World

KIEV/DONETSK, Ukraine — Ukraine said on Wednesday it was redeploying troops in the east because of fears separatists will launch a new military offensive, despite Russia's denials it has sent troops to reinforce the rebels.

A ceasefire agreed by the pro-Russian rebels and government forces more than two months ago is now all but dead, and Western fears of a return to all-out conflict are growing.

US General Philip Breedlove, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said the alliance had seen Russian troops and tanks entering Ukraine in the past few days, confirming reports by international observers.

"There is no question any more about Russia's direct military involvement in Ukraine," Breedlove said in Bulgaria.

A Russian defence ministry official, General-Major Igor Konashenkov, said in Moscow "there were and are no facts" behind such statements and Russia had given up paying attention to such accusations by NATO.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak left no doubt that Kiev was also no longer paying attention to Moscow's denials of providing the rebels with direct military support in the worst diplomatic standoff with the West since the Cold War.

"We are repositioning our armed forces to respond to the actions of the [rebel] fighters," Poltorak told a government meeting in Kiev. "I see my main task is to prepare for military action."

He gave no details of the troop movements.

The September 5 ceasefire followed weeks of fierce fighting between government forces and separatists who rebelled in mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine against the rule of Kiev's Western-looking government eight months ago.

The truce has been violated daily, and increasingly since the rebels held what the West and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said were illegitimate leadership elections on November 2. The death toll has passed 4,000 since the truce was agreed, with Kiev accusing Moscow of sending more troops last week.

Threat to peace

"Russia's actions represent a clear decision by Moscow to reject the international principles that have shaped international security for over 25 years, the foundation for a Europe that is a whole free and at peace," Breedlove said.

President Vladimir Putin has bit back by accusing the West of instigating the coup that ousted a Moscow-backed president in Kiev in February after months of street protests, and of trying to use the crisis to prevent Russia's rise as a global power.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told US Secretary of State John Kerry by phone that the ceasefire deal must be upheld, rejecting accusations that Moscow is to blame for its collapse.

A Reuters reporter, however, saw unidentified military trucks in the centre of Donetsk on Wednesday, with soldiers in green uniform without insignia standing nearby. Russian soldiers spotted by local residents have often worn no insignia.

Kiev's fear is that Putin, who annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in March, now wants to expand the territory controlled by the separatists with another military push like one that turned the tide in the rebels' favour in August.

Russia denied sending in troops and armour in August but said some Russians may have been there as volunteers during their holidays, and a large number of Russian soldiers are among the dead in the conflict.

The prospect of all-out war returning to eastern Ukraine has piled pressure on the country's struggling economy, sending the hryvnia currency plummeting.

The cost of insuring exposure to Ukraine's debt hit five-year highs on Wednesday, while its dollar bonds also sold off heavily.

Russia is also suffering an economic downturn aggravated by Western economic sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine, with the rouble falling nearly 30 per cent against the US dollar this year.

But Putin has shown no sign of changing policy on Ukraine and the EU has signalled it will not ease sanctions on Russia when it meets to discuss them next week.

GWANGJU, South Korea — The captain of a South Korean ferry that capsized in April killing 304 passengers was jailed for 36 years on Tuesday after a court found him guilty of negligence, but was acquitted of homicide for which prosecutors had sought the death penalty.

The court convicted the ship's chief engineer of homicide for not aiding two injured fellow crew members, making him the only one of four facing homicide charges to be found guilty on that count, and sentenced him to 30 years in prison.

The remaining 13 surviving crew members of the ferry Sewol were found guilty of various charges, including negligence, and handed down prison terms ranging from 5 to 20 years.

Cries and shouts of anger and disbelief erupted in the packed courtroom in the southern city of Gwangju as the verdict and sentences were read.

"Judge, this is not right," a woman screamed in anguish as some of the other family members broke down in tears.

"Is this how little the lives of our children were worth?" another said. "The death sentence is not enough for the crew."

Video footage of the crew abandoning the vessel after instructing the passengers, mostly teenagers, to remain in their cabins had caused outrage and calls for harsh punishment.

The victims' families issued a statement after the verdict, saying they were devastated by the decision and justice had failed.

