World

DONETSK, Ukraine — Ukraine's pro-Russian insurgents took a major step toward political reconciliation Tuesday by announcing they will push back disputed local elections into next year in line with Western demands.

The announcement was immediately welcomed by Kiev's pro-EU leadership and the Kremlin — a rare case of the ex-Soviet neighbours agreeing since the conflict first started with the ouster of Ukraine's Moscow-backed leader early last year.

The Europrean Union also called the move a "fundamental step" toward peace.

The decision coincided with the withdrawal of Ukrainian tanks from the line splitting government forces from the rebels of one of the two separatist eastern industrial provinces.

The chief negotiators of the self-proclaimed "people's republics" said they had "agreed to postpone the [Donetsk] elections of October 18 and the [Lugansk] poll of November 1 until next year".

Their announcement came just days after the leaders of Germany and France forced Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to sit down for direct negotiations in Paris aimed at saving a shaky truce in the 18-month war.

That meeting ended with French President Francois Hollande declaring that the rebels could not possibly organise internationally legitimate elections within such a short timeframe.

Kiev's pro-Western leader has also called the votes "fake" and demanded their cancellation.

No new date set 

Ukrainian officials said Monday that Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had put strong pressure on Putin — who denies any involvement in the conflict — to convince the militia command to delay their vote.

"We examined the statements and recommendations of Merkel and Hollande that were issued after the summit," Donetsk negotiator Denis Pushilin and his Lugansk counterpart Vladislav Deinego said in the statement.

The two met Tuesday in the Belarussian capital Minsk — the same location where Putin and Poroshenko agreed in February to find a way out of one of Europe's bloodiest crises since the Balkans wars of the 1990s.

The insurgents did not say when they now intend to hold their polls.

But they pressed a series of demands on Kiev that will be difficult for Poroshenko to push through a Ukrainian parliament where nationalist forces play a strong role.

The two said their elections will be held only after Kiev assigns them "special status" within a unified Ukraine that has the right to develop closer diplomatic and trade relations with Russia.

The statement also sought full immunity from prosecution "for all participants to events in the Donetsk and Lugansk region" and a new vote in the Ukrainian parliament on constitutional amendments regarding elections that would first be agreed with the rebels themselves.

The date of the rebels' vote is vital because it also determines when exactly Ukraine can regain full control of its porous eastern border with Russia — a frontier Kiev accuses the Kremlin of using to arm the revolt.

The February deal says that Russian forces and the militias are supposed cede the 400-kilometre stretch of the border under their control a day after the polls are held.

But the rebels and Moscow argued that Ukraine would only regain its territorial integrity after Kiev followed through on all the commitments it made in the February deal — something Ukraine has so far failed to do.

'Moscow kept its word' 

The delay gives the warring sides time to find a political compromise that can put an end to fighting that has already claimed more than 8,000 lives and driven 1.5 million from their homes.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia "welcomed the decision of the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk".

"This is another example of the flexibility and constructive approach shown [by the rebels] as they try to implement the Minsk agreements," Peskov told Russia's Interfax news agency.

A spokeswoman for Leonid Kuchma — a former Ukrainian president who acted as Poroshenko's personal representative at the various peace talks conducted throughout the war — said Kiev also "welcomed the decision".

"This step will give us an opportunity to conduct fair, legitimate and impartial elections in parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions under Ukrainian law," spokeswoman Dariia Olifer wrote on Facebook.

A German diplomat who requested anonymity also called the separatists' step "good news".

And a government source in Berlin said simply that "Moscow has kept its word."

KABUL — Police and residents said on Monday that Afghan forces had regained control of most of the besieged city of Kunduz, and some shops in the centre of the provincial capital opened for the first time since it fell to Taliban fighters a week ago.

The US government said it was investigating whether its military was responsible for an air strike that killed 22 people in a Kunduz hospital run by aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres on Saturday, an incident that has drawn widespread condemnation.

The head of US-led forces in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, said the military carried out an air strike after Afghan forces called for support and said American soldiers were not under threat.

The comments differed from an earlier statement that the strike was because US forces were threatened. The US military has not acknowledged hitting the hospital.

Residents said that, unlike the previous eight days, they had not heard gun battles and were able to leave their homes to buy food and take stock of the damage done.

Government forces raised the national flag over the provincial governor's house for the first time since losing control of much of the city when Taliban fighters launched a multi-pronged assault.

