Month: September 2023

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Robert Fico, who won Slovakia’s parliamentary election on Saturday by appealing to anti-western and pro-Russian sentiment, may lead the European Union nation for the fourth time after once again shifting political gears to appeal to a changing electorate.

During a three-decade career, Fico, 59, has skilfully weaved between pro-European mainstream and nationalistic anti-Brussels and anti-American positions while showing a willingness to change course depending on public opinion or changed political realities.

He has remained steady throughout his career, however, on promises to protect living standards of those left behind in a country where living standards for many are only slowly catching up to western Europe and where many hold relatively fond memories of a communist-era past.

“Fico is a technician of power, by far the best in Slovakia. He does not have a counterpart at the moment,” said sociologist Michal Vasecka, from the Bratislava Policy Institute.

“Fico is always following opinion polls, understands what is happening” in society.

Yet Fico has embraced more extreme positions over the past four years that include attacks on western allies, pledges to stop military support for Kyiv, criticism of Russian sanctions and threats to veto any future NATO invitation for Ukraine.

His campaign call of “Not a single round” for Ukraine appealed to voters in the nation of 5.5 million where only a minority in the NATO member country believe Russia is at fault for the Ukraine war.

Fico, who analysts see inspired by Hungary’s Viktor Orban, has said he has Slovak interests at heart and wants the war to end. Western allies and Ukraine say halting military aid to Kyiv would only help Russia.

“We see Viktor Orban as one of those European politicians who do not fear to openly defend the interests of Hungary and Hungarian people,” Fico told Reuters in emailed responses last month.

“He puts them in the first place. And that should be the role of an elected politician, to look after the interests of his voters and his country.”

Fico has also railed against the country’s liberal president, Zuzana Caputova, who sued him last month for spreading lies about her. He has labelled various opponents and NGO’s as following instructions of U.S financier George Soros.

Born to a working-class family, Fico graduated with a law degree in 1986 and joined the then-ruling Communist party.

After the 1989 fall of Communist rule, he worked as a government lawyer, won a seat in parliament under the renamed Communist party, and represented Slovakia at the European Court for Human Rights.

Fico has run SMER-Social Democracy party since 1999 after establishing it to oppose the reformist centre-right cabinet.

He parlayed dissatisfaction with liberal economic reforms into his first election victory in 2006.

But he also kept the nation on course to adopt the euro in 2009 despite forming a government with nationalists.

His second cabinet won after another centre-right coalition broke up two years later, and a tough stance against migrants helped him win re-election in 2016. After that win, he declared he wanted Slovakia as part of the EU’s core with France and Germany.

Those shifts in the past have given belief to foreign diplomats that he may find a pragmatic way with European and NATO partners again, especially given that a far-right party he may ally with under some scenarios did not win any seats on Saturday.

Fico’s political fortunes faded in 2018 when journalist Jan Kuciak, who was investigating high-level graft, and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova were killed by a contract killer.

This fuelled mass protests against graft and Fico was forced to resign. SMER lost power in a 2020 election to parties pledging to weed out corruption, and his party split.

Polling under 10%, Fico once sought to address voter fears during the coronavirus pandemic when he slammed government health measures.

“He became the most prominent political representative of a movement against face masks or vaccination,” said political analyst Grigorij Meseznikov.

At the same time he a tapped into dissatisfaction with bickering in the ruling government and raised doubts with its pro-western course, chiming with pro-Russian narratives on social networks that had spread across Slovakia.

Fico also swatted away accusations of graft that have dogged his party during his political career. He was charged with criminal conspiracy in 2022 to use police and tax information on political foes — charges he denied and which were later dropped.

Slovakia’s leftist former Prime Minister Robert Fico was on course to beat his progressive rival in a parliamentary election after a campaign in which he pledged to end military aid to Ukraine, partial results showed on Sunday.

With 90% of voting districts reporting in the Saturday election, Fico’s SMER-SSD party led with 23.69% of the vote. The liberal Progressive Slovakia (PS) followed with 15.68% and the HLAS party, which could become the kingmaker for forming the next government, was third with 15.43%.

Former Fico colleague and HLAS leader Peter Pellegrini kept his options open on future coalitions in televised comments as results became clearer.

A government led by Fico and his SMER-SSD party would see NATO member Slovakia joining Hungary in challenging the European Union’s consensus on support for Ukraine, just as the bloc looks to maintain unity in opposing Russia’s invasion.

