first cleared protesters with tear gas and water cannon, then used bolt-cutters to open the gates before dozens of officers marched in to take over the building and formally place it under administration, media images showed.

Once the building was cleared, court-appointed administrators were bussed inside the complex to begin their work, local media reported.

The new administrators on Saturday fired Zaman's editor-in-chief Abdulhamit Bilici, press reports said. 

The raid prompted a worried response from the European Union, which urged Ankara to respect media freedom. 

"The EU has repeatedly stressed that Turkey, as [an EU] candidate country, needs to respect and promote high democratic standards and practices, including freedom of the media," the EU's diplomatic service said in a statement.

'Veiled move'

The Russian foreign ministry called for a probe by the international community including the Council of Europe into the crackdown. 

"It is essential that Ankara respect European and international requirements concerning freedom of speech and freedom of press," a ministry spokeswoman said.

Washington also urged Turkey to protect freedom of speech, saying the court order was "the latest in a series of troubling judicial and law enforcement actions taken by the Turkish government targeting media outlets and others critical of it”.

Emma Sinclair-Webb, senior Turkey researcher for Human Rights Watch, called the court order "a veiled move by the president to eradicate opposition media and scrutiny of government policies”.

Ankara accuses Gulen of running what it calls the Fethullahci Terror Organisation/Parallel State Structure (FeTO/PDY) and seeking to overthrow the legitimate Turkish authorities. 

Local media said the court order was issued on the grounds that Zaman supported the activities of this "terror organisation".

Gulen has been based in the United States since 1999 when he fled charges against him laid by the former secular authorities. 

Despite living outside of Turkey, Gulen has built up huge influence in the country through allies in the police and judiciary, media and financial interests and a vast network of cramming schools.

There have been numerous legal crackdowns on structures linked to the group and on Friday Turkish police arrested four executives of one of the country's largest conglomerates, accusing them of financing Gulen.

The Zaman seizure is the latest incident to raise concerns about freedom of expression in Turkey under Erdogan's rule.

The daily Cumhuriyet newspaper's editor-in-chief Can Dundar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul were released on an order from Turkey's top court last week after three months in jail on charges of publishing state secrets.

But they still face trial on March 25.

SEOUL — North Korea fired six short-range projectiles into the sea off its east coast Thursday, South Korean officials said, just hours after the UN Security Council approved the toughest sanctions on the North in two decades for its recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.

The firings also came shortly after South Korea's National Assembly passed its first legislation on human rights in North Korea.

The North Korean projectiles, fired from the eastern coastal town of Wonsan, flew about 100 to 150 kilometres before landing in the sea, South Korea's joint chiefs of staff said in a statement.

It wasn't immediately known exactly what North Korea fired, and the projectiles could be missiles, artillery or rockets, South Korea's Defence Ministry said.

North Korea routinely test-fires missiles and rockets, but often conducts weapons launches when angered at international condemnation.

Thursday's firings were seen as a "low-level" response to the UN sanctions, with North Korea unlikely to launch any major provocation until its landmark ruling Workers' Party convention in May, according to Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

North Korea has not issued an official reaction to the new UN sanctions. But citizens in its capital, Pyongyang, interviewed by The Associated Press said Thursday they believe their country can fight off any sanctions.

"No kind of sanctions will ever work on us, because we've lived under US sanctions for more than half a century," said Pyongyang resident Song Hyo-il. "And in the future, we're going to build a powerful and prosperous country here, relying on our own development."

North Korean state media earlier warned that the imposition of new sanctions would be a "grave provocation" that shows "extreme" US hostility against the country. It said the sanctions would not result in the country's collapse or prevent it from launching more rockets.

The UN sanctions include mandatory inspections of cargo leaving and entering North Korea by land, sea or air; a ban on all sales or transfers of small arms and light weapons to the North; and the expulsion of North Korean diplomats who engage in "illicit activities".

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China, North Korea's closest ally, hoped the UN sanctions would be implemented "comprehensively and seriously", while harm to ordinary North Korean citizens would be avoided.

