World

BRUSSELS — The European Union approved a plan on Tuesday to share out 120,000 refugees across its 28 states, overriding vehement opposition from four ex-communist eastern nations.

Diplomats said interior ministers meeting in Brussels had voted to launch the scheme, backed by Germany and other big powers, in order to tackle the continent's worst refugee crisis since World War II.

The Czech minister tweeted that he had voted against, along with colleagues from Slovakia, Romania and Hungary, with Finland abstaining.

Prague had earlier warned that any attempt to impose such a scheme would be unworkable and could end in "big ridicule" for governments and EU authorities.

"We will soon realise that the emperor has no clothes. Common sense lost today," Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec tweeted after the vote.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said pushing through the quota system had "nonsensically" caused a deep rift over a highly sensitive issue and that, "as long as I am prime minister", Slovakia would not implement a quota.

This year's influx of nearly half a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa has plunged the EU into disputes over border controls and bitter recriminations over how to share out responsibility.

"If we fail to find the right solution in the long term, the migrant crisis could truly threaten the existence of the European Union. But I am not a pessimist, I believe that we will find joint measures," Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar told Reuters in an interview.

Eastern states with no tradition of integrating large numbers of Muslims are anxious about the impact on their societies and keen to avoid any signal that might encourage even more desperate people to set sail across the Mediterranean for Europe.

Ministers had hoped to achieve consensus at Tuesday's meeting rather than ramming through a vote in which the easterners would be in the minority, fearing this could further poison relations.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the plan had been approved by a "crushing majority".

"This decision is testament to the capacity of Europe to take responsibility and progress," he said.

But a diplomat from one of the countries opposed to the plan described the atmosphere around the council table as "terrible", adding: "This is a bad day for Europe."

"Not enough’

The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, said the EU decision was an "important first step in a united European response to managing the refugee crisis".

Spokesman Melissa Fleming added: "This must be coupled with the immediate creation or expansion of facilities in Greece and Italy to receive and assist large numbers of arriving refugees and migrants, and where people would be screened and identified for relocation."

The 120,000 people the bloc was seeking to share out were equivalent to just 20 days' worth of arrivals at the current rate, Fleming said earlier.

Together with 40,000 covered in an earlier agreement, the European Commission said the EU was now in a position to relocate a total of 160,000 people, "in clear need of international protection" in the next two years.

Refugees and migrants arriving in Greece and Italy have been streaming north across the continent to reach more affluent nations such as Germany, triggering disputes between governments in central and eastern Europe, as they alternately try to block the flow or shunt the burden on to their neighbours.

Norway became the latest member of Europe's 26-nation Schengen area, where people can normally travel across frontiers without showing a passport, to say it would intensify border controls.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said Europe could expect a record 1 million people to request asylum this year, and almost half would probably qualify to be taken in.

In Germany, by far the most popular destination, the head of domestic intelligence said there was a big worry that radical Islamists living in the country could try to recruit young refugees "who could be easy prey".

EU leaders will hold an emergency summit on Wednesday at which they want to focus on ramping up aid for Syrian refugees in Turkey and the rest of the Middle East and tightening control of the bloc's external frontiers. 

HOLGUIN, Cuba — On a special anniversary for him, Pope Francis celebrated mass in east Cuba on Monday on the last full day of a trip where he has been praised for aiding rapprochement between the communist government and the United States.

Two predecessors have visited Cuba, but Francis was the first Pope to visit Holguin, capital of the province where the Castro brothers and leaders of Cuba, Fidel and Raul, grew up. He said a mass for tens of thousands of people in sweltering heat.

September 21 was the day in 1953 when the Argentine Pope said he first felt a calling from God.

The then-17-year-old Jorge Mario Bergoglio was heading to meet friends for a picnic marking the start of spring in the southern hemisphere when he felt an urge to enter a church he was passing in Buenos Aires.

It was there that he felt a strange pull. "I can't say what it was but it changed my life," he told one biographer.

That took place on the feast of St Matthew and the Pope dedicated his Holguin homily to the Bible story of the conversion of the former tax collector who decided to follow Jesus Christ.

Holguin is a centre of Cuban music and the mass was accompanied by lively Caribbean sounds.