"Our hope was miserably destroyed," Park Jong-dae, father of one of the children who died, said in the statement read outside the courthouse, urging the prosecutors to appeal and seek punishment that it said fitted the crew's crime.

A prosecutor involved in the case said his team would appeal against the decision on all 15 crew members, calling the rulings "disappointing”, particularly the not guilty verdict against three senior officers including the captain on homicide charges.

Vessel overloaded

The overloaded Sewol capsized while making a turn on a routine voyage to the holiday island of Jeju. The vessel was later found to be defective, with additions made to increase passenger capacity making it top-heavy and unstable.

The ferry operator also loaded the ship with excess cargo and not enough water in the ballast tank to maintain balance, causing it to list sharply when it made the ill-fated turn on April 16 and sink rapidly.

Only 172 of the ferry's 476 passengers and crew were rescued. Of the 304 confirmed dead or still listed as missing, 250 were schoolchildren. The government announced earlier on Tuesday it was halting the search for the nine still missing as conditions at the wreck have become too dangerous.

The public outcry provoked by the tragedy had led to concerns over whether the crew would be able to get a fair trial, especially after the prosecutors charged four of them with homicide.

They had sought the death penalty for the captain of Sewol, Lee Joon-seok, who is in his late 60s and instead faces the rest of his life in prison.

The crew on trial have said they thought it was the coastguard's job to evacuate passengers and that they were not adequately trained for that role, but most admitted they did not do enough.

Lee, the captain, has apologised to the families of the victims and said he never intended to harm anyone. He pleaded to be spared of the homicide charge, saying he did not want his children to live with a killer as their father.

Executives of the ferry operator and shipping regulators are on trial on various charges of negligence.

The man considered the head of the business empire that owned the ferry company was found dead in June, amid the country's largest manhunt to capture him to try to hold him accountable for mismanagement that many feel led to the ferry disaster.

BEIJING — An Asia-Pacific summit on Tuesday endorsed a Beijing-backed route towards a vast free trade area in the region, host Xi Jinping said, calling it a "historic" step.

At the same time the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting saw a flurry of diplomatic activity, with Russia's President Vladimir Putin — often criticised by the West — meeting his US counterpart Barack Obama and, separately, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

A day earlier Xi had met Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in the first formal leaders' meeting for nearly three years between the Asian neighbours, who have an often difficult relationship.

China has been keen to underscore its rising trade and diplomatic clout during the summit, at a lakeside venue north of the Chinese capital, and Xi said the bloc had "approved the roadmap for APEC to promote and realise the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific".

He called it a "historic" step reflecting the "confidence and commitment of APEC members to promote the integration of the regional economy", and symbolising "the official launch of the process towards the FTAAP".

The FTAAP would build on other initiatives including the smaller US-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but China's firm advocacy of the plan over TPP has added to Sino-US trade rivalry.

Besides accounting for more than 50 per cent of global gross domestic product, 21-member APEC also makes up nearly half of world trade and 40 per cent of the Earth's population.

Obama, Xi and Abe respectively lead the world's three biggest economies, while Russia is a powerful player in energy exports whose annexation of Crimea and support for Ukrainian rebels has sent relations with the United States into a tailspin, with the West imposing sanctions on Moscow.

But Obama held talks of about 15-20 minutes with Putin, according to the White House, with their conversations covering Iran, Syria and Ukraine.

The Russian leader also held a bilateral with Abbott, who has publicly declared his fury at the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people including 38 Australian citizens and residents.

Abbott's office underlined that evidence suggested a Russian-supplied missile from a launcher that was then returned to Russian territory was responsible, labelling it "a very serious matter".

For its part China is embroiled in territorial and historical disputes with Japan, but Abe stressed cooperation with Beijing after the summit, calling for the neighbours to press ahead with tentative efforts to put their deep hostility behind them after he met Xi.

"Japan and China, we need each other. We are in a way inseparably bound with each other," Abe told reporters. "Japan and China both have responsibility for peace and prosperity of the region and of the world."

Pacific rivalry 

Washington has been pushing the TPP, which aims for a loosening of trade restrictions and embraces 11 other Pacific Rim countries including Japan, Canada, Australia and Mexico, while notably excluding China.

