BUDAPEST: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was to address a mass rally in Budapest on Saturday, as he increasingly stokes fears of war between the West and Russia with verbal attacks on Brussels and NATO ahead of elections.
As Moscow’s closest EU ally despite its invasion of Ukraine, Orban has refused to send weapons to Kyiv while blocking European military aid.
He repeatedly has said that Ukraine “cannot win” against Russia, claiming that “most people want” a ceasefire and peace negotiations.
In recent weeks, the nationalist leader has ramped up his rhetoric, accusing Brussels and NATO of fueling the war in Ukraine by providing support.
While slamming other EU leaders and those critical of the government as “pro-war,” Orban has characterised the upcoming European elections as a referendum on the conflict, saying he was now “fighting for peace alone” in the bloc.
On Friday, Orban again hit out at NATO, accusing the defense alliance of “dragging” Hungary into war over Ukraine, comparing it to how Adolf Hitler had pressured it into joining in World War II.
He also took a swipe at recent decisions by Western nations to allow Kyiv to use weapons they supply to Ukraine to fire at targets in Russia.
Orban also mentioned the possibility of a compulsory EU conscription in reference to alleged “German and European” plans put forward, even though Brussels had never suggested such an idea and does not have the right to introduce compulsory conscription.
The Hungarian leader said the idea of “someone else (than us) deciding over the blood of Hungarians” was “unacceptable.”
Mass rallies in support of the ruling Fidesz party — dubbed “peace marches” even before Russia’s war in Ukraine — have been routinely organized before important elections since Orban’s return to power in 2010.
Orban, who faces local as well as EU elections in the coming days, was expected to address the rally in central Budapest at 15:00 p.m. (1300 GMT).
According to political analyst Zsuzsanna Vegh, Orban’s attacks on NATO claiming that the alliance “instead of protecting us, is dragging us as a member state into a world war,” have reached a new stage.
Orban recently also suggested that he would like to “redefine” the position of Hungary in the alliance to prevent any participation in operations “outside NATO territory,” claiming that his lawyers were already working on it.
“Even though Orban’s government has come into conflict with NATO before by blocking deeper partnership between NATO and Ukraine, it has always regarded the alliance as the cornerstone of Hungarian security,” she told AFP.
His remarks on the alliance “broke a taboo,” propelling the government’s “whole war discourse into a new dimension,” Vegh explained.
Moreover, the ramped up rhetoric could risk “further deteriorating the already weakened confidence” in Hungary among Western allies, she said.
According to the polls, Orban’s focus on hammering home his “anti-war” talking points so far seem to have been working.
But Orban has faced rare public anger, including from government insider turned rising opposition leader Peter Magyar, who railed against the premier’s system of power and has amassed thousands of supporters.
Magyar — who recently launched his TISZA party — shot to prominence in February on the back of a scandal that hit Orban, posing the most serious challenge in his 14 years in power.
The ruling Fidesz party “needs to demonstrate its strength because Magyar’s party has managed to draw crowds in a way that political parties other than Fidesz have not managed to do for a long, long time,” analyst Zoltan Ranschburg told AFP.
Orban steps up rhetoric over Ukraine war as elections near
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Orban steps up rhetoric over Ukraine war as elections near
- As Moscow’s closest EU ally despite its invasion of Ukraine, Orban has refused to send weapons to Kyiv while blocking European military aid
- Mass rallies in support of the ruling Fidesz party — dubbed “peace marches” even before Russia’s war in Ukraine — have been routinely organized
Military leaders of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso rule out returning to the ECOWAS regional bloc
- They pledged to consolidate their own union — the Alliance of Sahel States — created last year amid fractured relations with neighbors
- Niger’s military leader, Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, says ECOWAS has become “a threat to our states”
NIAMEY, Niger: Military junta leaders of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso on Saturday ruled out returning their nations to the West Africa regional bloc whose division could further jeopardize efforts to undo coups and curb violence spreading across the region.
The leaders of the three countries announced that position during their first summit in Niamey, the capital of Niger, after their withdrawal from the West Africa bloc known as ECOWAS in January.
They also accused the bloc of failing its mandate and pledged to consolidate their own union — the Alliance of Sahel States — created last year amid fractured relations with neighbors.
The nearly 50-year-old ECOWAS has become “a threat to our states,” said Niger’s military leader, Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani.