On nearly every block, posters welcoming the pontiff adorned doors and telephone poles, while bike-taxis and horse-drawn carriages traversed below the yellow-and-white flags of the Vatican, fluttering alongside Cuba's red, white, and blue.

The government of President Raul Castro, who attended the Holguin mass, had hoped the 78-year-old Francis would explicitly condemn the still-intact US economic embargo against Cuba before leaving on Tuesday for Washington.

He has not done so yet but on arrival on Saturday, he did urge the old cold war foes to deepen their detente after this year's restoration of relations, which the Vatican mediated.

Dissidents detained

Critics of the one-party state want papal support for dissidents, some of whom have been rounded up and denied attendance at papal events.

A Cuban human rights group said 50 to 60 government opponents had been arrested and several dozen more blocked in their homes by state security agents. The same happened when Pope John Paul visited in 1998 and Pope Benedict in 2012.

"We estimate about 100 people affected by this preventive repression," said Elizardo Sanchez, who runs the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

During the first two days of his visit, Francis has stuck largely to spiritual messages in speeches, though he has also called for tolerance of different ideas.

"Believer or non-believer, we believe in the Pope!" said Yami Mendez, a retired schoolteacher in Holguin who is not a Catholic but, like most Cubans, holds Francis in high esteem.

Climbing the steep road to a hilltop cross, Mendez cited benefits associated with Francis: the US diplomatic breakthrough, the release of more than 3,500 common prisoners, and the fresh paint and renovations at the places he will visit.

In his first two days in Havana, the Pope met both Castro brothers. But there was no encounter for dissidents. Three were hauled away on Sunday before he said mass. Two prominent opponents, Miriam Leiva and Martha Beatriz Roque, said they were twice detained to stop them attending papal events.

The Castro brothers, both educated by Jesuits, repressed the Church after the 1959 revolution but relaxed restrictions from the 1990s and have now seen three pontiffs visit them in less than two decades.

Francis flies from Cuba to the United States on Tuesday.

BRUSSELS — Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande are to make a joint address in the European Parliament, underlining the gravity of crises facing the postwar union founded by Germany and France, officials said on Monday.

As diplomats groped for compromises that can defuse a bitter row over refugees when EU leaders meet in Brussels on Wednesday, parliamentary officials said the German chancellor and French president would speak in Strasbourg on October 7, adding that the last such appearance, by their predecessors Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand, came after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

"This is a historic visit for historically difficult times," said parliament speaker Martin Schulz, a German Social Democrat who has sought to forge closer ties between Paris and Berlin.

"The EU is facing immense challenges and requires strong commitment by its leaders."

Others officials said France and Germany, the driving forces of European integration after World War II, would send a signal that the European Union, much expanded since the Cold War, must stick together in face of an array of divisive problems that have seen national frontiers closing again across the continent in response to a wave of refugees arriving from the Middle East.

Kohl and Mitterrand, respective mentors to the conservative Merkel and Socialist Hollande, forged a personal bond in the 1980s and 90s that saw the EU agree to create the euro currency and work to embrace former Soviet bloc states in the east.

Now questions hang over the euro following financial crisis and a new bailout for Greece, over the EU's cohesion in its confrontation with Russia and over whether Britain, its second-biggest economy, may soon vote to quit the Union altogether.

No deal yet

Facing fierce divisions among the 28 member states ahead of a meeting on Tuesday of interior ministers to agree on responses to the migration crisis, there was little sign of optimism on Monday from the government of Luxembourg, which as holder of the EU's rotating presidency is trying to broker an elusive deal.

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn was in Prague to meet ministers from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, who have led resistance to German- and French-backed plans to distribute asylum-seekers around the EU according to mandatory national quotas. He said: "We still have some issues to solve. Tomorrow will be a very important day."

Ministers are trying to find consensus to avoid a vote that could alienate the eastern minority and cause further division.

Diplomats in Brussels enumerated a range of possible compromises being discussed on a proposal by the EU executive to take 120,000 asylum-seekers from Italy, Greece and Hungary and relocate them in other states according to a quota system.

As Hungary has refused to take part, notably by rejecting hosting foreign EU border officials to organise relocations, some people could be moved from other countries. Some form of scheme by which governments volunteered to help, or might pay to opt out of taking in some people, was also a possibility.

EU officials said ministers will be under pressure to reach a deal before presidents and prime ministers arrive in Brussels on Wednesday afternoon for an emergency summit on migration at which few concrete decisions are likely to be taken.

