World

WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to work with Republican lawmakers after their midterm election win but warned he would act without them to protect his core agenda, starting with immigration reform.

The US leader stopped short of accepting direct responsibility for his Democratic Party's colossal defeat at the hands of opponents who successfully turned the election into a repudiation of his policies.

The GOP snatched control of the Senate, tightened its grip on the House of Representatives and won key Democrat governorships, in an election Obama admitted was "a good night" for Republicans.

"To everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you," Obama said.

Congress' two top Republicans said the new legislature would focus on jobs and the economy, and move to repeal Obama's signature achievement — the healthcare bill known as Obamacare, which provides medical insurance for millions who lack it.

"We'll also consider legislation to help protect and expand America's emerging energy boom and to support innovative charter schools around the country," House Speaker John Boehner and the incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wrote in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

Democrats suffering from the whiplash of their overwhelming defeat were left to contemplate what went wrong.

Some Republicans nevertheless acknowledged they need to find avenues of cooperation with Obama so they are seen as capable congressional stewards ahead of the 2016 presidential race.

In a lengthy White House news conference, Obama insisted he was "eager to work with the new Congress to make the next two years as productive as possible".

Both sides have pointed to the passage of tax reform and approval of two stalled international trade agreements as potential areas of cooperation between the camps.

Obama said he would also ask the new Congress for help in battling the spread of Ebola in West Africa and beyond, and to endorse US-led military action against jihadists in Iraq and Syria.

But, in the absence of a strong legislative base for the remaining two years of his presidency, Obama said he would press ahead with plans on immigration reform.

He said he would take executive action this year, without waiting to see whether the new Congress makes progress towards a comprehensive bipartisan immigration reform bill.

"My executive actions not only do not prevent them from passing a law that supersedes those actions, but should be a spur for them to actually try to get something done," Obama insisted.

That sets up a potential firestorm with congressional leaders, McConnell, who just minutes before Obama spoke expressed an eagerness to cooperate with the president but warned against such a unilateral move.

Taking executive action on immigration, without votes in Congress, would be "like waving a red flag in front of a bull", McConnell told reporters in Kentucky.

Despite Obama insisting he was optimistic about America's future, exit polls Tuesday confirmed the pessimistic mood that several Republican winners had capitalised on.

Voters are convinced the nation is headed in the wrong direction and are sceptical of the abilities of the president and his Democrats to turn things around.

At least one senior Democratic official, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's chief of staff, suggested Obama came up short in encouraging voters to back his own party.

Instead of providing a direct mea culpa for the election losses, Obama noted that Americans of all stripes have grown frustrated with Washington, "and as president they rightly hold me accountable to do more to make it work properly."

"Obviously Republicans had a good night and they deserve credit for running good campaigns," Obama said. "Beyond that I'll leave it to you and professional pundits to pick through the results."

The tone was a world away from president Bill Clinton's acceptance of "responsibility" the day after his Democrats lost control of both chambers of Congress 20 years ago.

While Obama said he would "measure ideas, not whether they're from Republicans or Democrats but whether they work for the American people", he reiterated he would use his veto powers on any bill that repealed his landmark healthcare reform that he insists has begun to work well for millions.

"Efforts that would take away healthcare from the 10 million people who now have it and the millions more who are eligible to get it, we're not going to support."

But he acknowledged he would study Republican proposals to make "responsible changes" to the law.

Obama's occasionally aloof 70-minute press conference earned a swift rebuke from the Republican National Committee, which suggested the president was "in denial" about the election.

US financial markets closed at fresh record highs after the elections lifted hopes for pro-business policies. Europe's leading stock markets and the dollar also rallied.

KIEV/DONETSK, Ukraine — Kiev said on Wednesday it would halt payment of state funds in areas controlled by pro-Moscow rebels, as both sides hardened positions in what is rapidly becoming a "frozen conflict": a long-term stalemate that the West believes is Russia's aim.

A day after the rebels held inauguration ceremonies for their leaders, the separatists and the central government each accused each other of violating a September peace deal and signalled they would withdraw support for some of its terms.

The past four days have seen the rebels stage elections for leadership which the government called illegal, and the government respond by saying it would revoke a law that would have granted eastern regions autonomy and sent them cash.

Despite a ceasefire declared two months ago, two teenagers were killed by shelling in Donetsk, one of the two separatist strongholds, on Wednesday as they played football on a school sports field, the city's administration said.

The rebels say their newly elected leaders must be allowed to negotiate with Kiev directly; Kiev says this is impossible. Both sides' positions reverse parts of the 12-point peace plan, the Minsk protocol, agreed in Belarus in September.

