Thousands in Madrid demand end to bullfighting in Spain

May 13, 2017

MADRID (AP) — Thousands of animal rights activists protested Saturday in Madrid to demand an end to Spain's long tradition of bullfighting. The march went through the Spanish capital's city center, with several groups united under one clear-cut message: "Bullfighting is violence and you can stop it."

Animal rights activists say the gory fights are among the planet's most blatant forms of animal cruelty, with bulls lanced and finally stabbed through the heart. Matadors are praised for killing with a single stab, though some don't succeed in finishing off the animal with repeated thrusts.

The march, scheduled during the famed San Isidro weeklong fair featuring numerous bullfights in Madrid's famous Las Ventas bullring, is part of a growing divide between those who see bullfighting as a blatant form of animal cruelty and others who defend it as part of Spain's traditional culture.

Protesters also demanded a change in legislation under which animal cruelty would be subject to Spain's criminal code. Spokeswoman Laura Gonzalo called for an immediate halt to all bullfights. "It's time for all of society to unite and say 'enough,'" she said, while questioning the motive behind recent governmental tax cuts to bullfighting events.

Spain's deep tradition of bullfights was named part of the country's cultural heritage in a law passed in 2013. Madrid's leftist Mayor Manuela Carmena hasn't banned bullfighting events, but she has eliminated annual subsidies for their promotion.

Eurovision winner greeted by ecstatic Portuguese nation

May 14, 2017

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Eurovision winner Salvador Sobral was greeted as a national hero upon his return home to Portugal on Sunday, a day after winning the song contest in Ukraine's capital. The 27-year-old Sobral was a virtual unknown before his triumph in Kiev, but around 2,000 jubilant fans cheered his arrival at Lisbon's airport.

"Without wanting to sound presumptuous, this win is very important for Portuguese culture," Sobral said. "But I'm not a hero. That's (local soccer star) Cristiano Ronaldo." A visibly tired Sobral added: "I'm exhausted and just want to rest. I know this won't last. I want to be known as a musician. Not as the Eurovision winner."

His gentle romantic ballad Amar Pelos Dois (Love For Both) conquered all in Saturday night's extravaganza, which was watched by millions of spectators around the world. "I'm happy my romantic song won, and I hope the gala stops being a popularity contest," Sobral said at a news conference, while thanking Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso for his support.

The weekend was a busy one in Portugal, with Pope Francis' visit to Fatima and Lisbon soccer team Benfica winning its fourth straight Portuguese league title, also on Saturday. But Sobral was the man of the hour on Sunday, after the Lisbon native with a heart condition put an end to the southern European country's long misery in the famed Eurovision contest, which he took in a landslide.

Sobral won easily, giving Portugal its first Eurovision win since it started competing in the international competition in 1964, and prompting congratulatory messages from the country's highest authorities.

"When we are very good, we're the best of the best. Congratulations Salvador Sobral," President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa wrote in a message Saturday night. Prime Minister Antonio Costa followed the lead with a tweet of his own.

"A page of history has been written in Portuguese this evening at Eurovision. Bravo Salvador! Bravo Portugal," Costa said. The previous best Portuguese Eurovision ranking was 6th place, back in 1996. Unlike the 25 other competitors who performed on a wide stage backed by flashing lights, bursts of flames and other special effects, Sobral sang from a small elevated circle in the middle of the crowd, an intimate contrast to others' bombast.

"Music is not fireworks, music is feeling," he said while accepting the award. The feeling was never more mutual than Sunday afternoon, when Sobral was embraced by his countrymen and women upon arrival, as hundreds physically swarmed him at the airport concourse, chanting his name while being escorted by police.

Among them was Claudia Zellen, a 39-year-old social worker who, like many others across the country, praised the winning song, which Sobral performed in Portuguese next to his sister, Luisa, who wrote the tune and sat beside him at the welcoming news conference.

"It is a very emotional and different song, that sends a message of love and peace," Zellen pointed out. "I think that Salvador is unique and that he is able to transmit beautiful things to all of us, even those that do not understand our language."

Neighboring Spain, meanwhile, finished last after a poor performance by its representative, Manel Navarro. With Portugal rallying around its new national musical hero, even recently-crowned soccer champion Benfica took the time to congratulate Sobral.

"We aren't the only winners this evening...! Well done Salvador Sobral!" the team posted on its official Twitter account. But one of the most surprising tweets came further north, from British novelist J.K. Rowling, author of the popular Harry Potter book series.

"Yay Portugal!" Rowling wrote. Sobral captured 758 points in the contest, 143 more than second-placed Kristian Kostov, from Bulgaria. His win ensured Portugal would host next year's Eurovision contest.

"I hope to keep making music that means something and remain happy, playing it. Emotion always prevails," Sobral said. "The song was meant to be sung in Portuguese, but we need to feel whatever we are singing, no matter the language."

Catalonia steps up separatist challenge with Oct. 1 vote

June 09, 2017

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Catalonia's regional government has chosen Oct. 1 as the date for a referendum on a split from Spain, stepping up the confrontation with the country's central government, which sees the vote as illegal.

Regional president Carles Puigdemont said Catalans will be asked if they want Catalonia to be an independent republic. He made the long-awaited announcement in a televised statement, surrounded by members of his cabinet following a brief meeting.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative government didn't comment immediately but has previously said that it won't allow the vote because it considers it unconstitutional. Puigdemont has said he remains open to dialogue with Madrid but that the vote is nonnegotiable.

Catalonia, whose capital is Barcelona, accounts for a fifth of Spain's GDP and has a population of over 7 million.

2 dead as Venezuela protests turn violent outside capital

May 16, 2017

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A day that began with largely peaceful protests against Venezuela's socialist government took a violent turn Monday as fierce clashes between state security and demonstrators killed at least two people.

Thousands hauled folding chairs, beach umbrellas and protest signs onto main roads for a 12-hour "sit-in against the dictatorship," the latest in a month and a half of street demonstrations that have resulted in dozens of deaths.

Protests in Caracas against President Nicolas Maduro remained mostly tranquil, but outside the capital demonstrators clashed with police and national guardsmen. In the western state of Tachira near Venezuela's border with Colombia, two men were reported dead in separate demonstrations: Luis Alviarez, 18, and Diego Hernandez, 33.