Some Chinese analysts and state media have framed the TPP as an attempt to check Beijing's growing economic clout — allegations Washington dismisses.

At the meeting Obama himself praised China for focusing attention on APEC's role in eventually achieving the FTAAP, first proposed in 2006, but also reiterated the US priority was the smaller TPP.

"The many regional initiatives will contribute to the eventual realisation," he said. "We see our engagement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a contribution towards that effort."

Xi hosted Obama for a private dinner Tuesday at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing, the two men walking through the grounds beforehand, and were to meet again on Wednesday.

China's increasing economic and military prominence has lead to tensions with Washington, including over rival allegations of cyber-spying.

But both sides say they want to manage their relationship to avoid clashes in the past that have occurred between rising and established powers.

In a sign that they can work together, the White House announced Tuesday that they had "reached an understanding" on an agreement to reduce tariffs on information technology trade.

Obama also announced in Beijing the two governments had reached a reciprocal agreement to extend visa validity periods to as long as a decade.

But Xi unmistakably underscored China's intention to enhance its world influence by laying out his vision of a Chinese-driven "Asia-Pacific dream" in a speech on Sunday to APEC business leaders.

Meanwhile Obama has stressed US leadership, calling his country a "thoroughly Pacific nation".

KANO, Nigeria — A suspected Boko Haram suicide bomber disguised in school uniform killed 47 students in northeast Nigeria on Monday, in one of the worst attacks against schools teaching a so-called Western curriculum.

The explosion ripped through an all-boys school in Potiskum just as students gathered for morning assembly before classes began, causing panic and chaos.

The massacre came just a day after the release of a new Boko Haram video in which the Islamist group's leader, Abubakar Shekau, again rejected Nigerian government claims of a ceasefire and peace talks.

Students at the Government Comprehensive Senior Science Secondary School were waiting to hear the principal's daily address when the explosion happened at 7:50am (0650 GMT).

Several witnesses described the blast as "thunderous" and the bloody aftermath as a scene of abandoned footwear, charred schoolbooks, bags and body parts.

"There was an explosion detonated by a suicide bomber. We have 47 dead and 79 injured," national police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said, adding that Boko Haram was believed to be responsible.

Ojukwu also confirmed local media reports that the bomber was disguised as a student at the school, which has more than 1,000 pupils aged 15 to 20.

Yobe state governor Ibrahim Gaidam ordered the immediate closure of all public schools in the Potiskum area and slammed the government in Abuja for failing to tackle the insurgency.

"Urgent action must be taken right now to restore a fast-waning public confidence by doing whatever it takes to stop the escalating violence," he said in a statement.

Blood-stained uniforms 

Student Adamu Abdullahi said those at the centre of the blast near the principal's office were flung in all directions and others were knocked off their feet.

"I found myself under the weight of another student, who fell over me. I'm certain he was dead. I was dazed and disorientated for a moment," he told AFP.

"When I realised what had happened, I managed to push the body on top of me and started running like everyone else. It was confusion all over. Everybody was hysterical.

"I saw many people on the ground. Human flesh and blood were splattered all over the place... I ran out of the school and went home.

"When my father saw me he was terrified. I didn't realise my white school uniform was stained with human blood and bits of flesh."

The dead and injured were taken to the Potiskum General Hospital just 100 metres away.

Boko Haram, which wants to create a hardline Islamic State in northern Nigeria, has previously carried out deadly attacks on schools teaching a so-called Western curriculum.

In February, gunmen killed at least 40 students after throwing explosives into the dormitory of a government boarding school in Buni Yadi, also in Yobe state.

In July last year, 42 students were killed when Boko Haram stormed dormitories in a gun and bomb attack on a government boarding school in the village of Mamudo, near Potiskum.

Boko Haram's most high-profile attack on a school came in April, when fighters kidnapped 276 girls from the town of Chibok in Borno state, also in northeast Nigeria.

More than six months later, 219 of the girls are still being held.

Monday's attack will again raise concerns about the level of security at schools in northern Nigeria — Abdullahi said the establishment was "not properly fenced".

Potiskum has been repeatedly targeted in deadly attacks blamed on Boko Haram, including last Monday, when a suicide bombing killed at least 15 at a Shiite religious ceremony.