At the United Nations, Russia's ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, asked about the North's firing of short-range projectiles, said, "It means that they're not drawing the proper conclusions yet."

Japan's UN ambassador, Motohide Yoshikawa, said, "That's their way of reacting to what we have decided."

"They may do something more," Yoshikawa said. "So we will see."

In January, North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test, which it claimed was a hydrogen bomb. Last month, it put a satellite into orbit with a long-range rocket that the United Nations and others saw as a cover for a test of banned ballistic missile technology.

Just before the UN sanctions were unanimously adopted, South Korea's National Assembly passed a bill that would establish a centre tasked with collecting, archiving and publishing information about human rights in North Korea. It is required to transfer that information to the Justice Ministry, a step parliamentary officials say would provide legal grounds to punish rights violators in North Korea when the two Koreas eventually reunify.

North Korea, which views any criticism of its rights situation as part of a US-led plot to overthrow its government, had warned that enactment of the law would result in "miserable ruin".

In 2014, a UN commission of inquiry on North Korea published a report laying out abuses such as a harsh system of political prison camps holding up to 120,000 people. The commission urged the Security Council to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court over its human rights record.

BRUSSELS — The European Union is considering additional measures against North Korea following the approval of harsh new sanctions by the UN Security Council in order to show solidarity with South Korea and Japan, both major trade partners, diplomats said.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has welcomed Wednesday's UN unanimous vote to expand existing sanctions following North Korea's latest nuclear test and rocket launch, saying the bloc would update its sanctions regime.

"There is scope for the European Union to adopt additional autonomous restrictive measures to complement and reinforce the new UN measures," said a diplomatic note seen by Reuters on the latest discussions.

Germany, France, Spain and Poland want to see what more the bloc can do in areas such as finance and insurance, as well as hitting more North Koreans with asset freezes.

Germany, one of seven EU member states to have an embassy in Pyongyang, also wants better monitoring of the "non-diplomatic" activities of North Korean envoys, EU diplomats said.

While far from Europe, North Korea is a concern to NATO and to the EU's Asian trade partners.

"This is about supporting our allies Japan and South Korea, who are directly threatened by North Korea's aggression," said one EU diplomat involved in the discussions on further measures.

The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan, which are both in range of North Korea's ballistic missiles, have phoned Mogherini in recent weeks to urge maximum pressure on Pyongyang.

But the EU's leverage over the isolated communist state is limited because Germany, Sweden and others are unwilling to cut diplomatic ties. Sweden, present in Pyongyang since the 1970s, is among those providing humanitarian aid to North Koreans.

Given that the United States says the new United Nations sanctions go further than any other UN sanctions regime in two decades, the EU's measures, once updated, also leave little room to go further and new steps still need to be discussed.

Trade between the 28-nation European Union and North Korea fell to just 34 million euros in 2014 from more than 300 million euros a decade ago.

EU foreign ministers have reinforced their sanctions several times in recent years to include asset freezes and bans on financing and the delivery of banknotes.

ANKARA/ATHENS — EU Council President Donald Tusk told illegal economic migrants on Thursday not to risk their lives or money to make a perilous trip to Europe "for nothing" but said unilateral actions by European Union states to deal with the crisis must stop.

The ultimate aim was to eliminate the illegal sea transit of migrants from Turkey to Greece, Tusk said after meeting Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens, although he said no specific numbers had been agreed with the Turks.

"It's not about numbers, it's about the ongoing and permanent process... which means for me, the total reduction and the total elimination of this sad phenomenon," he told a joint news conference with Davutoglu in Ankara.

Tusk was on a trip through Balkan states and Turkey to try to drum up support for cohesion on how to deal with hundreds of thousands of migrants — a crisis that threatens to tear the bloc apart — before an EU summit on Monday.

Speaking earlier in Greece, which has been a primary gateway of migrants flooding into Europe for more than a year, Tusk said anyone who was not a refugee should stay away.

"I want to appeal to all potential illegal economic migrants wherever you are from: Do not come to Europe. Do not believe the smugglers. Do not risk your lives and your money. It is all for nothing," Tusk said.