Soldiers were conducting house-to-house searches as they continued to push Islamist insurgents out of areas that had witnessed fierce fighting.

"The centre of the city is normal," said Abdul Ghafoor, a Kunduz resident, but added it would still take time to recover.

"The city smells so bad with dead bodies still on the pavements and in the sewage. The local government must do something."

Casualty figure likely to rise

Battles have raged around Kunduz, a strategic city of 300,000, as government forces backed by US air strikes sought to drive out Taliban militants.

Their seizure of the city a week ago represented one of the biggest victories in the 14-year insurgency.

Attention has since turned to the air strike on the hospital, which the UN human rights chief said was "inexcusable" and could amount to a war crime.

Any confirmation of US responsibility for the hospital deaths would deal a blow to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's policy of forging closer ties with the United States.

His predecessor, Hamid Karzai, fell out with his backers in Washington, in part over the number of civilians killed by US strikes.

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter gave US assurances of a transparent investigation on Monday and said US military medical facilities in the area would treat any of the injured.

"We'll do as much as we can to help treat the wounded," Carter said during a trip to Spain.

Sayed Mukhtar, the public health director in Kunduz, said doctors have treated 600 wounded patients and received 55 dead bodies from the fighting. The number of casualties is likely to rise as government forces clear areas around the city, he said.

While the government has claimed to have regained control of the city before and fighting has continued, weary residents were hopeful that the worst of the violence may now be over.

"People are still very scared to come out," said Abdullah, a Kunduz resident. "There is no guarantee that the security forces will keep the areas they regained from the Taliban."

KIEV — Ukraine has started withdrawing tanks and light artillery from the front line in the eastern region of Luhansk in line with an agreement with Russian-backed separatists, Kiev's military said on Monday.

Ukraine and separatist leaders agreed last week to extend a pullback of weapons in eastern Ukraine, which rebels said could mean an "end to the war" with the Ukrainian government.

"Today at 11.00 [0800 GMT] in Luhansk region we began a simultaneous removal of T-64 and T-72 tanks and in some places anti-tank artillery D-48 and D-44 and... mortars," military spokesman Ruslan Tkachuk said on Facebook.

Ukraine has 360 tanks in the conflict zone and 1,400 armoured personnel carriers, according to military data published at the end of August.

Tkachuk said the withdrawal had been agreed with representatives of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and should be completed within the next 14 days.

"This is an opportunity to do even more to stabilise and normalise the situation... It's an opportunity both sides need to recognise and build upon," Alexander Hug, deputy chief monitor of the OSCE monitoring mission to Ukraine told Reuters.

A ceasefire is holding in eastern territories, with both sides reporting few or no violations.

Nevertheless the threat of renewed violence remains. Last week the OSCE said it had spotted a new kind of Russian weapons system in rebel-held territory, possible evidence of Moscow's continued interest in Ukraine even as it focuses on Syria.

"Without these weapons being moved away and locked away the risk of re-escalation remains... The military logic that reigns in eastern Ukraine has to be replaced," Hug said.

On Saturday, a senior rebel official for the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People's Republic” said separatist forces would begin withdrawing their weapons after October 18 "on the condition that it is quiet", the rebel website DAN reported.

Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and the separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions has killed more than 8,000 people since mid-April 2014. Russia denies Western and Kiev's charges of direct involvement in the conflict.

ROSEBURG, Oregon — The gunman who opened fire in an Oregon college killed some of his victims after telling them to crawl across the classroom floor and shot one after saying he would spare her if she begged for her life, according to relatives of students in the classroom.

However, Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer spared a student and gave the "lucky one" something to deliver to authorities, according to the mother of a student who witnessed Thursday's rampage.

Authorities have not disclosed whether they have an envelope or package from Harper-Mercer, who Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said Saturday killed himself as officers arrived. But a law enforcement official said a manifesto of several pages had been recovered.

Bonnie Schaan, the mother of 16-year-old Cheyeanne Fitzgerald, said she was told by her 16-year-old daughter that the gunman gave someone an envelope and told him to go to a corner of the classroom.

Harper-Mercer said the person "'was going to be the lucky one'," Schaan told reporters outside a hospital where her daughter's kidney was removed after she was shot.

Relatives of other survivors of the shooting that killed nine also said Harper-Mercer gave something to a student in the class.