With Kiev lacking the military might to break the rebels by force, Western allies now fear that a large chunk of Ukrainian territory will become a Russian protectorate with a parlous economic future, beyond the writ of the central government.

"We have now realistically entered the phase of a 'frozen conflict'," said Yury Yakimenko, a political analyst at Ukraine's Razumkov Political Research Centre, using a term often applied to other ex-Soviet republics where separatist enclaves have been protected by Russian troops since the early 1990s.

The American general who serves as the highest ranking NATO officer also said this week that the conditions for a frozen conflict were being created in Ukraine.

Russia seized and annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in March, but has been more ambiguous about its intentions in eastern Ukraine, where it has supported separatist rebels but has not recognised their declarations of independence.

So far this week Moscow has stopped short of recognising the rogue elections held in Ukraine's east on Sunday which elected leaders of two rebel "people's republics" that jointly call themselves "New Russia".

Western governments see the votes as part of a scenario, worked out in the Kremlin, to perpetuate instability in Ukraine after the ex-Soviet republic of 46 million shifted policy westwards following the overthrow of a Moscow-backed president.

Kiev and the West fear Russian President Vladimir Putin's grand design, following the annexation of Crimea in March, is to render Ukraine ineligible to become part of mainstream Europe, with a conflict left unresolved within its borders.

"Russia will direct its efforts at supporting instability, at hindering the creation of Ukrainian law-based institutions and at increasing permanent instability," Yakimenko said.

Russia has dismissed such suggestions and accuses the West of stoking the crisis by staging an "anti-constitutional coup" in Kiev in February after months of street protests against a president who spurned a trade pact with the European Union.

Moscow denies sending in troops and weapons to support the rebels, although many of its soldiers died there, especially in August when Western governments say Russia despatched armoured columns to protect the rebels from the defeat.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Tuesday the rebels had violated the Minsk agreement by holding elections outside Ukrainian rules, and that he would ask parliament to suspend a law that would give their regions a "special status".

The rebels said this "seriously damaged" the Minsk protocol and signalled they would no longer abide by it.

The "special status" law would have given the two rebel regions Donetsk and Luhansk rights to elect local officials under Ukrainian law, offered separatist fighters freedom from prosecution for acts on the battlefield and guaranteed the flow of state funds to rebel-held areas until peace was restored.

Poroshenko said he wanted the law scrapped because he did not want to keep funding terrorists. The rebels had violated the Minsk agreement by breaking the ceasefire and failing to carry out prisoner exchanges, he said on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk told a government meeting that Kiev would continue to supply gas and electricity to the separatist regions but "so long as the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions are controlled by imposters, the central budget will not send funding there”.

The cut-off of funding would deprive the war-shattered rebel-held regions of money for schools, hospitals and infrastructure.

Pensions are still being paid into accounts of retired workers in rebel held areas, but banks there have been cut off so recipients must move to other parts of Ukraine to collect.

Both sides say they are still committed to continuing the Minsk peace process. Poroshenko has said he will propose a new law to provide a "special economic zone" for the east and set a new date for hoped-for Ukrainian-run local elections, originally planned for early December.

But Kiev looks unlikely to agree to talks with separatist leaders as this would imply Kiev's formal recognition of them, and staging Ukrainian-approved elections in their territory seems impossible.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama faces the prospect of a turbulent final two years in office after Republicans stormed to power in the US Senate, extended their majority in the House of Representatives in a midterm election that was a clear repudiation of the president's leadership.

The vote gives Republicans momentum heading into the 2016 presidential race, which becomes the focus of American politics for the next two years. At issue now is whether Obama, his congressional Democrats and the newly robust Republican majorities will be able to break the legislative gridlock that has gripped the US capital in recent years.

The president scheduled a news conference for later Wednesday to offer his take on an election day thumping of his Democratic Party. It's a low point for a president who electrified the world with his election in 2008 as the first African-American president and was comfortably re-elected in 2012. Though Democrats lost the House in 2010, partly in a backlash to his healthcare overhaul, this will be the first time Obama must also deal with a Republican-led Senate.

The election results alter the American political dynamic on immigration reform, budget matters, presidential nominations, trade and much more. With lawmakers planning to return to Washington next week, Obama invited congressional leaders to a meeting Friday.

Obama could use the president's veto power if Republicans pass bills he opposes, such as a repeal of Obamacare. Overriding a presidential veto requires a two-thirds vote in each chamber of Congress, an unlikely scenario.

In state capitals, Republicans were poised to leave their imprint, picking up governors' seats in reliably Democratic states like Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts. Republicans were especially encouraged by victories in battleground states that can sway presidential races, such as Florida and Ohio.

Heading into the vote, polls showed Republicans picking up the six Senate seats they needed for a majority. They snatched away at least seven, giving them at least 52 seats in the 100-member Senate.