Merkel, who pushed for the meeting and wants EU commitments to increase funding for Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan and elsewhere, is likely to hear criticism from the likes of Hungary's right-wing prime minister, Viktor Orban. He has said her effective offer last month to take in more Syrian refugees prompted a surge in the numbers making for Europe from Turkey.

Re-elected Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will also face close questioning on how he will work with EU agencies to tighten monitoring of the bloc's Mediterranean frontier. This summer, many thousands of migrants have passed through Greece unchecked, prompting other states in the passport-free Schengen zone to reimpose border controls for the first time in 20 years.

BRUSSELS/ LEIPZIG, Germany — Biitterly divided European leaders will seek to find a credible response to the continent's worst migration crisis since World War II at an emergency summit next week.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on her peers on Sunday to accept joint responsibility.

"Germany is willing to help. But it is not just a German challenge, but one for all of Europe," Merkel told a gathering of trade unionists. "Europe must act together and take on responsibility. Germany can't shoulder this task alone."

Striking a more sceptical tone on migration than in previous weeks, Merkel also warned that Germany could not shelter those who were moving for economic reasons rather than to flee war or persecution.

"We are a big country. We are a strong country. But to make out as if we alone can solve all the social problems of the world would not be realistic," she told a gathering of the Verdi Trade Union.

European Council President Donald Tusk, who chairs European Union summits, said on Twitter on Sunday following a weekend visit to Jordan and Egypt that the EU needed to help Syrian refugees find a better life closer at home.

That will be one of the topics of discussion for Wednesday's summit in Brussels as hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants brave the seas and trek across the impoverished Balkan peninsula to reach the more affluent countries in northern Europe.

The 28-member bloc has struggled to find a unified response to the crisis, which has tested many of its newer members in the East that are unaccustomed to large scale immigration.

On Sunday Hungary erected a steel gate and fence posts at a border crossing with Croatia, the EU's newest member state. Overwhelmed by an influx of some 25,000 migrants this week, Croatia has been sending them north by bus and train to Hungary, which has waved them on to Austria.

Around 10,700 migrants walked into Austria from Hungary on Sunday, some 200 more than on Saturday.

The influx of migrants, most of them fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, has led to bitter recriminations between European governments while the temporary closure of national borders has undermined one of the most tangible achievements of the Union.

"If you don't cope with this crisis, then I think the EU will fall apart," said a senior EU official.

The official said European leaders would discuss longer-term strategies for dealing with the crisis, particularly increasing cooperation with Turkey and the countries bordering Syria to keep the millions of refugees at home. Tusk said more aid to the World Food Programme and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees would also be on the agenda.

Cementing peace

On Saturday, German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said the EU needed to provide 1.5 billion euros ($1.70 billion) to the two agencies to address funding shortfalls.

The EU prides itself on cementing peace among countries that until World War II fought bloody battles and fostering prosperity by removing internal barriers among its member states through the so-called Schengen agreement.

But the more than 500,000 people crossing the Mediterranean into Europe this year alone and Hungary's use of water cannon and razor wire on its border with Serbia have seen the EU's ambitions to act as one fall short.

The picture of a dead toddler washed up on a beach in Turkey sent shockwaves around the continent. On Sunday, 13 migrants, including six children, were killed as their boat was wrecked in Turkish waters.

"The [Schengen] agreements are now part of our daily lives and it is unthinkable that the facilities enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of travellers and cross-border workers in Europe are challenged by nationalist and reactionary thoughts and political actions," said Asselborn Jean, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs for Luxembourg.

As the holder of the rotating presidency of the EU, Luxembourg is working to broker a compromise that can break the deadlock between member states on sharing the burden of the crisis.

Germany's Gabriel warned that the country could be overwhelmed by the 800,000 refugees and asylum seekers it expects to receive this year. Most of the migrants hope to reach prosperous Germany or Sweden.

"At some point, it will become too much for Germany. And that is why we are discussing a distribution of the migrants in Europe... Germany is helping. But now Germany needs to be helped," he told German broadcaster ARD.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday the United States would take in 15,000 more refugees from around the world next year, increasing the current level to 85,000, and to 100,000 in 2017.

