Hillary Clinton clinches Democratic presidential nomination

Hillary Clinton has reached the number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic U.S. presidential nomination, according to tallies on Monday by two U.S. media outlets, the day before six states were set to vote in nominating contests.

A former senator and U.S. secretary of state, Clinton would be the first woman to ever be the presidential candidate of a major political party in the country's 239-year history.

But the campaign of her rival, Bernie Sanders, vowed to keep up the fight in what has been a protracted and increasingly antagonised primary race that has exposed deep rifts between the left-wing and the more centrist of the Democratic Party. (AFP)