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Sunday, October 1, 2023

Slovakia May Stop Backing Ukraine War After Populist Election Win

A potential new crack in Europe's support for the war in Ukraine emerged Saturday, as a populist left-wing party took the most votes in Slovakia's national election.

With 98% of the districts having reported their results, the populist Smer (or "Direction Social Democracy") party had racked up 23.4% of the votes, well ahead of the 16.9% received by the newcomer, liberal Progressive Slovakia (PS) party, Reuters reports. The leftist Hlas ("Voice") party took 15%. The populist party solidly outperformed opinion polls leading up to the election, which showed a neck-and-neck race.

Smer is led by former Prime Minister Robert Fico, who has been pointed in his determination to pursue peace in Ukraine rather than continuing to pour weapons into an increasingly hopeless campaign to evict Russian forces from the country's eastern provinces.

“Peace is the only solution," said Fico in early September. "I refuse to get criticized and labeled as a warmonger just for talking about peace, whereas those who support war and killing are being called peace activists. We have it all messed up in our heads. We will not send a single bullet to Ukraine from the state stocks.”

Fico has also said the Ukraine war didn't start in 2022: “I say it loud and clear and will do so: The war in Ukraine didn’t start yesterday or last year. It began in 2014, when the Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started to murder the Russian citizens in Donbas and Luhansk."

A March opinion poll found that 51% of Slovakians think the West and/or Ukraine are responsible for the conflict. Half also said the United States posed a security threat to their country.

Fico's opposition to arming Ukraine and his support for an immediate, negotiated peace echoes the stance of neighboring Hungary, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Both countries have borders with Ukraine.

To this point, Slovakia has been an eager military supplier of Ukraine, having donated its entire fleet of 13 Soviet-era MiG-29 fighters, as well as an S-300 air defense missile system. The aircraft donation left Slovakia without any fighter jets; fellow NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic are securing the country's airspace.

Aside from ending military aid to Ukraine, Fico has also pledged to veto Ukrainian membership in NATO and economic sanctions against Russia. Slovakians tend to identify with their Russian slavonic "cousins."

Fico, who was was prime minister from 2006 to 2010 and 2012 to 2018, has also sounded alarms over a rising tide of migrants traversing Slovakia en route to Western Europe.

Though Fico's Smer party took the most votes, it fell well short of an outright majority, which means it will have to form a governing coalition with other parties. Promisingly, the third-place Hlas party is lead by Fico's former deputy, Peter Bellegrini. Expect Washington to take a keen, active interest in the negotiations.

As the election tally is finalized, observers are watching two parties on the cusp of the 5% threshold required to earn representation: the ultranationalist Slovak National Party, and the People's Party Our Slovakia, whose members cherish Slovakia's Nazi-Germany-subservient World War II government and use Nazi salutes. Both are potential members of a Fico-led coalition.

Earlier on Saturday, Slovakian progressives and their international backers were crowing on social media as exit polls indicated the progressives would win:

Wow! If this holds its an amazing outcome - for @progresivne_sk & @MSimecka
- but mainly for #Slovakia 🇸🇰
- wait for the final result & expect bumps on the road to any coalition but WOW!
- liberal, pro-NATO, pro-EU, pro-🇺🇦Progressive Slovakia are in the lead. 🎇🎆🎇
(Exit poll) pic.twitter.com/rWHgMP0nkJ
— Benjamin Tallis 🇺🇦 (@bctallis) September 30, 2023

However, when the votes were counted, their premature parade was rained upon. Aside from its allegiance to the US-led proxy war in Ukraine, the PS party is also defined by its support of green energy and LGBT-backing policies. Fico, on the other hand, has said adoption of children by same-sex couples -- which is illegal in Slovakia -- is a "perversion." He also opposes same-sex marriage.

A Fico campaign ad mocked the PS party's LGBT-catering stances, depicting a character similar to PS party leader Michal Simecka wrapped in a rainbow flag as he decides which school bathroom to use.

"While the progressive Misho (Michal) decides whether he is a boy, a girl or a helicopter today, for us gender ideology in schools is unacceptable and marriage is a unique union between a man and a woman," Mico says as he grins into the camera.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/slovakia-may-stop-backing-ukraine-war-after-populist-election-win

Chicago housing hundreds of migrants at O’Hare airport, raising safety, public health concerns

Hidden behind a heavy black curtain in one of the nation’s busiest airports is Chicago’s unsettling response to a growing population of asylum seekers arriving by plane.

Hundreds of migrants, from babies to the elderly, live inside a shuttle bus center at O’Hare International Airport’s Terminal 1.

They sleep on cardboard pads on the floor and share airport bathrooms. A private firm monitors their movements.

Like New York and other cities, Chicago has struggled to house asylum seekers, slowly moving people out of temporary spaces and into shelters and, in the near future, tents.

But Chicago’s use of airports is unusual, having been rejected elsewhere, and highlights the city’s haphazard response to the crisis.

The practice also has raised concerns about safety and the treatment of people fleeing violence and poverty.

