World

BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel expects Britain’s new government to “quickly” define its relationship with the European Union after conservative Theresa May becomes prime minister on Wednesday.

“The United Kingdom will need to quickly clarify how it wants its ties with the European Union to be in future,” Merkel said late Monday at a reception for diplomats north of Berlin. 

She was speaking just hours after it became clear May would lead Britain into talks to quit the European Union when her last rival in the bid to succeed David Cameron pulled out.

Merkel reiterated that it was now up to London to formally trigger Article 50 to leave the EU following last month’s shock referendum backing a “Brexit” or British exit from the Union.

Only then could negotiations on any future relationship between Britain and the EU begin, she added.

Merkel stressed that Britain would remain an important partner for Germany, Europe’s top economy, but underlined that its access to the EU’s single market depended on respect for key principles including the freedom of movement of EU citizens.

May has said immigration controls would have to be included in any deal for Britain to access the EU’s single market.

Merkel once again expressed her regret that Britons had opted to turn their backs on the EU.

“It’s a bitter turn of events,” she admitted.

“Yet I am firmly convinced that the European Union is strong enough to survive this turning point.”

ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended his plan to give Syrian refugees Turkish citizenship in comments published Monday, arguing the country has ample space after a backlash against the suggestion.

Erdogan said on July 2 that Syrians could eventually be granted Turkish citizenship “if they want it”, in remarks which were met with anger from opposition politicians and social media users.

More than 2.7 million Syrian refugees now live in Turkey, where they have guest status, according to the Turkish government.

In his first comments on the issue since announcing the plan, Erdogan said Syrians with dual citizenship did not have to return to Syria once the conflict was over.

“Is it a must for dual citizens, for people with citizenship, to return to their countries of birth?” he told Turkish reporters on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Warsaw, quoted by the Hurriyet daily.

“When Turks went to Germany in 1963, no one asked whether they would or would not return to Turkey,” he said, referring to the Turkish so-called Gastarbeiter who helped Germany’s economic recovery after World War II.

He added: “There is no need to worry, this country has 79 million people living on 780,000 square kilometres of land. 

“Germany is half our size and has 85 million people,” he added, lightly overstating the German population.

“We are a country that can easily overcome [challenges].” 

Solution needed

The president even suggested that empty homes built by the state housing agency could be used to house Syrians.

“Most of these Syrians work illegally. 

“What we’re saying is, there needs to be a solution. Among these people, there are doctors, engineers, lawyers, health workers, teachers, all of these people can benefit our country: they can be given citizenship,” Erdogan added.

In January this year, Turkey allowed Syrian refugees to be given work permits but only 5,502 Syrians were granted such paperwork, according to Turkish media quoting labour ministry statistics.

The president’s comments come after Haberturk newspaper reported on Saturday that there were plans to give up to 300,000 Syrian refugees Turkish citizenship, targeting skilled individuals.

Soon after the report appeared, #suriyelilerehayir (“No to Syrians”) was the top trending topic on Twitter in Turkey.

On Saturday, a Syrian man and a Turkish teenager were killed after a fight between a group of Turks and Syrians in central Konya province in the latest violent incident highlighting the growing tension.

Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, warned that Erdogan’s plan would cheapen Turkish citizenship and cause ethnic conflict, saying “Turkish citizenship must be deserved and confirmed in good conscience.”

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, who is government spokesman, said after a Cabinet meeting Monday that work on the citizenship plan was in progress but had not been completed.

“Currently work continues on how those Syrians who will benefit Turkey, have no links to terrorism and can build a bridge between Turkey and Syria can become Turkish citizens.”

SEOUL — North Korea threatened Monday to take "physical action" after Washington and Seoul announced they would deploy a sophisticated US anti-missile defence system to counter the growing menace from Pyongyang.

Seoul and Washington had on Friday revealed their decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system in the South following recent North Korean missile and nuclear tests.

The two allies have not yet revealed exactly when and where the system, which fires projectiles to smash into enemy missiles, would be deployed but said they were in the final stage of selecting a potential venue.

"The DPRK will take a physical countre-action to thoroughly control THAAD... from the moment its location and place have been confirmed in South Korea," the artillery bureau of the North's military said in a statement, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

North Korea's military, which has "sufficient latest offensive strike means", will take "more merciless and powerful successive corresponding measures against the US keen to ignite a war by deploying THAAD", it said.

