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BANSKA BYSTRICA, Slovakia — Authorities charged an alleged gunman on Thursday with the attempted murder of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, saying the shooting was sparked by the election win last month of a Fico ally.

The premier’s condition has stabilised but was still “very serious” a day after the violence that prompted deep worries of an escalation in the politically polarised nation. 

“This is a lone wolf whose actions were accelerated after the presidential elections since he was dissatisfied with its outcome,” Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said.

Slovak president-elect Peter Pellegrini, the Fico ally who won April’s vote, earlier Thursday called for calm, urging political parties to halt campaigning for June’s EU parliament election. 

The leader of the biggest opposition party, centrist Progressive Slovakia, announced his grouping had already done so.

Slovakia’s politics have been divided for years between pro-Europeans and nationalist-leaning camps, with the latest elections heavily influenced by disinformation and verbal attacks on social media.

Pellegrini, Fico’s ally who will assume office in June, said Slovakia should avoid “further confrontation” in a joint statement with outgoing President Zuzana Caputova.

The two politicians represent rival political camps but Caputova said they wanted “to send a signal of understanding” as she urged an end to “the vicious circle of hatred”.

Surgeons spent hours in the operating theatre, battling to save the 59-year-old leader after the shooting, which happened on Wednesday afternoon as Fico spoke to members of the public after a meeting.

Deputy prime minister Robert Kalinak said doctors stabilised Fico’s condition, “but unfortunately, his condition is still very serious as the injuries are complicated”.

Footage of events just after the shooting showed security agents grabbing a wounded Fico from the ground and hustling him into a black car. Other police handcuffed a man on the pavement nearby.

Fico, whose party won the general election last September, is a four-time prime minister and political veteran accused of swaying his country’s foreign policy in favour of the Kremlin.

Outside the hospital, shock mixed with outrage as residents of Banska Bystrica condemned the assault.

“I’m certainly afraid that such attacks will be repeated,” Nina Stevulova, a 18-year-old student, said.

“There’s no need to do such things. Feel free to throw a tomato or an egg at him or scold him that ‘You are a thief or a murderer’,” Karol Reichl, a former professional driver, told AFP.

“But don’t come with a gun and shoot,” the 69-year-old said.

Unprecedented attack 

Media reported that the suspected gunman was a 71-year-old writer.

The alleged suspect’s son told Slovak news site aktuality.sk he had “absolutely no idea what father was thinking, what he was planning, why it happened”.

Political analyst Miroslav Radek said the attack risked causing “further radicalisation of individuals and politicians in Slovakia”.

“I am afraid that this attack may not have been the last,” Radek told AFP.

The shooting came just weeks ahead of June’s European parliament elections in which far-right parties are expected to make gains. 

In the central Slovak city of Levice, where the alleged gunman came from, engineer Jaroslav Pirozak told AFP he was sad for Fico.

“But at the same time, he’s the one spreading hate and dividing the society, he’s the one sowing hatred,” the 34-year-old said.

As well as his current stint as premier, Fico headed the government in 2006-10 and 2012-18.

He was forced to resign in 2018 after an investigative journalist’s murder exposed high-level corruption and sparked anti-government sentiment.

But he came back again.

Since returning to office last October, Fico has made a string of remarks that have soured ties between Slovakia and neighbouring Ukraine after he questioned Ukraine’s sovereignty.

After he was elected, Slovakia stopped sending weapons to Ukraine, invaded by Russia in 2022.

He also sparked mass protests with controversial changes, including a media law that critics say will undermine the impartiality of public broadcasters.

At a press conference following the shooting, MP Lubos Blaha from Fico’s party lashed out against the prime minister’s critics.

“You, the liberal media, and progressive politicians are to blame. Robert Fico is fighting for his life because of your hatred,” Blaha said.

WASHINGTON — US President Joe Biden will try to shore up his support among vital Black voters with a days-long series of events starting on Thursday, including a visit to Martin Luther King’s former university.

