World

MOSCOW — Russia cemented control over neighbouring Georgia's rebel Abkhazia region Monday with a "strategic partnership" deal that the Georgian government said amounts to annexation.

President Vladimir Putin signed the "alliance and strategic partnership" agreement which formalises Russian dominance of the tiny separatist region's foreign policy, armed forces and economy, as well as placing Russian guards on the border with the rest of Georgia.

The signature "is a step towards a de facto annexation of the Abkhazia region by the Russian Federation" and a "violation of the principles of Georgia's territorial integrity and international law", Georgian Foreign Minister Tamar Beruchashvili told journalists.

"The Georgian government condemns the illegal step."

More than 30,000 opposition supporters protested in Tbilisi this month against the planned deal, which comes amid a diplomatic firestorm over Russia's involvement in a separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea last March.

Abkhaz opposition parties have also voiced fears that the agreement undermines their tiny would-be country's bid for real independence.

Some provisions of the agreement "may have undesirable consequences for the sovereignty" of Abkhazia, the Council of Abkhazia's Public Chamber said on Friday.

The deal that Putin signed after talks with Abkhaz President Raul Khadzhimba in the Black Sea resort of Sochi says Moscow and Sukhumi will unite armed forces and jointly guard Abkhazia's border with Georgia.

It also creates a shared law enforcement system and a common economic and customs space.

The agreement, which says it is prompted by "new global and regional challenges and threats", specifies that any attack against Abkhazia will be viewed as aggression against Russia, which will provide military aid.

Putin also said that Russia would give Abkhazia five billion rubles ($111 million) in 2015.

"We have set new tasks and long-range goals. They are backed up with serious financing," Putin said, quoted by Interfax news agency.

Abkhazia broke away from Georgia following a civil war in the 1990s. The war between Moscow-backed separatists and Tbilisi forced some 250,000 residents to flee their homes, most of them ethnic Georgians.

Russian troops are stationed in the region and it is heavily dependent on Russian aid.

Russia officially recognised Abkhazia's independence along with that of fellow breakaway region of South Ossetia after a five-day war with Georgia in 2008.

But only a handful of other countries recognise the regions' independence.

Abkhazia is a lush sun-drenched coastal strip wedged between the Black Sea and the Caucasus mountains that is still visited by Russian holidaymakers.

KHOST, Afghanistan — About 50 people were killed and 60 others wounded when a suicide blast ripped through large crowds gathered to watch a volleyball game in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, officials said.

The attack, the deadliest blast in Afghanistan since 2011, struck during a tournament between three local teams in Paktika province, a volatile region bordering Pakistan.

"The suicide attacker was on a motorcycle, he detonated himself in the middle of a volleyball match," Attaullah Fazli, deputy governor of Paktika, told AFP.

"A lot of people including some provincial officials and the police chief were there. About 50 people have been killed, and 60 injured, a lot of them seriously."

The blast in Yahya Khail district of Paktika erupted at about 5:00pm (1230 GMT) when hundreds of people were cheering on a match, provincial spokesman Mukhlis Afghan told AFP.

"The scale of the attack and its aftermath is shocking," he said. "We have asked Kabul to send us helicopters to take some of the critically wounded for treatment."

President Ashraf Ghani, who came to power in September, swiftly condemned the attack, describing it as "inhumane and un-Islamic".

"This kind of brutal killing of civilians can not be justified," he said in a statement.

There was no immediate response from the Taliban insurgents, who are responsible for many of the attacks across Afghanistan.

Paktika was also struck by a massive suicide blast in July, when a bomber driving a truck packed with explosives killed at least 41 people at a busy market in Urgun district.

A suicide bombing at a mosque in the northern province of Faryab in October 2012 killed 42 people, while another suicide blast at a shrine in Kabul on the Shiite holy day of Ashura in December 2011 killed 80.

US troops exit 

Sunday's attack occurred on the same day that the lower house of parliament approved agreements to allow about 12,500 NATO-led troops to stay on next year as the Afghan army and police struggle to hold back the Taliban.

US-led NATO combat operations will finish at the end of this year, but the Taliban have launched a series of offensives that have severely tested Afghan soldiers and police.

The new NATO mission — named Resolute Support — will focus on supporting the Afghan forces, in parallel with US counter-terrorism operations.

But fears are growing that Afghanistan could tip into a cycle of violence as the US military presence declines, with security forces already suffering huge casualties on the battlefield.

The army and police have suffered 4,634 fatalities in combat to the beginning of November this year, on top of 4,350 killed during 2013, according to the US military.