Yobe is one of three northeastern states that has been under a state of emergency since May last year.

But violence has continued unabated and Boko Haram has seized at least two dozen towns and villages in recent months, raising doubts about the government's ability to control the region.

Governor Gaidam said President Goodluck Jonathan "has a very urgent responsibility to explain... why murderous and callous insurgent and criminal attacks are still on the rise".

Boko Haram fighters were seen in a new video obtained by AFP on Sunday parading a tank in an unidentified town that they apparently now control and Shekau preaching to locals.

The message in the 44-minute video appeared to be aimed at reinforcing Shekau's claim that he has created a caliphate within Nigeria.

Shekau, who has previously expressed solidarity with other jihadi groups and leaders, seemed to associate territory under his control with a wider, global caliphate.

But he does not submit to the authority of any other leader.

BEIJING — An uneasy handshake Monday between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe marked the first meeting between the two men since either took power, and an awkward first gesture towards easing two years of high tensions.

As the two men approached each other, stern-faced, to shake hands in front of cameras, Abe briefly tried to say something to Xi, who gave no response and turned away, appearing distinctly uncomfortable, to fix his gaze towards the cameras for the rest of the handshake.

The tense moment seemed to show how far apart the two sides remain. Although staged for cameras, their handshake lacked customary trappings such as the national flags displayed in the background when other leaders met.

Their meeting afterward in a closed room at Beijing's Great Hall of the People lasted just 30 minutes, but that they met at all gave some hope that the two countries could smooth the friction in talks arranged on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

The spat between China and Japan over uninhabited East China Sea islands and other contentious issues has raised concerns of a military confrontation between Asia's two largest economies, which could draw the US into the fray alongside ally Japan.

Although core divisions won't be resolved soon, Abe told reporters afterward that the countries made a "first step" towards reconciliation.

"I believe that not only our Asian neighbours but many other countries have long hoped that Japan and China hold talks," Abe said. "We finally lived up to their expectations and made a first step to improve our ties."

China also has been angry over what it sees as Japan's efforts to play down its brutal 20th century invasion of China, a lingering sore point for its 1.3 billion people.

China's leader must balance the need not to appear too solicitous of Japan, for his domestic audience, while still being statesman enough to host Abe ahead of Tuesday's summit, when the two men will join 19 other world leaders including President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

China hopes to use the consensus-oriented APEC summit to assert its ambitions for a larger leadership role in US-dominated trade structures.

In a break from protocol, Abe was made to wait for Xi to arrive at the meeting, rather than being greeted by him on arrival. China's foreign ministry also described the meeting as being at Abe's "request", a phrase not used in its reports on Xi's meetings with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and other foreign leaders Monday.

China's official Xinhua News Agency said Xi urged Japan to "do more things that help enhance the mutual trust between Japan and its neighbouring countries, and play a constructive role in safeguarding the region's peace and stability".

The two sides issued a joint statement on Friday agreeing to gradually resume political, diplomatic and security dialogues and reaffirming the central pillars of their post-World War II relations.

In the statement, Japan said it acknowledged differing views over the status of the islands, called Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japan, a concession likely to please Beijing. China has long demanded that Tokyo agree that the islands' sovereignty is in dispute, something Japan has refused to do for fear that would open the floodgates to further Chinese demands.

China and Japan have had poor relations for decades, rooted in Beijing's enduring sense of victimhood and Japanese fears of China's economic and political rise.

Japan's nationalisation of the islands in September 2012 infuriated Beijing, sparking anti-Japanese riots and raising regional security fears as Chinese patrol ships repeatedly entered the surrounding waters to confront Japanese coast guard vessels.

China upped the ante last year by declaring an air defence zone over the East China Sea, including the islands. Japan, the US and others denounced the move and refused Chinese demands that their aircraft declare themselves to Beijing when passing through the area.

Abe, a conservative nationalist who was elected in late 2012, infuriated China last year when he visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine honouring Japan's war dead, including executed war criminals, an act Beijing said showed Abe's insensitivity to China's suffering during the war.

