World

WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans traded final blows on Monday ahead of midterm elections that could upend Joe Biden’s presidency, weaken Western support for Ukraine and even open the door to a comeback attempt by Donald Trump.

More than 40 million ballots have been cast through early voting options, meaning the fate of the world’s biggest economy was already in play, with hours to go before polls open nationwide on Tuesday.

Adding to tensions — and a reminder of the international stakes — Kremlin-connected oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin boasted that Russia was trying to tilt the outcome.

“We interfered, we are interfering and we will interfere... carefully, precisely, surgically and the way we do it, the way we can,” said Prigozhin, a pivotal figure in the Ukraine invasion where his Wagner military contractor group is on the front lines.

Biden, who has framed his closing argument as a warning that American democracy is on the line, was set to close out days of frantic campaigning for Democratic candidates at a rally Monday evening near Baltimore.

Trump, who is using the midterms to repeatedly tease a possible 2024 White House run, was holding a rally in Ohio.

With polls showing Republicans in line to seize the House of Representatives, the increasingly far-right party eyed snarling the rest of Biden’s first term in aggressive investigations and opposition to spending plans.

Kevin McCarthy, who would likely become speaker of the House — placing him second in line to the president — also refused to rule out impeachment proceedings.

“We will never use impeachment for political purposes,” McCarthy told CNN. “That doesn’t mean if something rises to the occasion, it would not be used at any other time.”

One key question remained whether the US Senate would also flip, leaving Biden as little more than a lame duck.

With Congress out of Democrats’ hands, Biden would see his legislative agenda collapse.

That would raise questions over everything from climate crisis policies, which the president will be laying out at the Cop27 conference in Egypt this week, to Ukraine, where Republicans are reluctant to maintain the current rate of US financial and military support.

While insisting he supports Ukraine’s struggle, McCarthy told CNN that there could be no “blank check” — a nod to the isolationist, far-right Trump wing of his party and a signal likely sending shivers through Kyiv.

Just how bad Tuesday goes will also likely determine whether Biden, who turns 80 this month and is the oldest president ever, will seek a second term or step aside, plunging his party into fresh uncertainty.

‘Wake-up call’ 

Up for grabs are all 435 House seats, a third of the 100 Senate seats, and a slew of state-level posts.

Popular former president Barack Obama and other Democratic stars have been racing from campaign to campaign in hopes of seeing off the predicted Republican “red wave”.

But the political landscape has been tilting away from Democrats since the summer, as Republican messaging about high inflation, crime and illegal immigration overwhelmed the incumbents.

“This is going to be a wake-up call to President Biden,” was the bullish weekend prediction of Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s Republican governor and a rising star being touted as a possible party alternative to Trump in 2024.

The Senate is more of a toss-up but Democratic hopes of keeping the upper chamber, which they currently only barely control thanks to the tiebreaking vote from Vice President Kamala Harris, hang in the balance.

Dave Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report said Republican candidates have “a little more upside” with late-deciders.

Wasserman told MSNBC there could be a Republican gain of 15-25 House seats, while “Republicans might gain the one seat they need to win control of the Senate”.

Races in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Ohio have narrowed to projected photo finishes, and any one of them could swing the balance of power.

Democrats have focused their closing arguments on voting rights, protecting abortion access and welfare — and on the threat posed by growing support among Trump Republicans for political conspiracy theories.

The Republicans counter that a vote for Democrats means more soaring inflation and rising violent crime, seeking to make the midterms a referendum on the president.

With his own approval rating marooned around 42 per cent, Biden has largely avoided campaigning in the most contentious states.

ROME — Italy on Sunday took in families with babies and vulnerable migrants rescued in the Mediterranean as charities slammed Rome's decision to order the others back into international waters.

As humanitarian vessels waited in the port of Catania to disembark those saved, a migrants rescue hotline said some 500 others had run into difficulty on the perilous Mediterranean crossing.

A father carrying a baby in a purple beanie was among the first to get off Geo Barents, a ship run by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF). He kissed and hugged her tightly as they came down the gangplank.

He was one of the lucky ones.

Rome allowed 144 people including minors and the sick off the German-flagged Humanity 1 earlier Sunday, but 35 adult male migrants were refused permission to set foot on Italian soil, charity SOS Humanity said.

The ship was then "ordered to leave the port of Catania", it said in a statement.

"The captain of the Humanity 1, who is legally responsible for the safety of all people on board, has refused," it said.

The charity said Italian authorities had decided after a "brief medical examination" that the 35 adults were "healthy", but said there was "no translator present to assess their mental and physical condition, nor was there a psychological evaluation".