EU interior ministers, meeting on Tuesday, are expected to agree on a voluntary relocation scheme to redistribute 160,000 refugees from frontline states across the EU, a fraction of the total entering Europe.

That would allow the leaders to focus on the bigger issues, such as beefing up the EU's asylum agency, Frontex, into a full border and coastguard agency, and working on hotspots and a list of "safe countries" whose citizens would not normally qualify for asylum, a senior EU official said.

KIEV — Tatar activists set up roadblocks on the two main roads leading from the Ukrainian mainland into Russia-annexed Crimea on Sunday at the start of what they said was an economic blockade aimed at dramatising the plight of Tatars living on the peninsula.

The majority of the Crimean Tatars, a Muslim people who are indigenous to the Black Sea territory and number about 300,000 in the peninsula's population of 2 million, opposed the Russian annexation in March 2014, which followed the overthrow of a Moscow-backed president in Kiev.

Tatar solidarity groups on the Ukrainian mainland say many of their kin in Crimea face discrimination and hardship as they come under pressure to align themselves with the Russia-backed authorities.

On Sunday, Ukrainian interior ministry officials and media on the spot said that Tatar activists, backed in some cases by pro-Ukrainian militia groups, set up roadblocks to stop goods traffic moving onto the peninsula from the two main highways from the northwest and northeast.

"At Chongar, Chaplinka and Kalanchak a blockade has started of trucks leading onto the peninsula," said interior ministry adviser Zoryan Shkiryak, naming towns on the two highways.

Media at the scene on both roads said activists were blocking the way to trucks, with concrete blocks in some cases. A tailback of traffic was forming.

A few hundred people had turned out in response for social media appeals for support and some activists were clearly preparing for a long stay, pitching tents, setting up makeshift kitchens and installing temporary toilet facilities.

They were backed in some places by activists from the far-right nationalist group Right Sector and from pro-Ukraine militia battalions, media said.

"Some lively discussion are taking place with drivers. But not a single wagon is going to get by. Some drivers are waiting wondering what to do. Some are already turning back," said Crimean Tatar leader Refat Chubarov, quoted on Interfax news agency.

TOKYO — Japan's parliament has approved legislation that will expand the role of its highly restricted military, opening up the possibility that it could fight abroad for the first time since World War II.

Advocates say the measure, passed Saturday after days of tortuous debate, is vital to ensure Japan can respond to threats from an increasingly belligerent China and unstable North Korea. Opponents argue it will fundamentally alter the country's pacifist character.

Key ally the United States and some Southeast Asian countries have welcomed the move, but China accused Japan of threatening regional peace and said it had failed to learn "profound lessons from history".

The legislation has been something of a pet project for nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, but has been highly controversial in Japan, and has cost him a lot of public support.

Analysts say the deep unpopularity, and looming legal challenges, could effectively put the reforms on ice.

Here are some key questions and answers about the legislation and its potential impact on Japanese society:

Q: How big is Japan's military, and what are the current restrictions on it? Why is it restricted?

A: Japan's military — the so-called Self Defence Forces — has 227,000 personnel across its army, navy and air force. That is small fry compared to China's 2.33 million and 1.43 million in the US, but more than Britain, Germany and France.

Currently, they can only use force for self-defence if the country or they themselves are directly attacked.

The rule is based on the Japanese constitution, drafted by the US after Japan's defeat in World War II, which bans the "use of force as means of settling international disputes".

Q: How would the new law change this? When would Japan's troops be able to go into battle?

A: The law allows Japanese troops to defend their American counterparts, but also troops of other nations friendly to Japan in situations when "there is a clear danger that Japan's existence is under threat" without the mission.

It will take six months to come into effect, but the government still has to seek parliamentary approval before sending troops on any dangerous overseas missions.

Q: Many countries have far fewer restrictions on their militaries — why is this so controversial in Japan?

A: Bitter memories of the carnage of World War II — including the massive loss of life from two atomic bombs — still shape Japanese society.

Many see the constitution's anti-war clause as a defining aspect of the national character and are proud of their seven decades of pacifism. 

Critics, including students, lawyers, academics and young and old alike, have spoken out passionately against the changes.

Q: Opponents say the change will drag Japanese troops into US-led wars in the Middle East. Is that likely?

A: Abe has repeatedly said Japan will not get involved in messy, long-running armed conflicts.