Pastor Randy Scroggins, whose 18-year-old daughter Lacey escaped without physical injuries, said she told him that the gunman called to a student, saying: "'Don't worry, you're the one who is going to survive.'"

Harper-Mercer then told the student that inside the shooter's backpack was "all the information that you'll need, give it to the police", Scroggins said, citing the account by his daughter.

Scroggins also said his daughter heard the gunman tell one victim he would spare that person's life if the student begged, then shot the begging victim anyway.

Lacey Scroggins also spoke about students being ordered to crawl to the middle of the room before being shot. Scroggins said his daughter survived because she was lying on the floor and partially covered by the body and blood of a fellow student. The gunman thought Lacey Scroggins was dead as well, stepped over her and shot someone else.

Randy Scroggins received a phone call from that student's mother while speaking with The Associated Press.

"He saved my girl. I will forever call your son my hero," he said of 20-year-old Treven Anspach. He told the man's mother he would mention her son during his Sunday church service and ask for prayers. "I'm so sorry for your loss."

Janet Willis said her granddaughter Anastasia Boylan was wounded in the Thursday attack and pretended to be dead as Harper-Mercer kept firing, killing eight students and a teacher.

Willis said she visited her 18-year-old granddaughter in a hospital in Eugene, where the sobbing Boylan told her: "'Grandma, he killed my teacher!'"

Boylan also said the shooter told one student in the writing class to stand in a corner, handed him a package and told him to deliver it to authorities, Willis said.

The law enforcement official who disclosed the existence of the manifesto did not reveal its contents but described it as an effort to leave a message for law enforcement.

The official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorised to disclose information and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The official said the document was left at the scene of the shooting but wouldn't specify how authorities obtained it.

Boylan, a freshman at Umpqua Community College, also told her grandmother the gunman asked students about their faith.

"If they said they were Christian, he shot them in the head," Willis said, citing the account given by her granddaughter.

However, conflicting reports emerged about Harper-Mercer's words as he shot his victims.

Stephanie Salas, the mother of Rand McGowan, another student who survived, said she was told by her son that the shooter asked victims whether they were religious, but didn't specifically target Christians.

Salas said it was like telling the victims "you're going to be meeting your maker”.

Salas said the gunman told victims "this won't hurt very long" before shooting them.

Law enforcement officials haven't given details about what happened in the classroom. However they released a timeline that shows police arrived at the scene six minutes after the first emergency call and exchanged gunfire with the shooter two minutes later.

Harper-Mercer was enrolled in the class, but officials haven't disclosed a possible motive for the killings. In a statement released by authorities, his family said they were "shocked and deeply saddened" by the slayings.

The dead ranged in age from 18 to 67 in the attack in Roseburg, a rural timber town, about 290 kilometres south of Portland.

Harper-Mercer wore a flak jacket and brought at least six guns and five ammunition magazines when he went to the campus that morning.

Oregon's top federal prosecutor said the shooter used a handgun when he opened fire.

Several years ago, Harper-Mercer moved to Oregon from Torrance, California, with his mother Laurel Harper.

Harper-Mercer's social media profiles suggested he was fascinated by the Irish Republican Army and frustrated by traditional organised religion.

Scroggins said he was grateful his daughter survived Harper-Mercer's attack.

"There's been a lot of emotion," he said. "But others don't get their children back."

NICE, France — At least 16 people were killed in violent storms and floods that struck the chic French Riviera overnight, and four others were missing, French authorities said on Sunday. 

Up to 180 millimetres of rain fell in just three hours, transforming the glitzy streets of Cannes, Nice and Antibes into debris-strewn rivers.

In Cannes — home of the famous film festival — the torrent carried some cars out to sea, city hall said. 

President Francois Hollande visited the region, expressing the "solidarity of the nation" to those affected.

"At these times, we must be fast, efficient and coordinated," he said.

Three people died when water engulfed a retirement home at Biot near Antibes, and three drowned when their car was trapped by rising waters in a small tunnel at Vallauris-Golfe-Juan.

Rescue teams at Mandelieu-la-Napoule said the water was so murky that it hampered the search for further bodies in underground car parks, where at least seven people died.

"It's apocalyptic," said mayor Henri Leroy. "There are thousands of vehicles. There could be more bodies."

In Cannes, where two people were listed as dead and two were missing, Mayor David Lisnard had tough words for some residents who, he said, were "not always disciplined".

"I'm not judging, because I don't know how I would react in that situation, but it appears we had some people that were very attached to their vehicles when they should have been saving lives," he said. 