Republican gains could continue. In Alaska, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich was trailing Republican Dan Sullivan, and Louisiana is headed for a December 6 runoff after no candidate won a majority. In a further sign of Democratic woes, the Republican candidate still has not conceded defeat in Virginia, where Democrat incumbent Mark Warner garnered just a one-point advantage. His Republican challenger still might call for a recount.

Republicans had made Obama's presidency the core issue of their campaigns, even though he wasn't on the ballot. They tapped into a well of discouragement at a time many Americans are upset with a sluggish economic recovery and are besieged by troubling news, such as the spread of Ebola and the rapid rise of Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

Nearly two-thirds of voters interviewed after casting ballots said the US was seriously on the wrong track. Only about 30 per cent said the US was headed in the right direction.

"It's a reflection of the president's lack of leadership, his lack of leadership abroad, his lack of leadership at home," said Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a possible presidential contender who campaigned for Republican candidates across the US.

The economy remained the top issue for voters, who ranked it ahead of healthcare, immigration or foreign policy. And economic worries played to Republicans' advantage, according to the surveys of voters as they left polling places.

In the House, Republicans were on track to meet or exceed the 246 seats they held during Democrat President Harry S. Truman's administration more than 60 years ago.

"We are humbled by the responsibility the American people have placed with us, but this is not a time for celebration," said House Speaker John Boehner. "It's time for government to start getting results and implementing solutions to the challenges facing our country, starting with our still-struggling economy."

More than four in 10 voters disapproved of both Obama and Congress, according to the exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks.

Obama's poor approval ratings turned him into a liability for Democrats seeking re-election. The outcome offered parallels to the final midterm election of Republican George W. Bush's presidency, when Democrats won sweeping victories amid voter discontent with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Democrats had few bright spots. New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Gov. Maggie Hassan, who campaigned with potential 2016 candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton last weekend, both won re-election. In Pennsylvania, businessman Tom Wolf dispatched Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.

In one of the more closely watched contests, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell won re-election in Kentucky, likely elevating him to become the new Senate majority leader. McConnell has been a severe critic of Obama, but has also helped broker bipartisan deals that ended last year's government shutdown and twice averted federal default.

Voters are "hungry for new leadership. They want a reason to be hopeful," McConnell said in a gracious victory speech that commended Grimes for running a good race. He plans a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Faced with the imperative of constructing a new working relationship, the White House placed a post-midnight call to McConnell, but Obama and the senator didn't connect. McConnell already had gone to bed. Obama did speak to more than two dozen House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates and congressional leaders from both parties, and was making more calls Wednesday, the White House said.

One of Obama's first post-election calls was to McConnell. The two didn't connect, but Obama left a message for the senator.

A Republican also gained a seat vacated by a retiring Democrat in Iowa — the state that set Obama on course for his first presidential victory in 2008.

In the House, only a few dozen races were truly competitive. But in a sign of the depth of voter displeasure, Democrats could not even beat Republican Michael Grimm, a New York congressman indicted on tax fraud and other charges. He gained national fame by threatening to throw a reporter off a balcony in Congress.

LONDON — Social media sites have become "the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists", a senior British spy said Tuesday, warning that some US technology companies are "in denial" over the issue.

Robert Hannigan, the new head of electronic spying agency GCHQ, used a Financial Times article to urge Silicon Valley big names to give security services more help in the fight against Islamic State (IS) jihadists.

The rare public comments by a senior intelligence officer will fuel the debate ignited by US leaker Edward Snowden over how much access governments should have to personal online information and what steps social networks should take to regulate content.

Classified information released by former intelligence analyst Snowden in 2013 revealed that GCHQ played a key role in covert US surveillance operations worldwide, including monitoring huge volumes of online and phone activity worldwide.

While Hannigan did not name firms directly, he highlighted militants' use of Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp and referred to graphic online videos showing the final moments of Western hostages executed by the IS group.

"However much they dislike it, they have become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals," he wrote in the FT.

"To those of us who have to tackle the depressing end of human behaviour on the Internet, it can seem that some technology companies are in denial about its misuse."

The comments were backed by Downing Street as "important".

"The prime minister very much shares the view that's being expressed there around the use of web-enabled Internet access technologies by violent and extremist groups amongst others and the need to do more," David Cameron's official spokesman told reporters.

Government officials have held a series of meetings on the issue with firms such as Google and Facebook, most recently last month.

'Powers already immense'

Campaigners said the security services already have ample access to online information.

Eric King, deputy director of Privacy International, called Hannigan's comments "disappointing".

"Before he condemns the efforts of companies to protect the privacy of their users, perhaps he should reflect on why there has been so much criticism of GCHQ in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations," he said.