China had hoped that Abe would pledge not to visit Yasukuni Shrine again while in office, although it wasn't clear if any such commitment was made. For its part, Japan hopes to restore robust economic exchanges with China that have suffered during the tensions, and to gain Beijing's support for a dialogue on maritime safety in the East China Sea.

While anti-Japanese sentiment remains strong among the Chinese public, Xi's apparent willingness to set animosity aside and meet with Abe casts him in the role of global statesman, playing to China's aspirations to be treated as a political equal by the West.

"The meeting marks a turning point in China-Japan relations and lays a good foundation for future developments," said Feng Lei, a professor at the Centre for Japanese Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

"China needs a peaceful and stable international environment for its growth and an overarching antagonism would be detrimental to both sides," Feng said.

On Tuesday, APEC leaders are due to take up a Chinese-led regional free trade initiative despite American worries that it might distract from a separate US-promoted pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Progress on TPP has bogged down in disagreements about its ambitious market-opening goals.

On Saturday, trade ministers of the 21 APEC economies endorsed a call for the group to launch a study of the Chinese-led initiative, the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific. Chinese analysts say Beijing sees the initiative as a way to boost its role in trade policy.

APEC countries account for 40 per cent of global trade, so any progress in market-opening initiatives could have worldwide implications.

BERLIN — The fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago, heralding the end to the Cold War between East and West, showed the world "dreams can come true" and should inspire people trapped in tyranny everywhere, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday.

Festivities to mark the anniversary have drawn more than 100,000 Berliners and tourists to the centre of the once-divided city. Many wandered along a 15km former "death strip" where the wall once stood, and 7,000 illuminated helium balloons were perched 3.6 metres high on poles — matching the height of the barrier built in 1961 by Communist East Germany.

Merkel, a young scientist in communist East Berlin when she got her first taste of freedom on November 9, 1989, said in a speech that the wall's opening in response to mass popular pressure would be eternally remembered as a triumph of the human spirit.

"The fall of the Berlin Wall showed us that dreams can come true — and that nothing has to stay the way it is, no matter how high the hurdles might seem to be," said Merkel, who is now 60 and has led united Germany since 2005.

"It showed that we have the power to shape our destiny and make things better," she said, noting that people in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere around the world should feel heartened by the example of the wall's sudden demise.

"It was a victory of freedom over bondage and it's a message of faith for today's, and future, generations that can tear down the walls — the walls of dictators, violence and ideologies."

Germans, with few anniversaries to fete after an earlier 20th century record of belligerence and war, have latched onto memories of the peaceful East German revolution that felled the wall as a bright, shining moment in their history.

But even the date November 9 bears historical burdens, as Merkel noted. It was also the day in 1938 of the anti-Jewish pogrom "Kristallnacht", or "Night of Broken Glass", when Nazis carried out attacks on synagogues and Jewish shops across Germany.

"It was a date of shame and disgrace," said Merkel, referring to "Kristallnacht". "So on this 25th anniversary of the wall's fall, I feel not only the joy of November 9, 1989 but also the responsibility of German history."

The artistic display of balloons, which dramatically illustrate how the wall cut through the heart of Berlin, is also porous to enable people to easily move back and forth between the former East and West Berlin. The balloons will be set free on Sunday evening — symbolically reenacting the wall's collapse.

"We have every reason to celebrate," Mayor Klaus Wowereit, whose city government has been rebuilding small segments of the wall for posterity and tourists after almost all of the original concrete barrier was hastily torn down over two decades ago.

"We were all happy at the time that it had fallen and [so it] was torn down," he said.

The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop East Germans fleeing to the West. It began as a brick wall and was then fortified as a heavily guarded 160km double white concrete screen that encircled West Berlin, slicing across streets, between families, and through graveyards.

At least 138 people were killed trying to escape to West Berlin and many who were captured ended up in jail.

Communist regimes collapsed in the face of popular uprisings across Eastern Europe in 1989, signalling the end of the Cold War, of which the Berlin Wall had become the starkest symbol.

But despite the wall's fall, German unity a year later and 2 trillion euros pumped into the formerly communist east of the country, there are still lingering east-west political, economic and social divisions in the city and country.

Voting patterns in east Berlin and eastern Germany are different, there is still an east-west income and wealth gap, and unemployment is nearly twice as high in the east.