It also warned the South of "miserable self-destruction" as a consequence of deployment of the THAAD system.

"We once again warn the enemies that it is the steadfast will of the [Korean People's Army] to make merciless retaliatory strikes to reduce South Korea to a sea in flames, debris once an order is issued," the statement said.

Seoul denounced the "ridiculous threats" by the North, which had staged serious provocations including a nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February.

"North Korea must recognise who is threatening peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and first apologise for its provocations," defence ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told reporters.

Communications cut 

Also on Monday, the North cut all communications with the US through its office at the UN — a rare channel of communications between the two nations that do not have official diplomatic ties. 

The move was in protest at new US sanctions targeting leader Kim Jong-un for a long list of serious human rights abuses, the first sanctions that name the leader of the isolated state.

Pyongyang had earlier slammed the sanctions on Kim as a "declaration of war" and vowed to take strong retaliatory measures. 

Tensions are high since Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test in January, followed by a series of missile launches that analysts said showed the North was making progress towards being able to strike the US mainland.

Pyongyang also test-fired what appeared to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile a day after the THAAD announcement by Seoul and Washington, sparking swift international condemnation.

Saturday's launch followed Pyongyang's back-to-back tests of powerful new medium-range Musudan missiles on June 22 — theoretically capable of reaching US bases as far away as Guam.

The planned deployment of the powerful anti-missile system has angered the South's neighbours including China, which said Friday the move would "seriously damage" regional security in northeast Asia.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye however defended the move as a "purely defensive" action aimed at protecting the South.

"The international community will be aware that we have no intention to target or threaten another country... we are taking a purely defensive measure to protect our country and our people," Park said in a meeting with advisers.

She also urged support from South Koreans over the deployment of powerful weapon, in the face of growing protest in the areas said to be potential venues.

DALLAS — The US military veteran who fatally shot five Dallas police officers in a racially charged attack last week was plotting a larger assault, authorities said, disclosing how he had taunted negotiators and written on a wall in his own blood before being killed.

Micah Johnson, who had served with the US Army Reserve and had been deployed in Afghanistan, had been “disappointed” in his experience with the military, his mother told TheBlaze.com in an interview broadcast online on Monday.

“The military was not what Micah thought it would be,” Delphine Johnson, whose son killed by a police robot carrying a bomb at the end of his rampage on Thursday night, told The Blaze. “He was very disappointed. Very disappointed.” 

Johnson, a 25-year-old African-American, told police negotiators during an hours-long stand-off that he had been angered by a pair of incidents earlier in the week in which police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and St. Paul, Minnesota, killed black men and he had wanted to “kill white people” .

Those incidents, the latest in a series of high-profile and controversial killings of black men by police in cities including New York, Ferguson, Missouri, Chicago and Baltimore, sparked a renewed wave of protests over the weekend over race and justice.

Scores of people were arrested in Baton Rouge on Sunday after authorities warned that violence during street demonstrations over the fatal police shootings would not be tolerated.

Dallas Police Chief David Brown told CNN on Sunday that Johnson had improvised as he used “shoot-and-move” tactics to gun down officers during a demonstration on Thursday. It was the deadliest day for US law enforcement since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Brown said a search of Johnson’s home showed the gunman had practised using explosives, and that other evidence suggested he wanted to use them against law enforcement officers.

“We’re convinced that this suspect had other plans,” he said, adding that last week’s police shootings led Johnson to “fast-track” his attack.

Johnson’s military training helped him to shoot and move rapidly, “triangulating” his fire with multiple rounds so that police at first feared there were several shooters.

The US Department of Defence and a lawyer who had represented Johnson in the past did not return requests for information on his military history or the status of his discharge.

Johnson’s mother did not give details about why she felt he had been disappointed by the military. Several media organisations have reported that while Johnson was in Afghanistan from November 2013 to July 2014, a woman soldier in his unit accused him of sexual harassment.

Obama to attend memorial

Even as officials and activists condemned the shootings and mourned the slain officers in Dallas, hundreds of people were arrested on Saturday and Sunday as new protests against the use of deadly force by police flared in US cities.