“We do want to evaluate everything, so we will wait for the final count,” said Robert Kalinak, a SMER-SSD candidate and long-time Fico ally, adding the party would comment on the full results later on Sunday.

Exit polls had favoured PS as the winner, but projections from two Slovak news sites based on results with 90% of districts reporting pegged Fico as the winner with a margin of about 5 or 6 percentage points.

The PS party has advocated maintaining Slovakia’s strong backing for Ukraine, and would also likely follow a liberal line within the EU on issues such as majority voting to make the bloc more flexible, green policies and LGBT rights.

The first party across the line was expected to get a mandate from President Zuzana Caputova to lead talks on forming a parliamentary majority and, if successful, a government.

The final districts to report, from large cites, were expected to favour PS, but the gap behind Fico appeared too large to bridge.

PS leader Michal Simecka did not give up hope he could form the next government, depending how possible smaller allies end up.

“It remains our aim for Slovakia to have after this election a stable pro-European government that will care for the rule of law and which begins to solve and invest into areas key for our future,” Simecka, a former reporter and Oxford graduate, told supporters.

With no party projected to win an outright majority, forming a new government will hinge on results for more than half a dozen smaller parties, from libertarians to far-right extremists.

Any coalition that PS could potentially form would likely need to include more right-wing or socially conservative parties, which would blunt its socially progressive and EU-integration drive.

The incoming government in the nation of 5.5 million will take over a ballooning budget deficit forecast to be the highest in the euro zone.

Fico has ridden on dissatisfaction with a bickering centre-right coalition, whose government collapsed last year, triggering the election six months early. In campaigning, he stressed concern about a rise in the number of migrants passing through Slovakia to Western Europe.

Fico’s views reflect traditionally warm sentiments towards Russia among many Slovaks, which have gathered strength on social media since the Ukraine war started.

He has also pledged to end military supplies to Ukraine and strive for peace talks – a line close to that of Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orban, but rejected by Ukraine and its allies, who say this would only encourage Russia.

The far-right Republika party, which was seen as a possible ally for Fico but unacceptable to others, may not win any seats, partial results and media projections showed.

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California Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday vetoed a bill that would have paid unemployment benefits to striking workers, and had drawn strong support from labor unions and from his fellow Democrats in the state legislature.

In rejecting the bill, Newsom noted that the state’s unemployment trust fund is already nearing $20 billion in debt.

“Now is not the time to increase costs or incur this sizable debt,” he wrote in a message explaining his veto.

The Democratic-majority legislature passed the bill in September amid several high-profile strikes. Hollywood writers ended their nearly five-month walkout 12 days later but Hollywood actors remain out on the picket lines. Southern California hotel workers are also on strike.

The bill would have made workers out on strike for at least two weeks eligible for unemployment checks. The vast majority of states, with the exception of New York and New Jersey, do not offer unemployment benefits to striking workers.

Early along the disgusting road leading to the Trump presidency, before we fully awoke to what we were dealing with, Donald Trump discovered a new toy. He noticed that all he had to do was express his displeasure at something — his political opponent, an individual, the press, immigrants — and life would become dangerous for them.

Many in the press naively thought that, after he became President and he understood the consequences of his hateful rhetoric, Trump would stop. Remember when, in an early press conference, it was explained to Trump that using words like “Enemy of the People” to describe the press was extremely dangerous? Do you also recall his response? His response was to double down on it. He finally stopped using it because he got bored with it, not because he worried someone would get hurt. He simply found more effective ways to spread his hate,

We’ve come a long way since then and we’ve seen a lot of lives ruined. Heather Heyer is dead. Peter Strzok and Lisa Page have had their lives ruined. It’s still dangerous for Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss to be seen in public. House Republicans are seeking ways to indict Dr Anthony Fauchy. I don’t need to tell you what’s become of Hunter Biden’s life. All this hate and mayhem and devastation has been brought into human lives for the sake of one man. It simply defies belief.

Sometimes we forget these are human beings. In the ruin and depredation and criminal excesses of the Trump disaster it’s easy to lose touch with the chilling devastation Trump has brought to so many real human lives. But every time he uses his racist dog whistle or stochastically terrorises someone, real people suffer actual consequences.

The recent revelation that general Mark Milley has quietly sought protection for himself and his family in the wake of Trump calling for his death has been met with a collective shrug. It’s almost as if we’ve lost the ability to find again the horror, outrage and indignation that came so easily to us back when, in a fatwa, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini pronounced a sentence of death on the British-American novelist Salman Rushdie. Today, when Trump does it, we don’t even yawn.