"Furthermore, the 35 survivors have the right to apply for asylum, and to a formal asylum procedure, which can only be carried out on land".

Those refused permission to leave the Humanity 1 were "extremely depressed", SOS Humanity's Press Officer Petra Krischok told AFP.

MSF said the "selective and partial disembarkation" was illegal and accused politicians of "playing with [migrants'] lives".

The Humanity 1 and Geo Barents were two of four ships that had requested a safe port. The Ocean Viking and Rise Above are still off Sicily.

As the vessels waited, Alarm Phone, a group running a hotline for migrants needing rescue, said it had been alerted to "a large boat carrying about 500 people in distress" in the Mediterranean.

Italy's new far-right government has vowed to crack down on boat migrants attempting the perilous crossing from North Africa to Europe.

Over 87,000 people have landed in Italy so far this year, according to the interior ministry — though only 14 per cent of those were rescued at sea and brought to safety by charity vessels.

Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi earlier said those who do not "qualify" would have to "leave territorial waters".

Sources close to Transport Minister Matteo Salvini, who controls the ports, said they would be "provided with the assistance necessary" to do so.

The leader of the main opposition party, Democratic Party chief Enrico Letta, accused the government on Twitter of breaking international law.

Piantedosi should explain his actions to parliament, the party said.

Member of parliament Aboubakar Soumahoro, present as those chosen from the Humanity 1 were disembarked, slammed the "selection of shipwrecked migrants", saying lawyers were already at work on challenging the decision.

Piantedosi said on Saturday those migrants not allowed into Italy would have to be "taken care of by the flag state" — a reference to the national flags under which the vessels sail.

The Humanity 1 and Mission Lifeline charity's Rise Above sail under the German flag.

The Geo Barents and SOS Mediterranee's Ocean Viking are registered in Norway.

The Norwegian foreign ministry said Thursday it bore "no responsibility" for those rescued by private Norwegian-flagged ships in the Mediterranean.

Germany insisted in a diplomatic "note" to Italy that the charities were "making an important contribution to saving human lives" and asked Rome "to help them as soon as possible".

Pope Francis weighed in Sunday, saying that Italy "can do nothing without Europe's agreement" and telling journalists that as far as migrant arrivals were concerned, "it is Europe's responsibility".

SEOUL — North Korea fired four ballistic missiles on Saturday, the South Korean military said — the latest in Pyongyang’s testing blitz this week as Washington and Seoul concluded their biggest-ever air force drills.

The flurry of North Korean launches has included an intercontinental ballistic missile and one that landed near the South’s territorial waters. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has called the barrage “effectively a territorial invasion”.

The launches came as hundreds of US and South Korean warplanes — including B-1B heavy bombers — participated in the Vigilant Storm exercise, which Pyongyang described as “aggressive and provocative”.

“The South Korean military detected four short-range ballistic missiles launched by North Korea from Tongrim, North Pyongan Province, to the West Sea at around 11:32am to 11:59am today,” South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said in a statement Saturday, using another name for the Yellow Sea.

Their “flight distance was detected at about 130km, an altitude of about 20km, and a speed of about Mach 5”, they added. Mach 5 is equivalent to five times the speed of sound.

The United States and South Korea have warned that these launches could culminate in a nuclear test by North Korea, and extended their air force drills in response by a day, until Saturday.

Pyongyang ramped up missile launches in response to the drills. Such exercises have long provoked strong reactions from North Korea, which sees them as rehearsals for an invasion.

‘Significant threat’ 

Vigilant Storm concluded with the US Air Force deploying two B-1B long-range heavy bombers on the final day in a ramped-up show of force.

This was the first time B-1Bs have flown to the Korean Peninsula since December 2017.

The South Korean JCS said the move demonstrated the “capability and readiness to firmly respond to any provocations from North Korea”.

Pyongyang has especially condemned past deployments of US strategic weapons such as B-1Bs and aircraft carrier strike groups in times of high tension.

While the supersonic B-1B “Lancer” aircraft no longer carries nuclear weapons, it is described by the US Air Force (USAF) as “the backbone of America’s long-range bomber force”.

The USAF lists the Lancer’s weapons payload as 34 tonnes, which can include cruise missiles and laser-guided bombs.

The B-1B’s range can be extended by in-air refuelling, giving it the ability to strike anywhere in the world.

Ahn Chan-il, a North Korean studies scholar, told AFP that given the B-1B’s status as a strategic US asset, its deployment will be seen as a “significant threat” by North Korea.

On Friday, South Korea scrambled fighter jets in response to what it said was the mobilisation of around 180 North Korean warplanes.

