World

LONDON — Hundreds more homes risked being swamped by floods in southeast England on Tuesday after the River Thames burst its banks and one of the country’s busiest rail routes was severely disrupted.

Affluent towns and villages along the Thames to the west of London have been transformed into lagoons, and the government faced more criticism of a lack of preparedness after a month of floods misery across England.

More than 1,000 people have been forced to flee their homes this month following the wettest January since 1766, and the situation was set to worsen with heavy rain and storms on the way by Friday.

Flooding first hit the largely rural county of Somerset but has now engulfed towns and village along the swollen Thames, encroaching on London.

In a sign of the frustration, Defence Minister Philip Hammond was confronted by an angry resident in Wraysbury, a village beside the Thames where floodwaters have risen fast since the weekend.

Su Burrows, a volunteer flood warden, said the relief effort had been left to residents like her and pleaded with Hammond for military help to distribute sandbags.

“I’m sorry, I am going to get emotional. There are 100 people of this village currently working together, none of them agents, not one,” she told Hammond in the testy exchange on Sky News television.

“We have been working for 48 hours evacuating people, risking our own lives going into waters that would be over my head,” she said.

“What will it take for you to understand we are seriously in need?”

Hammond assured her that a combined military and police operation had been launched to deliver sandbags, and told her: “I thought they would be here by now.”

He said 1,600 armed forces personnel were on standby to assist.

Hammond earlier insisted that the government “has got a grip on this” but cautioned that authorities cannot “prevent the course of nature”.

He told BBC radio: “We are dealing with an enormous force of nature here, vast quantities of water, an unprecedented weather pattern and, while the authorities can and must do everything that is possible, there are some things I’m afraid that we just can’t do.”

Residents have complained that their vacant homes have been looted. Many houses in Wraysbury and neighbouring villages are worth over one million pounds (1.2 million euros, $1.65 million).

Insurers said overall claims had already exceeded £500 million and the bill would rise fast.

Tens of thousands of commuters had their journeys disrupted as services from London Paddington station to the key commuter town of Reading to the west were heavily disrupted along the waterlogged track.

On the southwest coast, Prince Minister David Cameron saw for himself the damage to the railway line at Dawlish in Devon, caused by massive waves crashing against the coastline.

Train services to southwest England have been cut off by the damage to the track.

Cameron warned it was “going to take time before we get things back to normal”.

“It is a huge challenge and we have had the wettest start to a year for 250 years, some of the most extreme weather we have seen in our country in decades,” he said.

GENEVA — Reeling Monday from a vote to cap EU immigration, Switzerland’s government and business community moved to limit the damage to trade ties with the big European bloc.

Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter played down talk of a “Black Sunday” in ties with Brussels, after 50.3 per cent of voters backed a referendum proposal to end a seven-year-old pact that gave equal footing to most EU citizens in the Swiss labour market.

“We need to avoid that kind of language,” he told reporters.

“Switzerland is not going to rip up its deal with the EU on freedom of movement,” he insisted.

Yet that assertion butted up against a so-called “guillotine” clause in a package of deals with EU that said that, if one deal is voided, the others collapse too.

The other deals have to do with issues such as trade between the EU members and non-member Switzerland.

Brussels says it will now scrutinise all EU-Swiss relations as a result of the vote.

The government opposed the “Stop Mass Immigration” proposal — masterminded by the rightwing populist Swiss People’s Party — but the people have the last word on a huge range of issues in the country’s direct democracy.

The party argues that with 80,000 EU citizens arriving per year — more than the 8,000 predicted before the rules were liberalised in 2007 — the nation of eight million people must apply the brakes.

It claims that EU migrants undercut Swiss workers’ salaries, and that overpopulation has driven up rents, stretched the health and education systems, and overloaded the road and rail networks.

While Switzerland has long had a sizable foreign population, over recent years the proportion has climbed from one-fifth to roughly a quarter.

The voted-in measure requires authorities to revive rules that fixed quotas per business sector for work permits that can be issued to EU citizens.

It sets a three-year deadline to renegotiate the labour market deal with Brussels. The existing accord remains in force in the meantime.

While holding out against EU membership, Switzerland has close ties with the 28-nation bloc with which it does the bulk of its trade.

Burkhalter was set to launch a Europe-wide diplomatic drive to explain the vote and seek a solution. Germany, his country’s top commercial partner, was scheduled as his first stop.

But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned that the result “is going to create plenty of problems for Switzerland in a host of areas”.

In France, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said “we will review our relations with Switzerland”.

A magnet for foreign workers

Foreign workers have long been drawn into Switzerland’s wealthy economy, which is this year expected to grow by 2.1 per cent, almost double the rate in the eurozone. Last year, it expanded by 1.9 per cent while the eurozone’s contracted by 0.4 per cent.

Swiss unemployment was 3.5 per cent in January, compared with 12.1 per cent in the eurozone.

The free labour market deal, fully in force since 2007, was part of a package signed in 1999 after five years of talks.

Most recent immigrants in Switzerland come from neighbouring Italy, Germany and France, as well as Portugal.