"GCHQ's dirty games — forcing companies to hand over their customers' data under secret orders, then secretly tapping the private fibre- optic cables between the same companies' data centres anyway — have lost GCHQ the trust of the public, and of the companies who services we use."

Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organisation which campaigns for online civil liberties, also criticised the remarks.

"Their powers are already immense. I think that asking for more is really quite disingenuous," she told BBC radio.

In 2013, Cameron's government scrapped planned legislation dubbed a "snoopers' charter" which would have compelled mobile phone and Internet service providers to retain extra data amid opposition from coalition partners the Liberal Democrats.

But Home Secretary Theresa May has vowed to revive it if the prime minister's Conservatives win next May's general election outright.

Hannigan's comments came less than a week after he started work with GCHQ's reputation in the spotlight after Snowden's revelations.

In a farewell speech last month, his predecessor, Iain Lobban, launched a robust defence of GCHQ staff, saying their mission was "the protection of liberty, not the erosion of it".

Britain is on a high state of alert due to the fear of attacks linked to the IS group in Syria and Iraq, where it is taking part in international air strikes.

In August, Britain's threat level from international terrorism was raised to severe, the second highest level, meaning that an attack is thought to be highly likely.

Police said last month they were taking down around 1,000 pieces of illegal content from the Internet every week including videos of beheadings and torture.

DONETSK, Ukraine — Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine staged swearing in ceremonies for their leaders on Tuesday after votes dismissed as a farce by Kiev, which says they violated terms of a peace plan to end a war that has killed more than 4,000 people.

Warning of the threat of new offensive by Moscow-backed rebels, Ukraine's leader said newly-formed army units would be sent to defend a string of eastern cities.

NATO's highest ranking officer, a US general, said conditions were now in place to create a "frozen conflict", a term the West uses to describe rebel regions carved out of other ex-Soviet states that Moscow protects with its troops.

The inauguration ceremonies in east Ukraine took place even as tens of thousands of people marched in Moscow for "Unity Day", a nationalist holiday celebrating a 17th century battle, revived under President Vladimir Putin to replace the Soviet-era celebration of the Bolshevik revolution. Ukraine featured heavily in speeches for the occasion.

Most fighting has halted in the war in eastern Ukraine since September, when Kiev agreed to a truce after its forces were pushed back by what it and Western countries say was an incursion by armoured columns of Russian troops.

But the frontline remains dangerous and tense, with both sides complaining of shooting nearly every day. Artillery from the direction of the wreckage of Donetsk's international airport, still under government control, thudded during the rebel leader's inauguration in the city.

Moscow says the election of Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky as leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics", which jointly call themselves "new Russia", means that Kiev should now negotiate with them directly.

Kiev has always rejected this, describing the rebels as Russian-backed "terrorists" or "bandits", with no legitimacy.

The worry for the West is that Moscow, which has already annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, will now also exert control over eastern Ukraine's industrial Donbass region in perpetuity, as it has done for two decades in parts of Moldova and Georgia that broke away when the Soviet Union collapsed.

"I'm concerned that the conditions are there that could create a frozen conflict," said US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, the highest-ranking NATO officer, said in Washington.

Russia's border with east Ukraine had softened to the point of becoming completely porous, while the line inside Ukraine between government and rebel territory had hardened, he said.

President Petro Poroshenko met his security chiefs and told them he remained committed to a peaceful solution to the conflict, even though he said a peace plan and truce agreed in Minsk in September had been violated by Russia and the rebels.

Kiev says the Minsk agreements provided only for the election of local officials in the east under Ukrainian law, and not for separatist ballots to install leaders of breakaway entities who seek close association or even union with Russia.

Kiev and the West also say Moscow is continuing to provide military support for the rebels.

A foreign ministry spokesman said 100 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the ceasefire came into force. Kiev's military spokesman said there had been more shooting incidents recently and NATO's secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said in Brussels that Russian troops were moving closer to the border with Ukraine while Russia continued to train the rebels.

Balloons and Cossacks

In Donetsk, an industrial city which had a million people before the war, 38-year-old former coal mine electrician Zakharchenko was sworn in as head of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic".

One of the few top guerrilla commanders in eastern Ukraine who comes from Donetsk rather than Russia, Zakharchenko has led the separatists since August when he took over from a Russian. He was elected on Sunday, along with Plotnitsky in neighbouring Luhansk, in votes that Kiev and the West denounced as illegal.

At the ceremony in a Donetsk drama theatre, Zakharchenko swore to "honestly serve the interests of the people of the Donetsk People's Republic".

