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LONDON — Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday he would find it "very difficult" to vote for successor Rishi Sunak's new EU deal overhauling post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland.

Johnson, whose supporters accuse Sunak of betrayal for having helped force the former leader out last year, broke his silence after the breakthrough deal was announced on Monday.

"I'm going to find it very difficult to vote for something like this myself, because I believed we should've done something very different," Johnson said in a speech in London.

"This is not about the UK taking back control," he said, but "a version of the solution that was being offered [by the EU] last year".

"This is the EU graciously unbending to allow us to do what we want to do in our own country, not by our laws, but by theirs," he added.

As prime minister, Johnson rammed through the old "Northern Ireland Protocol" in his rush to withdraw Britain from the EU.

He admitted in his speech that the set of trading rules, now supplanted by Sunak's deal, had proved problematic.

But he insisted that the better route was to maintain now-abandoned legislation that he introduced, imposing a unilateral overhaul of the rules without EU consent, even at the risk of a trade war.

"I have no doubt at all that that [legislation] is what brought the EU to negotiate seriously," he claimed.

The new "Windsor Framework" has been generally well received and is expected to win any vote in parliament with the support of the main Labour opposition.

But Sunak will be eager to secure the backing of the pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland, and, to a lesser extent, Johnson — who retains a following among hardline Brexiteers.

The Windsor Framework reduces the influence of EU law in Northern Ireland, and creates a new "green lane" for goods coming from Britain that are not intended to go on to the EU's single market via Ireland.

Johnson said it risked keeping Northern Ireland in the EU's regulatory orbit and would prove "a drag anchor on divergence" from EU rules for the UK as a whole.

Doing things differently from Brussels "is the point of Brexit", he said, vowing to keep fighting for "what I think of as Brexit".

LIBREVILLE — President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said the era of French interference in Africa was “well over” as he began a four-nation tour of the continent to renew frayed ties.

Anti-French sentiment runs high in some former African colonies as the continent becomes a renewed diplomatic battleground, with Russian and Chinese influence growing in the region.

Macron said France harboured no desire to return to past policies of interfering in Africa ahead of an environment summit in Gabon, the first leg of his trip.

“The age of Francafrique is well over,” Macron said in remarks to the French community in the capital Libreville, referring to France’s post-colonisation strategy of supporting authoritarian leaders to defend its interests.

“Sometimes I get the feeling that mindsets haven’t moved along as much as we have, when I read, hear and see people ascribing intentions to France that it doesn’t have,” he added.

“Francafrique” is a favourite target of pan-Africanists, who say that after the wave of decolonisation in 1960 France propped up dictators in its former colonies in exchange for access to resources and military bases.

Macron and his predecessors, notably Francois Hollande, have previously declared that the policy is dead and that France has no intention of meddling in sovereign affairs.

Military revamp 

Macron on Monday said there would be a “noticeable reduction” in France’s troop presence in Africa “in the coming months” and a greater focus on training and equipping allied countries’ forces.

France has in the past year withdrawn troops from former colonies Mali, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic.

The pullout from Mali and Burkina Faso, where its soldiers were supporting the Sahel nations to battle a long-running extremist insurgency, came on the back of a wave of local hostility.

In his remarks on Thursday, Macron insisted the planned reorganisation was “neither a withdrawal nor disengagement”, defining it as adapting to the needs of partners.

These fields of cooperation included fighting maritime piracy, illegal gold mining and environmental crimes linked to regional drug trafficking, itself fuelled by a “terrorist movement” in the Lake Chad area, he said.

More than 3,000 French soldiers are deployed in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Gabon and Djibouti, according to official figures.

The proposed revamp concerns the first three bases but not Djibouti, which is oriented more towards the Indian Ocean.

Another 3,000 troops are in the Sahel region of West Africa, including in Niger and Chad.

Forest protection drive 

Macron landed in Libreville on Wednesday and will later head to Angola, Congo-Brazzaville and the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo.

His comments came before several heads of state were due to attend the One Forest Summit in Libreville, which will focus on preserving rainforests that play a vital role in the global climate system.

