As EU election campaigns kick off in Germany, the Ukraine war, rise of far right are dominant themes

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As EU election campaigns kick off in Germany, the Ukraine war, rise of far right are dominant themes

2024-04-28 00:51 Last Updated At：01:00

BERLIN (AP) — Several German parties on Saturday kicked off their campaigns for the election of the European Parliament in June with a focus on issues such as the war in Ukraine and support by many European voters for far-right nationalist parties across the continent.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz ’s center-left Social Democrats, or SPD, launched their official campaign for the June 9 EU election with a rally in Hamburg, Scholz’s longtime home city.

Responding to many German voters' fears their country could be drawn into Ukraine's war with Russia if it's too proactive in its military support for the eastern European country, Scholz tried to alleviate such concerns.

The chancellor reiterated that Germany would continue to stand by Ukraine’s side under his leadership as the second-largest arms supplier after the U.S., but would avoid a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.

“To those who are worried, who are afraid, I say: you can rest assured that no matter how the debates go, the German Chancellor, the government I lead, will not abandon the course of prudence, the course of balanced action and ensuring peace and security in Europe," he said, according to German news agency dpa.

“Peace” is one of the central terms on the SPD’s election posters, on which Scholz and European election top candidate Katarina Barley can be seen together.

The European Parliament is the only publicly elected body in the European Union. The EU was created after World War II to foster peace, and now has 450 million people and the world’s second-largest economy. Far-right parties and their discourse are expected to weigh heavily on election campaigning.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, officially kicked off its campaign for the elections at an event in the southwestern town of Donaueschingen. The party’s top candidate in the elections, Maximilian Krah, canceled plans to speak after an assistant was arrested on suspicion of spying for China earlier this week.

Krah’s party has been polling strongly in Germany in recent months as discontent is high with Scholz’s three-party coalition government. It has long been criticized as having Russia-friendly positions.

However, the AfD's poll ratings have recently gone down compared with what they were before a media report in January about a plan by far-right politicians, including some by the AfD, to deport millions of people of non-German ancestry. The report triggered months of mass protests in the country against the rise of the far-right.

In Munich, the Christian Social Union, the smaller, Bavaria-only party in Germany’s main conservative opposition bloc, also held a convention ahead of the European Parliament election.

The head of the party and governor of Bavaria, Markus Soeder, sharply assailed the AfD for alleged links of some party members to Russia and China, dpa reported.

“Obviously, half of the AfD is involved in some kind of espionage activities or money transfers from other countries," Soeder told party members.

“The fact that active politicians are possibly being paid by Russia while at the same time calling for the end of NATO (makes them) nothing more than Kremlin servants, traitors to the fatherland and not patriots, dear friends. Away with them,” he added.

AfD leader Tino Chrupalla has called on his party to stand united following German media reports of possible involvement with Russia and China by leading AfD politicians, dpa reported.

“We will use the election campaign to show that we cannot be brought down so quickly and that we stand together as one,” said Chrupalla in Dnoaueschingen.

Referring to the recent accusations, he tried to depict his far-right party as a victim of smear campaigns.

“It has become adventurous to see the means by which our party is to be destroyed, how our party is to be damaged, how unrest and mistrust are to be created,” Chrupalla said.

Israel orders new evacuations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah as it prepares to expand operations

2024-05-11 17:09 Last Updated At：17:11

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel ordered new evacuations in Gaza's southern city of Rafah on Saturday, forcing tens of thousands more people to move as it prepares to expand its operation and adding that it is also moving into an area in northern Gaza where Hamas has regrouped.

Israel has now evacuated the eastern third of Rafah, pushing the operation to the edges of the heavily populated central area, although Israel’s move into the city has so far been short of the full-scale invasion that it planned.

The order comes in the face of heavy international opposition and criticism. U.S. President Joe Biden has already said he will not provide offensive weapons to Israel for Rafah, and on Friday the U.S. said there was “reasonable” evidence that Israel had breached international law protecting civilians in the way it conducted its war against Hamas — the strongest statement that the Biden administration has yet made on the matter.

The United Nations and other agencies have warned for weeks that an Israeli assault on Rafah, which borders Egypt near the main aid entry points, would cripple humanitarian operations and cause a disastrous surge in civilian casualties.

More than 1.4 million Palestinians — half of Gaza’s population — have been sheltering in Rafah, most after fleeing Israel’s offensives elsewhere. Considered the last refuge in the strip, the evacuations are forcing people to return north where areas are devastated by previous Israeli attacks. Aid agencies estimate that 110,000 had done so before Saturday's order that adds a further 40,000 to that number.

People have been displaced multiple times and there are few places left in the embattled strip to move to. Those fleeing fighting earlier this week erected new tent camps in the city of Khan Younis — which was half destroyed in an earlier Israeli offensive — and the city of Deir al-Balah, straining infrastructure.

Georgios Petropoulos, an official with the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Rafah, said humanitarian workers had no supplies to help them set up in new locations. “We simply have no tents, we have no blankets, no bedding, none of the items that you would expect a population on the move to be able to get from the humanitarian system,” he said.

Israeli troops have captured the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, forcing it to shut down. Rafah was the main point of entry for fuel.

The World Food Program has warned that it will run out of food for distribution in southern Gaza by Saturday, Petropoulos said. Aid groups have said fuel will also be depleted soon, forcing hospitals to shut down critical operations and bringing to a halt trucks delivering aid across south and central Gaza.

Heavy fighting is also underway in northern Gaza, where Hamas appeared to have once again regrouped in an area where Israel has already launched punishing assaults. Israeli Army spokesman Avichay Adraee told Palestinians in Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya cities and the surrounding areas to leave their homes and head to shelters in the west of Gaza City, warning that people were in “a dangerous combat zone” and that Israel was going to strike with “great force.”

Battles erupted this week in the Zeitoun area on the outskirts of Gaza City. Northern Gaza was the first target of the ground offensive. Israel said late last year that it had mostly dismantled Hamas in the area.

The United Nations agency supporting people in Gaza, known as UNRWA, said that some 300,000 people have been affected by evacuation orders in Rafah and Jabaliya, but the numbers could likely be more as these are very built-up areas.

“We’re extremely concerned that these evacuation orders have come both towards central Rafah and Jabaliya,” Louise Wateridge, UNRWA spokesperson in Rafah, told The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, strikes are continuing across Gaza.

At least 19 people, including eight women and eight children, were killed overnight in central Gaza in strikes that hit the areas of Zawaida, Maghazi and Deir al Balah, according to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah and an Associated Press journalist who counted the bodies.

Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives in Gaza have killed more than 34,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures.

Mednick reported from Tel Aviv and Magdy reported from Cairo

As EU election campaigns kick off in Germany, the Ukraine war, rise of far right are dominant themes

News

As EU election campaigns kick off in Germany, the Ukraine war, rise of far right are dominant themes

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