On Friday The New York Times reported that President Barack Obama had extended the remit of those US troops set to remain in Afghanistan next year.

They will be able to carry out missions against the Taliban and other groups that threaten them, the paper said.

The new order also allows air support — from US jets, bombers and drones — for Afghan combat missions.

The newspaper said the changes were in part related to the rapid advance of jihadist Islamic State militants in Iraq, which has sparked criticism that Obama pulled troops out without a fully-prepared Iraqi military in place.

WASHINGTON — The US military has enlisted a new germ-killing weapon in the fight against Ebola — a four-wheeled robot that can disinfect a room in minutes with pulses of ultraviolet light.

Resembling a taller, skinnier version of R2D2 from "Star Wars", the robots are operating at three military medical centres and about 250 other American hospitals are using the machines to destroy pathogens.

Sending out 1.5 pulses per second in a 3-metre radius, the robots use xenon, a non-toxic gas, to create the ultraviolet rays that eradicate germs faster and more thoroughly than any human cleaning crew, doctors and officials said.

"The robot is currently part of our Ebola mitigation strategy, but will be used across the hospital to combat a variety of other pathogens known to cause hospital acquired infections," said Alton Dunham, a spokesman for Langley Air Force Base, which acquired one of the robots in October.

Although ultraviolet light has been around for decades as a tool for cleaning, the new robot uses environmentally-friendly xenon instead of mercury-vapor bulbs that are slower-acting and toxic, according to Texas-based Xenex Disinfection Service, which manufactures the machines.

Hauling contaminated waste

Researchers say the disinfecting bot is just one example of how autonomous devices could play a crucial role in the fight against the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

At a conference this month organised by the White House linking up universities across the country, scientists and aid workers concluded that robots could help haul contaminated waste or enable health workers to remotely interview patients.

The General Dynamics Land Systems MUTT, a robotic wagon, was cited as a machine already in existence that could be deployed now to help health workers in West Africa, said Robin Murphy, a professor of computer science and engineering at Texas A&M University.

"The major takeaway was that robots do exist that could be immediately repurposed now to protect Ebola health workers," Murphy said in a report on the November 7 brainstorming session.

But any robots sent over would have to fit into the wider medical effort, take the local culture into account and avoid imposing radical new procedures on stressed health workers, she said.

As a virus that spreads through direct human contact, Ebola demands medical equipment and methods that shield a doctor or a nurse from the risk of infection.

Like surgical masks, robots can offer a way for patients to be treated and monitored while reducing the risk of infection for the physician.

"Robots could reduce the number of times humans handle contaminated waste or the number of people needed to carry a litter," Murphy said.

But a clinic in Liberia or Sierra Leone presents challenges to robots designed in more pristine, Western settings, and Wi-Fi access, ample electrical power, batteries and flat floor surfaces may not be readily available in areas where the robots are most needed.

Infections at hospitals 

There are no immediate plans to send the Xenex robot to West Africa but concern over the Ebola outbreak has underscored the wider problem of hospital-associated infections in the United States and other Western countries.

Hundreds of patients in America die every year of infections contracted during a hospital stay, including from Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, according to government statistics.

Dozens of the hospitals that have used the Xenex robot have reported a reduction in hospital infections, according to Melinda Hart, a spokeswoman for the robot company.

The robot's ultraviolet light can disinfect surfaces and hidden areas that even the most diligent human cleaner cannot reach.

"The robot is able to eliminate the risk of human error," said Hart.

Given widespread public fears over Ebola, the Xenex robots are a reassuring presence to patients and medical workers, said Colonel Wayne Pritt, commander of the US Air Force 633rd medical group at the Langley base.

"The Xenex device adds a level of surety to the process of disinfection that wasn't possible before. With Ebola, that translates to increased confidence in staff and patients alike," Pritt said.

MONROVIA — Liberia has set itself the target of halting Ebola by the end of the year, but the battle is far from over in the rest of west Africa.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim warned Friday that despite gains against the deadly epidemic the new outbreak in Mali was "very worrisome".

"We must get to zero cases. Ebola is not a disease where you can leave a few cases and say you've done enough," he said at a summit on the epidemic with the leaders of the United Nations, World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Monetary Fund.

The head of the UN Ebola mission warned that the world was "far, far away" from beating the deadly outbreak and said a huge increase in aid was needed to fight the virus in Africa.

"There is a long battle ahead of us," Anthony Banbury told the UN Security Council, which met two months after it declared the outbreak a threat to world security.