He has also argued the changes would make possible threats, such as North Korea, less likely to attack Japan and help forge even closer ties with the US, which has backed the new laws.

But opponents say the vague wording of the bill could allow for combat missions in the future. They also worry Japan could now be seen as an enemy by those fighting the US.

Those fears were heightened this month when Japan beefed up security across its embassies worldwide after a threat from the Daesh group, eight months after the jihadists claimed beheading of two Japanese hostages in Syria. 

Q: Are there likely to be any legal challenges to the legislation?

A: Yes. Opponents, including dozens of respected legal scholars, say the legislation violates Japan's constitution, which would require a public referendum to change.

Abe's government has so far avoided putting it to a public vote — which he would likely lose — by reinterpreting the meaning of "self-defence" to include defending allies and friends.

Opponents of the legislation, including mayors of local cites, have said they would challenge it in the legal system, a slow-moving process that could take years to get a final ruling.

The legislation could also be overturned if the supreme court rules the changes unconstitutional. But the top court can avoid giving a clear verdict on a "highly political issue" such as national security.

BANGKOK — Around 200 pro-democracy protesters rallied peacefully in Bangkok on Saturday in defiance of the ruling junta's ban on political gatherings in one of the biggest public demonstrations since last year's coup.

The rally organised by the student-led New Democracy Movement (NDM) marked the anniversary of the 2006 military putsch that ousted then-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who sits at the heart of Thailand's bitter political divide, as well as protesting against the current regime.

The kingdom's ruling generals have mostly succeeded in curbing public dissent since seizing power from the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin's younger sister, in May 2014 by outlawing political gatherings and censoring the media.

But while the "Red Shirt" supporters of the Shinawatras — who have directly or through their proxies won every election since 2001 — have not massed on the streets, small yet determined rallies led by student activists have defied the regime.

On Saturday, they marched from Thammasat University, a proudly liberal bastion, to Democracy Monument in the capital's historic quarter, entering the site despite the presence of barricades and dozens of police officers.

Activists, including some of the 14 students charged with sedition over a June protest at the same spot, gave passionate speeches about democracy before a banner draped across the monument saying "return power to the people".

"We're here to remind people what happens if we are patient and do nothing... Here we are again under a new coup," said 22-year-old economics student Ratthapol Supasopon, about why they were marking the 2006 anniversary.

'No legitimacy' 

The overthrow of Thaksin that year has plunged Thailand into nearly a decade of political upheaval broadly pitting his working class and rural supporters against a Bangkok-based royalist elite propped up by large swathes of the military.

The junta says it was forced to stage a coup this time round to restore order after months of often violent protests against Yingluck's administration paralysed the government and brought parts of Bangkok to a standstill.

But critics say it was the latest move by the elite to grab power and prevent democracy from taking root in the kingdom.

Late Saturday, protesters were still singing songs at Democracy Monument, where some lit candles as night fell.

Rangsiman Rome, a leading member of the NDM who has been charged with sedition, said he was "worried" about the consequences of the protest but felt compelled to speak out.

"I must do this, I have no choice," said the democracy campaigner.

Thailand's military court has not yet ruled on whether to try the 14 students, who were detained for nearly two weeks earlier this summer.

Their case has seen both the United Nations and European Union urge the government to drop the sedition charges, which carry up to seven years in jail.

Despite their small numbers compared to the mass street protests that have pockmarked Thailand in recent years, the student activists have been a persistent thorn in the side of the junta which has been internationally condemned for its crackdown on civil liberties.

Siranith Seritiwat, a political science student, said the rally was important for people to know they "can fight against military rule which has no legitimacy". 

The 24-year-old added that the activists faced no tussles with police on entering the site despite the junta's order against the protest.

On Wednesday, Thailand's ruling generals said elections are unlikely to take place before June 2017 after initially promising to return power within 18 months of the coup.

BELI MANASTIR/HARMICA, Croatia — Hungary and Croatia traded threats on Saturday as thousands of exhausted migrants poured over their borders, deepening the disarray in Europe over how to handle the tide of humanity.

More than 20,000 migrants, many of them refugees from the Syrian war, have trekked into Croatia since Tuesday, when Hungary used a metal fence, tear gas and water cannon on its southern border with Serbia to bar their route into the European Union.