Democrat Biden relied on African-American voters to help him beat Donald Trump in 2020, but some polls show they are increasingly deserting him ahead of November’s rematch with the Republican.

On Thursday Biden, 81, will mark the 70th anniversary of a famous US Supreme Court ruling that overturned racial school segregation by meeting with key figures in the case in the Oval Office.

They include Adrienne Jennings Bennett, one of the plaintiffs in the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education case that proved a milestone for the US civil rights movement, the White House said.

A day later, Biden will visit the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington to give remarks to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the judgement.

Later on Friday Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — the first Black, South Asian and female “veep” in US history — will meet leaders from nine historically Black sororities and fraternities. 

Biden would “honour the legacy of those who paved the way for progress and hard-fought rights for black Americans”, said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

“He will also highlight his vision for how we must continue to build on these freedoms,” added Jean-Pierre, who is the first Black person to serve in the role.

Poll blow for Biden

Then on Sunday Biden will address new students at the historically Black Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, whose most famous former student is civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

Biden has a bust of King in the Oval Office in a sign of his support for racial equality, which he frequently contrasts with what he says is racially insensitive and anti-immigrant language by his rival Trump. 

His visit to Morehouse is politically sensitive, however, as US campuses and graduation ceremonies have recently been disrupted by widespread protests against Biden’s support for Israel’s War in Gaza.

A senior White House official met students and faculty members at the college on Friday to discuss objections on campus to him delivering the so-called commencement address, NBC News reported.

Biden’s events reaching out to Black voters also come days after a New York Times/Siena poll showed that in addition to trailing Trump in several key battleground states, he is also losing ground with Black voters.

Trump is winning more than 20 per cent of Black voters in the poll — which would be the highest level of Black support for a Republican presidential candidate since the Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1964, the New York Times said.

A number of other polls have also shown Biden’s support lagging with Black voters.

By contrast in 2020, Black voters were overwhelmingly loyal to the Democratic Party, with 92 per cent voting for Biden and only 8 per cent for Trump, according to the Pew Research Centre.

BRATISLAVA — Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico was battling life-threatening wounds on Wednesday after officials said he was shot multiple times in an assassination attempt condemned by European leaders.

The Dennik N daily said its reporter in the central town of Handlova heard several shots fired and then saw security guards rushing to lift the premier off the ground and into a car.

The newspaper also reported that police had detained the suspected gunman.

"Today, after the government meeting in Handlova, there was an assassination attempt on the prime minister of the Slovak Republic, Robert Fico", the government said in a post on social media.

Fico, whose Smer-SD Party won the general election last September, is a four-time prime minister and a political veteran.

"He is currently being transported by helicopter to Banska Bystrica in a life-threatening condition, because it would take too long to get to Bratislava due to the necessity of an acute intervention," the government's statement added.

Fico was shot multiple times, said a post on his official Facebook page.

Handlova local hospital Director Marta Eckhardtova said "Fico was brought into our hospital and he was treated at our vascular surgery clinic." 

She was unable to describe his injuries.

It added that the chief of police and health ministry official would hold a press conference at 15:00 GMT.

Slovak President Zuzana Caputova said she was "utterly shocked by today's brutal and reckless attack on Slovakia's prime minister... which I condemn in [the] strongest possible terms". 

"I wish him a lot of strength in this critical moment and early recovery," she said on X, formerly Twitter. 

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala also called the news of the attack "shocking". 

“I hope the prime minister will get well as soon as possible. We must not tolerate violence, it must have no place in society,” he said on X.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said: “Robert, my thoughts are with you in this very difficult moment”.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on X he was “shocked to hear this awful news”.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda called for a “thorough investigation” and wished Fico “a fully recovery”. 

As well as his current stint as premier, Fico also headed the government in 2006-10 and 2012-18.

Since he was elected last October, Fico has made a string of remarks that have soured ties between Slovakia and neighbouring Ukraine.