Protesters faced off with police officers wearing gas masks on Sunday evening in Baton Rouge. Media, citing Baton Rouge police, reported that at least 48 people were taken into custody after demonstrators clashed with police following a peaceful march to the state capitol.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, 21 officers were injured on Saturday when they were pelted with rocks, bottles, construction material and fireworks.

Three countries have warned their citizens to stay on guard when visiting US cities rocked by the protests.

A candlelight vigil was set for 8pm on Monday in Dallas City Hall plaza. President Barack Obama was due to travel to the city on Tuesday to attend a memorial for the slain officers.

HORGOS, Serbia  — Exhausted but hopeful, hundreds of migrants defy summer heat in a makeshift camp on the Serbia-Hungary border, determined to reach the EU member nation despite tough new measures aimed at stopping them.

A few metres from the metal fence topped with barbed wire which marks the border, dozens of tents, many cobbled together from blankets and branches, offer the only shelter to some 600 migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

They wait near the Horgos-Roszke border post in hope of being let into Hungary’s transit zone to seek asylum, but that has become even more difficult since Budapest tightened its rules for asylum-seekers and decided to return all those caught within 8 kilometres of the border.

“As a result of new legislative measures in Hungary, which took effect on 5 July, the number of refugees and migrants on the Serbian side of the border has doubled over the last few days to above 1,300, the majority of them women and children,” the UN team in Serbia said in a statement Friday.

Some 40 kilometres west, another makeshift camp at the Kelebija border crossing is home to several hundred more migrants, while some 300 have taken shelter in a state-run reception centre in the nearby town of Subotica, double its capacity of 150.

Balkan route still exists

The numbers arriving in Serbia are well down from the 4,000 to 5,000 a day seen in 2015 and early 2016, after the so-called “Balkan route” to wealthy northern Europe was effectively shut down to migrants in March.

But Serbian authorities voiced alarm at the number of people still arriving in their country, saying that 102,000 migrants had been registered since the start of the year — more than 500 a day.

“That means that Western Balkans route still exists,” Serbia’s Labour Minister Aleksandar Vulin said on Friday, adding that “Serbia will not allow to be the space where migrants will crowd.” 

The UN has warned that the latest measures taken by Hungary — whose right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban has taken a tough line on Europe’s migrant crisis — “will further aggravate the situation”.

The UN said a total of only 30 asylum-seekers have been allowed to enter Hungary each day, while “hundreds more have had to wait for weeks out in the open in often desperate and inhumane conditions”.

Humanitarian organisations led by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) deliver aid to migrants, but sanitation conditions in the Horgos camp are extremely poor: there are few toilets and no bathrooms in the camp. The only water tap is mobbed by people trying to wash and do laundry.

Some of those in the camp have already tried to sneak across the border — unsuccessfully.

“I tried to enter Hungary illegally, there were 15 of us in a group, a smuggler cut the fence, we walked for about 30 minutes and than police caught us and sent back to Serbia,” a 23-year-old Afghan told AFP, asking not to be named due to fear for his family’s safety back in Kabul.

According to Hungarian Helsinki Committee, more than 17,000 irregular migrants have been apprehended by Hungarian authorities since the beginning of the year.

Some migrants are finding that even after shelling out huge sums to people smugglers, their dreams of reaching the EU to claim asylum are hitting a wall.

In Turkey “I paid 5,000 euros [$5,500] to go to Germany, but only made it to Bulgaria. There I paid 3,000 euros more to go to Austria, but only arrived to Serbia. Now I don’t have money any more,” 22-year-old Iranian Husein Apposi said.

WARSAW — Officially the talk at this week’s NATO summit in Warsaw was all about deterring a resurgent Russia, supporting Ukraine and Afghanistan, and protecting Baltic NATO members. But in the corridors, there was only one dominant anxiety — Brexit.

Britain’s referendum vote to leave the European Union has triggered uncertainty across the Atlantic and around the continent, which spilled over at the NATO event. Big time.

“We are at a NATO meeting but most of the discussions have not been about NATO issues, they have been about the outcome of the referendum and the consequences,” Britain’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said after a dinner with his 27 NATO counterparts.

Outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron, greeted with more sympathy than reproach over the result which prompted him to resign, took every opportunity to reassure allies that Britain would remain fully committed to European and international security even though it was leaving the EU.

“Britain is going to think through all the ways we can keep our strength and our power in the world. This is not an exercise of national vanity, this is all about Britain’s interests. It is perfectly possible to do that,” he told reporters on Saturday.