EU leaders, deeply divided, are due to meet on Wednesday in a fresh attempt to agree on how and where to distribute 160,000 refugees among their countries, but the noises from some of the newer members of the bloc were far from friendly.

Hungary, where the right-wing government of Viktor Orban has vowed to defend "Christian Europe" against the mainly Muslim migrants, accused Croatia of "violating Hungary's sovereignty" by sending buses and trains packed with migrants over their joint border. It warned it might block Zagreb's accession to Europe's Schengen zone of passport-free travel.

"Croatia's government has continuously lied in the face of Hungarians, Croatians, of the EU and its citizens," Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told a news conference. "What kind of European solidarity is this?"

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said that, unlike Hungary, he would not use "brute force" to keep people out, nor would his government make them stay against their will. The buses and trains would keep running to Hungary, he said.

"We forced them [to accept the migrants], by sending people up there. And we'll keep doing it," he told reporters.

Child dies

Croatia, a country of 4.4 million people forged as an independent state in a 1991-95 war, has suddenly found itself in the way of the largest migration of people westwards since World War II. On Friday, Milanovic said the country could not cope, and would simply wave the migrants on.

Almost 500,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year, increasingly across the water from Turkey to Greece and then up through the impoverished Balkans to the former Yugoslavia, of which Croatia and Slovenia are members of the EU.

Many are rushing to beat rougher seas; on Saturday, a girl believed to be five years old died and 13 other migrants were feared drowned when their boat sank off the island of Lesbos.

A second, exhausted group of around 40 people reached the inundated island in a tiny dinghy following a traumatic journey from Turkey, having paddled through the night with their hands across 10km of sea when their engine failed.

"When we were on the sea... I didn't have any hope... I said: I am dead right now, nobody can help me," 18-year-old Mohammed Reza said after being helped ashore by foreign volunteers.

July and August alone brought 150,000 migrants to Greek shores, about as many as the EU says it is planning to accommodate if it can overcome the opposition of many newer members of the bloc in ex-Communist eastern Europe to the quotas Germany and others in northern and western Europe are calling for.

The vast majority of refugees want to reach Germany, which has said it expects to receive 800,000 asylum seekers this year.

They kept coming on Saturday, crammed onto bus and train having crossed into Croatia from Serbia and driven north and west towards Hungary and Slovenia. Many spent the night under open skies and the day searching for shade from a scorching late summer sun.

Hungary said some 8,000 had arrived from Croatia on Friday, with more on their way. Most were sent to reception centres near Hungary's border with Austria, which in turn said about 7,500 had entered since midnight, with more to follow.

Hungarian soldiers are racing to build a fence along the Croatian frontier like the one erected the length of its border with Serbia. The government said on Saturday it had called up some army reservists, mostly to staff garrisons left empty by soldiers deployed to the border.

"If Croatia puts up its hands and says, no, I don't want to defend the borders, then Hungary can only say that it isn't ready to join Schengen when the moment comes to decide," Antal Rogan, an adviser to Orban, told InfoRadio news station.

Crowds were building too on Croatia's border with Slovenia, which like Hungary is a member of the Schengen zone. Police were rationing entry to small groups, mainly families, and Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar suggested he may have to discuss with neighbouring states the creation of a "corridor" to allow their passage through the tiny country of 2 million people. Some 2,000 had entered by Saturday.

"I feel frustrated, we're so tired," said Siha, 35, from Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub, parts of which have been reduced to rubble by the four-year-old war. She held close her two young children on a bridge in no-man's-land at the Harmica border crossing into Slovenia.

"We left Turkey 10 days ago. The trip was very dangerous for the kids. I decided to leave Syria because I want my kids to have a comfortable life, to study," she said.

An estimated 3 million Syrians have fled the war and many more are displaced inside their country, feeding the tide to western Europe. US Secretary of State John Kerry said there was an urgent need to renew efforts to find a political solution to the war and the worsening refugee crisis.

"We need to get to the negotiation. That is what we're looking for and we hope Russia and Iran, and any other countries with influence, will help to bring about that, because that's what is preventing this crisis from ending," Kerry said after talks in London with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.

TOVARNIK, Croatia — Amid chaotic scenes at its border with Serbia, Croatia said on Thursday it could not cope with a flood of migrants seeking a new route into the EU after Hungary kept them out by erecting a fence and using tear gas and water cannon against them.