He has notably questioned Ukraine’s sovereignty and called for a compromise with Russia.

After he was elected, Slovakia stopped sending weapons to Ukraine. He pledged during the electoral campaign not to provide Kyiv with “a single bullet”. 

He also sparked mass protests with controversial changes, including a media law that critics say will undermine the impartiality of public television and radio.

At a press conference following the shooting, MP Lubos Blaha from Fico’s Smer party lashed out against his critics.

“You, the liberal media, and progressive politicians are to blame. Robert Fico is fighting for his life because of your hatred,” Blaha said.

FORT MCMURRAY, Canada — Thousands of residents of Fort McMurray, a city in Canada’s major oil-producing region, fled as an out-of-control wildfire drew near and thick smoke filled the skies.

Shifting winds gusting to 40 kilometers per hour fanned the flames, scorching 9,600 hectares of surrounding forests as it advanced to within 13 kilometres of the city in the western province of Alberta that had been gutted by wildfires in 2016 — one of the biggest disasters in the nation’s history.

Four neighbourhoods were ordered to evacuate and by mid-afternoon, a highway south was jammed with cars and trucks fleeing to safety against a backdrop of plumes of dark smoke glowing orange in the distance. 

Resident Ashley Russell was packed and ready to leave on a moment’s notice, as the rest of the city was put on alert. “I’m experiencing a lot of anxiety. In 2016, my place burned down, so I’m reliving that,” she told AFP.

“We’re seeing extreme fire behaviour,” Alberta Wildfire spokeswoman Josee St-Onge told a news conference. 

“Smoke columns are developing and the skies are covered in smoke,” she said. “Firefighters have been pulled from the fire line for safety reasons.”

Officials said the fire had grown significantly in multiple directions since Monday.

Regional fire chief Jody Butz, however, assured residents that crews were prepared, having cleared brush and erected fire barriers over the winter, and that water bombers were now dropping retardant to slow its advance.

“We are confident that we have the resources to defend these areas, but we need people out of harm’s way,” he said.

Fears of 2016 repeat 

In 2016, the entire city with a population of more than 90,000 was evacuated while production of 1 million barrels of oil per day — almost one third of Canada’s total output at the time — stopped. Canada is the world’s fourth largest producer and a leading exporter of crude to the United States.

More than 2,500 homes and businesses were razed, with damage assessed at more than Can$3.7 billion. Thousands of residents never returned to the city.

Authorities have been bracing for another possibly devastating wildfire season, after Canada’s worst ever last year that saw flames burning from coast to coast and charring more than 15 million hectares of land.

Dozens of zombie fires sustained by layers of dried peat continued to smolder beneath the surface of the boreal forest through the winter, which was warmer than usual and left a smaller snowpack, while drought has persisted across the region.

In British Columbia, thousands of residents of remote towns remained under evacuation orders, while CN railway on Tuesday suspended rail service between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson, and north of High Level in Alberta “due to wildfire activity”.

Rob Fraser, the mayor of Fort Nelson told AFP: “It’s cool, it’s overcast and the wind is just very slight. If everything continues like this, you know, we just might corral this beast.”

Air quality warnings, meanwhile, have been issued across Canada and the United States as smoke from the Canadian wildfires wafted as far south as the US state of Oklahoma and over to Quebec province in the east.

KYIV, Ukraine — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured Ukraine on Tuesday that US military aid was "on its way", as Russia claimed a "deep" advance into Ukrainian defensive lines in a new offensive.

Blinken's trip comes just weeks after the US Congress finally approved a $61-billion financial aid package for Ukraine after months of political wrangling, unlocking much-needed arms for the country's stretched troops.

"The assistance is now on its way. Some of it has already arrived. More will be arriving," Blinken told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

"That's going to make a real difference against the ongoing Russian aggression on the battlefield," he said.

