During the past week, in a series of interviews and events, Trump has articulated a loose, but expansive set of principles that, if enacted, would mark a fundamental shift in US foreign policy from the limits put in place by Democratic President Barack Obama and the Republican-led Congress. In addition to arguing in favor of reinstating waterboarding, a technique that mimics the sensation of drowning, and "much more than that," Trump has advocated the killing of suspected terrorists' wives and children, which appears in violation of international law.

"We have to play the game the way they're playing the game," Trump said in an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday, one day after he told an audience in Florida that he would fight to expand and broaden the laws that regulate interrogation.

"I would like to strengthen the laws," he added Sunday, "so that we can better compete."

Trump's comments come as the US continues its uphill battle against IS militants across the Middle East. Trump has repeatedly pointed to the tactics used by the group, including public beheadings and drownings in locked cages, as evidence that the US needs to dramatically escalate the tactics it uses.

During a press conference on Saturday in West Palm Beach, Florida, to mark his latest election wins, Trump refused, however, to articulate specifically which techniques he would like to see added, despite repeated questions. Instead, he said: "It's very hard to be successful in beating someone when your rules are very soft and their rules are unlimited, they have unlimited, they can do whatever they want to do."

Pressed Sunday on why he believed waterboarding had been banned, Trump said the US was being "weak" by not employing the militants' tactics.

"Because I think we're a weak — I think we've become very weak and ineffective. I think that's why we're not beating ISIS. It's that mentality," he said using an acronym for the militant group.

"Isn't that what separates us from the savages?" "Fact the Nation" host John Dickerson asked.

"No, I don't think so," answered Trump. "No, we have to beat the savages."

"We have to play the game the way they're playing the game. You're not going to win if we're soft and they're — they have no rules," he said.

However, other former CIA officials, including former deputy CIA director Mike Morell, maintain that waterboarding and other harsh methods have yielded vital intelligence.

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Packed into a small office at the Beijing Rail Transportation Court, which has been designated to handle MH370 cases, they held manilla folders with litigation papers in their hands.

Several wiped away quiet tears, turning to borrow tissues from neighbours, before depositing their documents with court officials.

The flight, with 239 people -- including 153 Chinese citizens -- on board, vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, and authorities said it went down in the southern Indian Ocean.

Under international agreements, families have two years to sue over air accidents.

Several US, Malaysian, Australian and Chinese law firms have told AFP that they have begun filing suit on behalf of relatives, seeking undisclosed damages

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Afghans are the second-largest migrant group, behind Syrians, arriving in Europe, where authorities are struggling to cope with the continent's worst refugee crisis since World War II.

A small but growing number, like 26-year-old Asif, are now returning to their country torn by war and gripped by economic malaise, as overcrowded refugee centres, a lack of jobs and the rise of anti-immigrant fervour in Europe leave them disillusioned.

"I thought Europe would offer me a comfortable life, but I found only hostility and pain," said Asif, who has a graduate degree in economics and left for Germany with a people-smuggler last year.

"The refugee camps were nightmarish and Europeans kept humiliating us all the time. Many of them say refugees will destroy the culture of their country," he told AFP, after returning to Kabul.

A chartered plane last month brought 135 disillusioned Afghan refugees back from Germany, in what is likely to be the first of many such flights organised by Kabul, Berlin and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Afghanistan is witnessing what local officials call an "unprecedented" migration towards European nations as tens of thousands of civilians flee decades of turmoil and war tearing their country apart.

Smuggling networks are flourishing, making money from desperate migrants undertaking dangerous journeys on well-trodden Mediterranean trails via Iran, Turkey and Greece.

But many realise, rather belatedly, that most smugglers sell them a pack of lies about big mansions, lucrative jobs and a cosy life in Europe.

"The most dangerous part of my long journey to Europe was from Iran to Turkey," Asif recalled.

"There was an overweight Afghan boy in our group who was struggling to walk through the mountains. The smuggler was cruel -- he gave him a kick and he went tumbling down the slopes. We never found his body."

Europe faces what politicians call an existential threat from the migrant crisis.

Figures show 1.25 million asylum seekers poured into Europe in 2015 -- twice as many as the previous year -- fleeing war and poverty in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa.

Many European nations launched slick media campaigns and dire warnings to dissuade would-be migrants from making the trip, but that did not slow the influx.

Syrians fleeing civil war were the largest group, numbering nearly 363,000, followed by 178,200 Afghans.

Only a fraction of those Afghans, around 1,000 in total, have requested to leave Germany and return home, according to the IOM.

Afghan officials are keen to reassure the returnees that they have a future in the country, even though pessimism abounds about the deteriorating war and a slumping economy.

Those who returned on the chartered plane were greeted at the airport with signs saying: "Welcome home. Afghanistan needs you."

Abdul Ghafoor, 24, said he paid a smuggler $7,500 to take him to Europe, a sum well beyond his means, but after three miserable months near the central German city of Frankfurt, he longed for home.

"The refugee camps were uninhabitable, the toilets were filthy and every meal comprised of just jam and butter," said Ghafoor, who is downbeat about employment prospects following his return.

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Thousands of American Marines and other troops arrived in South Korea in the past week for the exercises, which will involve 17,000 American and 300,000 South Korean troops. The drills test the allies' ability to respond to North Korean attacks on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea has made similar threats before, characterizing the exercises as rehearsals for an invasion. But this year, tensions are raised even higher because of the North's recent nuclear test and the ensuing international condemnations.

Last month, after the North launched a long-range rocket to put a satellite into orbit, the South Korean Defense Ministry announced that this year's drills would be the largest ever. The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier John C. Stennis will join the exercises, the American and South Korean militaries said in a joint statement on Monday.

In its statement, North Korea threatened to launch "all-out offensive" and "pre-emptive" nuclear strikes against "US imperialist aggressor forces bases in the Asia-Pacific region and the US mainland," the North's top governing agency, the National Defense Commission, said in the statement.

The statement was carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

"If we push the buttons to annihilate the enemies even right now, all bases of provocations will be reduced to seas in flames and ashes in a moment," the statement said.

South Korea responded quickly to the North's threats. "North Korea must stop its rash and reckless behavior," Moon Sang-gyun, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said. "We will respond resolutely and mercilessly if the North ignores our warning and attempts a provocation."

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