The European Union called an emergency summit next week to try to overcome disarray over the refugee crisis, as its newest member state said it may have to use the army to stop illegal migrants criss-crossing the Western Balkans in their quest for sanctuary in the wealthy 28-nation bloc.

The EU is split over how to handle the influx of hundreds of thousands of people mostly fleeing war and poverty in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

More than 7,300 people entered Croatia from Serbia in the 24 hours after Wednesday's clashes between Hungarian riot police and stone-throwing refugees at its Balkan neighbour's frontier.

Hungary's closure of its southern EU border with Serbia has shifted pressure onto Croatia, Slovenia and Romania.

At the eastern border town of Tovarnik, Croatian riot police struggled to keep crowds of men, women and children back from rail tracks after long queues formed in baking heat for buses bound for reception centres elsewhere in Croatia.

Scuffles broke out as police tried to get women and children to board the buses bound for reception centres near Zaghreb. Women screamed and children cried in desperate scenes.

An Iraqi from Baghdad who gave his name as Riad said he had been separated from his wife and child. "Only women and children are now allowed onto buses. My wife and child are gone and they [police] do not allow me to join them. My phone does not work."

Groups of migrants broke away from the police and set off on foot down railway lines and through fields.

"They want to take us to the camps, but we don't want that," said one man as he set off, without giving his name.

Croatia's president met the army chief of staff and asked the military to be ready, if necessary, to protect national borders from illegal migration, state news agency Hina reported.

Police also took up position in a suburb of the capital Zaghreb around a hotel housing hundreds of migrants, some of them on balconies shouting "Freedom! Freedom!" Others threw rolls of toilet paper from the balconies and windows.

"Croatia will not be able to receive more people," Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic told reporters in Tovarnik.

"When we said corridors are prepared [for migrants], we meant a corridor from Tovarnik to Zaghreb," he added, suggesting Croatia would not simply let migrants head north to Slovenia, which is part of the EU's Schengen zone of border-free travel.

Deep divisions

European Council President Donald Tusk summoned EU leaders to a summit next Wednesday to discuss how to better manage external EU borders and help Turkey, through which many of the migrants are passing, as well as other states in the region that are housing Syrian refugees.

He had been urged to do so by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the EU's most powerful member state and the desired destination for many of the refugees.

The bloc's interior ministers failed to agree on Monday on a mandatory quota system designed to spread the burden of this year's huge influx.

Ex-communist Central European states opposed to compulsory quotas for taking in refugees are pressing for more action to prevent migrants crossing the Greek and Italian borders who do not qualify for refugee status.

EU commissioner for migration Dimitris Avromopoulos rebuked Hungary over its tough actions, telling a joint news conference with Hungary's foreign and interior ministers that most of those arriving in Europe were Syrians "in need of our help".

"There is no wall you would not climb, no sea you would not cross if you are fleeing violence and terror," he said, describing barriers of the kind Hungary has erected as temporary solutions that only diverted migrants, increasing tensions.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto hit back, saying that siding with rioting migrants, who pelted Hungarian police with rocks on Wednesday in clashes that injured 20 police, was encouraging more violence.

"It is bizarre and shocking how some members of international political life and the international press interpreted yesterday's events," he said.

In Brussels, Johannes Hahn, the EU's commissioner in charge of enlargement, urged member states to stay calm and fight the crisis together.

"The Western Balkans must not become a parking lot for refugees. That would be a grave geostrategic mistake. Cool heads on all sides are all needed now, not harsh rhetoric," he said.

Undeterred by the problems faces by migrants at the gates of Europe, more have been arriving at the Greek port of Piraeus from Lesbos island, a short boat ride from Turkey.

Others are waiting outside Europe to attempt the hazardous journey that has cost thousands of refugees their lives.

"It would be very dangerous, but if you make it, the reward is great, the whole world will open up for you," Yousef Hariri, a refugee from Deraa in Syria, said at a refugee camp in Jordan.

Police said the number of refugees arriving in Germany more than doubled on Wednesday to 7,266. The head of the German Office for Migration and Refugees quit for personal reasons after being criticised for slow processing of applications from a record number of asylum seekers.

In Istanbul, hundreds of Syrians and other migrants thronged a small park in the city centre hoping for a last chance to reach Europe before poor weather makes their favoured Aegean Sea route to Greek islands too dangerous to undertake.