Zelensky thanked Washington for the aid, saying it was "crucial" and added that it was "important to get it as quickly as possible".

Zelensky said air defence was the "biggest problem" for Ukraine and requested two Patriot batteries for the Kharkiv region, where Russian forces have been advancing and pounding villages all along the border since Friday.

Blinken was on his fourth visit to Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

After meeting Zelensky, he met Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Veterano, a pizzeria set up by a military veteran in the city centre.

Russia's surprise ground offensive in the Kharkiv region has forced thousands to evacuate and pushed Kyiv to mobilise troop reinforcements.

Ukraine said several civilians have been killed by Russian fire in the region, including on Tuesday two aged 80 and 83.

The governor of the Kharkiv region said 15 people were wounded by Russian strikes in the border territory's largest city, also called Kharkiv.

One civilian, a 47-year-old man, was also reported killed in the city of Nikopol in southern Ukraine.

In a call to Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the "intensification of Russian strikes" and the Kharkiv offensive.

In Moscow, Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday its forces had captured another village in the Kharkiv region.

“Units of the North group of troops liberated the village of Bugruvatka in the Kharkiv region and advanced deep into the enemy defence,” the ministry said in a statement.

The advance is the latest in a string of tactical successes for Russia on the battlefield this year after initial setbacks in a conflict that Russia hoped would be wrapped up in a matter of days.

Russia’s incoming defence minister, economist Andrei Belousov, said that Moscow’s priority was to secure victory on the battlefield against Ukraine while minimising human losses.

“The key task, of course, remains achieving victory and ensuring the military-political goals of the special military operation, set by the president, are achieved,” Belousov told a session of the Russian parliament on Tuesday.

“In this respect, I want to especially emphasise ‘with minimal human losses’.”

The Ukrainian army has acknowledged Russian successes in Kharkiv but Zelensky has stressed that reinforcements have been sent there and Ukrainian “counterattacks are ongoing”.

At a checkpoint outside the city of Kharkiv, a Ukrainian official said Russian forces had entered Ukraine through “villages on the very border, which was complicated for us to defend”.

Russian forces “are on high ground and are shelling us from there”, added Volodymyr Usov, head of the Kharkiv district military administration.

The head of Ukraine’s security council, Oleksandr Lytvynenko, said Moscow had massively upped its troop deployment for the new offensive in the Kharkiv region.

In an interview this week with AFP, he said Russia had sent more than 30,000 troops over Russia’s border.

But he added that there was no threat of an assault on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

Usov, the Kharkiv district head, estimated there were still around 300 residents left in Lyptsi, a border village under Russian bombardment.

“They are shelling the villages, firing on everything they can,” Sergiy Kryvetchenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian military administration in Lyptsi, told AFP.

Guided aerial bombs are falling “like rain” said one serviceman, who was resting after fending off Russian assaults in Lyptsi.

LONDON — UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak insisted on Monday that his beleaguered governing Conservative Party can win a general election despite polls consistently indicating the opposite, but refused to set a date for the vote.

Sunak mounted a defence of the Tories’ 14 years in power and claimed that Britain would be less safe under Keir Starmer’s Labour opposition, which is widely tipped to come back to power.

The UK leader said he was “confident” his party would win a fifth consecutive term but conceded that Labour, out of government since 2010, may ultimately inflict defeat.

“I’m clear-eyed enough to admit that, yes, maybe they can depress their way to victory,” Sunak said in a speech in central London, accusing Labour of “scaremongering” and “gaslighting”.

“But I don’t think it will work because at heart we are a nation of optimists,” he added, before warning of several dangers himself.

Sunak cited Russia’s war in Europe, Iran’s firing of missiles in the Middle East and the uncertainty posed by artificial intelligence as threats that needed to be tackled.

He also referred to “authoritarian” states including China and North Korea, Scottish nationalists who want to break away from the United Kingdom and “cancel culture”.

“Our country stands at a crossroads,” he said.