Nine people were arrested for trying to steal from shops after the storm, he added.

Trapped pilgrims 

Hundreds of Italian pilgrims returning from the French shrine of Lourdes were trapped overnight as trains were cancelled across the region.

A special track was opened to let the pilgrims, many of them elderly and travelling with doctors, proceed at a slow pace on Sunday. 

The storm "did serious damage to the railway infrastructure, tracks, crossings, electrical lines, primarily around the area of Cannes", a spokesman for French rail company SNCF told AFP.

Around 27,000 homes remained without power early Sunday, 14,000 of them in Cannes alone.

"I saw water pour in from the veranda. Within five minutes, it was up to my waist," said retired resident of Mandelieu-la-Napoule, France Oberlin, still in shock. 

"I couldn't open the doors but luckily a neighbour came," she said.

Seated on a plastic chair, surrounded by debris and overturned cars, she looked despairingly at her ground-floor apartment, in which everything had been destroyed. 

Communications to the region — one of the wealthiest in France, and a magnet for visitors from around the world — were badly hit.

Around 500 people, many of them British and Danish tourists, were stranded at Nice Airport, and the A8 motorway near Antibes was flooded when a small river, the Brague, burst its banks.

A Nice-Nantes match in France's first football division was called off in the 46th minute after the pitch became a quagmire.

Nice's mayor's office estimated the city had received 10 per cent of its average annual rainfall in the past two days alone.

By dawn, the worst storms had passed over the French mainland and were headed for the Italian coast, Meteo-France said.

The region's worst flood in the past 25 years was in June 2010, when 25 people were killed. 

The worst national toll from flooding over this period was in January and February 1990, when 81 people were killed by violent storms in the north and west of the country.

In December 1999, 92 people in France were killed by flooding, fallen trees and other storm damage caused by hurricane-strength winds that struck northwestern Europe. 

KABUL — An air strike hit a hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontieres in the Afghan city of Kunduz on Saturday, killing at least 16 people in what the US military called possible "collateral damage" in the battle to oust Taliban insurgents.

Frantic MSF staff phoned military officials at NATO in Kabul and Washington after the attack, and bombs continued to rain down near the medical facility for nearly an hour, one official from the aid group said.

At least 37 people were wounded and many patients and staff still missing, it added.

The US military promised to investigate the incident, which could renew concerns over the use of its airpower in the conflict.

Afghan government forces backed by US
airpower have fought to drive the Taliban out of the northern provincial capital since the militants seized it six days ago, in the biggest victory of their near 14-year insurgency.

One resident, Khodaidad, told Reuters the Taliban had been using the hospital buildings for cover during the fighting on Friday.

"I could hear sounds of heavy gunfire, explosions and airplanes throughout the night," he added. "There were several huge explosions and it sounded like the roof was falling on me," he added.

US forces launched an air strike at 2.15am (2145 GMT), spokesman, Col. Brian Tribus, said in a statement.

"The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility... This incident is under investigation," he added.

At the aid group's bombed-out hospital, one wall of a building had collapsed, scattering fragments of glass and wooden door frames, and three rooms were ablaze, said Saad Mukhtar, director of public health in Kunduz.

"Thick black smoke could be seen rising from some of the rooms... The fighting is still going on, so we had to leave."

‘Deeply shocked’

Almost 200 patients and employees were in the hospital, the only one in the region that can deal with major injuries, said Medecins Sans Frontieres, which raised the death toll to at least 16 by late on Saturday.

"We are deeply shocked by the attack, the killing of our staff and patients and the heavy toll it has inflicted on healthcare in Kunduz," operations director Bart Janssens said in a statement.

MSF said it gave the location of the hospital to both Afghan and US forces several times in the past few months, most recently this week, to avoid being caught in crossfire.

MSF said it had treated almost 400 patients in the 150-bed hospital since fighting broke out, most for gunshot wounds. So many patients have flooded in that the hospital had to put them in offices and on mattresses on the floor.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's spokesman said last week there would be no air strikes inside the city because of the risk of mass civilian casualties.

Ghani's predecessor, former president Hamid Karzai, fell out with his backers in Washington in part over the number of civilians killed by bombs earlier in the nearly 14-year-old war, America's longest military conflict.

The US embassy in Kabul said in a statement it "mourns for the individuals and families affected by the tragic incident".

