World

MADRID — Spain voted on Sunday in an early general election in which the conservative Popular Party (PP) was tipped to beat Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialists, but likely to need the far-right to govern.

PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo, a former civil servant, said he hoped "Spain can start a new era" after he cast his ballot in Madrid.

Final opinion polls allowed under Spanish law and published on Monday suggested the PP was on track to win the most seats in the 350-seat parliament, but fall short of a working parliamentary majority.

That could force the PP to form a coalition with Vox, giving a far-right party a share of power at the national level for the first time since the end of the decades-long dictatorship of General Francisco Franco in 1975.

Vox is part of a Europe-wide trend of far-right parties gaining support at the ballot box, with such formations already governing alone or in coalition with the centre-right in Hungary, Italy and Finland.

Sanchez, in office since 2018, warned during an ill-tempered TV debate with Feijoo that a PP-Vox coalition government would “take us into a dark time warp that will leave us who knows where”.

In its electoral programme, Vox pledges to overturn laws on gender violence, LGBTQ rights, abortion and euthanasia as well as outlaw separatist parties and defend traditions such as bullfighting.

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Vox’s agenda “chilling” in an opinion article published Sunday in French daily Le Monde, warning its entry into government in Spain “would push Europe one step further into a right-wing abyss”.

This is the first national election in Spain’s modern history to be held at the height of summer, when many people are on holidays.

Turnout as of 2:00pm (12:00 GMT) stood at 40.5 per cent, up from 37.9 per cent at the same tine during the last general election in 2019.

The figure does not include the record 2.47 million registered voters who cast an absentee ballot.

Many voters told Spanish media they voted early to avoid the scorching heat, while electric fans were installed in polling stations to try to keep people cool.

Maria Suner, an 80-year-old retiree, said the timing of the election was “ghastly”.

“It should be forbidden,” she told AFP at a Madrid polling station.

Sanchez, 51, called the snap polls after his Socialist party and its far-left junior coalition partners suffered a drubbing in May local and regional elections.

Under his watch the economy has outperformed most of its European Union peers, growing by 5.5 per cent last year, and inflation has dropped below the European Central Bank’s 2 per cent target this year, a rarity in Europe.

He has also introduced popular measures such as a sharp rise in the minimum wage, higher pensions and free commuter rail travel.

But his minority coalition government’s reliance on the votes of Catalan and Basque separatist parties to pass legislation has hurt his standing.

Many voters are especially angered by his occasional deals with Bildu, the heir of the political arm of the disbanded armed separatist group ETA which is blamed for over 850 deaths in its decades-long campaign of bombings and shootings for an independent Basque homeland.

Feijoo, 61, who sells himself as a safe pair of hands, has accused Sanchez of allowing “terrorists” to condition Spain’s future with his reliance on Bildu.

He has vowed to undo many of Sanchez’s laws, including one which allows anyone 16 and over to change their gender on their ID card on the basis of a simple statement.

Another major blow to Sanchez’s popularity was a botched law on sexual consent approved last year which led to roughly 100 convicted offenders being released from jail because of the way it redefines offences.

If the PP and Vox fall short of a working majority, that would give the Socialists a chance to form another government because they have more options to create alliances with smaller leftist and regional parties.

ATHENS — Greece is facing its hottest July weekend in 50 years, a top meteorologist warned on Friday as the country wilts under a prolonged heatwave set to last well into next week.

Government ministries have advised people to work from home where possible and not to venture out unnecessarily. The exceptional temperatures also mean key tourism sites will be closed during the hottest part of the day.

“This weekend risks being the hottest registered in July in the past 50 years,” said Panagiotis Giannopoulos, meteorologist with state broadcaster ERT.

“Athens is going to have temperatures above 40OC  for six to seven days, through to the end of July,” said Giannopoulos.

Such a prolonged spell of scorching temperatures is exceptional for the Greek capital.

Sunday is likely to see the city labour under as much as 44OC with the central region of Thessalia enduring 45OC.

A 46-year-old man was meanwhile reported to have succumbed to heatstroke on the central Greek island of Evia after being admitted to Chalkida hospital, which said cardio-respiratory failure following exposure to high temperatures appeared to be the cause.

The national meteorological institute EMY earlier reported temperatures of 41OC at Attica, encompassing the capital Athens and forecasting up to 44OC in Thessalia.