Balloons floated onto the stage while Cossacks in scarlet and black uniforms and dancers in traditional peasant garb shared the theatre with Zakharchenko's honour guard of heavily-armed fighters, some with Russian flag patches on their arms.

A Russian parliamentarian, Alexei Zhuravlyov, told the audience the elections "were democratic and clean which many countries could envy, including Western ones".

Before the ceremony, another separatist figure, Andrei Purgin, said: "We are starting history with this inauguration and what happens today will be repeated. We are laying down the traditions of the Republic."

‘Spiritual upsurge’

Putin has pressed on with Russia's campaign in Ukraine despite US and European economic sanctions.

"Dear friends, this year we have had to face difficult challenges. And as has happened more than once in our history, our people responded by consolidating and with a moral and spiritual upsurge," Putin told a Unity Day gala, alluding to the conflict without mentioning sanctions or Ukraine directly.

"The desire for justice, for truth has always been honoured in Russia. And threats will not force us to abandon our values and ideals."

At an open air concert in Moscow following the parade, politicians called on Putin to recognise the results of the rebel elections. Putin has yet to do so, although Moscow said it would before the votes were held.

Since the truce brought by the Minsk agreements, which Russia signed along with Ukraine and rebel leaders, Putin appears to have set course for a long-term face-off that will leave the Donbass internationally recognised as part of Ukraine but beyond Kiev's control.

Russia has used such tactics to hobble the aspirations for Western integration of Moldova and Georgia, where breakaway enclaves have enjoyed Russian protection since the early 1990s.

When Georgia tried to retake a separatist enclave in 2008, Moscow swiftly invaded to protect it. An official from that region, South Ossetia, spoke at Zakharchenko's inauguration.

In recent weeks, Russia and Ukraine reached an interim agreement on gas supplies, allowing them to resume the most important part of their economic relations and make the status quo more stable, without resolving the separatist conflict.

But Kiev still has wider ambitions for improved trade ties with the West, including eventual membership in the EU, which will be harder to achieve as long as nearly 10 per cent of its population and a larger slice of its industrial output is in territory controlled by armed men who profess loyalty to Russia.

KIEV — Ukraine's government still has options after separatist elections showed its helplessness against a Russian-backed rebellion. The problem: they're all bad.

Analysts and officials paint a grim scenario facing Ukraine's pro-Western government as it ponders how to respond to the separatists' tightening grip on the industrial south-eastern Donbass region.

Sunday's leadership elections — approved by Moscow despite intense Western pressure — were only the latest addition to a growing sense that rebel areas have slipped near permanently from Kiev's control.

Recapturing rebel-held cities in Donbass like Donetsk and Lugansk is widely accepted to be beyond the small Ukrainian military's capabilities. The rebels are no rag-tag force, boasting units that resemble a heavily armed, regular army — even if Moscow denies Western allegations that those units are in fact Russian soldiers.

Another region, Crimea, was annexed by Russia in March and is home to large contingents of Russian troops, making it even harder to recover for Ukraine.

Fight or surrender? 

Not many Ukrainians are ready for all-out war, says Glib Vyshlinsky, deputy director of GfK Ukraine marketing company in Kiev.

"If you're talking about fighting, with thousands of casualties being lost in order to win back these regions, then there is not support. Ukrainians are not such an imperial people as Russians and consensus will be against this," he said.

The opposite, radical approach would be for Ukraine to wash its hands entirely of the pro-Russian territories.

It's an option heard in private and aired online, such as on political analyst Yuriy Romanenko's Facebook page under a hashtag that translates as "stop feeding Donbass".

The idea would be that the communist-leaning eastern region should be allowed to join Russia, as the rebels say they want to eventually. Ukraine would then be freed from the huge costs associated with the war-ravaged region and be left to pursue its other main challenge of instituting pro-Western economic and legal reforms.

"No worries," comments Tatyana Filatova under Romanenko's latest post about the separatist elections. "Now we can go to Europe."

Only a "narrow segment of society" favours simply turning its back on the problem, Vyshlinksy said.

A GfK poll in September showed that 31 per cent support a "bad peace", including giving up some territory to Russia. Fifty-four per cent were for fighting on.

One concrete sign that Ukraine's government is preparing to sever at least some ties with the east is the suggestion from top ranking officials in recent days that gas supplies may be ended to rebel territories — which would turn to Russia for help.

"Those announcements are trial balloons to test Russia," said Taras Berezovets, head of Berta Communications in Kiev.

"Russia doesn't want to have to pay for Donbass."

Frozen conflict? 

"We cannot give up Donbass," a top security official, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP. "We will do everything we can to restore our sovereignty on this territory, but for now we can't do it."

Put like that, it appears that Ukraine could be looking at another of the so-called "frozen conflicts" plaguing this geopolitical neighbourhood.