“It was supposed to be a stop-and-go place,” said Vianney Marzullo, one of the few volunteers at O’Hare. “It’s very concerning. It is not just a safety matter, but a public health matter.”

Some migrants stay at O’Hare for weeks, then are moved to police stations or manage to get into the few shelters available.

Within weeks, Chicago plans to roll out winterized tents, something New York has done.

Up to 500 people have lived at O’Hare simultaneously in a space far smaller than a city block, shrouded by a curtain fastened shut with staples.

Their movements are monitored by a private company whose staff control who enters and exits the curtain.

Sickness spreads quickly. The staffing company provides limited first aid and calls ambulances. A volunteer team of doctors visited once over the summer and their supplies were decimated.

Chicago offers meals, but only at specific times and many foods are unfamiliar to the new arrivals.

While migrants closer to Chicago’s core have access to a strong network of volunteers, food and clothing donations at O’Hare are limited, due to airport security concerns.

Most of the 14,000 immigrants who have arrived in Chicago during the last year have come from Texas, largely under the direction of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

As more migrants arrived, the city’s existing services were strained.

Officials struggled to find longer-term housing solutions while saying the city needed more help from the state and federal governments. Brandon Johnson took office in May and has proposed tents.

Many migrants are from Venezuela, where a political, social and economic crisis in the past decade has pushed millions of people into poverty.

At least 7.3 million have left, with many risking an often-harrowing route to the United States.

Maria Daniela Sanchez Valera, 26, who passed through Panama’s dangerous, jungle-clad Darien Gap with her 2-year-old daughter, arrived at O’Hare days ago.

She fled her native Venezuela five years ago for Peru, where her daughter was born. After her daughter’s father was killed, she left.

“We come here with the intention of working, not with the intention of being given everything,” she said.

A recent Biden Administration plan to offer temporary legal status status, and the ability to work, to Venezuelans doesn’t apply to her because she arrived after the deadline.

She tries to keep the toddler entertained with walks around the terminal.

On a recent day, a staff member told Valera to make her daughter stop running or else they would be kicked out.

The company, Favorite Healthcare Staffing, said employees treat new arrivals with respect and it would investigate further.

Valera said she wanted to take a train from the airport, but she didn’t have the roughly $5 subway fare.

“There are many people who have been able to get out and they say that in the garbage dumps you can get good clothes for the children,” she added.

Chicago began using the city’s two international airports as temporary shelters as the number of migrants arriving by plane increased.

Nearly 3,000 people who have arrived by plane since June have sought shelter.

A handful live at Midway International Airport. When they need clothes or services, they walk 2 miles (3 kilometers) to a police station, volunteers say.

At O’Hare, migrants have spread out beyond the curtain for more space, sleeping along windows. Travelers wheeling suitcases and airline staff catching buses whiz by, some stopping to take pictures.

Chicago officials acknowledge using O’Hare isn’t ideal, but say there aren’t other options with a crisis they inherited.

Cristina Pacione-Zayas, first deputy chief of staff, said Chicago is slowly building capacity to house people. The city has added 15 shelters since May and resettled about 3,000 people.

They serve 190,000 meals weekly and partner with groups for medical care, but still rely heavily on volunteers to fill gaps.

“Is it perfect? No. But what we have done is stood in our values to ensure that we live up to operationalizing a sanctuary city,” she said. “We will continue to work on it, but we are holding the line.”

Other cities oppose using airports.

At Boston’s Logan International Airport, migrants who arrive overnight are given cots for a few hours before being sent elsewhere.

Massport spokeswoman Jennifer Mehigan said Logan “is not the appropriate place” to stay.

When reports of a possible federal plan to use the Atlantic City International Airport in New Jersey as a shelter surfaced recently, elected officials blasted the idea.

“It is such a preposterous solution to the problems we have,” said Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson. “Who is going to secure these people? Who is going to feed them? Who is going to educate them? We really don’t have any infrastructure to take care of them.”

Jhonatan Gelvez, a 21-year-old from Colombia, didn’t plan to stay at O’Hare long, as he has a friend in Chicago.

He teared up when he talked of being separated from his fiancé en route to the U.S. Among his few belongings was a silver, anchor-shaped necklace she gave him.

“Just by arriving here I feel peace,” he said. “It is a country with many opportunities. … I am very grateful.

Yoli Cordova, 42, arrived at O’Hare days ago. She left Venezuela because she was discriminated against for her sexual orientation.

She cried as she expressed relief at leaving but remained worried about her daughters in Venezuela.

“I don’t know if they’re going to help me here,” Cordova said. “I really don’t know what to do, where to go.”

https://nypost.com/2023/10/01/chicago-is-keeping-hundreds-of-migrants-at-airports-while-waiting-on-shelters-and-tents/

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Sunday, October 1, 2023

Slovakia May Stop Backing Ukraine War After Populist Election Win

Chicago housing hundreds of migrants at O’Hare airport, raising safety, public health concerns