Up to 30,000 refugees and migrants have been stranded in Greece from progressive border closures further up the "Balkan corridor", the route taken to get into wealthier central and northern Europe.

"At Monday's summit, Greece will demand that burden sharing be equitable among all countries in the bloc, and sanctions for those that do not," Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said after meeting Tusk.

"We ask that unilateral actions stop in Europe," Tsipras said in a view echoed by Tusk.

Austria and countries along the Balkans migration route have imposed restrictions on their borders, limiting the numbers able to cross. Many of the migrants hope to reach Germany. Police in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of migrants who stormed the border from Greece on Monday.

Emergency controls

The European Commission will present on Friday a list of necessary steps to lift emergency border controls that are currently in place inside the Schengen zone and restore the proper functioning of the free-travel area, officials said.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told a lecture in the Hague on Thursday that Austria had been wrong to close its border with another Schengen country.

"That has nothing to do with protection of external borders. Restoring borders between two Schengen countries will destroy the common market," he said.

EU officials have told Reuters that European governments, and particularly Germany, are looking to Turkey to reduce the number of migrant arrivals in Greece to below 1,000 a day at most as an initial condition for discussing taking some Syrian refugees directly from Turkey.

Ahead of Monday's meeting of EU and Turkish leaders, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Turkey must ensure the numbers drop towards zero.

"If there were to be a target figure, it would be zero," one EU official said, noting that 1,000 people a day would mean an unsustainable 350,000 people a year arriving in Greece.

Tsipras said Greece would continue to do whatever it could to ensure no migrant or refugee was left helpless. But he added Greece could not bear the burden by itself.

"We will not allow Greece or any other country to be turned into a warehouse of souls," Tsipras said. "We are at a crucial moment for the future of Europe."

UNITED NATIONS — North Korea faces harsh new UN sanctions to starve it of money for its nuclear weapons programme following a unanimous Security Council vote on Wednesday on a resolution drafted by the United States and Pyongyang's ally China.

The resolution, which dramatically expands existing sanctions, follows North Korea's latest nuclear test on January 6 and a February 7 rocket launch that Washington and its allies said used banned ballistic missile technology. Pyongyang said it was a peaceful satellite launch.

US Ambassador Samantha Power said the sanctions go further than any UN sanctions regime in two decades and aim to cut off funds for North Korea's nuclear and other banned weapons programs.

All cargo going to and from North Korea must now be inspected and North Korean trade representatives in Syria, Iran and Vietnam are among 16 individuals added to a UN blacklist, along with 12 North Korean entities.

Previously states only had to inspect such shipments if they had reasonable grounds to believe they contained illicit goods.

"Virtually all of the DPRK's [North Korea] resources are channeled into its reckless and relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction," Power told the council after the vote, adding that the cargo inspection provisions are "hugely significant".

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the 15-nation council's move, saying in a statement that Pyongyang "must return to full compliance with its international obligations".

North Korea has been under UN sanctions since 2006 because of its four nuclear tests and multiple rocket launches.

After nearly two months of bilateral negotiations that at one point involved US President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, China agreed to support the unusually tough measures intended to persuade its close ally to abandon its atomic weapons programme.

China's Ambassador Liu Jieyi called for a return to dialogue, saying: "Today's adoption should be a new starting point and a paving stone for political settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula."

However, he reiterated Beijing's concerns about the possible deployment of an advanced US missile system in South Korea.

"At this moment all parties concerned should avoid actions that will further aggravate tension on the ground," he said. "China opposes the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system... because such an action harms the strategic and security interests of China and other countries of the region."

He was referring to the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system.

There was no immediate reaction from the North Korean UN mission. The official North Korean news agency KCNA said on Monday the proposed sanctions were "a wanton infringement on [North Korea's] sovereignty and grave challenge to it".

Shortly after the UN move, the US Treasury Department said it was blacklisting two entities and 10 individuals for ties to North Korea's government and its banned weapons programmes, and said the State Department was also blacklisting three entities and two individuals for similar reasons.