Indeed NATO officials said the British, who have Europe’s biggest defence budget, seemed at pains to compensate for Brexit by pledging more commitments to NATO operations.

Cameron also announced an early parliamentary vote on modernising Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent.

US President Barack Obama was keen to ensure Washington’s closest ally in Europe is not sidelined or punished by European partners as a result of a vote that he had warned against.

Obama quizzed the leaders of the EU’s two main institution, Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, in private talks about what trade terms Britain could expect and how soon a deal could be cut to reassure markets, officials present at the meeting said.

Quick settlement

“Obama was quite keen to push for a quick settlement of Brexit,” a European official said. “Both Tusk and Juncker took him on a pedagogic route and stressed it is important to keep the remaining 27 [EU states] united. If we go superfast, we could lose that unity.” 

For now, it is Britain holding up the launch of withdrawal negotiations, with Cameron leaving the decision on when to trigger the EU exit clause, starting a two-year divorce process, to his successor, who will not be chosen by the ruling Conservative Party until September.

White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said participants in the Obama-EU meeting had recognised “just how important it is that this be done in a way that not upset financial markets that not upset global economic stability”.

“It was clear from the meeting that this is not going to be done in a way that is punitive towards the United Kingdom but rather as a path to finding a new relationship,” he said.

EU, French and German officials have made clear that Britain will not be able to keep full access to Europe’s lucrative single market, notably for its big financial services sector, unless it accepts EU rules, including allowing free movement of EU workers. Both candidates to succeed Cameron have said they will restrict immigration.

The Americans, who are losing their strongest advocate inside EU councils, are not alone in fearing the consequences.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked Cameron in a private meeting who would argue for Turkey’s EU membership bid once Britain was gone, said a Turkish source. The answer — Italy and the Netherlands — did not seem much of a consolation.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, who treasures London’s forthright stance towards Russia and military support for the Baltic states, told reporters: “I hope that withdrawal from the EU will put even more pressure on Britain to be more active on security matters. I am sure that will happen.” 

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched a ballistic missile from a submarine, but it likely failed in its early stage, the latest in a string of tests that are part of efforts by the North to advance technology capable of delivering nuclear warheads, the US and South Korea said.

The US Strategic Command said that the missile was tracked Saturday over the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, where it apparently fell.

It was launched from a location near the North Korean coastal town of Sinpo, where analysts have previously detected efforts by the North to develop submarine-launched ballistic missile systems, said an official from Seoul’s defence ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity because of office rules.

South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said in a statement that it presumed the missile successfully ejected from the submarine’s launch tube, but failed in its early stage of flight. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said that the missile likely flew only a few kilometres before exploding in midair, but the defence ministry official couldn’t confirm the report.

North Korea acquiring the ability to launch missiles from submarines would be an alarming development for rivals and neighbours because missiles from submerged vessels are harder to detect in advance. While security experts say it’s unlikely that North Korea possesses an operational submarine capable of firing missiles, they acknowledge that the North is making progress on such technology.

North Korea already has a considerable arsenal of land-based ballistic missiles and is believed to be advancing its efforts to miniaturize nuclear warheads mounted on missiles through nuclear and rocket tests.

US Army Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, NATO’s top military commander, told reporters Saturday that North Korea’s latest missile test represents a serious threat, both to the region and the US

“With every launch, they’re getting better and they’re working out their problems,” said Scaparrotti, who until recently commanded US forces in South Korea.

North Korea last test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile in April, calling it as a success that strengthened its ability to attack enemies with “dagger of destruction”. The North also test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile on December 25, but that test was seen as a failure, the South’s joint chiefs of staff said. The North first claimed a successful submarine-launched missile test in May last year.

Saturday’s launch came a day after US and South Korean military officials said they were ready to deploy an advanced US missile defence system in South Korea to cope with North Korean threats.

DALLAS — President Barack Obama assured a shocked America Saturday that the black extremist who shot dead five cops in Dallas was a lone-wolf — and that the country can overcome its racial divisions, as the groundswell of anger over police brutality surged on.

Thousands of protesters marched in US cities overnight to demand justice for two African-Americans whose fatal shooting by police triggered the rampage in Dallas by an army vet bent on killing white officers in revenge.

