World

MANCHESTER, United States — With all eyes on Donald Trump’s bid to lead Republicans back into the White House, Joe Biden’s reelection push has slipped under the radar in an unusual start to his campaign.

After a dispute with officials in New Hampshire over scheduling, he will not be on the ballot when the state’s primary kicks off the party’s nomination process on Tuesday.

The quarrel threatens to leave the president in a theoretical third place among Democrat candidates, behind little-known gelato magnate Dean Phillips and low-polling self-help author Marianne Williamson.

“He is taking the Granite State for granted... He should be campaigning in New Hampshire, he should be showing up in front of voters,” Phillips said at a debate with Williamson that Biden skipped.

“He should be on the ballot in New Hampshire, for goodness’ sake. He’s the president.”

Biden lost badly in overwhelmingly white New Hampshire in his bid for the Democratic nomination in 2020 and was only rescued by strong support from African Americans in the South Carolina primary.

Once he was elected he effectively dethroned New Hampshire, along with fellow early nominating state Iowa, instructing the party leadership to place South Carolina ahead of both.

Write his name in 

Iowa caved quietly but the move angered Democrats in New Hampshire, where first-in-the-nation status is a sacred cow, and the Republicans who control the state government in Concord ignored the directive in any case.

The Democratic National Committee responded by refusing to seat the state’s delegates at the summer nominating convention in Chicago — essentially denying New Hampshire its say.

Many grassroots Democrats worry that even though Biden is not on the ballot, his performance against Phillips and Williamson will be judged as a measure of his popularity.

So, despite their anger over Biden’s snub, local activists have determined to ensure his supporters know they can write his name on the ballot.

Beneath a wintry Manchester sky, 20 or so hardy Biden supporters swaddled like Arctic explorers braved the biting cold on Saturday to chant and wave banners that read: “Ask me about writing in Joe Biden.”

They were even rewarded by a magnanimous cameo from Phillips, as the entrepreneur and US congressman came out of his nearby campaign headquarters to hand out coffee to his shivering opponents.

“We’re all frustrated that [Biden’s] not on the ballot,” said Kathy Sullivan, 69, a retired lawyer from Manchester.

“But we put that aside because it’s really important that Joe Biden beats Donald Trump in November”.

Local frustration 

Dan Seferian, 62, a retired state government worker who had travelled with wife Colleen from Reading, Massachusetts, hit out at Williamson and Phillips for not getting behind the Biden reelection campaign.

“I think they should stand behind the party and the incumbent president. Phillips, he’s is a young man. He could run in 2028. He should have waited his turn,” he told AFP.

Some Biden aides have reportedly voiced concerns that the write-in effort could fall short, delivering an unnecessary defeat.

Democratic presidents seeking reelection typically garner around 80 per cent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, and party strategists believe Biden needs to win somewhere around 60 per cent to avoid humiliation.

“A win is a win, and I think we can deliver that,” said New Hampshire State Senator Donna Soucy, co-chair of the campaign.

“We’ve been working really hard on this write-in effort across the state, and I think voters today — those of us that are out here bearing the cold — are evidence of the enthusiasm for President Joe Biden.”

Soucy acknowledged the frustration with Biden but blamed party officials in Washington rather than the president himself.

“It’s a little more complicated to express our support in this election but we’re still going to do it because we’re devoted to our president,” she said.

MUNICH, Germany — Tens of thousands gathered across Germany again on Sunday to protest the far-right AfD, after it emerged that party members discussed mass deportation plans at a meeting of extremists.

The influx of demonstrators was so large in Munich that organisers were forced to cancel a planned march and ask people to disperse for safety reasons.

Organisers said some 50,000 people had turned up to the demonstration, twice as many as were registered for the event.

An earlier estimate announced to the crowd had put the figure at 200,000, according to an AFP journalist.

Police estimated a figure somewhere in the middle, around 100,000, according to the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Those who made it to the site of the planned protest carried signs saying "Nazis out" and "never again is now".

Some 250,000 people had already gathered in cities across the country on Saturday, according to ARD estimates.

Demonstrations were called in some 100 locations across Germany from Friday through the weekend, including in Munich, Berlin and cities in the east of the country where the AfD has its strongholds.

The wave of mobilisation against the far-right party was sparked by a January 10 report by investigative outlet Correctiv, which revealed that AfD members had discussed the expulsion of immigrants and “non-assimilated citizens” at a meeting with extremists.

Among the participants at the talks was Martin Sellner, a leader of Austria’s Identitarian Movement, which subscribes to the “great replacement” conspiracy theory that claims there is a plot by non-white migrants to replace Europe’s “native” white population.

News of the gathering sent shockwaves across Germany at a time when the AfD is soaring in opinion polls, just months ahead of three major regional elections in eastern Germany where their support is strongest.

The anti-immigration party confirmed the presence of its members at the meeting, but has denied taking on the “remigration” project championed by Sellner.

In Cologne, organisers estimated 70,000 people had joined a protest in the city on Sunday, while in Bremen, local police said 45,000 people had turned out in the centre.

Politicians, as well as church leaders and Bundesliga football managers have called on people to make a stand against the far-right.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who joined a demonstration last weekend, said any plan to expel immigrants or citizens alike amounted to “an attack against our democracy, and in turn, on all of us”.

He urged “all to take a stand — for cohesion, for tolerance, for our democratic Germany”.

‘Huge uncertainty’ 

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser went so far as to say in the newspapers of the Funke press group that the far-right meeting was reminiscent of “the horrible Wannsee conference”.

The protests against the far right could “restore trust in democratic conduct”, Josef Schuster, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told broadcaster Welt TV.

Protesters first gathered last weekend in Berlin and Potsdam, where the extremist meeting was held, and have gathered pace since.