The new UN sanctions close a gap in the UN arms embargo on Pyongyang by banning all weapons imports and exports.

The Security Council's list of explicitly banned luxury goods has been expanded to include luxury watches, aquatic recreational vehicles, snowmobiles worth more than $2,000, lead crystal items and recreational sports equipment.

There is also an unprecedented ban on the transfer to North Korea of any item that could directly contribute to the operational capabilities of its armed forces, such as trucks that could be modified for military purposes.

The new UN measures also blacklist 31 ships owned by North Korean shipping firm Ocean Maritime Management Company.

Added to the UN sanctions list was the National Aerospace Development Agency, or NADA, the body responsible for February's rocket launch.

Newly blacklisted individuals include a senior official in North Korea's long-range missile program, senior officials at NADA, officials for Tanchon Commercial Bank in Syria and Vietnam, and Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID) representatives in Iran and Syria.

An earlier draft would have blacklisted 17 individuals but the proposed designation of a KOMID representative in Russia was dropped from the final version of the resolution.

Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton took big steps toward securing their parties' presidential nominations on Tuesday with a series of state-by-state victories, but their rivals vowed to keep on fighting.

On Super Tuesday, the 2016 campaign's biggest day of state-by-state nominating contests, Trump, 69, and Clinton, 68, proved themselves the undisputed front-runners to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama.

Now they are under pressure to show they can unify voters in their respective parties before the November 8 election and, in Trump's case, avoid a potentially disastrous split in the Republican ranks.

US networks projected Trump won seven states, with victories stretching into the Deep South and as far north as Massachusetts, adding to a sense of momentum he had built last month by winning three of the first four contests.

Clinton's victories in seven states were just as impressive but in many ways predictable, propelled by African-American voters in southern states like Arkansas, where she and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, began their political careers.

Trump's main rivals, US senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, said they were determined to remain in the race.

Cruz, 45, won Texas and neighbouring Oklahoma, as well as the Alaska caucuses, bolstering his argument that he had the best chance of stopping the New York billionaire. Rubio, the Republican establishment's favorite, was projected the winner in Minnesota, his first victory in the party's nominating contests.

Clinton rival Bernie Sanders, a US senator from Vermont, also won his home state along with Colorado, Minnesota and Oklahoma but lost to her in Massachusetts, which he had hoped to win. The democratic socialist vowed to pursue the battle for the nomination in the 35 states yet to vote.

Trump waves off Republican criticism

At a news conference in a chandeliered ballroom at his seaside Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump, who has never held public office, dismissed furious criticism aimed at him by establishment Republicans.

Faced with a party in turmoil over his ideas to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, deport 11 million illegal immigrants and bar Muslims from entering the country, Trump declared he had expanded the party by drawing in disaffected blue-collar Democrats who like his tough-on-trade rhetoric.

"I am a unifier," he said. "I would love to see the Republican Party and everybody get together and unify, and when we unify, there's nobody that's going to beat us."

The rivals of both Trump and Clinton aim to knock them off their pedestals this month in contests in Michigan, Florida and Illinois.

The country's top two elected Republicans, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, had chastised Trump over his delayed disavowal of an endorsement by David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan white supremacist group.

"I've disavowed," Trump said. "I'm going to get along with Congress, OK? Paul Ryan, I don't know him well, but I'm sure I'm going to get along great with him.”

"And if I don't, he's going to have to pay a big price, OK?" Trump added in remarks that could further inflame party tensions.

Clinton, who still faces a well-funded Sanders despite having taken control of the Democratic race, was eager to assail Trump as a way of getting her party's voters used to the idea of her as the nominee.

"The stakes in this election have never been higher, and the rhetoric we're hearing on the other side has never been lower," Clinton told supporters in Miami. "Trying to divide America between us and them is wrong, and we're not going to let it work."

'Donald Trump of the world'

Sanders thanked cheering supporters in his hometown of Burlington, Vermont, and also targeted the Republican front-runner.

"We are not going to let the Donald Trumps of the world divide us," said Sanders, 74, adding that he expected to pile up "hundreds" of convention delegates in voting on Tuesday.