Yannis Kallianos, meteorologist with private broadcaster Mega, spoke of an “interminable and powerful heatwave”.

“According to latest forecasts, the heatwave could last until next Thursday or Friday,” Kallianos warned, adding that strong northerly winds could also spark fires.

Authorities meanwhile reported firefighters were still battling 79 forest fires across the country, with their spokesman Vassilios Vathrakoyannis saying Greece would be on a state of alert across the weekend.

Turkey said on Friday it was sending two firefighting aircraft and a helicopter to its neighbour, adding to earlier support from Jordan and Israel.

Architectural attractions including World Heritage Site the Athens Acropolis will be shuttered during the hottest parts of the day through to Sunday, the ministry of culture said.

The labour ministry urged people to work from home where possible and the health ministry called on people to avoid venturing out except where strictly necessary.

“We have three difficult days ahead of us,” Vassilis Kikilias, minister for civil protection, told ERT. “We must be vigilant.”

Athens saw its record temperature to date of 44.8OC in June 2007, according to the Athens national Observatory with nearby Elefsina recording a national record of 48OC in July 1977.

Greece is just one of a swathe of countries battling a prolonged spell of extreme heat around the globe in recent days.

MADRID — Spain votes on Sunday after an election campaign dominated by slogans that notably lacked debate about the programmes of the main parties or their hardline allies on whom they will rely to govern.

Polls suggest Alberto Nunez Feijoo and his right-wing opposition Popular Party (PP) will win but without an absolute majority, likely forcing him to seek support from the far-right Vox to govern.

The PP's 365 proposals are laid out in a 112-page manifesto entitled "Now is the time".

The Socialist Party of incumbent Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, which is hoping to govern with the radical left-wing Sumar ("Unite") alliance, has laid out its proposals in a 272-page programme entitled "Forward, a programme for the best Spain".

The economy: Social steps vs tax cuts 

The Socialists have put a huge emphasis on the government's economic achievements with the economy expanding by 5.5 per cent in 2022 and inflation slowing sharply to 1.9 per cent in June, a performance far better than most of Spain's eurozone neighbours.

The PP has accused the Socialists of ignoring the dwindling purchasing power of families, proposing a temporary reduction in sales tax on meat, fish and tinned goods.

Above all, the party pledges to reduce the tax burden on families, the self-employed and businesses through a "comprehensive reform of the tax system" that will include axing tax on large fortunes.

The Socialists have also promised to consider "extending" the temporary windfall tax on banks, energy firms and large fortunes — a measure Sumar wants to make permanent.

After hiking the minimum wage and reforming the labour market to reduce job insecurity, the Socialists are proposing a "full employment deal agreed with unions and employers groups" and a plan to tackle high youth unemployment.

Although the PP voted against the labour reform, it has since admitted it is "broadly good" and has pledged not to overturn it.

It also pledges to tackle soaring levels of public debt since the pandemic, which has risen above 110 per cent of GDP.

It also wants to overturn a newly-approved housing law that caps rental increases.

Environmentally 

miles apart 

A priority for Sumar, ensuring a "just green transition" is also high on the Socialists' agenda with specific targets for protecting environmental spaces, unlike the PP whose representatives in the European Parliament last week voted against a key biodiversity bill.

Extending the lifespan of nuclear power stations and developing green hydrogen are two of the PP’s flagship energy measures, while the Socialists are focused on renewable energies.

In a country whose key fruit and vegetable exports to Europe depend on irrigation, the question of water is crucial.

The PP has pledged “to bring water where there is none” in a proposal dismissed as “unrealistic” by the left which is insisting on the need for new agriculture models.

For its part, Vox — an outspoken climate sceptic and staunch defender of the rural world and intensive farming — has promised to pull Spain out of the Paris Agreement and overturn its 2021 law on climate change and the green transition.

Divisions over society 

The PP’s Feijoo has promised to “overthrow Sanchismo”, a petty slogan aimed at Sanchez’s policies, saying it would involve “overturning all those minority-inspired laws that harm the majority”, the first of which is the legislation on gender self-determination.

He also wants to revise Spain’s updated rape law, which closed a loophole that let more than 1,000 convicted sex offenders secure a reduction in their sentences.

And he wants to change a reform allowing minors aged 16-17 to have an abortion without parental consent, and also amend legislation on assisted suicide.