Switzerland’s business, industry, farm and hospital lobbies opposed the plan set out in the referendum.

“The approval of the ‘Stop Mass Immigration’ plan raises the spectre of a difficult future for those who work the land, but also for all business sectors that need labour and for the entire economy of the country,” Prometerre farming association said Monday.

But at banking giant UBS, chief economist Michael Kalt was sanguine.

“Nothing will change in the short term in Switzerland. The freedom of movement deal is still in force, and there’s a three-year deadline to put the quotas in place,” Kalt told AFP.

Despite the vote, the Swiss franc was unchanged on foreign exchange markets and Kalt did not foresee a direct economic impact.

“But there’s still an indirect risk due to the climate of political uncertainty in the country. Investors might now think twice before coming to Switzerland,” he noted.

Swiss employers’ federation chief Valentin Vogt said the ball was squarely in the political court.

“Business has to wait and see what the politicians are able to negotiate,” Vogt told AFP, adding that there “will be a relatively long period of uncertainty”.

In the event that the government fails to renegotiate the rules before the expiry of the three-year deadline, he predicted a “problem of unseen dimensions”.

BEIJING — China condemned the US Pacific air force commander Monday for “irresponsible remarks” after he warned it would be provocative if Beijing declared an air defence zone over the South China Sea.

The response ratchets up a war of words also involving the Philippines and Japan over territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas respectively.

Beijing set up an “air defence identification zone” (ADIZ) over the latter waters in November that included contested islands claimed by it and Tokyo, prompting condemnation by Washington.

Amid concerns Beijing may do the same to assert territorial claims in the South China Sea, US Pacific Air Force Commander Herbert Carlisle said on Sunday such a step would be “very provocative”.

At a regular press briefing on Monday, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying hit back, saying that “setting up an air defence identification zone is a reasonable right for any sovereign state to exercise”.

“Relevant officials should reflect carefully on what standing they have to make any irresponsible remarks about China’s exercising its own reasonable and legitimate rights.”

Pointing out that the US and other countries also have ADIZs, she asked, “Why can only China not [do the same]?”

“We hope that relevant countries and officials can stop making irresponsible comments,” she said.

Beijing requires aircraft flying through its ADIZ to identify themselves and maintain communication with Chinese authorities, but the zone is not a claim of sovereignty.

Carlisle also criticised recent actions by Manila and in particular Tokyo, saying that many countries needed to act to de-escalate tensions.

“Some of the things, in particular that have been done by Japan, they need to think hard about what is provocative to other nations,” he said in an interview in Singapore with the US news agency Bloomberg.

Last week Philippine President Benigno Aquino compared China’s efforts to seize disputed territories to Nazi Germany’s actions before World War II, and urged world leaders not to repeat the mistake of appeasement — comments Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei dismissed as “unreasonable”.

Meanwhile China and Japan have slammed one another over disputed islands, as well as Beijing’s grievances over Japan’s history of imperial aggression until its defeat in 1945.

Tensions spiked even further after Japan’s nationalistic Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in December visited the Yasukuni shrine, which commemorates Japan’s war dead, including a handful of war criminals executed at the end of World War II.

In opinion pieces in January, both countries’ ambassadors to the UK invoked the fictional evil wizard of the Harry Potter series, Voldemort, in accusing the other side of escalating the conflict.

On Friday Beijing had denounced a US official’s call for China to clarify or adjust its claims in the South China Sea, calling the remarks “irresponsible”.

Beijing claims the sea almost in its entirety, even areas a long way from its shoreline, but portions are also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

GENEVA — Switzerland voted Sunday to impose curbs on immigration by European Union citizens, in a nail-bitingly close referendum that threatened to ignite a row with Brussels.

Final results showed that 50.3 per cent of voters had backed the “Stop Mass Immigration” proposal pushed by right-wing populists, even though it could mean the demise of a raft of deals signed in 1999 with the EU including on the economic front.

“This is a turning point in our immigration policy,” said Toni Brunner, head of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which piloted the referendum campaign in a country that has steadfastly resisted joining the EU.

Switzerland’s seven-member multiparty government, the Federal Council, in which the SVP has one Cabinet post, had opposed the measure on the grounds that it could hit the economy and undermine the country’s credibility as a negotiating partner.

However in Switzerland, the people have the last word on a huge range of issues in referendums, and the government acknowledged that.

“The Federal Council will without delay begin the work needed to implement the decision of the people,” it said in a statement.

It added that it would examine over coming weeks how to “recast relations between Switzerland and the EU”, underlining that the current rules would remain in force until a new version has been drawn up.

The measure binds the government to renegotiate within three years a deal with Brussels that since 2007 has given most EU citizens free access to the country’s labour market.

It also means that Switzerland will add a clause to its constitution stating migration must serve the nation’s economic interests.

The SVP, which is hawkish about Swiss sovereignty, claims the country has been swamped by migrants.

It says that with 80,000 EU citizens arriving per year — rather than the 8,000 predicted before the rules were liberalised — it is time for the nation of eight million people to rein things in.