Witness videos showed a man identified as Hernandez lying lifeless on the pavement, his eyes wide open, as a bystander ripped open his shirt, revealing a bloody wound underneath. "They killed him!" someone cries out.

Elsewhere in Tachira, demonstrators threw rocks and set an armored truck on fire. Several buildings were set ablaze and dozens injured, including one young woman standing on the street, her face covered in blood.

In the central state of Carabobo, three officers were shot, including one left in critical condition after being struck in the head, authorities said. In Lara, a vehicle ran over three protesters. The violence added to a mounting toll of bloodshed and chaos as Venezuela's opposition vows to step up near-daily demonstrations and Maduro shows no intention of conceding to opposition demands. More than three dozen people have been killed, including a national guardsman and a police officer, hundreds injured and as many as 2,000 detained in nearly seven weeks of protests.

International pressure on the troubled South American nation is continuing to increase, with the Organization of American States voting Monday to hold a rare foreign ministers' meeting later this month to discuss Venezuela's political crisis. The Washington-based group only convenes such meetings to address most urgent affairs.

"We ask the world to look at what's happening right now in Venezuela," opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said after Monday's violence. "A deranged regime that represses and kills its people." Venezuela announced in late April that it would be leaving the OAS, which seeks to defend democracy throughout the hemisphere, and its representative was not present at Monday's meeting. Maduro contends the OAS is meddling in Venezuela's domestic affairs, infringing on its sovereignty and trying to remove him from power.

The fiery Venezuelan president is vowing to resolve his nation's crisis by convening a special assembly to rewrite the nation's constitution, while the opposition is demanding an immediate presidential election.

Polls indicate the great majority of Venezuelans want Maduro gone as violent crime soars and the country falls into economic ruin, with triple-digit inflation and shortages of many basic foods and medical supplies.

The wave of protests were triggered by a government move to nullify the opposition-controlled congress in late March, but the demonstrations have morphed into a general airing of grievances against the unpopular socialist administration.

As demonstrations take over Caracas almost daily, normal life has continued, but the atmosphere is suffused with uncertainty. At fancy cafes, patrons show each other the latest videos of student protesters getting hurt or defaced statues of the late President Hugo Chavez on their phones. Working class people who have to traverse the capital for their jobs have adjusted their schedules to account for traffic shutdowns and take siestas to wait out clashes between protesters and police.

On Monday, demonstrators assembled a giant rosary with balloons hanging from a Caracas highway overpass. A group of flamenco dancers dressed in black performed for the crowds. Others simply sat and held signs declaring their resistance.

Former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said the opposition would take its protests "to another stage" as Maduro continues his push to rewrite the nation's constitution. "We are against this fraudulent process," Capriles said on his radio broadcast.

Tarek William Saab, the national ombudsman, whose job is to protect citizens' rights but who has been tagged the "dictator's defender" by the opposition, said on Twitter that he was pressing for an exhaustive investigation into Alviarez's death Monday to determine who was responsible and ensure they are held accountable.

Maduro blames the opposition for the violence, claiming its leaders are fomenting unrest to remove him from power. The opposition maintains state security and civilian-armed pro-government groups known as "colectivos" are responsible for the bloodshed.

Associated Press writer Hannah Dreier reported this story in Caracas and AP writer Christine Armario reported from Bogota, Colombia.

Venezuelans again shut down capital to protest government

May 15, 2017

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Protesters are hauling folding chairs, beach umbrellas and coolers onto main roads for a national sit-in. The "sit-in against the dictatorship" is the latest in a month and a half of street demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro. Many Caracas businesses were closed Monday and taxi drivers suspended work in anticipation of a city-wide traffic shutdown.

Opposition leaders are demanding immediate presidential elections. Polls show the great majority of Venezuelans want Maduro gone as violent crime soars and the country falls into economic ruin. The European Union is also calling for Venezuela elections. EU foreign ministers said Monday that "violence and the use of force will not resolve the crisis in the country."

And the U.S. has expressed grave concern about the erosion of democratic norms in the South American country.

Pope names cardinals for Laos, Mali, Sweden, Spain, Salvador

May 21, 2017

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In a surprise announcement Sunday, Pope Francis named new cardinals for Spain, El Salvador and three countries where Catholics are a tiny minority: Mali, Laos and Sweden. "Their origin, from different parts of the world, manifests the universality of the Church spread out all over the Earth," Francis said, speaking from the window of the Apostolic Palace to thousands of faithful in St. Peter's Square.

The five churchmen chosen are Monsignor Jean Zerbo, archbishop of Bamako, Mali, where he has been involved in peace efforts amid Islamist extremism; Monsignor Juan Jose Omella, archbishop of Barcelona, Spain; Monsignor Anders Arborelius of Stockholm, who became a Catholic at the age of 20; Monsignor Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, apostolic vicar of Pakse, Laos; and Monsignor Gregorio Rosa Chavez, an auxiliary bishop who works as a parish pastor in San Salvador, El Salvador.

Francis will formally elevate the five to cardinal's rank in a ceremony at the Vatican on June 28. Then the new "princes of the church," as the red-hatted, elite corps of churchmen who elect popes are known, will co-celebrate Mass with Francis the next day, the Feast Day of Saints Peter and Paul, an important Vatican holiday.

Since being elected pontiff in 2013, Francis has made a point of visiting his flock in places where Catholics are in the minority, as well as of working to improve relations between churches and among believers of different faiths.

His brief pilgrimage last year to Sweden, where Lutherans are the Christian majority, was hailed by some as instrumental in helping to improve relations between the two churches. While there, he joined Lutheran leaders in a common commemoration of the Protestant Reformation that divided Europe five centuries ago.

Arborelius, who is 67, converted to Catholicism when he was 20. In 1998, when he was consecrated as a bishop in Stockholm's Catholic cathedral, Arborelius became Sweden's first Catholic bishop, of Swedish origin, since the times of the Reformation,

In Mali, a country bloodied by Islamist extremism, Muslims constitute the predominant religious majority. Zerbo's clerical resume reveals him to be a churchman working for reconciliation in society, a virtue repeatedly stressed by Francis. The Vatican noted that Zerbo, 73, who was named an auxiliary bishop of Bamako in 1998 and 10 years later was made that city's archbishop, has played a role in peace negotiations.

Extremists attacked a hotel in Bamako in 2015, killing 19 people. Last month, the U.N. peacekeeping chief for Mali called the security situation there alarming, warning that extremist groups operating under the al-Qaida banner were carrying out more sophisticated attacks and Islamic State militants were slowly making inroads.