After the death on Monday of a Sierra Leonean doctor evacuated to the United States, a member of the Cuban medical contingent in Sierra Leone tested positive and was transferred Thursday to Geneva.

A Spanish Doctors Without Borders volunteer, who injured himself while treating an Ebola patient in Mali, was repatriated as a precaution on Friday.

The outbreak — by far the worst on record of the tropical fever, which emerged almost a year ago in southern Guinea — has killed around 5,500 out of 15,351 cases according to the WHO.

Wake-up call 

Experts acknowledge that real toll of infections and deaths could be up to three times higher than the official figures.

More than 99 per cent of cases and deaths are concentrated in three countries.

The WHO says the epidemic in Guinea and Liberia "is due to intense transmission in some key provinces" while transmission is "intense throughout northern and western Sierra Leone".

UNICEF said on Friday it was stepping up efforts to help other west African countries at risk prepare for potential outbreaks, given "new Ebola cases in Mali and a continuing surge in Sierra Leone".

"The new cases in Mali remind us that no country in the region is immune to Ebola," regional director Manuel Fontaine said in a statement.

Mali, the newest country to be caught up in the epidemic, recorded its seventh Ebola death on Thursday.

The contagion entered the country in October when a two-year-old girl who had entered from Guinea died in the western town of Kayes, without spreading the virus any further.

Three weeks later an Islamic cleric, also from Guinea, died the capital Bamako, transmitting the virus, directly or indirectly, to at least five people, all of whom are now also dead.

More than 300 people are under surveillance as a result of that chain of transmission, including two new suspected cases currently undergoing tests, according to Mali's health ministry.

Nelson Mandela's widow Graca Machel Friday said the Ebola epidemic should be a wake-up call for African leaders, saying it had exposed the "extreme weakness" of African institutions.

'Not out of woods' 

After months of delays, personnel and aid are flowing into the region from across the world.

A first group of 30 volunteers from Britain's state National Health Service were to depart Saturday for Sierra Leone where they will work on British-built treatment centres around the west African country.

Liberia — host to 2,200 United States troops and, since a week ago, 160 Chinese military doctors — has had much reason for optimism, reporting a sharp decline in new cases in recent weeks.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has tentatively welcomed the gains, banging the drum of a "national goal of zero new cases by Christmas" whenever the occasion fits.

In a sign of life returning to normal, the election commission announced on Thursday the launch of the campaign for nationwide senatorial polls, set for December 16 after a delay of two months.

The "Karel Doorman", a Dutch vessel loaded with 160 vehicles, a mobile lab and more than 1,000 tonnes of medical equipment from nine European countries, arrived on Friday in Conakry.

It was in Freetown on Thursday and concludes its mission in Monrovia on Saturday.

French President Francois Hollande said on Friday he would travel next week to Conakry, where his country is at the forefront of the fight against Ebola, and confirmed a team of four experts had been sent to Mali.

President Barack Obama hailed the "real impact" of US efforts in Liberia on Tuesday but warned that the fight to stem the contagion was far from over.

"As long as the outbreak continues to rage in the three countries in west Africa — Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea — this is still going to be a danger, not just for America, but for the entire world," he said before meeting with his Ebola response team.

"We are nowhere near out of the woods yet in west Africa."

The US is offering a temporary haven to citizens from the three countries, protecting them from deportation back home.

KIEV — Russia on Saturday accused the West of seeking regime change in Moscow, raising tensions over the Ukraine conflict in the worst crisis in relations since the end of the Cold War.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke out against Western sanctions on Russia after US Vice President Joe Biden hinted Friday at possible further measures over Moscow's "unacceptable" role in the former Soviet republic.

Kiev's defence minister charged Saturday that there were 7,500 Russian troops in eastern Ukraine, although Russia denies claims that it provides military support to pro-Moscow separatists battling government forces.

"The West is showing unambiguously that they do not want to force [Russia] to change policy. They want to achieve a change of regime," Lavrov said in Moscow.

"Now public figures in Western countries are saying that it's necessary to introduce sanctions that would destroy the economy and rouse public protests," he added in comments cited by the state-run TASS news agency.

The United States and European Union have imposed several rounds of sanctions on Moscow over Ukraine, targeting the key energy, defence and finance sectors. As a result, the ruble has lost just under a third of its value against the euro since the start of the year.

In Kiev Friday, Biden accused Russia of failing to honour a peace agreement signed in September, which included a now tattered ceasefire for eastern Ukraine.

"So long as that continues, Russia will face rising costs, greater isolation," he added.