“We are going to create an AES of the peoples, instead of an ECOWAS whose directives and instructions are dictated to it by powers that are foreign to Africa,” he said.
The meeting of the three countries that border one another came a day before an ECOWAS summit being held in Nigeria by other heads of state in the region.
Analysts said the two meetings show the deep division in ECOWAS, which had emerged as the top political authority for its 15 member states before the unprecedented decision of the three countries to withdraw their membership.
Despite efforts by ECOWAS to keep its house united, the alliance between the three military junta-led countries will most likely remain outside the regional bloc as tensions continue to grow, said Karim Manuel, an analyst for the Middle East and Africa with the Economist Intelligence Unit.
“Attempts at mediation will likely continue nonetheless, notably led by Senegal’s new administration, but it will not be fruitful anytime soon,” said Manuel.
Formed last September, the Alliance of Sahel States has been touted by the three junta-led countries as a tool to seek new partnerships with countries like Russia and cement their independence from former colonial ruler France , which they accuse of interfering with ECOWAS.
At the meeting in Niamey, Burkina Faso’s leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, reaffirmed those concerns and accused foreign countries of exploiting Africa.
“Westerners consider that we belong to them and our wealth also belongs to them. They think that they are the ones who must continue to tell us what is good for our states. This era is gone forever; our resources will remain for us and our populations,” Traoré said.
“The attack on one of us will be an attack on all the other members,” said Mali’s leader, Col. Assimi Goïta.
With Goïta elected as the new alliance’s leader, the three leaders signed a pact in committing their countries to creating a regional parliament and a bank similar to those operated by ECOWAS. They also committed to pooling their military resources to fight insecurity in their countries.
At a meeting of regional ministers on Thursday, Omar Alieu Touray, the president of the ECOWAS Commission, said it had not received “the right signals” about any possible return of the three states despite ECOWAS lifting coup-related sanctions that the three nations blamed for their decision to quit the bloc.
It is not only the three countries that are angry at ECOWAS, observers say. The bloc has lost goodwill and support from West African citizens so much that some celebrated the recent spate of coups in the region where citizens have complained of not benefitting from rich natural resources in their countries.
For the most part, ECOWAS is seen as representing only the interests of its members’ leaders and not that of the masses, said Oge Onubogu, director of the Africa Program at the Washington-based Wilson Center think tank.
Eight dead, two million affected by Bangladesh floods
- The South Asian nation of 170 million people, crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers, has seen more frequent floods in recent decades
KURIGRAM, Bangladesh: The death toll from floods in Bangladesh this week has risen to eight, leaving more than two million affected after heavy rains caused major rivers to burst their banks, officials confirmed Saturday.
The South Asian nation of 170 million people, crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers, has seen more frequent floods in recent decades.
Climate change has made rainfall more erratic and melting glaciers upstream in the Himalayan mountains.
Two teenage boys were killed when a boat capsized in flood waters in Shahjadur, the northern rural town’s police chief Sabuj Rana told AFP.
“There were nine people in the small boat. Seven swam to safety. Two boys did not know how to swim. They drowned,” he said.
Bishwadeb Roy, a police chief in Kurigram, told AFP that three others had been killed in two separate electrocution incidents after their boats became entangled with live electricity wires in flood water.
Another three died in separate flood-related incidents around the country, officials told AFP earlier this week.
The government said it has opened hundreds of shelters for people displaced by the waters and sent food and relief to hard-hit districts in the country’s north region.
“More than two million people have been affected by the floods. Seventeen of the country’s 64 districts have been affected,” Kamrul Hasan, the secretary of the country’s disaster management ministry, told AFP.
Hasan said the flood situation may worsen in the north over the coming days with the Brahmaputra, one of Bangladesh’s main waterways, flowing above danger levels in some areas.
In the worst-hit Kurigram district, eight out of nine rural towns have been marooned by flood water, local disaster and relief official Abdul Hye told AFP.
“We live with floods here. But this year the water was very high. In three days, Brahmaputra rose by six to eight feet (2-2.5 meters),” Abdul Gafur, a local councillor in the district, told AFP.
“Flood water has inundated more than 80 percent of homes in my area. We are trying to deliver food, especially rice and edible oil. But there is a drinking water crisis.”