There has been slow progress in implementing a peace deal reached in June 2015 between Mali's government, Tuareg separatists and armed groups in the north. In Laos, the tiny Catholic community has often struggled to persevere, including under communist-led rule. Mangkhanekhoun, 73, was ordained a priest in 1972 and has served as a bishop since 2001. The Vatican paid tribute to his work in visiting faithful in mountain villages. Since early this year, he has served as apostolic administrator in Vientiane.

Catholicism has been the majority religion in Spain and in El Salvador, although in parts of Central and South America, evangelical Protestant sects have been gaining converts from the Catholic church.

The resume of Chavez, 74, also includes credentials valued by the pope, who has made serving the poor a key focus of the Catholic church's mission. Chavez heads the Latin American division of Caritas, the Catholic charity. He was appointed an auxiliary bishop in 1982 for San Salvador, where he now will be based as a cardinal after serving as a parish pastor in the city.

Chavez worked closely with the late Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, who during El Salvador's civil war was shot to death by a right-wing death squad while saying Mass in 1980. Pope Francis has denounced Catholic clerics who "defamed" Romero after the slaying, a campaign that delayed Romero's eventual beatification.

Francis' pick for the Spain cardinal's post, Omella, 71, worked as a missionary in Zaire earlier in his career and serves on the Vatican's powerful Congregation of Bishops office. Since December 2015, he has been archbishop of Barcelona.

In announcing his selections, Francis expressed hope that the new cardinals with their work and "their advice will sustain me more intensely in my service as bishop of Rome, universal pastor of the church." In other remarks to the faithful in the square, Francis referred to the situation of another Catholic minority — Chinese whose loyalty to the pope has put them at odds with authorities of the state-sanctioned Catholic church in China, and sometimes brought persecution.

He prayed that Catholics in China would be able to bring their "personal contribution for the communion among believers and harmony in the entire society." Francis is eager to see improved Vatican-China relations. Both sides have for decades been at odds over Chinese authorities' insistence that they have the right to appoint bishops, a prerogative the Vatican says only belongs to the pope.

He urged Catholics in China to "stay open to meeting and dialogue, always."

Swiss vote to withdraw country from use of nuclear power

May 21, 2017

BERLIN (AP) — Swiss voters are supporting a referendum to withdraw the country from nuclear power in favor of renewable energy. A projection from Sunday's referendum shows a majority of cantons (states) voted for the plan. Under Switzerland's direct democracy system, initiatives need a majority of both cantons and votes to pass.

The projection for SRF public television showed 58 percent of voters in favor and 42 percent against the proposal. The Swiss government wants to ban the construction of new nuclear power plants and decommission the country's five existing ones at the end of their technically safe operating lives.

The plan would also boost renewable energies such as water and wind and make cars and electronic devices more energy efficient. Opponents warned the initiative would significantly increase electricity bills.

Unaccompanied minors among stranded migrants in Serbia

May 18, 2017

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Asad Ullah, a 10-year-old migrant from Afghanistan, spent weeks travelling in the cold and rain after his father sent him off to look for a brighter future in Europe. Ullah told The Associated Press on Thursday that he set off in a group of migrants with smugglers through Iran, Turkey and Bulgaria before reaching Serbia nearly two months ago. During his journey, Ullah slept out in the open and lived in makeshift migrant shelters with little food and no facilities. He kept close to other migrants, afraid not to get lost.

"It is very hard, but I am going to Europe," said Ullah, who was among more than 100 minors brought last week to a center for asylum-seekers on the outskirts of the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Previously, he had spent weeks in a now-demolished migrant shelter in the city center. He said his father sent him away to Europe rather than stay in Afghanistan where "there is no life."

"He (his father) said to go to Europe for American life," Ullah said in broken English. "I said: 'OK, I go to Europe.'" A report by the U.N. children's agency published on Wednesday warned that more than 300,000 children like Ullah have been migrating alone worldwide over a two-year period, in a dramatic escalation of a trend that has forced many young refugees into slavery and prostitution.

The numbers of refugee children have grown in Serbia too, where about 7,000 refugees and migrants have been stranded, unable to cross the heavily guarded borders of neighboring EU countries Hungary and Croatia. Michel Saint-Lot, the UNICEF representative in Serbia, said that around 3,200, or 46 percent, of all refugees and migrants in Serbia are children, while every third child is unaccompanied.

"That is one too many," he said. Saint-Lot added that while on the road on their own, unaccompanied children are exposed to abuse and violence and face "potential issue of being trafficked, for sexual exploitation, for slavery and lack of access to basic care."

"Those are major challenges for the children," Saint-Lot insisted. While some minors set off with their families, they end up separated either by chance, or by smugglers who often split up families as a way to control them. Some, like Ullah, are sent away from home by parents who want them to reach Western Europe so they eventually can bring the rest of the family over, or earn money to support relatives who stayed behind.

Saint-Lot said that the fact that they are stranded in Serbia, unable to move on to their desired destinations in Europe, has put additional strain on the children — leading to psychological pressure and breakdowns in some cases.

"The most important aspect is ensuring that all children have access to learning, that they are protected from abuse, neglect, sexual exploitation, that there is proper psychological care," Saint-Lot said.

Insah Ullah from Afghanistan, who is 17 and isn't related to Asad Ullah, was also brought from Belgrade city center to the camp in the suburb of Krnjaca last week. On Thursday, he and other migrants could be seen playing in the camp yard on a sunny day. Insah Ullah said he would never have left his home if he had hope for a future in Afghanistan.

"I miss my family and I love my family too much and I miss my country," he said. "No one wants to leave his country, no one wants to leave their parents, because if parents are with you, everything is with you."

"If they are not, nothing is with you" Ullah said.

Jovana Gec contributed to this report.

Poland gathers data on foreigners in the country

May 29, 2017

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's deputy defense minister has cited security concerns in Europe as he tries to justify a move to gather data on foreigners visiting and living in the country. A mostly homogenous and Catholic nation, Poland is refusing to accept migrants from the Middle East and Africa. The stance has drawn condemnation from European Union leaders.

The Defense Ministry has requested from authorities in western Poland information on foreigners in their region. The request has drawn vehement criticism from the political opposition, which says such an approach equates foreigners with threats.