Some 4,300 people have been killed in the conflict in seven months, according to the United Nations, including 298 who died when Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down in July.

Nearly 1,000 people have died since the ceasefire came into effect.

NATO membership 

'science fiction' 

Lavrov's comments came after Ukraine's Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak claimed Russia had thousands of troops in the east and vowed that the cash-strapped country would boost its military capacity.

"The presence of 7,500 representatives of Russian armed forces in Ukraine destabilises the situation and prevents us from stabilising it," Poltorak said.

A European government source speaking on condition of anonymity put the number of Russian tanks in eastern Ukraine at 140, highlighting "pressure" on the port city of Mariupol.

Seizing Mariupol would be vital to any separatist plan to create a land corridor between the Russian border and Crimea, a region which Russia annexed from Ukraine earlier this year.

Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said it did not have clear figures to corroborate that number but pointed to the presence of a range of other military hardware as well.

Ukraine's new coalition declared Friday that joining NATO was a priority, stipulating that a law be passed by the end of the year confirming the intention to push for membership.

The five-party coalition, agreed on Friday after October elections, features the groupings of President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and former premier Yulia Tymoshenko.

But experts play down Ukraine's chances of joining NATO anytime soon.

"The idea of the alliance accepting a country in armed conflict with Russia is science fiction," said Vasyl Filipchuk, a former senior Ukrainian official who is chairman of the International Centre for Policy Studies in Kiev.

NATO last week warned of a "very serious build-up" of Russian troops, artillery and air defence systems inside Ukraine and on the Russian side of the border.

In the latest batch of US assistance to Ukraine, three radars designed to detect incoming mortar fire were delivered Friday following Biden's visit, with a total of 20 arriving in the next few weeks.

The United States has so far ruled out providing weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, approving only "non-lethal" assistance such as radars, night vision goggles and body armour.

Ukraine's head of security operations in the east said that 20 units of Russian "military hardware" had crossed the border Saturday, adding that they were en route to the rebel stronghold of Lugansk.

STOCKHOLM — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday lost his appeal against a Swedish arrest warrant over alleged sex crimes, the latest setback in a four-year legal battle.

The 43-year-old Australian has been holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London for two years to avoid extradition to Sweden.

Swedish prosecutors want to question him about accusations of rape and sexual molestation brought against him by two women in their 30s when he visited the country in 2010.

He denies the allegations, and his supporters claim the case is politically motivated.

The Swedish court of appeal said it rejected Assange's appeal for a detention order issued by a Stockholm city court to be revoked.

"In making this assessment, account must be taken of the fact that Julian Assange is suspected of crimes of a relatively serious nature," the court ruling said.

"Moreover, there is a great risk that he will flee and thereby evade legal proceedings if the detention order is set aside."

Assange's lawyer said he would appeal to the Swedish supreme court.

The Australian was ordered "detained in absence" by a Swedish district court in 2010 and a previous application to drop the arrest warrant was dismissed in July.

A European arrest warrant has also been issued to support the Swedish move and British police have been on guard outside the Ecuador embassy in London to arrest him should he step outside.

In August, Assange said he would leave "soon", amid reports that he was suffering from a heart condition and other ailments.

'Can leave embassy' 

Assange had called on Swedish prosecutors to travel to London to question him or, alternatively, to do so by video link.

The court said Thursday that prosecutors believed "interviews must take place here in Sweden in view of the nature of the crimes... and the fact that a possible trial requires him to be in Sweden," dismissing Assange's claim that he is effectively under house arrest.

"The fact is that Julian Assange can leave the embassy if he so wishes. This fact means that the restriction of his freedom cannot be equated with a deprivation of liberty."

Assange fears extradition to Sweden could lead to him being transferred to the United States to face trial over WikiLeaks' publication of vast amounts of classified US military and diplomatic documents.

"We're sure the law is on our side and it's just a question of time before the Swedish legal system has to throw in the towel," his lawyer Per Samuelsson told AFP.

"You cannot require him to leave the embassy at the cost of giving up political asylum, running the risk of winding up in jail in the United States," he said, adding that Assange planned to appeal.

"The whole case in Sweden is extremely politicised."

In 2010, WikiLeaks began publishing 250,000 American diplomatic cables and 500,000 classified military reports, covering both American diplomacy and the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In August of that year, Assange travelled to Stockholm amid rumours that he considered moving the WikiLeaks servers to the country.

Since then his supporters have claimed that the case was politically motivated and that Sweden would bow to US pressure, citing earlier cases of renditions of suspected terrorists following the 9/11 attacks.