On Saturday, around 35,000 people gathered in the centre of Frankfurt, responding to the call to “defend democracy” against the AfD.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Sunday the protestors “give us all courage”.

“They defend our republic and our constitution against its enemies,” Steinmeier said in a video message.

MOSCOW — A fire broke out early Sunday at a natural gas terminal in the Russian Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga, the regional governor said. The terminal, 110 kilometres  west of St Petersburg near the Estonian border, is operated by Novatek, Russia's largest independent natural gas producer.

"No casualties as a result of a fire at Novatek's terminal in the port of Ust-Luga. Personnel were evacuated," Aleksandr Drozdenko, governor of Leningrad Oblast, posted on Telegram along with a short video showing a massive fire and smoke at a chemical complex.

"A high alert regime has been introduced in the Kingiseppsky district [which includes the port]," he said, noting that the blaze was "localised".

The Russian ministry of emergency situations and local fire service were involved in fighting the blaze, he added.

Local official Yuri Zapalatski said the fire started just before 02:45am local time.

TASS news agency and other state media said the cause of the fire has not been announced.

Russia's Defence Ministry announced on Sunday that Ukrainian attacks overnight had been foiled but made no mention of any incident in the Leningrad region.

The Ria-Novosti agency said a 100 cubic metre container was on fire. The Ust-Luga complex processes natural gas condensate into naphtha, jet fuel and ship fuel components, according to Novatek's website. The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline leading to Germany, which has never entered into service after a sabotage raid in September 2022, starts from the town of Ust-Luga.

Meanwhile, at least 25 people were killed and 20 injured in a strike on a market in the Russian-held city of Donetsk in east Ukraine, the region's Moscow-installed chief said on Sunday.

"At the moment, information about 25 dead has been confirmed. At least 20 more people have been injured," Denis Pushilin said on Telegram.

The Ukrainian city fell under the control of pro-Moscow separatists in 2014 and is regularly targeted by Kyiv’s forces.

During the night of January 1 four people died and 13 were wounded, including journalists, in strikes on Donetsk, the Russian-controlled authorities said.

WASHINGTON — Unrelenting storms have pummelled the United States over the past week, leading to at least 50 weather-related deaths, officials and US media reported on Friday, as large swathes of the country brace for new winter wallops.

Frigid temperatures, snow gales and thick ice have caused fatal accidents on treacherous roadways, snarled air travel, closed schools and cut power to thousands, with millions of Americans under fresh weather warnings.

In Tennessee, 14 weather-related fatalities were confirmed by the south-eastern state’s health department, while five women who were returning home after making a pilgrimage to Mecca died on a Pennsylvania highway Tuesday in an accident with a tractor-trailer, according to police.

Five weather-related deaths occurred in Kentucky, Governor Andy Beshear said in a statement Friday, while in Oregon, three people were electrocuted when a live power line fell on their parked car during an ice storm Wednesday, the Portland fire department said.

The storm had left 75,000 Oregon customers without power as of Friday evening, according to Poweroutage.us, a tracking website, and the state’s governor has declared a state of emergency.

Deaths were also reported in Illinois, Kansas, New Hampshire, New York, Wisconsin and Washington state, where five people are believed to have succumbed to exposure, local media reported, citing Seattle officials.

Blizzard conditions hammered several parts of the country including the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountains and parts of New England — notably western New York, where meteorologists said about 1.9 metres of snow fell near Buffalo in a five-day span this week.

Frigid temperatures have also extended deep into the US South, a region not used to contending with such winter weather.

Parts of the country are bracing for more brutal conditions this weekend.

“Another Arctic blast will bring cold temperatures and dangerous wind chills to the Plains and the Mississippi Valley to the eastern US,” the National Weather Service said on Friday in its latest alert.

Air travel suffered significant setbacks Friday too, with more than 1,100 US flights cancelled and another 8,000 delayed, according to the website Flightaware.com

BUDAPEST — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday called for EU support to Ukraine to be reviewed annually, as difficult negotiations on the issue continue ahead of an EU summit.

“If we want to help Ukraine, let’s do it outside the EU-budget and on a yearly basis! This is the only democratic position just 5 months before the elections,” Orban wrote on X, referring to the European Parliament elections in June.

His proposal is in stark contrast with a recent appeal by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to provide Ukrainians with “predictable financing throughout 2024 and beyond” to help the country regain “its rightful territory”.

Orban is the only EU leader who has maintained close ties with the Kremlin following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In December, he vetoed 50 billion euros ($55 billion) in fresh EU aid for Ukraine and abstained from a decision to open talks with Kyiv on joining the bloc. 

European Union leaders are to hold an extraordinary summit on February 1 to try to find a compromise.

Ahead of this meeting, MEPs on Wednesday urged the European Commission and member states to stand firm against Hungary’s nationalist leader.

Orban criticised “liberal” politicians for wanting “to give money to Ukraine over four years”, claiming it would be “anti-democratic” to do so just ahead of the European Parliament vote.

Intense negotiations are under way in Brussels to find a compromise on Ukraine aid, but Budapest played down the chances of a breakthrough.

“The positions are far apart, so it is not certain that an agreement will be reached,” Orban’s Chief of Staff Gergely Gulyas said at a press conference on Thursday.

“It would not be a tragedy either”, he added, suggesting that “a 26-party solution” that did not involve Hungary was possible.

In return for lifting his veto, Orban demanded in mid-December the payment of all EU funds allocated to Hungary.

Billions of euros earmarked for Hungary remain frozen by Brussels pending progress on rule-of-law issues such as stricter conditions for awarding public contracts.

But Gulyas said there could be no compromise in “migration and child protection”, claiming the EU is engaging in a “raw power struggle” while having less respect for the law than the former Soviet Union.