Bangladesh is in the middle of the annual summer monsoon, which brings South Asia 70-80 percent of its annual rainfall, as well as regular deaths and destruction due to flooding and landslides.
The rainfall is hard to forecast and varies considerably, but scientists say climate change is making the monsoon stronger and more erratic.
Fire breaks out after accident at gas pipeline in Crimea, Russian officials say
- Russia-installed officials of the Crimean Peninsula reported late on Saturday on Telegram that gas supplies were cut to Alushta, a city of around 30,000 people, and 14 nearby settlements
MOSCOW: A fire broke out late Saturday after an accident at a gas pipeline near the village of Vinogradnoye in Moscow-annexed Crimea, spreading to nearby forest and cutting gas to the resort town of Alushta and more than a dozen settlements, Russian officials said.
“There is no threat to the populated area,” Russia’s emergency ministry said early on Sunday on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia-installed officials of the Crimean Peninsula reported late on Saturday on Telegram that gas supplies were cut to Alushta, a city of around 30,000 people, and 14 nearby settlements.
“After the gas in the pipes completely burns out, restoration work will begin,” the Russian-installed administration of Crimea said on Telegram.
Russian agencies reported, citing officials, that there were no injuries. The fire was consuming an area of about 1,500 square meters (16,000 square feet), TASS state news agency reported.
It was not immediately clear what accident caused the fire.
Sahel region junta chiefs mark divorce from West African bloc
- The exit came as the trio shifted away from former colonial ruler France, with Tiani calling for the new bloc to become a “community far removed from the stranglehold of foreign powers”
NIAMEY, Niger: The military regimes of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso marked their divorce from the rest of West Africa Saturday, with Niger’s ruling general saying the junta-led countries have “turned their backs on” the regional bloc.
The three country’s leaders are taking part in the first summit of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), set up after pulling out of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) earlier this year.
“Our people have irrevocably turned their backs on ECOWAS,” Niger’s ruling General Abdourahamane Tiani told his fellow Sahel strongmen at the gathering’s opening in the Nigerien capital Niamey.
Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger set up the mutual defense pact in September, leaving the wider Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) bloc in January.
Their ECOWAS exit was fueled in part by their accusation that Paris was manipulating the bloc, and not providing enough support for anti-jihadist efforts.
BACKGROUND
The Economic Community of West African States is due to hold a summit of its heads of state in Abuja on Sunday where the issue of relations with the AES will be on the agenda.
“The AES is the only effective sub-regional grouping in the fight against terrorism,” Tiani declared on Saturday, calling ECOWAS “conspicuous by its lack of involvement in this fight.”
The exit came as the trio shifted away from former colonial ruler France, with Tiani calling for the new bloc to become a “community far removed from the stranglehold of foreign powers.”
All three have expelled anti-jihadist French troops and turned instead toward what they call their “sincere partners” — Russia, Turkiye and Iran.
Given the deadly jihadist violence the three countries face, “the fight against terrorism” and the “consolidation of cooperation” will be on Saturday’s agenda, according to the Burkinabe presidency.
ECOWAS is due to hold a summit of its heads of state in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Sunday, where the issue of relations with the AES will be on the agenda.
After several bilateral meetings, the three Sahelian strongmen are gathering for the first time since coming to power through coups between 2020 and 2023.
In mid-May, the foreign ministers of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger agreed in Niamey on a draft text creating the confederation, which the heads of states are expected to adopt at Saturday’s summit.
Niger’s General Abdourahamane Tiani first welcomed his Burkinabe counterpart Ibrahim Traore in the capital on Friday, followed by Malian Col. Assimi Goita who arrived Saturday.
“Don’t expect many announcements, this is primarily a political event,” said Gilles Yabi, founder of the West African think tank Wathi.
“The aim is to show that this is a serious project with three committed heads of state showing their solidarity.”
In early March, AES announced joint anti-jihadist efforts, though they did not specify details.
Insurgents have carried out attacks for years in the vast “three borders” region between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, despite the massive deployment of anti-jihadist forces.
The trio have made sovereignty a guiding principle of their governance and aim to create a common currency.
Sunday’s summit comes as several West African presidents have called in recent weeks for a solution to resume dialogue between the two camps.
Notably, Senegal’s new President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said in late May that reconciliation between ECOWAS and the three Sahel countries was possible.