Russian-supported rebels control Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, while other Moscow-backed separatists rule Moldova's territory of Transdniestr.

Those countries' experience shows that the only positive side of freezing a conflict is that fighting dies down to a minimum.

But in both cases, the conflicts have become drags on attempts to enact reforms required for getting into the European Union and other Western institutions. And even after more than a decade, there is no sign of the rebel territories returning to their original owners.

"Kiev has lost control over Donbass for a minimum of five years," Berezovets, the analyst, said.

"The authorities have long ago realised this. They have no illusions. But to admit this de jure would be political suicide. Everyone understands what a painful subject this is for people," he said.

Or hot war? 

Ukrainians' worst fear, though, is that the separatists and their Russian backers may want a hot, not frozen war.

Rebel leaders talk openly of planning to extend their territory to the Black Sea port of Mariupol. Ukrainian security officials and soldiers believe Russia — or its proxies — could ultimately seize control of the whole coastline in order to establish a land link with its newly conquered region of Crimea.

Without that land link, Crimeans face a long, cold winter relying on sea routes from Russia for supplies, unless, that is, the estranged government in Ukraine comes to their aid.

"A lot will depend on whether Kiev and Moscow can make an agreement on supplies to Crimea, which is in a hard situation now," the security official said.

"If there is a deal, then there won't be a big offensive before the spring. They won't do it in winter," the official said. "If there's no deal, though, and we try to cut off Crimea, then they won't have any other option and they will push ahead."

Many questions, few easy answers.

"If there is a plan," a senior foreign ministry official told AFP, "then it's only known to a small circle of people in the presidential adminstration".

LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan and India went ahead Monday with a colourful military ceremony at a major border post, defying a suicide attack on the event a day earlier that killed 55 people.

The bomber struck at the Wagah border crossing near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Sunday, causing carnage among crowds leaving the daily "flag-lowering" event that marks the closing of the frontier for the day.

The explosion, which wounded more than 120, was the deadliest to hit Pakistan in more than a year, but an official claimed there was no security lapse — despite admitting having received warning of an attack.

The strike came with Pakistan on high alert for the mourning days of Ashura, a flashpoint for sectarian violence in recent years.

A security source told AFP two alerts had been issued to Punjab provincial officials, including one about a possible attack at Wagah.

However a spokesman for the Rangers paramilitary force, which guards the border post, said the attack took place some distance from the parade.

"We had received an alert but the incident occurred in the commercial area, where people were gathered around food shops, the parade lane is quite a distance from the location of the blast," he told AFP.

"It's not a security lapse."

At least two different factions of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed the attack, the first major strike since the army launched an offensive against militant strongholds in the tribal northwest in June.

Despite the bloodshed, the ceremony went ahead on Monday, complete with Pakistani spectators in the stands.

The Punjab army corps commander Lieutenant General Naveed Zaman said the turnout "proved that terrorists can't break the morale and zeal of the nation".

Indian forces also took part on their side of the frontier but Indian spectators were barred.

Like many Pakistanis who attend the event, eyewitness Nawaz Khan had gone on Sunday with family members, visiting from the northwestern city of Peshawar.

"There were 14 of us. After the parade I came out of the gate and my brother told me to go back and bring the children," Khan told AFP.

As he returned with the children, he said, he saw a "young boy" running towards the gate, who was stopped by a Ranger.

"Then there was a huge bang and I saw my brother flying in the air. There were screams all around and the place was filled with the smell of burnt human flesh and blood," he said.

"I had lost the children and I was screaming for them and then I saw the body of my brother lying on the ground with other bodies," said Khan, whose children were found unhurt.

A senior officer with India's Border Security Force, Ashok Kumar, told AFP security would be strengthened as a result of the attack, but said he expected hundreds of Sikhs to go ahead with a planned pilgrimage to Lahore this week.

Ashura alert 

Security forces across Pakistan were on high alert Monday for possible attacks as Shiite Muslims mark Ashura, the anniversary of the death of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, with mourning processions.

Around 10,000 police and paramilitary Rangers have been deployed in Islamabad and its twin city Rawalpindi, officials said.

Sectarian violence has been on the rise in recent years, mostly by Sunni Muslim extremists targeting Shiites who make up 20 percent of Pakistan's 180 million population. At least 11 people were killed in Ashura clashes in Rawalpindi last year.

Security analyst Hasan Askari said the security forces' focus on the Ashura threat may have made them take their eye off the ball at Wagah.

"There was a lot of security for the Muharram processions so this place was the easiest target," he told AFP.

"Security forces have taken a lot of precautions: they [militants] are now looking for soft targets."

An editorial in Dawn newspaper speculated about a possible link to the ongoing anti-militant army operation in North Waziristan.