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was "deeply shocked" by the incident.

"This is an appalling tragedy," said Jean-Nicolas Marti, head of the ICRC in Afghanistan. "Such attacks undermine the capacity of humanitarian organisations to assist the Afghan people at a time when they most urgently need it."

BERLIN — As Germany celebrated 25 years since reunification on Saturday, President Joachim Gauck said Europe's refugee crisis posed a greater challenge to the country than the welding together of western Germany and the former communist East.

Gauck, a former Lutheran pastor from East Germany who played a prominent role in the peaceful protests there that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, said the two halves of the country had become one over the past quarter of a century.

"What belongs together has grown back together," he told an audience in Frankfurt that included Chancellor Angela Merkel and civil rights campaigners from the former East.

But Gauck said the process of restoring unity had been much harder than many people had imagined amid the euphoria of 1989 and 1990.

Back then, west Germans cheered and clapped their eastern peers as they crossed the border that had separated them for decades in their Trabis, the iconic cars of East Germany.

More recently Germans have applauded refugees fleeing countries like Syria as they arrived at Munich's central train station. The government estimates that 800,000 or more people might come to Germany over the course of 2015.

Gauck, who has a largely ceremonial role but is considered a moral authority for the nation, warned that integrating refugees with different religions and cultures would be much tougher than uniting Germans, who had shared the same language, national culture and history even during their separation.

"Just like in 1990 we're all facing a challenge that will occupy us for generations. But unlike back then, something is now supposed to grow together that has not belonged together until now," he said.

Plea for tolerance

Gauck urged Germans to be patient, saying it would take time to get used to an environment in which "some of what is familiar is gone" while refugees would need time to get used to a society that would sometimes put them in conflict with their traditional norms.

Gauck urged refugees to make an effort to integrate into German society and stressed that German values such as human dignity, equal rights for women and homosexuals, and respect for the secular law regardless of any religious affiliations were "not up for debate".

His comments reflect growing concern in Germany that the huge influx of refugees could put strain on the liberal values at the heart of modern democratic Germany and he suggested the country would not show "tolerance in return for intolerance".

While still welcoming the newcomers, Germany is now focusing increasingly on the need to ensure respect for German culture. Germany has translated parts of its constitution which outline basic rights such as freedom of speech into Arabic.

Most of the refugees fleeing conflicts and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and beyond come from conservative Muslim societies with much more traditional ideas about the role of women, homosexuality and other issues.

Gauck and Merkel, who also grew up behind the Iron Curtain in the former East, both called for more help from other countries in dealing with the refugee crisis.

"Germany can't solve the problem alone but only in cooperation with Europe by a fair division of tasks and with the rest of the world," she said.

Gauck also called for people to show understanding for eastern European countries and even eastern Germany taking a different stance in the debate on refugees to western Europe.

While western Germany was able to get used to being a country of immigration over decades, he said, many people in the east had hardly had any contact with immigrants before 1990.

There are still far fewer migrants in eastern Germany than in the west of the country.

East still lags

Gauck said changing attitudes towards refugees and migrants could only be the result of years of tough learning processes and being aware of this should make it easier to respect other nations' experiences — an apparent reference to eastern European states such as Hungary and Slovakia which have opposed binding quotas for distributing refugees within the EU.

Gauck said there were still differences between Germany's east and west but they had got smaller over the years and had "almost completely disappeared" among the younger generation.

He acknowledged that for many in the east, reunification had not only meant the introduction of colourful travel catalogues, fast cars and full shelves in shops but also mass unemployment, the winding down of nationally-owned companies, mass migration and empty buildings.

In eastern Germany, unemployment is still higher than in the west while wages and economic output are lower. A study published earlier this year showed East German workers work longer and have lower productivity. Belonging to a religious community is less widespread in the east than in the west.

While the vast majority of Germans still think there are still big differences between western and eastern Germany, two-thirds welcome reunification, a survey of 80,000 by YouGov showed last week. 

KUNDUZ — Afghan troops recaptured the centre of the strategic northern city of Kunduz on Thursday amid fierce clashes with Talban militants, three days after losing the provincial capital in a humbling defeat for Kabul and its US allies.

Fighting raged in other parts of the city, whose seizure represented a major victory for the insurgents and raised questions over whether NATO-trained Afghan forces were ready to go it alone now most foreign combat troops have left.

Residents said soldiers were conducting house-to-house searches and had removed the Taliban flag from the central square, replacing it with government colours.