The forests of the vast Congo River basin represent the planet’s second-largest carbon sink after the Amazon.

They are also home to huge biodiversity including forest elephants and gorillas, and bear traces of the settlement of early humanity.

But they face threats such as poaching, deforestation for the oil, palm and rubber industries, and illegal logging and mineral exploitation.

Macron spoke of the challenges of mobilising international finance as he and Gabonese Environment Minister Lee White toured the Raponda Walker Arboretum, a protected coastal area north of Libreville.

“We always speak of billions in our summits, but people see little of it on the ground because the systems are imperfect,” he said.

Other presidents expected to attend the summit are host Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon; Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville; Faustin-Archange Touadera of the Central African Republic; Chad’s Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno; and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.

The gathering kicked off on Wednesday with exchanges between ministers, civil society representatives and experts.

Macron heads to the former Portuguese colony of Angola on Friday, where he is set to sign an accord to develop the agricultural sector as part of a drive to enhance French ties with anglophone and Portuguese-speaking Africa.

He then stops in the Republic of Congo, another former French colony, where Sassou Nguesso has ruled for a total of almost four decades, and neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo.

LARISSA, Greece — At least 32 people were killed and another 85 injured after two trains collided near the Greek city of Larissa, authorities said, as emergency services raced Wednesday to find survivors among the charred wreckage.

Several carriages were almost completely destroyed in the collision between a passenger train and a freight train just before midnight on Tuesday, with at least one car appearing to catch fire and trap passengers inside.

"I've never seen anything like this in my entire life," said one rescue worker, emerging from the wreckage. "It's tragic. Five hours later, we are finding bodies."

Smoke and flames emerged from several cars, some of which had overturned when they came off the tracks in the impact, leaving a tangled mess of metal and shattered glass.

The passenger train, carrying 350 passengers, had been travelling from the capital Athens to the northern city of Thessaloniki.

Greek media said it had been carrying many students returning to Thessaloniki after a long holiday weekend.

"It was a nightmare... I'm still shaking," 22-year-old passenger Angelos told AFP.

"Fortunately we were in the penultimate car and we got out alive. There was a fire in the first cars and complete panic."

"The collision was like a huge earthquake."

Some 150 firefighters and 40 ambulances were mobilised for the response, according to Greek emergency services.

"The operation to free trapped people is under way and is taking place in difficult conditions, due to the seriousness of the collision between the two trains," spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis told reporters.

He said that 32 people have been found dead, while 53 of the injured were in hospital.

But the toll was expected to rise as cranes and rescuers worked through the debris.

“I was stained with blood from other people who were injured near me,” a passenger named Lazos told the newspaper Protothema.

It is not yet known why the two trains collided in what local media is calling the worst “train accident that Greece has ever known”.

“The death toll is likely to be very high”, regional governor Kostas Agorastos told the Skai TV channel.

He said the first two carriages on the passenger train “no longer exist at all”.

‘Windows exploded’ 

On the local media site Onlarissa, a young woman said through tears that the train “was stopped for a few minutes when we heard a deafening noise”.

Another passenger told Skai television that “the windows suddenly exploded. People were screaming and were afraid”.

“Fortunately, we were able to open the doors and escape fairly quickly. In other wagons, they did not manage to get out and one wagon even caught fire,” he added.

The president of the OSE train drivers’ union Kostas Genidounias told AFP from the scene of the accident that the two trains had ended up on the same track and collided head-on.

He said the accident was “unimaginable” and “would have been avoided if the safety systems were working”.

An emergency government meeting was organised after the crash. Greek Health Minister Thanos Plevris went to the scene, while Interior Minister Takis Theodorikakos supervised the response from a crisis management centre.

The two hospitals near Larissa have been requisitioned to accommodate the many injured, according to the fire services, while military hospitals in Thessaloniki and Athens are also “on alert” in case they are needed.

KYIV — Ukraine said it had survived a months-long winter onslaught of Russian strikes on water and energy infrastructure, as it marked the first day of spring on Wednesday.