Experts say Pyongyang is particularly sensitive about these drills because its air force is one of the weakest links in its military, which lacks high-tech jets and properly trained pilots.

Compared with North Korea’s ageing fleet, Vigilant Storm has seen some of the most advanced US and South Korean warplanes in action, including F-35 stealth fighters.

The European Union on Saturday slammed the North’s missile launches as “a dangerous escalation” and called for a global “resolute and united response”, including the full weight of UN sanctions.

At the United Nations Security Council on Friday, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield dismissed criticism of Vigilant Storm as North Korean “propaganda”, saying it posed no threat to other countries.

She assailed China and Russia during the emergency session, accusing them of having “enabled” North Korea.

Moscow and Beijing have in turn blamed Washington for the escalation, and the meeting ended without a joint statement from the full Council.

KYIV, Ukraine — Iran admitted for the first time on Saturday that it had sent drones to Russia but insisted they were supplied to its ally before Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Russia of using Iranian-made drones in recent weeks to carry out attacks in Ukraine.

Tehran has repeatedly denied the claims but on Saturday Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was quoted as saying that drones had been sent to Russia before the invasion began in late February.

"We supplied Russia with a limited number of drones months before the war in Ukraine," the official news agency IRNA quoted Amir-Abdollahian as saying.

For weeks, Russian forces have rained missiles and explosive drones onto Ukraine infrastructure, as a major Ukrainian ground offensive — propelled by Western arms deliveries — has pushed Russian troops back in swathes of the country.

Russian strikes over the past month have destroyed around a third of Ukraine's power stations and the government has urged Ukrainians to conserve electricity as much as possible.

Ukraine's state energy company on Saturday announced additional power rationing in Kyiv and several other regions of the country.

"In a telephone conversation with the Ukrainian foreign minister last week, we agreed that if there was evidence [of Moscow's use of Iranian drones], he would provide it to us," Amir-Abdollahian said.

“If the Ukrainian side keeps its promise, we can discuss this issue in the coming days and we will take into account their evidence,” he added.

And he again denied Iran had supplied missiles to Russia, calling the accusations “completely false”.

In response Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesman warned Iran Saturday in a post on Facebook that “the consequences of complicity” with Moscow would be “greater than the benefit from Russia’s support”.

‘Deportations’ 

Kyiv claims around 400 Iranian drones have already been used against the civilian population of Ukraine and that Moscow has ordered around 2,000.

Britain and the European Union have imposed sanctions on three Iranian generals and an arms firm accused of supplying Russia with drones.

Ukrainian and Russian forces appear to be gearing up for a fierce battle in Kherson, a southern city with a population of around 288,000 people before the conflict.

It was the first major Ukrainian city to fall to Russian forces after the Moscow invasion.

Russia has been pulling civilians out of the Kherson region, with President Vladimir Putin saying residents must be “removed” from danger zones.

But Kyiv has likened the departures to Soviet-style “deportations” of its people.

The Ukrainian presidency has accused the Russians of “trying to identify residents who refuse to be evacuated” to Moscow-occupied areas further away from the front line.

A judge in a Ukrainian town controlled by Moscow was in a “serious” condition after surviving an assassination attempt, a separatist leader in Donetsk said on Saturday.

‘Ready to fight’ 

Blaming Kyiv, the rebel leader of the self-proclaimed republic, Denis Pushilin, said on Telegram that the attack took place on Friday evening in the town of Vuhlehirsk, in the eastern Donetsk region.

Pushilin said the judge had been “giving sentences to Nazi war criminals”, referring to the terminology for Ukrainians used by the Kremlin to justify its invasion of Ukraine.

“His condition is assessed by doctors to be stable but serious,” Pushilin added.

Meanwhile, at a remote outpost in northern Ukraine, a border guard scanned the horizon to the border with Russia and Belarus just a few kilometres to the north.

“Our main objective is to prevent a [new] invasion. But if that happens again here, we’ll be ready to stop the enemy at the border and prevent them from coming in,” the 33-year-old told AFP, not giving his name.

Inside the well-fortified dugout that was set up after the Russian pullback in April, a border guard in his 30s who goes by the nickname “Lynx” says he thinks there’s a “50-50 chance” of a new Russian offensive.

“The likelihood of an attack will always be high here near the border, with a neighbour like that,” he says, a machine gun slung over his shoulder.

But some 30 kilometres to the south in Gorodnia — the first town occupied by the Russians on the first morning of the invasion — Mayor Andriy Bogdan told AFP the situation “is completely different” from what it was back then when his town was “almost completely unprotected”.

“We are relying on our border guards and all our defence forces. Today they are here and ready to fight,” Bogdan says.