"There are military helicopters in the sky and government forces everywhere," said Abdul Ahad, a doctor in the city. "Dead Taliban are on the streets, but there are still [militants] in some government buildings fighting Afghan forces."

A Taliban spokesman denied the government had retaken all of Kunduz and said insurgent fighters had withdrawn to the edges of the city in order to attempt to encircle Afghan and US forces.

The Afghan army's deputy chief of staff, Murad Ali Murad, said most Taliban fighters had fled, although some were holed up in civilians' homes.

"Our plan is to force them out of Kunduz," said Murad, who flew to the city on Wednesday to personally oversee the recapture operation. "We will take them out of districts and then out of the province."

A Ministry of Defence statement said 150 Taliban had been killed and 90 wounded in the overnight offensive.

At least 30 people, mostly civilians, had been killed in the fighting as of Wednesday, according to a tweet from health ministry spokesman, Wahidullah Mayar. He also said hospitals in Kunduz had treated about 340 injured.

Residents in hiding

Terrified residents said there was intense fighting overnight as Afghan forces moved in.

"There were very heavy air strikes during the night. Those strikes prompted the Taliban to escape," Kunduz resident Abdul Qadir Anwari said on Thursday.

"Right now Afghan security forces are on the streets and fighting with the Taliban in some areas outside the city. Shops are still closed and people aren't leaving their houses."

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said fighting continued.

"It was our tactic to vacate the city to allow enemy troops to enter so we could encircle them," he said.

A spokesman for the Western coalition did not comment directly on what role its troops played in the overnight offensive, if any, saying only they were "involved in Kunduz" in an advisory role.

"Our service members retain the right to protect themselves, if necessary, while performing their advise-and-assist mission," spokesman Col. Brian Tribus added.

On Wednesday, a group of coalition special forces, including US troops, engaged the Taliban in a ground clash, Tribus had said earlier.

He confirmed there had been five US air strikes against Taliban positions near the city and airport since fighting began on Monday "to eliminate threats to coalition and Afghan forces”.

The Taliban, whose harsh interpretation of Islamic law during a five-year rule included public executions and denying women rights to work and education, have been fighting to regain power since being toppled by a US-led intervention in 2001.

The once-quiet north of Afghanistan has seen escalating violence in recent years as the insurgency spread, and swathes of Kunduz province have repeatedly come under siege this year.

Yet the Taliban's pre-dawn assault on Kunduz on Monday caught the Afghan police and army by surprise, handing the group arguably its biggest victory in 14 years of war.

The capitulation may have consequences for President Ashraf Ghani, whose first year in office has been clouded by political infighting and escalating violence around the country.

GENEVA — The UN refugee agency said Thursday it expects 700,000 migrants and refugees to reach Europe via the Mediterranean this year and projected at least the same amount again in 2016.

"UNHCR's response is now based on the assumption that up to 700,000 people will seek safety and international protection in Europe in 2015, and possibly even higher numbers in 2016," the agency said, issuing a revised funding appeal.

UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards confirmed that the figures specifically referred to people expected to seek refuge by crossing the Mediterranean.

The UNHCR had previously projected 350,000 arrivals in 2015, but those figures had not been updated in many months — and on Tuesday, it said 520,000 people had already arrived on Europe's shores this year. 

Nearly 3,000 people have perished or disappeared trying to make the crossing. 

Overall, the latest figures show the agency expects no let up in the waves of people making the perilous sea crossing to escape conflict and strife in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. 

More than half of those to have reached Europe this year were Syrians fleeing the country's brutal civil war, which has forced at least 4 million people to leave their homeland and internally displaced more than 7.6 million others.

Refugees from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Nigeria and Iraq make up the main other nationalities after the Syrian contingent. 

The 2015 figures and the projections for 2016 mark a major surge compared to last year, when the agency recorded 219,000 migrant and refugee arrivals in Europe by sea.

'Enormous challenge' 

The surge in migrants this year led the cash-strapped UNHCR to appeal for more funding, noting the "very volatile operational context" it is facing.

The organisation, which has launched a special funding campaign to respond to the crisis, estimated total financial needs at $128 million (114 million euros) from last June through to December 2016.

"By August 2015, the situation in Europe had reached a level of urgency and complexity that warranted an enhancement of UNHCR's internal management and coordination structure," the agency said as it steps up efforts to respond.