But Kyiv was under fierce pressure in the eastern town of Bakhmut while Moscow said it had downed a "massive" barrage of Ukrainian drones launched at the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by the Kremlin in 2014.

Since October Russia has been pummelling key facilities in Ukraine with missiles and drones, disrupting water, heating and electricity supplies to millions of people.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Ukraine had overcome "winter terror" brought against his country by Russian leader Vladimir Putin and hailed the first day of spring as another "major defeat" for the Kremlin.

"We survived the most difficult winter in our history. It was cold and dark, but we were unbreakable," Kuleba said in a statement.

Aid organisations had warned at the beginning of winter that the targeted campaign would force a new wave of migration to Europe and that Ukraine's priority would be "survival" through the months of freezing temperatures.

The Kremlin said Kyiv was responsible for civilians' suffering stemming from the massive outages because it had refused to capitulate to Moscow's war demands.

But the grid has been stabilising and Ukrainian energy provider Ukrenergo said Wednesday there had been "no power deficit" for more than two weeks.

"Engineers are also continuing repairs at all power system facilities that were previously damaged by Russian missile and drone attacks," it said.

The war in Ukraine has seen Europe shirk its deep reliance on Russian oil and gas amid waves of sanctions aimed at stemming Moscow's ability to fund its military through energy revenues.

"The EU also won, and contrary to Moscow's laughter, it did not freeze without Russian gas. One piece of advice to Russia: choke on your gas and choke on your missiles," Kuleba added in the statement.

The foreign minister’s comments came as fighting in eastern Ukraine appears to be reaching a precarious moment for Kyiv around Bakhmut in what has become the longest and bloodiest battle of Russia’s invasion.

AFP journalists near Bakhmut saw Ukrainian forces close roads towards the embattled salt-mining town, raising the spectre of a possible Ukrainian withdrawal.

But Sergiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces deployed in the east of the country, said that “no such decision had been taken so far”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an address to the nation on Tuesday said the fighting around Bakhmut was “increasing”.

“Russia does not count people at all, sending them to constantly assault our positions,” he added.

Elsewhere in the Donetsk region, the cost of fighting for Ukraine was clear at a field hospital where AFP journalists saw injured Ukrainian soldiers being treated.

“You remember the extraordinary cases, where people have fatal injuries. Partially severed heads, torn or cut main vessels, where you cannot help the patient. That is what you remember,” said Igor, a 28-year-old anaesthesiologist.

The Ukrainian presidency said on Wednesday that Russian attacks in the region of Donetsk had left three civilians dead and another four injured.

The Russian defence ministry’s announcement that it had downed or disabled 10 Ukrainian drones targeting Crimea came one day after Russian officials said they had shot down three more over southern regions of the country and near Moscow.

“An attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a massive drone attack on the facilities of the Crimean peninsula has been prevented”, the defence ministry said.

Ten drones were either “shot down” or “disabled”, it said in the statement.

Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said earlier on Wednesday that Kyiv was not responsible for attacks in Russia.

“Ukraine doesn’t strike at Russian territory. Ukraine is waging a defensive war to de-occupy all its territories,” he wrote on social media.

PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron kicks off a tour of Central Africa on Wednesday in a diplomatic drive to test out a new "responsible relationship" with the continent as anti-French sentiment runs high in some former colonies.

He will first stop in Gabon for an environmental summit, before heading to Angola then the Republic of Congo — also known as Congo-Brazzaville — and finally neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Macron's trip comes as alarm grows in Paris over Russia's rising influence in French-speaking African countries, alongside Chinese jockeying for position, which has been visible for some years.

In Gabon, he will attend the One Forest Summit on preserving forests worldwide, including along the vast Congo River basin.

Covering 1.62 million square kilometres, the forests of Central Africa represent the planet's second-largest carbon sink after the Amazon.

They are also home to huge biodiversity including forest elephants and gorillas, and bear traces of the settlement of early humanity.

But they face threats such as poaching, deforestation for the oil palm and rubber industries, and illegal logging and mineral exploitation.

Macron in a speech on France's Africa policy on Monday called for a "mutual and responsible relationship" with the continent of more than 50 countries, including on climate issues.