The nightmare scenes in Texas — where the ambush turned a peaceful protest to horror — left many fearing a new, dark chapter in America's troubled race relations.

But as Dallas honoured its slain officers, Obama sought to cut short that narrative — saying Americans of all backgrounds were united in grief both at the recent fatal shooting of African-Americans and the murders in Dallas.

"I firmly believe that America is not as divided as some have suggested," Obama told a press conference at a NATO summit in Warsaw. "There is sorrow, there is anger, there is confusion... but there is unity."

"The demented individual who carried out the attacks in Dallas, he's no more representative of African-Americans than the shooter in Charleston was representative of white Americans," he said, referring to the murder of nine black worshippers at a church in South Carolina last year.

Dallas officials have now said they are certain the atrocity was the work of a lone shooter — 25-year-old Micah Johnson, killed in a showdown with police — and not a group of co-conspirators as initially feared.

"We believe now that the city is safe," Mayor Mike Rawlings told a news conference late Friday.

'Dangerous to be black' 

The Black Lives Matter activist movement which is spearheading months of nationwide protests over police brutality has demanded an end to violence — not an escalation.

There were nasty scenes in Phoenix, Arizona where police used pepper spray to disperse stone-throwing protesters. And in Rochester, New York, 74 people were arrested over a sit-in protest blocking a street.

But elsewhere — from Atlanta to Houston, New Orleans, Detroit or Baltimore — the marches passed off without trouble. 

Fresh protests were planned Saturday in at least half a dozen cities including Seattle, Indianapolis and what was dubbed a "Weekend of Rage" in Philadelphia.

Obama is to visit Dallas early next week in a bid to appease tensions and chart a way forward following the Dallas ambush, and the police shootings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota, captured in now-viral video footage.

Leaders from across the US spectrum have spoken out in a spirit of appeasement after a week of violence that graphically highlighted America's racial challenges.

They include prominent members of the Republican Party, which has often jumped to the defence of law enforcement in the face of accusations of racial bias.

"It is more dangerous to be black in America," Newt Gingrich, a Republican former House speaker tipped as a possible White House running mate for Donald Trump, said in an interview on Facebook Live.

"Sometimes it's difficult for whites to appreciate how real that is. It's an everyday danger."

Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio had a similar message, issuing a statement saying: "Those of us who are not African American will never fully understand the experience of being black in America." 

Police on edge 

"As Americans, we are wounded by all of these deaths," Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday, echoing Obama's message that black lives matter — and so do "blue" lives, those of police officers.

"It's on all of us to stand up, to speak out about disparities in our criminal justice system — just as it's on all of us to stand up for the police who protect us in our communities every day," he said. 

The Dallas ambush marked the single biggest loss of life for law enforcement in the United States since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Police were set further on edge as it emerged several officers had been targeted across the country from individuals apparently angered at the recent fatal shootings.

In Tennessee on Thursday a man opened fire on a hotel and a highway, killing a woman, grazing a police officer with a bullet and wounding several others.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said the gunman "may have targeted individuals and officers after being troubled by recent incidents involving African-Americans and law enforcement officers".

And in Racine, Wisconsin, police said a 43-year-old man was arrested over threatening social media posts that read: "I encourage every black man in America to strap up... I encourage every white officer to kiss there [sic] love ones goodbye."

Scouring social media 

Described to police as a "loner", the Dallas gunman served as a US Army reservist for six years, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan and had no criminal record.

While the White House has ruled out any link between Johnson and known "terrorist organisations", the gunman's Facebook page ties him to several radical black movements listed as hate groups.

He told negotiators before he died that he wanted to kill white cops in retaliation for the fatal police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota.

Police found bomb-making materials and a weapons cache at his home and were scouring his journal and social media posts to understand what drove him to mass murder.

SEOUL — North Korea on Saturday test-fired what appeared to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), Seoul's defence ministry said, a day after the US and South Korea decided to deploy an advanced missile defence system in the South.

The launch was apparently successful but the missile failed in the early stage of flight, the South Korean defence ministry said in a statement.

North Korea previously fired an SLBM on April 23 in a test hailed as an "eye-opening success" by leader Kim Jong-un, who at the time declared his country had the ability to strike Seoul and the US whenever it pleased.