On immigration, the Socialists want to expand absorption capacities while the PP wants a system of selective immigration and a tightening of border controls.

The PP also wants to overturn the recently-approved democratic memory law aimed at tackling the legacy of the 1936-39 civil war and the dictatorship that followed in order to honour the victims.

MOSCOW — A Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea on Saturday blew up an ammunition depot, sparking evacuations on the Moscow-annexed peninsula and halting rail traffic, just five days after drones damaged Russia's symbolic bridge across the Kerch Strait.

Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, has been targeted by Kyiv throughout Moscow's 17-month long Ukraine offensive but has come under more intense, increased attacks in recent weeks.

In a counteroffensive launched to retake lands lost to Moscow, Kyiv has increasingly made clear — despite some Western unease — that it aims to also take back the Black Sea peninsula.

"The goal is to return Crimea," Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said, according to a transcript published by his office on Saturday of a speech addressing the Aspen Security Forum on Friday.

He said Kyiv considers the Crimea bridge — opened by Russian leader Vladimir Putin in 2018 — as an "enemy object" and wants it to be "neutralised".

Less than 24 hours later, the Moscow-installed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said an "enemy" drone had detonated an ammunition depot.

“As a result of an attack by an enemy drone on the Krasnogvardeisky district, an ammunition depot detonated,” Aksyonov said on Telegram, referring to an area that lies inland at the centre of Crimea.

He ordered the evacuation of people living within 5 kilometres of the zone.

Aksyonov reported no casualties and claimed there was little damage, but unverified videos on social media showed billowing smoke rising into the air.

He also said rail traffic will be stopped on the peninsula: “To minimise risks, it was also decided to halt rail traffic on Crimean railways.”

Road traffic across the Crimea bridge — one of the few ways to get out of Crimea as flights have been cancelled during the conflict — only resumed on Saturday after a Ukrainian attack damaged the bridge on Tuesday, killing two people.

The attacks came a day before Putin was due to meet his closest ally — Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko — for the first time since the latter helped end a dramatic mutiny by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group.

The pair are due to meet in Putin’s home city of Saint Petersburg.

Black Sea escalation 

The attacks on Crimea have come as many of Kyiv’s Western allies feel uncomfortable about Ukrainian ambitions to take back the annexed land, fearing a larger scale conflict with Russia.

They have also signified a sharp escalation in the Black Sea area.

Ukraine has said it was looking for ways to continue a grain corridor in the Black Sea, suggesting a patrol by border countries in the area.

Zelensky said he discussed the “unblocking” of the corridor with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Saturday.

The pair had spoken about “future steps necessary for unblocking and [the] sustainable operation of the Black Sea grain corridor”, he said, without giving further details.

In his speech Friday, Zelensky warned that Moscow “believes that the Black Sea is purely Russian”.

Kyiv has called on the United Nations and neighbouring countries to secure safe passage for cargoes through joint patrols.

The Russian army on Friday carried out live-fire exercises in the Black Sea, with the UN warning against escalation.

On the battlefield, Moscow’s forces said Saturday that they had pushed back three Ukrainian attacks in the eastern villages of Urozhayniy and Priyutniy.

Ukraine said Russia shelled Kupyansk — in the north-east Kharkiv region where Russia has gone on a limited offensive this week — Saturday, killing a 57-year-old woman.

Cluster munitions 

Russia also alleged that Kyiv had used notorious cluster munitions on the Russian border village of Zhuravlevka and that the controversial weapon had killed one of its journalists in a frontline village.

The allegations came two weeks after US President Joe Biden faced fierce criticism from his own allies for sending the munitions, that carry a long-term risk to civilians.

The Russian army announced that Rostislav Zhuravlev, a war correspondent working for the state RIA Novosti news agency, died from his wounds after coming under fire from cluster munitions in occupied southern Ukraine.

Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, meanwhile, said “three cluster munitions from a multiple rocket launcher were fired [by the Ukrainian army] at the village of Zhuravlevka” on Friday.

The region has seen near daily cross-border attacks for months.

It was the first time Russia reported the weapons were used on its territory.

Putin has said Moscow had enough cluster munition to answer if Ukraine was to use the weapons.

EU member Poland, which borders both Russia and Ukraine, issued an “urgent” summons to the Russian ambassador on Saturday, a day after Putin claimed that Western Poland was a “gift” from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

“Our friends in Warsaw have forgotten? We will remind them,” Putin said during a government meeting.