In June, his newly re-elected Mauritanian counterpart, President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, called on West African countries to unite again against the expansion of jihadism.
But successive summits on the same weekend raises fears of a stiffening of positions between AES and ECOWAS.
“I do not see the AES countries seeking to return to ECOWAS. I think it’s ECOWAS will have to tone it down (the situation),” Nigerien lawyer Djibril Abarchi told AFP.
While AES is currently an economic and defense cooperation body, its three member countries have repeatedly expressed their desire to go further.
At the end of June, Col. Goita assured that cooperation within the AES had taken “a path of no return” during a visit to Ouagadougou, Burkina’s capital.
The potential creation of a new common currency would also mean leaving behind the CFA franc they currently share with neighboring countries.
“Leaving a currency zone is not easy,” warned Yabi. “Any country can change its currency, but it takes a lot of time and requires a clear political choice as well as a technical and financial preparation process.”
Issoufou Kado, a Nigerien financial expert and political analyst, agreed: “They have to be very careful, because the mechanism takes time.”
France braces for crunch election as overseas territories kick off vote
- Polls will close by 1800 GMT on Sunday when projections of seat numbers are published
- Final opinion polls on Friday suggested that far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) would fall short of winning an outright majority in the National Assembly
PARIS: France on Saturday prepared for its most consequential legislative election of recent times, with residents of overseas territories opening voting for a poll expected to give the far right its biggest ever presence in parliament.
A traditional final day pause was observed on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s second round runoff after a frenetic campaign that saw tensions rise across the country and dozens of attacks on candidates.
Underlining France’s global footprint that spans the oceans of the world, the first French region to vote was Saint Pierre and Miquelon, a small French archipelago off the coast of Canada where citizens began voting from 1000 GMT.
They were to be followed on Saturday by residents of French Caribbean territories including Martinique and Guadeloupe as well as Guiana in South America.
French Pacific territories come next before people in mainland France cast their ballots from 0600 GMT on Sunday.
Polls will close by 1800 GMT on Sunday when projections of seat numbers — regarded in France as a firm indicator of the final outcome — are published.
Final opinion polls on Friday suggested that far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) would fall short of winning an outright majority in the National Assembly.
But President Emmanuel Macron’s gamble in calling snap elections is expected to end with his centrist alliance having half the number of deputies it had before.
He now faces the final three years of his presidency with no clear ruling majority, and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal perhaps trying to hold together a caretaker government.
“Today the danger is a majority dominated by the extreme right and that would be catastrophic,” Attal said in a final pre-election interview with French television on Friday.
According to pollsters Ipsos and Ifop, anti-immigrant, euroskeptic RN could secure 170 to 210 seats in the National Assembly — well short of 289, an absolute majority.
French voters could therefore go to bed on Sunday night with no idea who might be able to form and lead a government, or whether a weakened Attal would shoulder on.
Le Pen insists that she is still on course for victory and an absolute majority that would force Macron to appoint her 28-year-old lieutenant Jordan Bardella as prime minister.
Attal vowed to stay on “as long as necessary” in a caretaker role, while Macron’s office is studying options to maintain some form of government.
Macron is to remain in office until presidential and legislative elections in April 2027, but he must now face the possibility of sharing power with political foes.
The prospect of France forming its first far-right government since World War II has dismayed its European allies, already perplexed by Macron’s gamble on a snap poll.
It also has left up in the air who will be in charge of the French government when the Olympic Games begin in Paris on July 26.
In an effort to halt the far-right rise seen in the first round of voting on June 30, centrists and left-wing parties formed second round polling pacts.
Le Pen has denounced the move as a bid to steal victory “against the will of the people” by creating what she calls a “single party” to protect the political class.
But it is far from certain how many voters who saw their preferred candidates drop out to give another a clear run against the RN will turn out on Sunday, with anti-RN figures saying nothing should be taken for granted.
“Contrary to what we are all hearing, it is not at all guaranteed as we speak,” Raphael Glucksmann, who led the Socialist list in European elections, warned on Friday.
With so much of the outcome uncertain, tensions are rising.
More than 50 candidates and campaign activists have been physically assaulted during the four-week campaign, the shortest in modern French history.
About 30,000 police, including 5,000 in Paris, will be deployed this weekend to head off trouble.