For Rubio, 44, it was a day of reckoning. His losses piled up after a week in which he labeled Trump a "con artist" and exchanged schoolyard taunts with the reality TV star.

Suddenly, the March 15 contest in Florida, his home state, loomed over him as a must-win.

"Florida, I know you're ready," Rubio said. "The pundits say we're underdogs. I'll accept that. We've all been underdogs."

Rubio's plight was such that Senator Lindsey Graham, an establishment South Carolina Republican, told CBS News that the party's voters might need to rally around Cruz, who has been one of the most disliked public figures in Washington.

"I can't believe I would say yes, but yes," Graham said when asked about the idea of supporting Cruz as a way of stopping Trump.

Cruz said at his victory party in Texas that Trump was a "Washington dealmaker, profane and vulgar, who has a lifelong pattern of using government power for personal gain".

Cruz added the Republican caucuses in Alaska to his victories early on Wednesday. "Thank you Alaska!" he said on Twitter. 

CALAIS, France — French authorities razed parts of the "Jungle" migrant camp for a second day on Tuesday while thousands of refugees were blocked in Greece as Europe strained to contain the flood of desperate people at its borders.

Tensions were high in the northern French port city of Calais as workers continued dismantling the southern half of the notorious camp, which has become a magnet for refugees hoping to reach Britain, and a political hot potato between Paris and London.

Clashes erupted on Monday between riot police and protesting migrants who do not want to be moved to better accommodation, as they claim it will take them farther from their goal of reaching Britain.

About 150 migrants, some armed with iron bars and rocks, attacked cars heading to England before being dispersed by riot police.

French workers broke down the makeshift shelters by hand, as bulldozers stood by, after a court appeal by charities to stop the destruction was rejected last week.

While the Jungle has become a cause celebre for activists, the crisis there pales in comparison to the situation boiling over in Greece where more than 7,000 people are stranded.

Muddy ordeal on Greek border 

Hundreds of refugees on Monday tried to break through a border fence into the Former Yugoslav Republic Macedonia (FYRM), but their efforts to move deeper into Europe remained blocked as nations set tight limits on migrant entries.

An overnight downpour left their tents drenched and children coughing miserably as the refugees' wait dragged on.

With Austria and Balkan states capping the numbers of migrants entering their territory, there has been a swift build-up along the border between Greece and FYRM with Athens warning that the number of people "trapped" could reach up to 70,000 in March.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose own country is a favoured destination of many of the refugees and registered 1.1 million asylum seekers in 2015, has criticised the migrant cap being imposed.

President of FYRM Gjorge Ivanov has warned that once Austria reaches its cap of a maximum 37,500 migrants transiting through this year, the refugee route through the Balkans will have to close.

The UN rights chief criticised a "rising roar of xenophobia" towards migrants.

"To keep building higher walls against the flight of these desperate people is an act of cruelty and a delusion," HH Prince Zeid said on Monday.

Nowhere but Britain 

Meanwhile in France local authorities say some 3,700 people are living in the camp which has been dubbed The Jungle by residents fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

Authorities say between 800 and 1,000 will be affected by the eviction.

But charities say a recent census they conducted counted at least 3,450 people in the southern part alone, including 300 unaccompanied children.

The evicted migrants have been offered heated accommodation in refitted containers set up next door to the camp, but many are reluctant to move there because they lack communal spaces and movement is restricted.

They have also been offered places in some 100 reception centres dotted around France.

But the migrants do not want to give up their hopes of Britain, which they try to reach daily by sneaking aboard lorries and ferries crossing the Channel.

The demolition of the Jungle comes ahead of talks on Thursday between French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron. 

Britain has put substantial pressure on France to stem the flow of migrants getting across the Channel, and has funded a huge increase in security measures around the port and tunnel in Calais. 

The Jungle has played into fraught discussions about Britain's possible exit from the European Union (EU).

Some opponents of "Brexit" say that if Britain were to leave the EU, the British government would lose the ability to call on France to stop the refugees from trying to make their way across the Channel.