Greece said large groups of refugees from Syria may be about to try to cross its far northeastern land border with Turkey, a relatively new entry point. Much of the frontier is fenced.

A record 300,000 people have fled to Europe via Greece this year, according to the Internaational Organisation of Migration. More than 116,000 more have arrived in Italy.

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, who has blamed Berlin for the wave of migrants after Merkel rolled out the welcome mat for Syrian refugees, said Muslims would end up outnumbering Christians in Europe if the policy continued.

"I am speaking about culture and the everyday principles of life, such as sexual habits, freedom of expression, equality between men and woman and all those kind of values which I call Christianity," Orban said in an interview published in several European newspapers including The Times.

The UN human rights chief, HH Prince Zeid, denounced "callous, xenophobic and anti-Muslim views that appear to lie at the heart of current Hungarian government policy".

Two German ministers have spoken of cutting European funds to central European member states that refuse to take their allotted share of refugees.

The future of border-free travel in the Schengen zone of 26 continental European states has been cast in doubt by the uncoordinated national actions to revive frontier checks.

"Europe was created to knock down walls, not to build them," Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said.

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Burkina Faso's military declared Thursday it now controls the West African country, just weeks before elections were due to be held. The coup leaders later announced a military general loyal to the former longtime president is the new head of state.

Thursday's developments capped a dramatic year in the country where President Blaise Compoare was ousted in a popular uprising last October after he tried to prolong his 27-year rule. That paved the way for the formation of a transitional government, but soldiers arrested the interim president and prime minister late Wednesday, announcing hours later that they had been removed from office.

The political unrest sparked violence in the streets, leaving at least two people dead after the presidential guard opened fire with live ammunition to disperse crowds protesting the coup, witnesses said. Several others were treated for gunshot wounds, according to a worker at the main hospital in the capital, Ouagadougou.

Members of the presidential guard wandered about the city in pickups and on motorcycles seeking to disperse any gatherings late Thursday.

Burkina Faso's land and air borders were closed and a 7pm-to-6am curfew was imposed. The coup — the country's sixth since it won independence from France in 1960 — unfolded overnight with stunning speed. Late Wednesday, the country's interim president and prime minister were arrested at the presidency during a ministerial meeting.

A communique read on state TV and radio early Thursday by an army lieutenant colonel wearing a camouflage uniform criticised the electoral code, which blocked members of Compaore's Party from taking part in the October 11 elections. Anyone who supported the ex-president's bid to amend the constitution so he could seek another term was also banned from running.

The coup leaders later announced that Gen. Gilbert Diendere, who had been head of the elite presidential guard under Compaore and was his longtime aide, was now in charge of the nation.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Diendere also criticised the electoral code and vowed that elections would go forward — but not on the timeframe that has been set.

"Today it seems to me that the October 11 date is too soon to hold the election," Diendere said. "It's not at our level to speak of Compaore's return. We want to stabilise the country and hold elections."

Compaore and his family initially fled to Ivory Coast but his whereabouts on Thursday were unknown.

Diendere is among African soldiers who have taken part in the US-led Flintlock military exercise. The exercise is held each year to improve African militaries' counter-terrorism efforts. Diendere confirmed to the AP that he had travelled to Chad earlier this year ahead of the exercise.

Photos posted in 2010 by the US military's Africa Command showed Diendere, wearing a red beret, addressing Burkinabe soldiers before their deployment to Mali in support of that year's Flintlock exercise.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the coup in the strongest terms, and he demanded that all detained officials be released immediately and that the country's political transition resume, his spokesman said in a statement. Ban also said those responsible for the coup and its consequences must be held accountable.

France, the country's former colonial power, the United States and others expressed alarm about the unfolding events.

"The United States strongly condemns any attempt to seize power through extra-constitutional means or resolve internal political disagreements using force," State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

Speaking on state TV and radio early Thursday, Lt. Col. Mamadou Bamba said the country's transitional government was dissolved and the interim president was no longer in power. He announced the beginning of a "coherent, fair and equitable process" that would lead to inclusive elections.

Burkina Faso hosts French special forces and serves as an important ally of both France and the United States in the fight against Islamic militants in West Africa. While Burkina Faso has largely been spared from extremist violence, a Romanian national was abducted in April, and a Mali-based jihadi group claimed responsibility.