Deputy Defense Minister Michal Dworczyk on Monday argued that it is a "natural thing, taking into consideration the situation in the European Union today, that the state should have information on foreign nationals on Poland's territory."

Poland unveils memorial to WWII hero slain by communists

May 13, 2017

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Warsaw's mayor unveiled a monument Saturday to a World War II hero who volunteered to go to the Nazi's Auschwitz death camp and informed firsthand on atrocities there but was later executed by Poland's communist regime.

The stone-and-metal memorial for Capt. Witold Pilecki is located near the place where in September 1940 the clandestine army fighter let himself be caught by the occupying Nazi Germans. It was a step toward becoming an inmate of Auschwitz, which the Germans operated in southern Poland.

Pilecki's son, Andrzej Pilecki, and daughter, Zofia Pilecka-Optulowicz, and other descendants joined hundreds of Warsaw residents and authorities at Saturday's ceremony. Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Pilecki was twice victorious, first when he was ready to sacrifice his life for the defense of Poland and second when the memory of him and other resistance fighters survived the communist regime.

Pilecki wrote and smuggled out secret reports from Auschwitz to his superiors before fleeing under the cover of the night in April 1943. As a freedom fighter, he was caught by the Moscow-backed communist government imposed on Poland after the war, and after a year of brutal questioning and torture, was executed in May 1948.

His body was dumped in a mass grave and his name was taboo, as the regime wanted to erase every trace of the freedom fighters from public awareness while trying to subdue the nation. Historians are still looking for Pilecki's remains.

Poland, now a democracy, is making efforts to fill in such blank pages from the nation's past with ceremonies honoring wartime and anti-communist heroes. At first, Polish resistance fighters were held and executed at Auschwitz. In 1942, the Birkenau part was added as a death camp for Europe's Jews, who were the majority among some 1.1 million people killed there. The Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz in January 1945.

Macedonia's Zaev wins confidence vote to form new government

June 01, 2017

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) — Macedonia's parliament elected a new center-left coalition government led by former opposition leader Zoran Zaev late Wednesday, ending a six-month political stalemate. Lawmakers voted 62-44 just before midnight to confirm a 26-member Cabinet proposed by Zaev, who leads the Social Democrat party. Five lawmakers abstained and nine were absent.

Zaev, 42, was sworn in as prime minister by the parliament speaker immediately after the vote. The businessman and former mayor of Strumica formed an alliance with two small ethnic Albanian parties to control 62 of parliament's 120 seats, after his party finished second in December elections that produced a hung parliament. Former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's conservative party won the elections but fell short of a parliamentary majority.

About a quarter of Macedonia's population is ethnic Albanian, and inter-ethnic tensions brought the former Yugoslav republic close to civil war in 2001. "The concept of one society for all is the future of Macedonia," Zaev said Wednesday, rejecting opponents' criticism that his pledge to consider enhancing the Albanian minority's standing would undermine Macedonia's sovereignty.

Under the coalition deal, nine Cabinet portfolios are held by ethnic Albanians, including the economy, justice and European integration posts. The country has been roiled by political crisis since early 2015, sparked by a wiretapping scandal that left Zaev's party and Gruevski's formerly governing VMRO-DPMNE conservatives with irreconcilable differences.

Zaev has pledged to focus on the economy, strengthening public institutions and joining the European Union and NATO. He wants to start negotiations with the EU and NATO as soon as possible. Macedonia was granted EU candidate status in 2005. Neighboring Greece has blocked Macedonia's accession to NATO due to a long-running dispute regarding Macedonia's name, and the Greeks also have raised objections to its joining the EU.

Zaev tapped Nikola Dimitrov, a former negotiator with Greece, as foreign minister. Radmila Sekjerinska, a former minister for European integration, was named to head the defense ministry. President Gjorge Ivanov earlier had refused to give the mandate to Zaev, accusing him of endangering Macedonia's unity and sovereignty.

The crisis threatened to re-ignite inter-ethnic conflict, with ethnic Albanian parties demanding as a condition for joining any new government that Albanian be designated a second official language. A month of protests followed across the country.

A mob stormed the parliament building last month after disagreements about the election of a new parliament speaker, leaving more than 100 people injured.

Populist campaign for minimum income draws Italian marchers

May 20, 2017

ROME (AP) — The head of Italy's populist 5-Star Movement led thousands in a 15-mile march Saturday to demand a guaranteed minimum income for citizens as the party seeks to widen its appeal in hopes of clinching the national power for the first time.

Comic Beppe Grillo described the march between the Perugia and Assisi, another Umbrian town 25 kilometers (15 miles) away, as a way to express support for human dignity. The 5-Stars contend that aid for the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have arrived in Italy after being rescued at sea in the last few years risks coming at the expense of Italians struggling during the nation's economic slump.

Assisi is the birthplace of St. Francis, who championed the needs of the poor. "It's we who are the real Franciscans," Grillo told reporters. The push for a guaranteed income for Italian citizens is a major theme of the 5-Stars, who are keen on gaining national power in the next parliamentary election, which is due by spring 2018.

The 5-Stars have been courting centrist voters and have been expressing openness toward dialogue with the Catholic church on issues like poverty. In Milan, thousands turned out to march against racism and other forms of intolerance toward migrants and foreigners.

In the past year, some Italians have protested against migrants being housed in their towns while asylum requests are processed. Senate President Pietro Grasso addressed the Milan gathering, calling the rally a response to those who want to erect "cultural, ideological walls" against migrants. He said the outpouring of citizens sends a message that Milan and other places welcoming foreigners are "modern, cosmopolitan, democratic."

"Those who are born in this country, go to school with our children, root for our teams" are Italian, Grasso declared, in a reference to the minimum income that populists want to grant only to Italian citizens.

Many of the migrants rescued at sea hope to eventually reach northern Europe, to find relatives and better job prospects. On Saturday, the Italian coast guard said some 2,100 migrants had been rescued at sea and were being to safety in Italy, including a 6-week-old boy. One body was also recovered.

Italy has been shouldering the bulk of the tens of thousands of migrants and refugees who have come across the Mediterranean Sea this year. A European Union deal for several northern European countries to take in many of those rescued migrants has failed to relieve Italy of caring for so many in need.