PUÑACA TINTA MARÍA, Bolivia — An abandoned boat rests on the cracked earth where formerly it floated. Lake Poopo, once Bolivia’s second-largest, has mostly disappeared — taking with it a centuries-old culture reliant entirely on its bounty.

Felix Mauricio, a member of the Uru Indigenous community, used to be a fisherman. Now 82, he gazes over a barren landscape and chews coca leaf to suppress the hunger pains.

“The fish were big. A small fish was three kilos,” he recalls of the good old days.

At its peak in 1986, Lake Poopo spanned some 3,500 square kilometers — an area more than twice the size of Greater London.

But by the end of 2015 it had “fully evaporated” according to a European Space Agency timeline of satellite images tracking the lake’s decline.

Scientific studies have blamed a confluence of factors, including climate change and water extraction for farming and mining in the area on the Bolivian high plains, some 3,700 metres above sea level.

“Here was the lake... It dried up quickly,” Mauricio told AFP, kneeling in the dry bed and playing with a miniature wooden boat he had carved himself — pushing it around with a wistful look, like a kid lost in an imaginary world.

Mauricio has always lived in Punaca Tinta Maria, a village in the southwestern region of Oruro.

His grandparents settled in the area in 1915 at a time when the waters of Lake Poopo lapped at doorsteps and intermittently flooded huts.

No land either 

Mauricio’s is one of only seven families left in Punaca Tinta Maria, which used to have 84 of them, according to locals.

There are only about 600 members left of the Uru Indigenous community — which goes back thousands of years in Bolivia and Peru — in Punaca Tinta Maria and the neighbouring settlements of Llapallapani and Vilaneque, according to a 2013 survey.

“Many lived here before,” said Cristina Mauricio, a resident of Punaca Tinta Maria who guesses her age at 50.

“They have left. There is no work.”

Since 2015, rainfall has returned a shallow film of water to parts of the lake, but not enough to navigate or to hold the fish or water birds the Uru — who still call themselves “water people” — used to catch and hunt.

With none of the lake’s natural offerings left, the Uru have had to learn new skills, working today as bricklayers or miners, some growing quinoa or other small crops.

A major problem is that the Uru have little access to land.

Their villages are surrounded by members of another Indigenous community called the Aimara, who jealously guard the farmland they occupy with property titles from the government.

The state has announced plans to distribute land to the Uru as well, but the community claims most of it is infertile and useless.

‘We have been orphaned’ 

What is left of the lake is largely an evaporated bed of salt the village’s remaining residents had hoped would be Poopo’s last gift to them.

They banded together and invested what little they managed to raise into equipment for a small plant to mine the salt and refine it.

But they hit an unforeseen snag: They could not find the $500 needed to buy bags to package the salt in.

The business has stalled.

“The Urus will disappear if we do not heed the warnings,” Senator Lindaura Rasguido of Bolivia’s ruling MAS party said on a visit to the community in October.

She and her delegation were met with traditional dancing and poems in a language very few still speak.

“Who thought the lake would dry up? Our parents trusted Lake Poopo... It had fish, birds, eggs, everything. It was our source of life,” lamented Luis Valero, the spiritual leader of the Uru people of the region.

As his five children chased each other around an unused canoe grounded outside the family’s mud hut, the 38-year-old mused: “We have been orphaned.”

But Mauricio, wearing a traditional poncho and a hat made of totora — an indigenous reed from which boats used to be fashioned, still holds out hope that things will go back to how they were.

Staring at the bare soil where he once navigated through waves and wind, he told AFP the lake “will return. In five or six years’ time, it will be back”, he insisted, with more hope than confidence.

A 2020 study in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment said global annual mean lake evaporation rates are forecast to increase 16 per cent by 2100.

And according to the UN, the number of people living in water-scarce areas will rise to between 2.7 and 3.2 billion people by 2050 from 1.9 billion in the early- to mid-2010s.

Natural disasters displaced 30.7 million people within their own countries in 2020, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

MOSCOW — A fire on Saturday killed at least 15 people at a bar in the Russian city of Kostroma, Russian news agencies reported.

The night-time fire at the popular bar could have been started after a drunk man fired a “flare gun” on the dance floor, the TASS news agency reported.

State television showed images of the bar — called “Poligon” and housed in a single-storey logistical centre — engulfed in flames.

Authorities said the fire started at around 2:00am local time and was put out at around 7:30am.

Governor Sergei Sitnikov earlier said 13 people were killed, but emergency services then said the remains of two other people were found.

“Two more bodies were recovered. This means the number of victims is now 15,” the TASS news agency quoted law enforcement sources as saying.