Imagine if the Ayatollah Khomeini were alive today, living in America, under 91 criminal counts from four separate indictments in four different jurisdictions, and he tried to “fatwa” Salman Rushdie to death. He’d be in prison so fast his turban would spin. Right? But that’s what the former president of the United States has come to, issuing stochastic fatwas via “Truth” Social from his political mosque in Mar-a-Lago. He is a destroyer of people’s lives.

Well I say enough! I say it’s time to put the bastard in prison and damn the consequences. It’s time for Trump to learn that you can’t destroy someone’s life because you don’t like them or you disagree with them politically. Fiat justitia ruat caelum. Let justice be done though the heavens fall.

We now have the power to deliver that lesson to Trump right to his doorstep in the form of US Marshals armed with warrants and handcuffs. What the hell are we waiting for? Donald Trump has already violated the terms and conditions of his parole. It’s time to revoke that parole. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.

The post Enough! appeared first on Palmer Report.

New York City began drying out Saturday after being soaked by one of its wettest days in decades, as city dwellers dried out basements and traffic resumed on highways, railways and airports that were temporarily shuttered by Friday’s severe rainfall. 

Record rainfall — more than 8.65 inches (21.97 centimeters) — fell at John F. Kennedy International Airport, surpassing the record for any September day set during Hurricane Donna in 1960, the National Weather Service said. 

Parts of Brooklyn saw more than 7.25 inches (18.41 centimeters), with at least one spot recording 2.5 inches (6 centimeters) in a single hour, turning some streets into knee-deep canals and stranding drivers on highways. 

More rain was expected Saturday, but the worst was over, Governor Kathy Hochul said Saturday morning during a briefing at a transportation control center in Manhattan. 

What could have been a life-threatening event was averted, she said, because many people heeded early calls to stay put or head for higher ground before it was too late. 

As a result, Hochul said, “No lives were lost.” 

The governor said 28 people had to be rescued from the “raging water” by first responders in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island. 

“We’ve seen a whole lot of rainfall in a very short period of time,” Hochul said. “But the good news is that the storm will pass, and we should see some clearing of waterways today and tonight.” 

‘Like an ocean’

The deluge came two years after the remnants of Hurricane Ida dumped record-breaking rain on the Northeast and killed at least 13 people in New York City, mostly in flooded basement apartments. Although no deaths or severe injuries have been reported, Friday’s storm stirred frightening memories. 

Ida killed three of Joy Wong’s neighbors, including a toddler. And on Friday, water began lapping against the front door of her building in Woodside, Queens. 

“Outside was like a lake, like an ocean,” she said. 

Within minutes, water filled the building’s basement nearly to the ceiling. After the family’s deaths in 2021, the basement was turned into a recreation room. It is now destroyed. 

City officials received reports of six flooded basement apartments Friday, but all occupants got out safely. 

Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams declared states of emergency and urged people to stay put if possible. 

Climate change named culprit

The deluge also came less than three months after a storm caused deadly floods in New York’s Hudson Valley and swamped Vermont’s capital, Montpelier. 

Hochul blamed the frequency and intensity of storms on climate change. 

“This is the scale in terms of the water that dropped from the heavens during this torrential rain event that actually was the same as Hurricane Ida. The blessing is that we didn’t have the wind associated with it that accompanied Hurricane Ida. But I remember that event like it was yesterday,” the governor said Saturday. 

As the planet warms, storms are forming in a hotter atmosphere that can hold more moisture, making extreme rainfall more frequent, according to atmospheric scientists. 

For the most part, most New Yorkers returned to their usual weekend routines Saturday, strolling through still-damp pathways in Central Park and city sidewalks. 

Traffic was again flowing through highways that had been at a standstill just a day before, with water above car tires and forcing some drivers to abandon their vehicles. 

Flight delays at LaGuardia Airport could no longer be blamed on downpours and flooding, which forced the closure of one of the airport’s three terminals for several hours before resuming later that night. 

While skies remained overcast, one of the culprits for the severe weather — the remnants of Tropical Storm Ophelia — had moved on. 

Some service interruptions continued Saturday throughout the city’s subway system, which had been in complete chaos the day before because of flooded tracks. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Elite Ukrainian commandos on jet skis conducted a daring raid on a Russian electronic warfare station in Crimea, report says  Yahoo News

UK aims to offer military training inside Ukraine, minister says  Reuters