Proponents argued that EU citizens undercut Swiss workers, and that overpopulation has driven up rents, stretched the health and education systems, overloaded the road and rail networks, and eaten into the landscape due to housing construction.

In a nod towards such concerns, the government recently adopted measures making it harder for newly arrived EU citizens to apply for Swiss social security.

The measure will mean a return to the annual sector-by-sector limits on work permits for foreigners in force in the past.

It leaves it up to the authorities to set the numbers.

Opponents, also including lobby groups from across the economy, have said it would be foolhardy to revive the bureaucratic hurdles of the past.

They say restricting the hiring of EU citizens would act as a brake on the wealthy Swiss economy, which enjoys virtually full employment but has an ageing population, and could also hurt trade with a disgruntled EU.

A ‘signal’ for eurosceptics

Brussels warns that Switzerland cannot pick and choose from the binding package of deals negotiated painstakingly in the 1990s, seen as a way for the country to enjoy the benefits of access to the EU market without membership.

But the vote has also been watched closely by eurosceptics within the EU who want to rein in immigration among its member states, notably from eastern to western Europe.

“A signal from Switzerland is clearly going to be welcome,” SVP politician Oskar Freysinger told public broadcaster RTS.

Switzerland is ringed by EU member countries and does the bulk of its trade with the bloc.

The labour market accord is part of a raft of deals signed with the EU in 1999 after five years of talks, approved by Swiss voters in 2000 and phased in.

Critics of the migration control plan underline that the treaty with the EU already allowed Switzerland to reimpose temporary quotas — something it has deployed to control numbers of workers from the EU’s ex-communist member states.

But the quota clause expires this year.

Immigration and national identity are traditional political themes in a country with a long history of drawing foreign workers and some of Europe’s toughest rules for obtaining citizenship.

But over recent years, the proportion of foreigners has risen from around one-fifth of the population to roughly a quarter.

The majority of recent immigrants are from neighbouring Germany, Italy and France, as well as Portugal.

There was a clear division in the vote, with Switzerland’s German- and Italian-speaking cantons, in favour, and French-speaking regions voting against.

KIEV — An estimated 70,000 pro-Western Ukrainians thronged the heart of Kiev on Sunday vowing never to give up their drive to oust President Viktor Yanukovych for his alliance with old master Russia.

Wearing blue and yellow ribbons — the colours of both Ukraine and the European Union — the crowd received a religious blessing before opposition leaders took to a podium on Independence Square in a bid to ratchet up pressure on Yanukovych to appoint a new pro-Western government.

“None of the kidnappings and tortures have yielded any results,” said Igor Lutsenko, an activist who survived a severe beating after reportedly being abducted from hospital during deadly unrest in January.

The ex-Soviet nation of 46 million people has been in chaos since November when Yanukovych ditched an historic EU trade and political pact in favour of closer ties with Moscow, stunning pro-EU parts of the population and sparking violent protests.

Since then, what started out as a localised, domestic bout of unrest has snowballed into a titanic tussle for Ukraine’s future between Russia and the West, as demonstrations continued and spread to other parts of the country.

Opposition must be ‘resolved’

After initially ignoring protesters’ demands, Yanukovych has recently yielded ground by dismissing the government. But he also has to appease Russia, which has effectively frozen a sorely-needed $15-billion (11-billion-euro) bailout until the situation clears up.

Moscow has so far issued only one $3-billion instalment of the loan, which it promised to Yanukovych after he rejected the EU pact.

“People must stay on the streets until the end, otherwise there will be reprisals. And the opposition must be more resolved, not limit themselves to speeches on the podium. We need early presidential elections and a new constitution,” Anna Rebenok, a young secretary, told AFP on the square.

The protest is the 10th major demonstration since November, and the size of the crowds Sunday roughly equalled the turnout last weekend, although it was markedly lower than at the end of January, when violence left several people dead.

Protesters have set up row upon row of manned, grimy barricades on all four roads leading to the square, turning it into a pro-Western fortress that leaves riot police on the outside.

On an upmarket avenue near the square, protesters and curious onlookers had clambered onto one of these barricades made slippery by melting snow, facing off with dozens of riot police as a line of burnt vehicles stood in between.

One woman wore high-heels, the other carried her baby up, and many took pictures with their smartphones. Nearby, a man in army fatigues read Dan Brown’s “Angels & Demons”.

But this light atmosphere was darkened by the presence of men wearing bullet-proof vests, helmets and carrying batons — members of self-defence groups patrolling an avenue that was the scene of violent clashes in January.

People also stopped to take photos of a bullet hole in a building not far away, which activists say was fired during the clashes.

Alex Brideau, an analyst for political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, said the protesters’ actions were a “key wildcard in the political stand-off”, noting that their “continued frustration with the lack of progress on their demands” was a major factor behind the January violence.

On Sunday, former boxer turned opposition icon Vitali Klitschko set a challenge for Yanukovych, inviting him to come to the square and face his pro-EU foes.

“I am going to suggest to him that he come here on the Maidan [Independence Square] to hear what people say about him,” he told a cheering crowd.

The opposition wants lawmakers to slash presidential powers and return to a pre-2010 constitution that swayed the balance towards parliament.