Around 250 people were evacuated from the building when it caught fire in the city around 300 kilometres northeast of Moscow, authorities said earlier.

The TASS news agency, citing sources in emergency services, said a drunk man with a “flare gun” was likely to have caused the fire.

“He was spending time in the bar with a woman, ordered her flowers, with a flare gun in his hands,” the source told the agency.

“Then he went to the dance floor and fired it”.

Local emergency services said the blaze had spread out over 3,500 square metres.

On its website, Poligon says it acts as an evening and night-time “place for recreation and entertainment”.

By day, it is a typical Russian “stolovaya” — a casual restaurant serving traditional food.

It says it is housed in a “distribution centre” and is popular with traffic police.

State television showed images of dozens of emergency workers fighting a huge fire that had engulfed the single-storey building.

The sign “Poligon” was visible amid the flames raging on its roof.

One fire fighter told regional state television that it took 50 people to extinguish the fire and that they had used 20 fire engines.

He said the fire was especially difficult to put out because of the risk of the building collapsing.

Kostroma, a city on the Volga River of around 230,000 people, is one of Russia’s oldest cities and is famous for its medieval architecture and monasteries.

KYIV — Grain shipments from Ukraine resumed on Thursday after Russia quickly returned to a deal allowing their safe passage through the Black Sea following international pressure.

But Moscow said it had yet to decide whether to extend the grain deal beyond November 19 — the renewal date written into the original agreement brokered by the UN and Turkey to stave off a global food emergency.

Moscow also accused Britain of training Ukrainian forces in "sabotage operations" and helping them carry out a weekend attack on Russia's Black Sea fleet that prompted its withdrawal from the grain agreement.

"Such confrontational actions by the English... could lead to unpredictable and dangerous consequences," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Britain and Ukraine have both denied the accusations as "false", with Moscow's suspension of the grain deal drawing global condemnation because of its impact on the developing world.

After Wednesday's announcement that Russia was rejoining the deal, the UN on Thursday said seven vessels were transiting through the Black Sea shipping corridor.

Ukraine is one of the world's top producers and the Russian invasion had blocked 20 million tonnes of grain in its ports until the safe passage deal was agreed in July.

G-7 promises winter aid 

Russia has suffered a series of battlefield defeats in the last couple of months and Ukraine appears to have been behind a series of daring attacks deep behind Russian lines.

Moscow has retaliated with a wave of missile strikes targeting Ukraine's energy infrastructure which have caused widespread blackouts, raising concern about heating, power and water supplies this winter.

Ahead of Thursday’s meeting of the Group of Seven industrialised powers, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the G-7 would not allow Russia to inflict “starvation” on Ukrainians.

“We will not allow the brutality of this war to lead to masses of elderly people, children, young people and families dying in the coming winter months,” Baerbock said.

‘Words that Putin understood’ 

Ukraine said Russia’s quick return to the international grain deal showed its weakness.

Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko denied Russian claims Kyiv had offered security guarantees, saying it had only reaffirmed those already in the deal.

“Ukraine has never endangered the grain route,” he said on Facebook, indicating Moscow had rejoined the agreement thanks to “active diplomacy” by the UN and Turkey.

“In coordination with Ukraine, they found words that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin understood,” he said.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday the resumption of the deal was “a significant diplomatic result for our country and the whole world”.

Meanwhile, the UN’s IAEA nuclear watchdog said its inspectors had found no indications of any “undeclared nuclear activities” at three locations they had inspected in Ukraine.

The inspectors began looking at the sites on Monday at Kyiv’s request to refute Moscow’s allegations that Ukraine was preparing to use dirty bombs against Russian troops.

Kyiv has raised fears Moscow itself might resort to using a dirty bomb in a “false flag” attack.

‘I feel less lonely’ 

Meanwhile, some semblance of normality was gradually returning to areas of southern and eastern Ukraine recently recaptured by Ukrainian troops although the humanitarian situation remains fragile.

At a hospital in Izyum in eastern Ukraine, director Yuri Kuznetsov said a generator had been recently added and workers were gradually replacing shattered windows.

“We have about 200 patients today, compared with 50 in June,” the 52-year-old surgeon told AFP.

But in the village of Lymany in southern Ukraine, an aid volunteer said she was concerned that so many residents were returning despite the dangers.

“It would be a lot easier if these people were not out here,” said Yulia Pogrebna, 32, as she distributed food boxes to residents.

Natalia Panashiy, 54, a community leader, said: “Of course it is too early for them to be coming back.

“But I am glad that they are because now I feel less lonely out here.”