“I’m convinced that the next few years will be some of the most dangerous, yet most transformational, our country has ever known,” Sunak added.

‘Storms ahead’ 

Sunak’s speech at the right-wing Policy Exchange think-tank is a clear pre-election pitch to voters, as Labour increasingly puts flesh on the bones of its policies before a manifesto launch.

Its repeated attacks on Starmer also gave an indication of a potentially bitter and personal election battle ahead.

But Sunak refused again to be drawn on when he would call the vote, repeating his well-trodden line that he was aiming for the second half of the year.

He can go to the polls no later than January 2025.

Labour has enjoyed double-digit leads over the Tories in surveys since the disastrous short-lived premiership of Liz Truss that ended in October 2022, and inflicted heavy losses on the Conservatives in local elections earlier this month.

The opposition — overhauled since Starmer took over in the aftermath of Boris Johnson’s election landslide for the Conservatives in 2019 — has pledged to run the economy responsibly and hopes to match Sunak’s recent pledge to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP.

But the prime minister argued that only his party can protect Britons’ safety and financial security, even after a decline in defence spending from 2010 to 2016 and the financial meltdown caused by Truss.

“There are storms ahead. The dangers are all too real,” said Sunak, a former finance minister.

“But Britain can feel proud again. Britain can feel confident again. Because with bold action and a clear plan, we can and we will create a secure future.”

Asked about Sunak’s speech, Starmer said security would be the “first priority” of a Labour administration.

He said the choice at the ballot box would be between “a changed Labour Party that puts the country first and party second” and “the chaos and division” of the Conservatives.

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil — Brazil’s flooded south remained paralysed on Monday, with schools and health centres shut and streets cut off as overflowing rivers showed no sign of receding after torrential rains in a disaster that has left 147 dead.

More than 2 million people have been affected by the flooding in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, where towns and part of the regional capital have been under water for about two weeks after being battered by heavy rains.

Regional capital Porto Alegre’s international airport remains under water, as do agricultural fields and roads, while more than 360,000 students were not in school.

The latest official figures showed that 127 people were missing, while more than 600,000 had been forced to abandon their homes as rivers burst their banks.

The floods are the latest weather extreme to hit Brazil, after record-breaking forest fires, unprecedented heat waves and drought, and experts have attributed the disaster to climate change exacerbated by the El Nino phenomenon.

Rains eased on Monday, but fresh downpours over the weekend in the region had led rivers to swell once again, raising fears of further flooding and damage.

“It is not the moment to return to homes in risk zones,” state governor Eduardo Leite told a press conference.

‘Endless drama’ 

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva put off a state visit to Chile this week to focus on the disaster.

The presidency said the trip was delayed due to the “need to monitor the situation linked to flooding in Rio Grande do Sul and coordinate aid to the affected population and reconstruction efforts”.

The Guaiba, an estuary bordering Porto Alegre which overflows when waters hit three metres, reached a historic high of 5.3 metres last week.

Authorities have warned it could still swell to a new record of 5.6 metres after the weekend deluge.

“We are experiencing the aftermath of an endless drama here in Rio Grande do Sul,” the state’s deputy governor Gabriel Souza told the Globo broadcaster.

In Porto Alegre, a busting state capital of 1.4 million inhabitants, aid operations continued to deliver food, clean water, medicine and clothing to residents.

This is “the largest logistics operation in the history of the state”, said Leite.

Among those seriously affected are about 80 Indigenous communities, according to the Indigenous Missionary Council of Brazil.

The government said Monday it had delivered food kits and drinking water for 240 Indigenous families in the Taquari Valley.

The heavy rains in southern Brazil have also led to the flooding of the Uruguay River which flows between Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay.

Argentine authorities reported some 600 people had to be evacuated in the riverside city of Concordia.

Concordia Mayor Francisco Azcue said waters were expected to continue to rise in the coming days.

“Obviously we are going to have more evacuees,” he said.