Ireland's likely next PM would be first gay, minority leader

June 02, 2017

LONDON (AP) — Ireland's governing Fine Gael party on Friday elected Leo Varadkar, the gay son of an Indian immigrant, as its new leader and the country's likely next prime minister. Varadkar defeated rival Simon Coveney in a contest to replace Enda Kenny, who resigned last month.

"If my election as leader of Fine Gael today has shown anything, it is that prejudice has no hold on this republic," Varadkar said after his victory was announced in Dublin. Coveney won the votes of a majority of party members, but Varadkar was backed by most lawmakers and local representatives to give him victory under the center-right party's electoral college system.

He is highly likely to become prime minister in Ireland's coalition government, although not immediately. Kenny will remain in place for a couple more weeks while Varadkar holds talks with other parties and independents propping up the Fine Gael-led government.

His confirmation as Taoiseach — Ireland's prime minister — would come when the lower house of parliament resumes after a break on June 13. At 38, Varadkar would be Ireland's youngest prime minister, as well as the first from an ethnic-minority background and the first openly gay leader.

Varadkar was born in Dublin in 1979, the son of an Indian doctor and an Irish nurse. He came out publicly as gay in the run-up to a 2015 referendum that legalized same-sex marriage in Ireland. If confirmed as prime minister, Varadkar will lead a country still emerging from the shadow of the 2008 global financial crisis, which hit the debt-fueled "Celtic Tiger" economy particularly hard.

He also will have to steer Ireland during complex divorce negotiations between Britain and the EU. Brexit has major implications for Ireland, the only EU country to share a land border with the United Kingdom.

Varadkar said he was "aware of the enormous challenges ahead. I'm ready for those challenges, as are we as a party."

Refugees, migrants evacuated from old Athens airport site

June 02, 2017

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek police were evacuating hundreds of migrants and refugees Friday from a makeshift shelter set up inside the abandoned buildings of Athens' old airport, which have been slated for redevelopment.

Access to the Hellenikon airport site was blocked off in the morning, and dozens of police officers and riot police stood by as the roughly 600 migrants collected their belongings and boarded buses to refugee camps elsewhere in Greece.

Police said about 350 people, mainly families, would go to a camp in Thebes, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of Athens, while the remainder of mainly single people would go to Derveni, about 140 kilometers (85 miles) west of the capital.

No violence was reported during the evacuation, which was assisted by the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration. "The facilities at the old airport are a holdover from the initial stage of the crisis, when thousands of people were reaching our islands," Yiannis Balafas, deputy minister for migration, said on state-run ERT television. "So this was something that remained from that time, and now they will go to more suitable facilities."

Migrants and Greek activists have held several demonstrations at Hellenikon to protest living conditions there over the past few months. The site, which includes Athens' old international airport and 2004 Olympic Games venues, is part of Greece's privatization efforts and is slated for a massive seaside urban redevelopment project worth an expected 7 billion euros ($7.8 billion).

The Hellenikon complex, largely abandoned over the last 13 years despite the country's deep financial crisis, had been used to house up to 3,000 migrants. Most had been living in tents and in poor conditions inside the buildings during their stay.

About 60,000 refugees and migrants are stranded in Greece, which was the main entry point for people seeking to enter the European Union last year. The vast majority arrived on boats from the nearby Turkish shores to Greek islands and had been trying to reach the more prosperous countries in the north of the continent. But an EU-Turkey agreement last year and border closures across the Balkans have ended the flow.

The Hellenikon development is led by Greece's Lamda Group with a consortium of overseas investors, and is planned to include a large park, shopping and recreation areas and hotels. During the 2004 Olympics, the complex hosted fencing, baseball, softball, hockey, and canoe and kayak events. Several other Olympic venues have been underused or abandoned in the years since the games.

Thanassis Stavrakis in Athens contributed to this report.

Greek parliament approves new creditor-demanded cutbacks

May 19, 2017

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's government secured parliamentary approval late Thursday for a new batch of creditor-demanded measures that will impose further income losses on austerity-weary Greeks over the next three years but pave the way for a modest debt relief deal.

The legislation was backed by all 153 deputies in Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' left-led coalition. All 128 opposition lawmakers present in the 300-member parliament stood against the measures in a vote just before midnight.

The vote was a key requirement for Greece's European creditors to release a new bailout installment, without which the country would struggle to meet its debt servicing obligations in July. But it will also accelerate negotiations on easing Greece's debt repayment terms, which Athens hopes could be concluded as early as next week at a meeting of European finance ministers.

"Now the ball is in our creditors' court," Tsipras said after the vote. "We expect, and are entitled to, a decision at Monday's meeting, that will adjust the Greek public debt in a way that matches the Greek people's sacrifices."

Earlier Thursday, about 15,000 people protested peacefully against the cutbacks in a second day of demonstrations outside parliament. The demonstrations were called by major trade unions, a day after a general strike disrupted services across the country.

Dozens of masked youths broke out of the crowd to throw gasoline bombs at police guarding approaches to the parliament building. They were repulsed with tear gas, and police said one man was arrested and two more detained on suspicion of taking part in the violence.

The cutbacks, worth some 4.9 billion euros ($5.45 billion), will be implemented through 2020 — a year beyond the mandate of Tsipras' government. The bulk of the measures involve a sharp reduction in the income tax-free threshold and further cuts in pensions.

On Thursday morning, hundreds of pensioners braving heavy rain marched to parliament to express their anger. "No more tax theft," they chanted. Pensions have been cut sharply over the past seven years as successive Greek governments have slashed spending in return for bailout money to avoid bankruptcy.

Tsipras, who is badly trailing the main opposition conservatives in opinion polls, defended the new austerity measures Thursday. He played up the prospect of alternative benefits and anti-poverty spending that his government has promised — provided, however, it meets ambitious budgetary targets for years to come.

"The counter-measures will provide relief to thousands," he said, adding that the entire package presented to parliament would open the way to a strong economic recovery and an end to Greece's supervision by its creditors.

Deputy Finance Minister George Houliarakis said the austerity measures are a "necessary compromise" between meeting creditors' demands and extending the uncertainty over the country's economic recovery.

"This is the only road map that guarantees ... the country's exit from the great Greek recession," Houliarakis told lawmakers. Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said he expects restrictions on bank cash withdrawals and capital flows imposed in 2015 can be lifted by the end of this year.