People watching the ceremony may have been "deliberately targeted because of their perceived support for the security forces", Dawn said.

The attack so close to the Indian border comes at a delicate point in relations.

Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours are running high after an upsurge in shelling incidents across the disputed border in Kashmir.

But Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned the "shocking" attack, describing it as a "dastardly act of terrorism".

DONETSK, Ukraine — Separatists in eastern Ukraine held elections Sunday as claims of “intensive” troop movements crossing the Russian border cast new doubts over a truce.

The vote in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic was condemned by Kiev and the West, but backed by Russia, billed as bringing a degree of legitimacy to pro-Russian authorities already in control of the two main rebel-held cities.

However, the polls deepened an international crisis over the conflict and further undercut the teetering September 5 truce between Ukraine’s government and the heavily armed separatists.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko blasted the ballot as a “farce that is being conducted under the threat of tanks and guns” and warned Moscow not to follow through on its intention to recognise the result.

The run-up to the vote saw a spate of shelling by rebels of government positions across the conflict zone, where according to UN figures more than 4,000 people have died since fighting started around seven months ago.

Ukrainian authorities announced Sunday the deaths of three soldiers and seven more wounded, adding to Saturday’s toll of seven dead and at least six wounded.

Kiev’s military also claimed it had detected “intensive” movement of troops and equipment “from the territory of the Russian Federation”.

The reported deployments, which would constitute a major escalation of Russian involvement, could not be verified.

AFP journalists in rebel-controlled Donetsk saw a column of about 20 trucks, some carrying heavy anti-aircraft guns, heading in the direction of the government-held airport, although there was a notable drop in fighting during the polling.

Other Western news outlets reported seeing much larger columns of unmarked military trucks and weaponry on roads in the separatist area.

The rebels — who deny being helped by Russia, but boast an arsenal that includes anti-aircraft missiles, tanks and heavy artillery — have threatened to expand their offensive to the Azoz Sea port city of Mariupol.

The Security Service of Ukraine said it was opening a criminal investigation into the separatist election, which it called “a power grab”.

But residents of rebel-held areas spoke of their hatred for the government in Kiev and their desire for the war to end.

“I hope that our votes will change something. Perhaps we will finally be recognised as a real, independent country,” Tatyana Ivanovna, 65, said as she waited to cast her ballot in Donetsk’s school number 104.

“We need to be able to live normally,” said Valery, 50. “It’s terrible being afraid for your family at every bombardment. I will vote hoping that this will help the authorities to defend our interests against Kiev.”

LAHORE, Pakistan — A suicide bomber killed at least 55 people Sunday at the main Pakistan-India border crossing, the blast tearing through crowds of spectators leaving after the colourful daily ceremony to close the frontier.

The explosion, which wounded more than 120, came at Wagah border gate near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore after the "flag-lowering" ceremony, a display of military pageantry that attracts thousands of spectators every day and is popular with foreign tourists.

The attack is a rare strike in Punjab, Pakistan's richest and most populous province and powerbase of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which has been spared the worst of the bloody wave of Islamist violence that has assailed the country in recent years.

"It appears to have been a suicide attack. At least 55 people have been killed and more than 120 wounded. Women and children were also killed," Mushtaq Sukhera, the Punjab provincial police chief, told AFP.

It is the deadliest attack to hit Pakistan since a suicide bombing at a church in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed 80 people in September last year.

Sharif expressed "grief and sorrow" over the attack in a statement issued by his office and ordered those responsible to be brought to justice.

His Indian counterpart Narendra Modi condemned the "shocking" and "dastardly" attack. "My condolences to the families of the deceased. Prayers with the injured," he said on his Twitter account.

Huge crowds gather on both sides at Wagah each sunset to see the display of military pageantry that accompanies the formal closing of the border post. It appears the blast took place some distance from the border itself.

Tahir Javed, Punjab provincial commander of the Rangers paramilitary force that guards the frontier, said three of his men had been killed in the blast, which came around 500 metres from the post itself.

There are several security checkpoints on the road leading to the border post, which is equipped with a ceremonial gate and banked seating, and spectators are frisked before entering, though such searches are not always particularly rigorous.

The dead and wounded were taken to Ghurki hospital, where distressed relatives, weeping and hugging each other in grief, searched for their loved ones.

"We were here to watch the parade and the blast took place, the moment we left the venue," Muhammad Imran, aged 12, told AFP as he looked for his three brothers at the hospital.

Conflicting claims 

There were several conflicting claims of responsibility for the attack, reflecting the fragmentation the umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) movement has undergone in recent weeks.