"Forty years of division left their mark on many," said Kai Arzheimer, political scientist at the University of Mannheim. "The differences might be diminishing as years pass but only a lot slower than anyone would have dreamt 25 years ago."

BEIJING — President Xi Jinping offered the world a vision of a Chinese-driven "Asia-Pacific dream" on Sunday, as Beijing hosts a regional gathering that underlines its growing global clout.

"We have the responsibility to create and realise an Asia-Pacific dream for the people of the region," the Chinese communist chief told a gathering of business and political leaders that precedes the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' gathering.

The 21-member APEC groups 40 per cent of the world's population, almost half its trade and more than half its GDP, and the summit will be attended by leaders including US President Barack Obama, his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

It will see Beijing push its preferred Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), while Washington is driving its own Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The TPP is seen as the economic element of the much-touted US "rebalance" to Asia and so far brings together 12 APEC nations including Japan and Australia — but not China.

Obama left Washington Sunday, with the White House saying he was expected to have "candid and in-depth conversations" with Xi, after Secretary of State John Kerry last week described the two powers' relationship as the "most consequential" in the world.

"For the Asia-Pacific and the world at large, China's development will generate huge opportunities and benefits and hold lasting and infinite promise," Xi said.

He later welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he has a shared outlook on issues such as trade, investment and geopolitical interests, including a wariness of the United States.

It was "time to gather fruit" from "the tree of Russian-Chinese relations", Xi told Putin, as the two sides signed agreements stepping up their multibillion-dollar energy and resources cooperation.

Chinese dream 

Xi told the business meeting his "Asia-Pacific dream" was based on a "shared destiny" of peace, development and mutual benefit in the region.

The comments have echoes of the "Chinese dream" he regularly speaks of, an unspecified but much-discussed term with connotations of national resurgence.

Beijing — a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council — is leveraging the decades long boom that has made it the world's second-largest economy to increase its regional and global heft.

But it stresses a policy of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs — a stance that has enabled it to do business with leaders seen as pariahs in the West.

Its relationship with the United States has been marred by tensions over trade disputes, cyberspying and human rights issues, while Beijing is embroiled in enduring disputes with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea, and with rival claimants in the South China Sea.

Under Xi, it has been asserting those claims more firmly.

"China wants to live in harmony with all its neighbours," he said Sunday.

Nonetheless, relations with Japan have plunged in recent years with both sides sending ships and aircraft to the islands, which are controlled by Tokyo and claimed by Beijing, raising fears of clashes.

Hopes of an ice-breaking formal meeting between Xi and Abe on the sidelines of the summit have risen following statements by the two countries agreeing to try to improve ties.

But Japanese officials say the key sentence in their statement was "very carefully written" to avoid Tokyo formally acknowledging that there was a dispute on sovereignty over the islands.

"We did not give in to the Chinese demand," one official said.

'Not that scary' 

China's decades long economic boom has seen it overtake Japan as the world's second-largest economy. But its growth reached a five-year low in the third quarter.

Xi said the risks it faced were "not that scary" and slower expansion was expected as its economy matures.

China currently suffers from a deflating property bubble, a crackdown on corruption blamed for curbing some business, and weak demand from Europe.

Even so it was expected to invest more than $1.25 trillion abroad over the next decade, Xi said, while outbound Chinese tourists would exceed 500 million over the next five years.

As "China's overall national strength grows", he told his audience, it would be able and willing to offer "new initiatives and visions for enhancing regional cooperation".

A draft summit communique seen by AFP calls for a "strategic study" on the Beijing-backed FTAAP. But Michael Froman, the US Trade Representative, told reporters Sunday: "It's not the launch of a new organisation, it's not the launch of a new FTA."

FTAAP, he said, was a "long-term aspiration" to be achieved only through other existing negotiations such as TPP, which was "clearly" the priority for the world's biggest economy.

The communique refers to "the eventual realisation" of the FTAAP.

But whether the leaders will endorse the so-called "Beijing Roadmap" towards the FTAAP remained unclear.

BEIJING — China's authoritarian President Xi Jinping and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin share similar views on issues from human rights to Mikhail Gorbachev, in an increasingly close personal relationship that mirrors their countries' converging interests.