The organisation revealed it required an additional $77.4 million to aid countries bearing the brunt of the rising flow.

They are led by Greece — where some 380,000 people have arrived in an eightfold increase on 2014 — and its southern and southeastern European neighbours.

The agency said those fleeing oppression, war and poverty were "confronted with increasingly restrictive and unpredictable border control measures in regions of origin and transit" as well as falling prey to people smugglers.

UNHCR noted increased efforts to devise a joint approach by EU states and welcomed "greater coordination and determination by governments to tackle this enormous humanitarian challenge".

NEW YORK  — US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin's first formal meeting in more than two years started with an awkward handshake and ended without a breakthrough on Syria, a crisis that has strained their already tense relationship.

On the biggest issue that divides them in Syria — the status of embattled leader Bashar Assad — Obama and Putin left their discussions Monday exactly where they started. The US still insists Syria's future cannot include Assad, while Putin appears to only want to bolster the standing of his longtime ally, casting him as the best defence against Daesh militants.

Even so, both leaders appeared interested in whether their meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly could yield progress towards ending Syria's four-and-a-half year civil war. After the 90-minute sit-down at UN headquarters, Putin and US officials who described the meeting on Obama's behalf each spoke of the need for cooperation.

"Strange is it may seem, there were many common points," Putin told reporters. "There were also disagreements which we agreed to work together. I hope this work will be constructive."

US officials said the leaders agreed to explore ways to pursue a resolution to a crisis that has left more than 250,000 dead, even as they made clear Obama wasn't bending on his insistence that Assad not be part of the eventual solution.

Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that Russia must understand that there can be no peace in Syria without removing Assad because the Sunni majority there will accept nothing else. A legitimate peace process must involve talks among a "complicated brew" of nations from the region, he said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe".

"We have staring us in the face here an enormous possibility to see a way forward," Kerry said.

The crisis has taken on fresh urgency amid Russia's recent military buildup in Syria. Putin has cast the increased presence of equipment and troops there as part of the effort to defeat Daesh, and suggested Monday that Russia could launch airstrikes against the militants.

"We are thinking about it and don't exclude anything," he said.

It's unlikely Putin would join the US-led coalition already launching strikes against the militants. He said Russia will only take such a step in accordance with international law, and criticised the US and its allies for striking the Syrian territory without UN permission.

Monday's meeting marked another chapter in Obama's and Putin's history of colourful and tense encounters. They laid the groundwork for the meeting in dueling speeches at the UN, and then were forced to sit together at lunch, exchanging steely glances as they clinked champagne glasses during a toast. They appeared briefly before reporters before beginning their talks, quickly shaking hands, but making no remarks.

That the leaders met at all underscored Obama's acceptance of Russia's increasingly prominent role in resolving the crisis in Syria. The US president has resisted granting Putin the legitimacy of a formal bilateral meeting following the Russian president's provocations in Ukraine. But White House officials calculated that it was worth bending on that front for the opportunity to assess Putin's Syria motivations in person.

The meeting also highlighted Putin's ability to command attention and shift it away from the Ukraine. A fragile peace plan in the former Soviet republic remains shaky at best, yet the crisis was largely a footnote at the UN gathering.

Instead, attention was riveted on what Putin would say about Syria and Assad as he arrived in New York for his first UN meeting in a decade. In the weeks leading up to his arrival, Putin ratcheted up his country's military presence in Syria and struck an intelligence-sharing agreement with Iran, Syria and Iraq, another nation fighting the Daesh.

Both developments caught US officials off guard.

Putin also moved swiftly to try to capitalise on the failure of US efforts to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels — a $500 million Pentagon programme that was supposed to yield more than 5,000 fighters but instead only has only a handful of active graduates. The Russian leader jabbed Obama over the programme failures in his remarks to the UN General Assembly on Monday.

The global landscape looks far different than what some in the Obama administration envisioned earlier this year.

Fresh off the success of Iranian nuclear negotiations that resulted in a rare alignment among Russia, China and the West, some US officials wondered whether that partnership could serve as a model for tackling other crises, including Syria. Officials also suggested there was reason to be optimistic that Putin was growing impatient with Assad.

Privately, some US officials say they still believe Putin is inclined to cooperate with the US to ease Assad from power. They've raised the prospect that Putin's increased military footprint in Syria isn't just to prop up Assad, but perhaps also to curry favour with whoever might replace him.