The government also hopes to gingerly return to tapping international money markets with a bond issue later this year, which would be the first since 2014. Tsipras initially came to power in 2015 promising to bring an end to the austerity that had been imposed during Greece's first two international bailouts. But his coalition government soon found itself facing a disastrous default as the country was unable to service its debt without external help.

The prime minister signed up for a third bailout later that year, but not before calling a referendum that led to a run on the banks, forcing the government to impose capital controls. The banking restrictions and limits on cash withdrawals remain.

Unions and the opposition compared the new reforms to those of a fourth bailout, but without the corresponding funding from international creditors. "Our country is being turned into an austerity colony," Kyriakos Mitsotakis, head of the conservative main opposition party, told parliament. "(The government) was seeking to get (bailout) funds without (austerity) measures, and instead got measures without the funds."

May's UK election gamble backfires as Tories lose majority

June 09, 2017

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May's gamble in calling an early election backfired spectacularly as her Conservative Party lost its majority in Parliament, throwing British politics into chaos.

UK media, citing sources they did not identify, reported early Friday that May has no intention of resigning despite calls for her to step down. The shock result could send Britain's negotiations to leave the European Union — due to start June 19 — into disarray. The pound lost more than 2 cents against the dollar.

With 636 of 650 seats in the House of Commons declared, the Conservatives had 310 to the Labour Party's 258. Even if the Conservatives won all the remaining seats, the party would fall short of the 326 needed for an outright majority. Before the election the Conservatives had 330 seats and Labour 229.

May called the snap election in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain's hand in exit talks with the European Union with a "strong and stable government." Instead, the result means the Conservatives will need to rely on support from smaller parties to govern, with more instability and the chance of yet another early election.

"This is a very bad moment for the Conservative Party, and we need to take stock," Conservative lawmaker Anna Soubry said. "And our leader needs to take stock as well." Left-wing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was among those calling on May to resign, said Friday morning that people have had enough of austerity politics and cuts in public spending. He ruled out the potential for deals or pacts with other progressive parties in Parliament.

"The arguments the Conservative Party put forward in this election have lost, and we need to change." The results confounded those who said Corbyn was electorally toxic. Written off by many pollsters, Labour surged in the final weeks of the campaign. It drew strong support from young people, who appeared to have turned out to vote in bigger-than-expected numbers.

As she was resoundingly re-elected to her Maidenhead seat in southern England, May looked tense and did not spell out what she planned to do. "The country needs a period of stability, and whatever the results are the Conservative Party will ensure we fulfill our duty in ensuring that stability," she said.

Many predicted she would soon be gone. "Clearly if she's got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a government, then she, I doubt, will survive in the long term as Conservative Party leader," former Conservative Treasury chief George Osborne said on ITV.

British media later reported Friday that May had no intention to resign. The result was bad news for the Scottish National Party, which lost about 20 of its 54 seats. Among the casualties was Alex Salmond, a former first minister of Scotland and one of the party's highest-profile lawmakers.

The losses complicate the SNP's plans to push for a new referendum on Scottish independence as Britain prepares to leave the EU. Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said the idea of a new independence referendum "is dead. That's what we have seen tonight."

May had hoped the election would focus on Brexit, but that never happened, as both the Conservatives and Labor said they would respect voters' wishes and go through with the divorce. Despite the surprise election result, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said he doesn't believe voters have changed their minds about leaving.

But speaking Friday on Europe 1 radio, he said "the tone" of negotiations may be affected. "These are discussions that will be long and that will be complex. So let's not kid ourselves," he said. "I'm not sure that we should read, from the results of this vote, that Britons' sovereign decision on Brexit has been cast into doubt in any way."

EU budget commissioner Guenther Oettinger said the EU is prepared to stick to the timetable that calls for negotiations to start in mid-June, but said it would take a few hours at least to see how the results of the election play out in forming a government.

"Without a government, there's no negotiation," he said Friday morning by phone on Germany's Deutschlandfunk radio. May, who went into the election with a reputation for quiet competence, was criticized for a lackluster campaigning style and for a plan to force elderly people to pay more for their care, a proposal her opponents dubbed the "dementia tax." As the polls suggested a tightening race, pollsters spoke less often of a landslide and raised the possibility that May's majority would be eroded.

Then, attacks that killed 30 people in Manchester and London twice brought the campaign to a halt, sent a wave of anxiety through Britain and forced May to defend the government's record on fighting terrorism. Corbyn accused the Conservatives of undermining Britain's security by cutting the number of police on the streets.

Eight people were killed near London Bridge on Saturday when three men drove a van into pedestrians and then stabbed revelers in an area filled with bars and restaurants. Two weeks earlier, a suicide bomber killed 22 people as they were leaving an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.

Voters were left flustered by the fast-moving events. "It's a bit of a mess," Peter Morgan, 35, said in London. "I was kind of hoping it would just go the way that the polls suggested it would and we could have a quiet life in Westminster but now it's going to be a bit of a mess."

Steven Fielding, a professor of politics at the University of Nottingham, said Britain had seen an election "in which the personal authority of a party leader has disappeared in an unprecedented way."

"If she had got the majority she wanted, she would have been a supreme political colossus," he said. "She did not get that and she's a hugely diminished figure. She's a zombie prime minister."

Gregory Katz, Sophie Berman and Niko Price contributed to this story.

Cambodian vote in elections testing strongman's power

June 04, 2017

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodians voted in local elections Sunday that could shake longtime ruler Hun Sen's grip on power. Prime Minister Hun Sen has repeatedly warned of civil war if his Cambodian People's Party loses the majority in city and village councils to the main opposition party that made major gains in the last general elections four years ago and claimed it was cheated out of outright victory. The polls could have a major impact on Cambodia's political landscape ahead of 2018 national elections.

Hun Sen and his wife were among the early voters Sunday. His government has been accused of using violence against opponents, but in recent years has stalked its foes mostly in courts. After casting his vote, Kem Sokha, leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, said he expects to win more than 60 percent of the vote. In the last communal elections in 2012, Hun Sen's party received 60 percent compared to the CNRP's 30.6 percent.

On Friday, Hun Sen appealed to political parties to accept the outcome rather than make accusations of irregularities, saying courts can dissolve any party if it challenges the result of the vote. Hun Sen and some of his top ministers have frequently used strong rhetoric leading up to the vote, warning of dire consequences should the opposition win, in what has been seen as an attempt to intimidate voters into supporting him.