Putin said Poland “dreams of Belarusian land”, a claim often repeated by Moscow.

Poland called the comments “provocative” and said it was an attempt to whitewash Putin’s role in Ukraine.

Warsaw and Kyiv have expressed worries about Belarus hosting Wagner fighters on its territory after Minsk said the force will train its army.

Relations between Poland and Russia have been historically difficult and have dipped to new lows since Moscow’s Ukraine offensive.

Warsaw’s summons came a day before Putin and Lukashenko will meet Sunday.

SEOUL —  North Korea has fired “several cruise missiles” into the Yellow Sea between China and the Korean Peninsula, Yonhap news agency reported on Saturday, citing South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff.

The launch, which Yonhap said took place around 4am, come as relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points ever.

“South Korean and US intelligence authorities were analysing the launches,” Yonhap reported.

The launches come only three days after North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea on its opposite coast toward Japan.

The recent missile launches are the latest in a series of weapons tests by Pyongyang, and come as Seoul and Washington ramp up defence cooperation in the face of soaring tensions with the North.

Diplomacy between Pyongyang and Seoul has stalled and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for ramping up weapons development, including tactical nukes.

In response Seoul and Washington have staged joint military exercises with advanced stealth jets and US strategic assets.

On Thursday, North Korea’s Defence Minister Kang Sun-nam said in a statement that the deployment of a nuclear-capable submarine to South Korea “may fall under the conditions of the use of nuclear weapons specified in the DPRK law on the nuclear force policy”, using an acronym for North Korea’s official name.

Saturday’s incident also comes as a US soldier is believed to be in Pyongyang’s custody after breaking away from a tour group visiting the Demilitarised Zone.

The United States has said it is “very concerned” about how Private Second Class Travis King would be treated, and that as of Thursday, Pyongyang had yet to respond to inquiries about the soldier.

King was due to return to the United States to face military discipline after serving jail time in South Korea for assault.

LONDON — Britain’s ruling Conservatives on Friday held the former seat of ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but saw hefty majorities in two other constituencies evaporate as voters responded to scandals during his tenure and high inflation.

Rishi Sunak had been expected to become the first prime minister in decades to lose three parliamentary seats in one day. He was spared that humiliation thanks to a narrow victory in the northwest London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

That result, driven by opposition to Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s contentious expansion of a vehicle pollution tax to outer London, offered the embattled Tory leader some relief.

But the erasure of his party’s 19,000 majority in the Somerton and Frome seat in southwest England, and its 20,000 majority in the Selby and Ainsty constituency in the northeast, represent bitter blows ahead of an expected general election in 2024.

“By-elections midterm for an incumbent government are always difficult, they rarely win them,” Sunak told reporters on Friday morning, while visiting Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

“The message I take away is that we’ve got to double down, stick to our plan and deliver for people... and earn people’s trust for the next election.”

But his Conservatives face defeat nationally next year if Thursday’s results are repeated.

Labour took the seat of Selby and Ainsty by 16,456 votes to 12,295, in what its leader Keir Starmer said was the biggest-ever swing to the party in its history.

“We hear that cry for change away from the chaos, away from those rising bills, the crumbling public services,” he told supporters during a victory visit there on Friday.

‘Stunning’ 

Ex-Tory MP Nigel Adams had prompted the vote when he quit after failing to be nominated for a peerage last month.

In Somerton and Frome, the Liberal Democrats comfortably won with an even bigger shift from the Conservatives, the latest in a series of by-election wins in recent years.

The contest was held after its former Tory MP David Warburton stood down after admitting cocaine use.

The Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election was triggered after the scandal-tarred Boris Johnson also resigned as a lawmaker last month.

He quit after learning that a cross-party parliamentary committee had concluded he had deliberately lied to lawmakers about lockdown-breaking parties during the COVID pandemic, and recommended a 90-day suspension.

Sunak’s Tories had been expected to lose his seat, but won by less than 500 votes, delivering a blow to Starmer and Khan.

Winning candidate Steve Tuckwell said the “number one” issue had been the mayor’s expansion of the tax on polluting vehicles.

Labour MPs in similar seats “will now be panicking”, he said.

Election experts were sceptical, however.