Putin arrives in Beijing Sunday for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and his 10th meeting with Xi since the Chinese president took office in March last year, according to the Communist mouthpiece People's Daily.

Their growing rapport comes as their nations' trade, investment and geopolitical interests align.

Moscow faces harsh Western criticism and sanctions over its seizure of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, as well as opprobrium for its approach to dissent and homosexuality.

Beijing also has tense relationships over territorial disputes with neighbours such as Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, and has recently been the target of criticism over demands for free elections in Hong Kong.

"The situation is pushing the two countries towards closer ties, both are facing very heavy pressures, Russia in Ukraine and China in Hong Kong," said Vladimir Yevseyev, director of the Moscow-based independent Public Political Studies Center.

"Xi comes from a background close to the military-industrial complex, he is a man who is much closer to the structures of power enforcement than his predecessor [Hu Jintao]," Yevseyev said.

"Putin understands him better, their outlooks are identical," he added. "Xi is inclined to confrontation if necessary, which pleases Putin."

Security Council 

Relations between Moscow and Beijing have a chequered history. Territorial disputes between Tsarist Russia and Imperial China gave way to cooperation between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic in the latter's early years.

That, however, subsequently collapsed in a huge split over ideological issues such as how to promote revolution, who should lead the international communist movement, whether to engage with the capitalist world and China's development of nuclear weapons.

Eventually a tectonic shift in global geopolitics resulted when Beijing and Washington ended their mutual hostility and President Richard Nixon visited China.

The USSR broke up 23 years ago and Russia and China have since been brought together by mutual concerns, notably wariness of Washington.

The two countries often vote as a pair on the UN Security Council, where both hold a veto, sometimes in opposition to Western powers on issues such as Syria.

They have carried out joint military exercises on land and sea and are members of the BRICS emerging nations group, which also includes Brazil, India and South Africa.

Their economic links are burgeoning, with resource-rich Russia a natural supplier to China's growing economy. After a decade of negotiations, the countries signed a huge 30-year gas deal said to be worth $400 billion during a visit to China by Putin in May.

"As Europe is going to cut its consumption of Russian gas, China offers an alternative market," said Yevseyev.

Pining for Soviet days 

APEC, which began with ministerial meetings on Friday before the main summit on Monday and Tuesday, accounts for more than 50 per cent of global gross domestic product, 44 per cent of world trade and 40 per cent of the Earth's population.

Russia, with its vast territory stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific, is the organisation's only European member.

The consensus-based grouping, which focuses on trade and economic cooperation, generally tries to paper over major differences at its summits.

But Xi, the scion of a Communist Party stalwart and war hero, and Putin, a former KGB agent who was stationed in East Germany when the Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago this month, are likely to take a common stand in the face of critics of Russian and Chinese policies, such as the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan.

They are also united by a common lament for the collapse of the Soviet Union and contempt for the man they hold responsible: Gorbachev, the leader who implemented "perestroika" and "glasnost" reforms in what was ultimately a failed bid to revitalise the one-party system.

Putin in 2005 called the breakup of the Soviet Union "the biggest geopolitical disaster" of the 20th century.

"Putin and Xi Jinping seem to be able to work together pretty well in part because I think both of them in different ways say, 'you know who really did the wrong thing 25 years ago? Gorbachev'," said Jeffrey Wasserstrom, professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, at a talk in Beijing.

"The Chinese Communist Party says that Gorbachev made a mistake, he let things fall apart," he added. "Putin says Gorbachev made a mistake. That's a weird kind of convergence."

KIEV — The remains of the last nine victims of Flight MH17 may never be recovered from the Ukrainian battlefield where their plane was downed four months ago, the Dutch foreign minister said Saturday, as fighting rumbled on in the east of the country.

Foreign Minister Bert Koenders made the grim assessment in the city of Kharkiv, where he attended a memorial service for five more sets of human remains collected from the site of the disaster and flown to the Netherlands.

"We cannot say at this moment in any certain way... at what moment, and even if, we can recover the last nine" victims, he said of the air crash that killed all 298 on board, including 193 Dutch.

The downing of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 on July 17 was one of the worst tragedies of a war in which an estimated 4,000 people have died. So far, the remains of 289 of those victims have been identified.