The ruling party could take some credit for bringing modest economic growth and stability in a country devastated by the communist Khmer Rouge's regime in the 1970s. Hun Sen left the movement that was responsible for the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease and executions before it was toppled in 1979.

This week, Amnesty International accused Cambodia's government of using its grip on the judiciary system to intimidate human rights defenders and political activists. It said in a report that since the 2013 general election, Hun Sen's government has used the courts as a tool to imprison at least 27 prominent opposition officials, human rights defenders and land activists, as well as hundreds of others facing legal cases.

Also early this month, the State Department said the U.S. was urging Cambodia's government to "guarantee a political space free from threats or intimidation" and respect freedom of expression for all its citizens.

S. Korea's new president willing to visit rival North

May 10, 2017

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — New South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Wednesday he was open to visiting rival North Korea under the right conditions to talk about Pyongyang's aggressive pursuit of nuclear-tipped missiles.

Moon's softer stance on North Korea could create friction with Washington, which has swung from threats of military action to hints of dialogue as it seeks to formulate a policy under President Donald Trump.

Moon, speaking during his oath of office as the first liberal leader in a decade, also said he'll "sincerely negotiate" with the United States, Seoul's top ally, and China, South Korea's top trading partner, over the contentious deployment of an advanced U.S. missile-defense system in southern South Korea. The system has angered Beijing, which says its powerful radars allow Washington to spy on its own military operations.

In a speech at the National Assembly hours after being declared the winner of Tuesday's election, Moon pledged to work for peace on the Korean Peninsula amid growing worry over the North's expanding nuclear weapons and missiles program.

"I will quickly move to solve the crisis in national security. I am willing to go anywhere for the peace of the Korean Peninsula — if needed, I will fly immediately to Washington. I will go to Beijing and I will go to Tokyo. If the conditions shape up, I will go to Pyongyang," Moon said.

Moon, whose victory capped one of the most turbulent political stretches in the nation's recent history, assumed presidential duties early in the morning after the National Election Commission finished counting and declared him winner of the special election necessitated by the ousting of conservative Park Geun-hye.

He is also expected to nominate a prime minister, the country's No. 2 job that requires approval from lawmakers, and name his presidential chief of staff later Wednesday. Moon thanked the millions of people who staged peaceful protests for months calling for the ouster of Park, who was impeached and arrested in March over a corruption scandal. He also offered a message of unity to his political rivals — Moon's Democratic Party has only 120 out of 300 seats in the National Assembly, so he may need broader support while pushing his key policies.

"Politics were turbulent (in the past several months), but our people showed greatness," Moon said. "In face of the impeachment and arrest of an incumbent president, our people opened the path toward the future for the Republic of Korea," said Moon, referring to South Korea's formal name. To his rivals, Moon said, "We are partners who must lead a new Republic of Korea. We must put the days of fierce competition behind and hold hands marching forward."

Taking up his role as the new commander in chief, Moon began his duties earlier in the day by receiving a call from Army Gen. Lee Sun-jin, chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, who briefed him on the military's preparedness against North Korea.

He then left his private residence in an emotional send-off from hundreds of people and visited a national cemetery in Seoul. After bowing to the former presidents, independence fighters and war heroes, Moon wrote in a visitor book: "A country worth being proud of; a strong and reliable president!"

He also visited the offices of opposition parties, seeking support in governing the country split along ideological lines and regional loyalties. The leaders of China and Japan sent their congratulations. South Korea's relations with Japan are strained by the Japanese military's sexual exploitation of South Korean women during World War II, and relations with China have been irritated over the deployment of the THAAD missile-defense system. Moon made a campaign vow to reconsider THAAD.

The son of refugees who fled North Korea during the war, Moon will lead a nation shaken by the scandal that felled Park, whose criminal trial is scheduled to start later this month. Taking office without the usual two-month transition, Moon initially will have to depend on Park's Cabinet ministers and aides, but he was expected to move quickly to replace them. He will serve the typical single five-year term.

Moon was chief of staff for the last liberal president, the late Roh Moo-hyun, who sought closer ties with North Korea by setting up large-scale aid shipments and working on now-stalled joint economic projects.

Winning 41 percent of the votes, he comfortably edged conservative Hong Joon-pyo and centrist Ahn Cheol-soo, who had 24 percent and 21 percent, respectively. The conservative Hong had pitched himself as a "strongman," described the election as a war between ideologies and questioned Moon's patriotism.

Park's trial on bribery, extortion and other corruption charges could send her to jail for life if she is convicted. Dozens of high-profile figures, including Park's longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil, and Samsung's de-facto leader, Lee Jae-yong, have been indicted along with Park.

Moon frequently appeared at anti-Park rallies and the corruption scandal boosted his push to re-establish liberal rule. He called for reforms to reduce social inequalities, excessive presidential power and corrupt ties between politicians and business leaders. Many of those legacies dated to the dictatorship of Park's father, Park Chung-hee, whose 18-year rule was marked by both rapid economic rise and severe civil rights abuse.

Many analysts say Moon likely won't pursue drastic rapprochement policies because North Korea's nuclear program has progressed significantly since he was in the Roh government a decade ago. A big challenge will be Trump, who has proven himself unconventional in his approach to North Korea, swinging between intense pressure and threats and offers to talk.

"South Koreans are more concerned that Trump, rather than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, will make a rash military move, because of his outrageous tweets, threats of force and unpredictability," Duyeon Kim, a visiting fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum in Seoul, wrote recently in Foreign Affairs magazine.

Associated Press writer Foster Klug contributed to this report.

Japan holds evacuation drill amid tension from N. Korea

June 04, 2017

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese town conducted an evacuation drill Sunday amid rising fear that a North Korean ballistic missile could hit Japanese soil. More than 280 residents and schoolchildren from Abu, a small town with a population of just over 3,400 on Japan's western coast, rushed to designated school buildings to seek shelter after sirens from loudspeakers warned them of a possible missile flight and debris falling on them.

The drill follows three consecutive weeks of North Korean missile tests. Last week, a missile splashed into the sea inside Japan's 200-mile exclusive economic zone off the country's western coast. It was the second such drill since March, when Tokyo instructed local governments to review their contingency plans and conduct evacuation exercises.

A similar drill was conducted Sunday in the neighboring prefecture of Fukuoka in southern Japan, and others are planned over the next few months.

This story has been corrected to show Abu town is on Japan's western coast.