“It would seem unwise for Tory MPs to draw any conclusion other than that their party is still in deep electoral trouble,” Strathclyde University’s John Curtice wrote in an analysis for the BBC.

Sunak struggles 

The heavy defeats in the other two contests leave Sunak increasingly vulnerable, with parliament’s six-week summer break starting on Friday providing welcome relief.

Labour is currently enjoying double-digit poll leads and is poised to retake power for the first time in over a decade.

Sunak became prime minister following the disastrous 44-day tenure of predecessor Liz Truss and initially succeeded in stabilising financial markets panicked by her radical tax-slashing agenda.

But the 43-year-old former finance minister has struggled to reverse his party’s declining fortunes, which first set in during the so-called “Partygate” scandal under Johnson.

Sunak’s turnaround efforts have in part been hobbled by persistently high inflation, which in recent months has spooked the markets once again.

With interest rates at their highest in 15 years, pushing mortgage and other borrowing costs ever higher, the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation is showing few signs of abating.

Sunak kicked off the year by making five key vows to voters, including halving inflation, growing the economy and cutting waiting times at the overstretched National Health Service.

He has made little headway on most of the pledges, and there are persistent fears the UK will tip into recession this year as the high interest rates constrain spending.

Sunak’s net favourability has fallen to its lowest level (-40) since he entered Downing Street, with two-thirds of Britons saying they have an unfavourable view of him, according to YouGov.

PARIS — Struck by near-record temperatures and wildfires during this week's heatwave, the Mediterranean region is ranked as a climate-change "hot spot" by scientists.

The beaches, seafood and heritage sites in the region spanning parts of southern Europe, northern Africa and western Asia are under threat.

Here are five key threats to the region flagged by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Its reports are the most comprehensive summary of scientific knowledge on global warming.

Deadly heatwaves 

Like parts of the United States and Asia, the Med has been hit by extreme heat in recent weeks. The Italian islands of Sardinia and Sicily are forecast to possibly top a continent-wide record of 48.8ºC.

"Heatwaves are increasing due to climate change in the Mediterranean, and are amplified in cities due to urbanisation practices," causing illness and death, the IPCC said in its 2022 report on impacts of climate change and how to adapt to them.

One study published in 2010 led by scientists at the University of Bern calculated that the intensity, length and number of heatwaves in the eastern Mediterranean had increased by about six or seven times since the 1960s.

Wheat and olives 

A drought in North Africa has left farmers bracing for a terrible harvest. "We've never seen a drought this bad," Tunisian wheat farmer Tahar Chaouachi told AFP. "It's been dry for the last four years but we expected some rain this season. Instead, it's become worse."

With hotter weather drying up groundwater for irrigating farms, the IPCC said that with global warming of more than 1.5C olive yields could fall by a fifth in the northern Mediterranean. The world has warmed more than 1.1C since the 19th century.

Researchers at Stanford University found “the Mediterranean experiencing significant adverse impacts on most crops”.

Water and politics 

A drought in Spain has raised political tensions over water management ahead of a general election on July 23. The European Drought Observatory said groundwater tables across half the Mediterranean region were running low already in June.

The IPCC report warned climate change will worsen water shortages “in most locations” in the region. Lakes and reservoirs are expected to decline by up to 45 per cent this century, and surface water availability by up to 55 per cent in North Africa.

Meanwhile “terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems are impacted by climate change in the Mediterranean, resulting in loss of habitats and biodiversity”, it added.

The sea level in the Mediterranean basin has risen 2.8mm a year over recent decades, threatening shorelines and cities such as Venice, which regularly suffers tidal floods.

“Sea level rise already impacts extreme coastal waters around the Mediterranean and it is projected to increase coastal flooding, erosion and salinisation risks,” said the IPCC.

“These impacts would affect agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture, urban development, port operations, tourism, cultural sites and many coastal ecosystems.”

Invasive species 

As well as its cherished beaches, climate change threatens the Mediterranean sea and the food produced by its fisheries.

“A shift in Mediterranean marine ecosystems, characterised by biodiversity decline and invasive species, has occurred since the 1980s” due to climate change and other human impacts, the IPCC said.

With global warming of more than 1.5ºC, more than 20 per cent of exploited fish and invertebrates in the Eastern Mediterranean could become locally extinct by 2060 and fishing revenues could decrease up to 30 per cent by 2050, it said.