Seoul said the North launched "what was believed to be an SLBM" from waters off the northeastern Port of Sinpo at around 11:30am (0230 GMT).

Yonhap news agency said the missile, launched from a Sinpo-class submarine, reached an altitude of around 10 kilometres before exploding in mid-air.

The US Strategic Command said the missile was tracked over the Sea of Japan, where initial indications suggested it fell. 

Seoul's defence ministry noted that "North Korea has been persistent in violating UN resolutions by launching ballistic missiles continuously".

It added that the North carried out back-to-back tests of a powerful new medium-range missile on June 22, which sparked swift international condemnation.

The two missiles achieved a significant increase in flight distance over previous failed launches and were believed to be of a much-hyped, intermediate-range Musudan missile — theoretically capable of reaching US bases as far away as Guam, the ministry said in June.

"We strongly condemn such provocative acts," it said Saturday.

NATO military head US General Curtis Scaparrotti, who was previously head of US forces in South Korea, said North Korea's latest actions showed progress.

"My reaction is that Kim Jung-un and his regime continues to test and work on their ballistic capability, and with every launch they are getting better, and they are working out their problems," he said at the NATO summit in Warsaw.

"They are doing it with a missile now, the Musudan variant, that has regional range and the very same things that he learns is going to be transferred to his intercontinental ballistic missile capability, so it's a serious threat."

The North American Aerospace Defence Command however said the launch did not pose a threat to North America.

"We strongly condemn this and North Korea's other recent missile tests, which violate UN Security Council Resolutions explicitly prohibiting North Korea's launches using ballistic missile technology," Pentagon spokesman Gary Ross said.

He urged the North "to refrain from actions that further raise tensions in the region".

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also played down the launch.

"We don't consider the missile launch to be anything that would immediately affect Japan's national security directly," he told public broadcaster NHK.

'Declaration of war' 

The new launch came after Seoul and Washington Friday announced their decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system, or THAAD, to the Korean peninsula and the North warned US sanctions against its leader amounted to a "declaration of war".

Tensions have soared since Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test in January, followed by a series of missile launches that analysts said show the North is making progress toward being able to strike the US mainland.

The plan to deploy the powerful THAAD system in South Korea has angered Beijing and Moscow, which both see it as a US bid to flex military muscle in the region.

News of the deployment came after the US on Wednesday placed "Supreme Leader" Kim on its sanctions blacklist for the first time, calling him directly responsible for a long list of serious human rights abuses.

Pyongyang lashed out at Washington on Friday, warning North Korea would instantly cut off all diplomatic channels with the US if the sanctions were not lifted.

The North's foreign ministry called the sanctions against Kim "the worst hostility and an open declaration of war", vowing to take "the toughest countermeasures to resolutely shatter the hostility of the US".

VIENNA — Austrians will again vote in a presidential election on October 2 after the far-right managed to get its narrow defeat from May declared null and void, the government said Tuesday.

The election gives Norbert Hofer, 45, of the opposition Freedom Party (FPOe) another shot at becoming the European Union’s first far-right anti-immigration president.

Hofer lost out to Alexander Van der Bellen, a 72-year-old Greens-backed independent, by just 31,000 votes in May.

The FPOe launched a legal challenge on June 8 alleging “terrifying” irregularities, and on July 1 Austria’s highest court upheld its challenge, ruling that Austrians must vote again.

The constitutional court found that procedural errors took place with almost 80,000 votes, meaning that they potentially could have been tampered with.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said afterwards he was “ashamed” by the scale of the “sloppiness” uncovered. Tabloid newspapers likened Austria to a “banana republic”.

Traditionally the president’s job has been largely ceremonial but Hofer has indicated that he would make use of hitherto untapped powers afforded under Austria’s constitution. 

Winning the Hofburg palace would also be of enormous symbolic importance for the FPOe two years before the next scheduled general elections, and be a fillip to other populist parties across Europe.

Experts say it is impossible to predict the election outcome, although some say that they expect a lower turnout, which could boost Hofer, who says Islam has no place in Austria.

Britain’s June 23 decision to leave the EU could make a possible Austrian exit an election issue, with Hofer pledging a referendum if the EU fails to reform, becomes more centralised or if Turkey joins.

Economics professor Van der Bellen, 72, is staunchly pro-EU, and surveys have shown a clear majority of Austrians in favour remaining in the bloc.