Japan public split on idea to cite military in constitution

May 29, 2017

TOKYO (AP) — Poll results released Monday show that about half of Japan's population supports a constitutional revision that would clarify the legality of the country's military, a new approach Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is proposing as his party struggles to gain public support for a change.

Abe proposed recently that Japan in some way indicate the existence of the Self-Defense Forces, which is not spelled out in Article 9 of the constitution. The article renounces war and the use of force to settle international disputes.

He made the proposal this month in what was seen as a compromise, but opponents see it as a step to justify expanding Japan's military capabilities, which currently have to be kept to a minimum. In the Nikkei newspaper poll, 51 percent of 1,595 respondents supported including a reference to the Self-Defense Forces in Article 9. Thirty-six percent were opposed.

Recent polls by other major media outlets also showed mixed results. Japan decided it had the right under the 1947 constitution to have a military for self-defense, but some legal experts have questioned that, though fewer people do so now.

Abe and his party have maintained the constitutionality of the Self-Defense Forces, saying every nation has the right of self-defense as allowed under the United Nations charter. Citing his party's position, opponents have grown skeptical over Abe's latest proposal and intention of bringing up the Self-Defense Force legality issue.

Experts say Abe's proposal could lower a hurdle for public support and may be good enough for a symbolic first change to the constitution, which Abe said he wants enacted by 2020. Japan's 70-year-old constitution has never been revised.

Japan's ruling party has long advocated a more drastic revision, but the public generally supports the war-renouncing article. The party and its nationalistic supporters view the country's postwar constitution as the legacy of Japan's defeat in World War II and an imposition of the victor's world order and values weighing too much on individuals' rights.

The party-proposed revisions to the constitution released in 2012 called for upgrading the Self-Defense Forces to a full armed forces and establishing a military court.

Hong Kong shoebox, coffin homes a challenge for new leader

May 10, 2017

HONG KONG (AP) — Li Suet-wen's dream home would have a bedroom and living room where her two children could play and study. The reality is a one-room "shoebox" cubicle, one of five partitioned out of a small apartment in an aging walkup in a working class Hong Kong neighborhood.

Into the 120-square-foot room are crammed a bunk bed, small couch, fridge, washing machine and tiny table. On one side of the door is a combined toilet and shower stall, on the other a narrow counter with a hotplate and sink. Clothes drying overhead dim light from a bare fluorescent tube. It feels like a storage unit, not a home.

Li's 6-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter often ask, "Why do we always have to live in such small flats? Why can't we live in a bigger place?" Li said. "I say it's because mommy doesn't have any money," said Li, a single mom whose HK$4,500 ($580) a month in rent and utilities eats up almost half the HK$10,000 ($1,290) she earns at a bakery decorating cakes.

Housing costs are among this wealthy Asian financial center's biggest problems. Some 200,000 of Hong Kong's 7.3 million residents live in "subdivided units ." That's up 18 percent from four years ago and includes 35,500 children 15 and under, government figures show. The figure doesn't include many thousands more living in other "inadequate housing" such as rooftop shacks, metal cages resembling rabbit hutches and "coffin homes" made of stacked wooden bunks.

It's a universe away from the lifestyles enjoyed by the rich living in lavish mountaintop mansions and luxury penthouses, or even those with middle-class accommodation in this former British colony. Hong Kong regularly tops global property price surveys. Rents and home prices have steadily risen and are now at or near all-time highs.

The U.S.-based consultancy Demographia has ranked it the world's least affordable housing market for seven straight years, beating Sydney, Vancouver and 400 other cities. Median house prices are 19 times the median income.

Beijing-backed Carrie Lam, who was chosen in March to be Hong Kong's next chief executive, has vowed to tackle the housing crisis she is inheriting from her predecessor Leung Chun-ying. Lam says that after she takes office in July she will help middle-class families afford starter homes and expand the amount of land the government makes available for development.

"As everyone knows, for some time housing has been a troubling problem for Hong Kong," she said in her victory speech. "I have pledged to assist Hong Kongers to attain home ownership and improve their living conditions. To do so we need more usable land. The key is to reach a consensus on how to increase the supply."

Prices have soared despite multiple rounds of government cooling measures, as money floods in from mainland China. Widening inequality helped drive mass pro-democracy protests in 2014. Young people despair of ever owning homes of their own. They lack space even to have sex, one activist lawmaker said last fall, using a coarse Cantonese slang term that caused a stir.

"If we cannot solve the housing problem, there will be more social problems," said Sze Lai-shan, an organizer with social welfare group Society for Community Organization. "Social tensions will increase and people are (going to be) getting more annoyed with the government's policies."

Li says her children bicker nonstop. "They fight over this and fight over that. If there's a day off (from school), the two of them will argue," she said. "The bigger they get, the more crowded it gets. Sometimes there's not even any space to step," she said. "They don't even have space to do their homework."

Public housing is the best hope for most living on modest incomes. High-rise public housing estates house about 30 percent of Hong Kong's 7 million people. If homes bought with government subsidies are included, the number rises to nearly half.

Li applied two years ago, but with 282,300 people on the waiting list the average wait is 4.7 years. Wong Tat-ming, 63, has occupied an even smaller "coffin home" for four years. He pays HK$2,400 ($310) a month for a 3-foot by 6-foot (1-meter by 2-meter) compartment crammed with his meager possessions, including a sleeping bag, small color TV and electric fan.

His bunk sits beside grimy toilets and a single sink shared by two dozen residents, including a few single women. On a per square foot basis, "it's not cheap here either," Wong jokes. "Would you say it's more expensive than living in a mansion?"

Leg pain from sclerosis forced Wong to stop driving a taxi 10 years ago. He gets by on about $5,300 ($680) a month from welfare. Wong is skeptical Lam can help. "So she says she's going to take care of these problems, but that will take at least seven to eight years," he said.

Chan Geng-kau, who works here and there as a janitor, and his wife worry about being forced out of their hut in one of the city's "slums in the sky" atop a terrace of a Kowloon tenement bristling with TV antennas and crisscrossed by coverhead wires.

The government plans to demolish the illegal concrete and corrugated metal huts. "If they come to clear us out, my income isn't high, I don't earn very much and the apartments out there are very expensive so I can't afford it," said Chan, 58. With his unstable income, he's barely able to pay his HK$2,000 ($260) a month rent. "If I pay those rents, I can't afford to eat."