He reiterated a pledge to break with former post-colonial policies.

“To measure our influence through a number of military operations, to rest on exclusive privileged ties with certain leaders, or to consider that certain economic markets are rightfully ours because we were there before — these are things of the past,” he said.

But Gabonese environmental activist Marc Ona Essangui told AFP he was worried Macron’s visit would detract from the rainforest summit’s main goal of environmental conservation.

Gabonese people would instead likely view his presence as giving a political boost to President Ali Bongo Ondimba in the run-up to presidential elections later this year, he said.

“What people are registering is Emmanuel Macron coming to back his candidate,” he said.

Bongo, 64, has been president since succeeding his long-ruling father in 2009.

Macron has insisted Africa is a priority of his second term, and in July he went to Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau.

After Gabon, he heads to the former Portuguese colony of Angola as part of a drive to enhance French ties with English- and Portuguese-speaking parts of Africa.

Stopping in Congo-Brazzaville, another former French colony, he will end his trip in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo — ruled by Belgium during the colonial era — on Friday and Saturday.

Sahel upheaval 

Macron’s tour follows disruption in the Sahel region further north.

Paris has fallen out with new military authorities in former colonies Mali and Burkina Faso and withdrew its troops from both countries following years of helping them to battle extremists.

France and its Western allies accuse Russian mercenary group Wagner, infamous for its activities in Syria and Ukraine, of being active in Mali and the Central African Republic, also once ruled by France.

Paris has also accused Russia of spreading disinformation to undermine French interests on the continent.

Macron on Monday said the military would reduce its footprint on the continent in the coming months, turning French outposts there into training academies or “partner” bases with more African forces.

More than 3,000 French soldiers are deployed in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Gabon and Djibouti, according to official figures. Another 3,000 are in the Sahel, including in Niger and Chad.

But a French military source has said the French army is reluctant to close its bases in the region, including to stop Wagner from gaining more influence.

Analyst Elie Tenenbaum, from French international relations think tank IFRI, said implementing Macron’s plans would be complicated.

“There’s a disconnection between the vision of a president who wants to flip the table and the general staff who want to keep things as they are,” he told AFP.

ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday ruled out any delay in elections after the devastating quake that killed tens of thousands in Turkey, saying the vote would push ahead on May 14 as planned.

After the massive 7.8-magnitude quake that killed more than 45,000 people in Turkey, speculation mounted on whether the polls — which could keep Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government in power until 2028 — would be able to proceed.

Last month, Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency across 11 quake-hit provinces, and the region is still suffering from strong tremors that make the likelihood of campaigning in the area extremely unlikely.

But Erdogan told his ruling party lawmakers in the Ankara parliament that "[Turkish] people will do what is necessary on May 14".

A delegation from Turkey's Higher Election Board started a mission on Monday to the quake zone to report on the voters' situation and election security.

Erdogan's government has come under fire for failing to deploy sufficient humanitarian aid and relief teams in several locations in the days following the earthquake.

Survivors in several provinces told AFP they had to pull out people with their bare hands, and complained of the absence of help in initial days.

Erdogan has acknowledged some "shortcomings" immediately after the disaster, but blamed severe weather conditions and damaged roads.

"There were shortcomings, disruptions and delays but we... rushed to help earthquake survivors with all our might," he said on Wednesday.

"We are not hiding behind excuses," he added.

'Fall under the ruins' 

The catastrophe struck just as Erdogan was gaining momentum and starting to lift his approval numbers from a low reached during a dire economic crisis that exploded last year.

The quake affected 14 million people in Turkey, and caused tens of thousands of buildings to collapse.

It has caused more than $34 billion in damage to the country, the World Bank said on Monday, adding that the estimate does not account for the costs of reconstruction that were "potentially twice as large".

Opposition parties have criticised Erdogan's handling of the disaster and accused him of failing to prepare the quake-prone country for a catastrophe.

"We know that some are rubbing their hands, waiting for the state and the government to fall under the ruins," Erdogan said.

Unable to agree on a candidate for more than a year, Erdogan's opponents were planning to pick a name on Thursday.