Ukraine and the West blame Russian-backed separatist fighters using surface-to-air missiles for the catastrophe, while Moscow has pointed the finger at Kiev's forces, in an incident that galvanised international shock over the chaos in a country bordering the European Union.

Ukraine reported more bloody fighting overnight, with six soldiers killed in the last 24 hours, as Moscow denied claims it had sent tanks across the border.

Ukraine's military said one of those killed was a paratrooper shot by a sniper in Donetsk International Airport, where government forces are defending a pocket of territory near the biggest rebel-held city. Fifteen other soldiers were wounded in shelling of government positions around the conflict zone, a statement said.

The fighting rumbled on in the industrial east despite a two-month-old ceasefire deal that has halted significant offensives, but failed to stop shelling at strategic flashpoints.

Donetsk's city hall said two civilians were wounded by shrapnel as the north of the city was rocked by explosions overnight.

A brief morning calm ended with the sound of frequent artillery explosions near the airport, an AFP journalist said.

Two tanks and two armoured fighting vehicles could be seen on the outskirts of the city, while rebels were digging trenches.

"The shooting is getting closer and closer, with heavier weapons. Yesterday I almost jumped out of my bed the bombardments felt so close," said Lyudmila, deputy director at a local school.

Russia, which annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in March and lends close political and humanitarian support to the separatist areas in the east, denied the latest Ukrainian allegation that it was dispatching regular troops to join the fighting.

Ukraine's military made headlines around the world on Friday with the claim that columns of hardware, including 32 tanks, had poured across the border which is under the control of Russia and the pro-Russian rebels.

However, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov laughed off the allegation after US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she had no "independent confirmation" of the report.

"If Psaki doesn't have it, I don't," Lavrov told journalists with a chuckle in Beijing, where he met his US counterpart John Kerry ahead of an APEC summit.

Psaki said that heavy Russian weaponry had been seen on Thursday at a rail yard about 25 kilometres inside its border. And journalists have on numerous occasions met Russian soldiers in Ukraine or seen long columns of heavy artillery and troop transports on roads.

However, both the Ukrainian and separatist spokesmen have frequently issued dramatic claims about the war without providing evidence.

The conflict has sent relations between Western backers of Ukraine and Russia to their lowest level since the Cold War.

Russia's economy is suffering from European Union and US sanctions imposed in response to Moscow's support for the separatists. With Russia welcoming last week's rebel elections, which were billed as boosting the separatists' claim to independence, new sanctions could be coming.

A flurry of diplomatic activity is approaching, with the APEC summit in China and a Group of 20 summit in Australia next week, where President Vladimir Putin will have the chance to put his case before world leaders.

KIEV — Ukrainian forces denied allegations by pro-Russian separatists that they had launched a new offensive in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, saying they were strictly adhering to a ceasefire agreement that has come under increasing strain.

Sporadic violence has flared since the September 5 truce, but the ceasefire has looked particularly fragile this week with both separatists and the central government accusing each other of violating the terms of a 12-point peace plan.

Earlier on Thursday Andrei Purgin, deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said the Ukrainian army had launched "all-out war" on rebel positions, Russian news agency RIA reported.

Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov denied this, saying the army remained in agreed positions.

"We refute these allegations... we're strictly fulfilling the Minsk memorandum [on a ceasefire]. We remain within the previously defined boundaries, in our positions. We're not advancing," Seleznyov said by telephone.

A Reuters witness in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk said there was no sign the conflict was escalating.

Representatives of the separatist regions earlier put out a joint statement calling for a redraft of the Minsk deal, which established a ceasefire in exchange for Kiev granting "special status" to eastern territories.

Rebels say Ukraine has violated the deal by seeking to revoke a law that would have granted eastern regions autonomy. Kiev says this decision is a consequence of Sunday's separatist leadership elections which it says go against the September agreement.

Separately, the Ukrainian military said three soldiers had been killed on Thursday, reporting a total of 26 separate artillery clashes with separatists.

More than 4,000 people have died since pro-Russia separatist rebellions broke out in the industrialised east following the overthrow of Ukraine's Moscow-backed leader Viktor Yanukovich in February and Russia's subsequent annexation of Crimea.