Abdullah Bahar, a spokesman for a TTP faction loyal to its dead chief Hakimullah Mehsud, said they carried it out to avenge Mehsud's killing in a US drone strike last year.

But the Jamat-ul-Ahrar faction, which broke away from the main TTP leadership in September, rubbished the claim and said they were behind the blast.

Group spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said in an e-mail statement the attack was revenge for those killed in the ongoing military operation in North Waziristan tribal area, on the Afghan border. Ehsan said they would soon release video footage of the attack.

TV channels also ran claims from a third militant faction, called Jundullah.

Pakistan has been wracked by a homegrown Taliban insurgency that has killed thousands of people in recent years, but attacks have declined since the army began its offensive in the northwest.

As well as being one of restive Pakistan's few tourist attractions, Wagah is also the main land crossing with India and much of their trade transits through it.

R. P. S. Jaswal, deputy inspector general of India's Border Security Force which guards Wagah, said their side of the border was secure, but security had been stepped up.

"A red alert has been issued keeping in view the blast across the border in... Pakistan," Jaswal told AFP by phone from his base near the city of Amritsar.

The neighbours have had frosty relations since independence from Britain in 1947, fighting three full wars, two over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

KANO, Nigeria — Boko Haram has claimed that the 219 schoolgirls it kidnapped more than six months ago have converted to Islam and been "married off", shocking their families and confirming their suspicions about a supposed ceasefire and deal for their release.

The Islamist group's leader, Abubakar Shekau, made the claim in a new video obtained by AFP on Friday in which he also denied government assertions of an agreement to end hostilities and peace talks.

The mention of the girls, who were abducted from the remote northeastern town of Chibok on April 14, is the first by Shekau since May 5, when about 100 of the teenagers were shown on camera.

Then, the girls were seen wearing the hijab and reciting verses from the Koran. The militant leader said then that not all had converted.

But he indicated that all of those held had now become Muslims and married, chiming with testimony from former hostages who say forced marriage and conversion is commonplace in Boko Haram camps.

"Don't you know the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls have converted to Islam? They have now memorised two chapters of the Koran," he said.

Shekau previously threatened to sell the girls as slave brides and also suggested he would be prepared to release them in exchange for Boko Haram prisoners.

In the latest message, he said while laughing: "We have married them off. They are in their marital homes."

The head of the Chibok Elders Forum, Pogo Bitrus, said on Saturday: "It [the claim about marriage] is shocking to us, although we know that Boko Haram is not a reliable group.”

"We were sceptical about the talks to release our girls and we never took the ceasefire seriously because since the announcement, they have never stopped attacking communities.

"Therefore the information that our girls have been married off is not surprising to us," said Bitrus, whose four nieces are among the hostages.

"We are only hoping the government will step up whatever efforts it is making to quell the insurgency."

Nigeria's government said on October 17 that they had reached a deal to end five years of deadly violence in the country's far northeast, as well as agreement to release the Chibok girls.

But violence has continued unabated, including a triple bomb attack on a bus station in the northern city of Gombe on Friday, which killed at least eight and injured dozens more.

Last weekend, about 30 children — some of them girls as young as 11 and boys aged 13 upwards — were abducted from another village in Borno state.

At least 40 women were abducted the previous weekend not far from Chibok.

Human Rights Watch said in a report published this week that upwards of 500 women and girls had been abducted since 2009, although some put the figure at more than 1,000.

Forced conscription of boys and young men is also a common tactic.

Shekau's claim about the girls will give little cheer to supporters around the world, who mobilised for a social media campaign and street protests calling for their release.

But back channel talks are stalled and he appeared to also rule out any negotiations.

"We have not made ceasefire with anyone," he said in Hausa in the 12-minute video, flanked by 15 armed fighters in an undisclosed scrubland location.

"We did not negotiate with anyone... It's a lie. It's a lie. We will not negotiate. What is our business with negotiation? Allah said we should not."

He also said he did not know Ahmadu Danladi, whom the government claimed was a Boko Haram envoy and had been present at supposed talks in the Chadian capital, Ndjamena.

German hostage 

The latest video also saw Boko Haram claim responsibility for the kidnapping of a German national from the northeastern state of Adamawa on July 16.

Armed gunmen seized the man, who was said to be a teacher at a government school, after apparently lying in wait outside his house.

The German foreign ministry in Berlin said it did not want to comment.

Kidnapping for ransom by armed gangs is common in Nigeria's wealthier, oil-producing south and just this week, another German national working for a construction was released after being seized.

His colleague, also German, was shot dead.

In the Adamawa kidnapping, suspicion immediately fell on Boko Haram, whose name translates roughly from Hausa as "Western education is forbidden".

They have previously attacked students, teachers and schools perceived to have a Western-style curriculum.