Swedish prosecutors have replied that the idea was "far-fetched" and that no arrest warrant for Assange has been issued by US authorities.

KIEV — When Igor Romanenko's friend suggested heading to a gathering on Kiev's Independence Square a year ago Friday, he had no idea he was about to witness the birth of a movement that would change his country forever.

The sandy-haired film director was angry and disappointed at the announcement that then-president Viktor Yanukovych had turned his back on a landmark deal with the European Union in favour of closer ties with Russia.

Like the few hundred others who met there spontaneously that drizzly night of November 21, he remembered Ukraine's Orange Revolution a decade earlier and hoped the government might change its mind on the EU agreement. But he never expected what came next.

"If someone had told me then that in some four months Yanukovych would not be in the country, I wouldn't have believed them," Romanenko told AFP.

In the year since that gathering on the Maidan square, Ukraine has hurtled through a chain reaction of historic upheavals — a revolution, foreign invasion and war which has killed more than 4,100 people in the east of the country.

More lies ahead and the Maidan protesters insist their fight against entrenched corruption has a long way to go yet.

After that first night on the Maidan — the Ukrainian word for square — the protests quickly swelled to tens of thousands.

Brutal police efforts to disperse the demonstrators with batons and teargas backfired and the crowds only got bigger. People quickly started pitching tents.

Soon they were demanding complete change and it looked like they had got it when Yanukovych fled to Russia in February after a crackdown on protesters left more than 100 people dead but failed to end the demonstrations.

Far from the being the end, however, that turned out to be only the beginning of even more upheaval.

In March, Russian troops seized Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. The following month, Kiev launched military operations against Kremlin-backed rebels who seized a string of towns and cities in the east that descended into a bloody war that has splintered the country.

Now Russia and the West are locked in a bitter feud over the crisis that has many warning of a new Cold War which could freeze relations for years.

Despite all the tumult, those involved in that first demonstration say they have no regrets about the events they help set in motion, arguing it was not the protests that caused the ensuing chaos but Moscow's reaction to them.

"Of course I would go again," Romanenko said.

"Like saying that the killing of Franz Ferdinand caused the First World War, saying that Maidan is the reason why there is war is not correct. It was used as a pretext by Russia to act."

A lifetime or a second? 

The tents on Maidan disappeared over the summer. In their place stand posters urging support for the Ukrainian army battling pro-Russian rebels in the east and pictures of those killed in the protests.

Looking around the empty square, Liza Tatarinova shook her head at the memory of all that has happened since she stood sipping tea and catching up with friends at that first demonstration a year ago.

"On the one hand it seems like a whole lifetime has passed, but on the other hand life now is so intense that it's difficult to imagine that a year has passed already," the TV producer said.

"With all these events, with all the grief and joy, with all that, it seems like a blink of an eye."

Tatarinova, 34, said the system that they kicked out at was rotten and, although the economic situation has deteriorated, the protest movement had changed Ukraine forever.

"We understand that the economy is bad and we're living worse than before but if you talk about the country as a whole, as a state and identity, then it didn't just get better, it was created," she added.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko this month enshrined November 21 as a Day of Dignity and Freedom and a series of memorial ceremonies are planned on Friday.

But although Ukraine's new pro-Western leaders eventually signed the agreement with the EU, activists say the radical overhaul of the system and the uprooting of corruption they wanted has been stalled by the war.

"It isn't a holiday for me or for the people who will come," Mustafa Nayem, an opposition journalist turned lawmaker who helped to organise the first meeting, told reporters recently.

"Maidan has not finished yet — we are still continuing this story."

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin greeted the new US ambassador to Russia on Wednesday with a demand for Washington to treat Moscow as an equal partner and stay out of its internal affairs.

The new envoy, John Tefft, said in a written statement after presenting his credentials that he wanted to strengthen "people-to-people" ties but there were serious differences over Ukraine.

Their comments underlined the chasm between the former Cold War enemies as Tefft succeeds Michael McFaul, who was behind President Barack Obama's planned "reset" in relations with Russia and whose posting was marked by controversy and tension.

Putin met Tefft with a slight smile and they then stood stiffly beside each other posing for photographers during a Kremlin ceremony for new ambassadors.

"We are ready for practical cooperation with our American partners in different fields, based on the principles of respect for each others' interests, equal rights and non-interference in internal matters," Putin said in a short speech.

His remarks were blunt though less fierce than some of his earlier criticism of Washington, which he has accused of trying to dominate world affairs and suppress Russia.

The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Moscow following its annexation of the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine and over its backing for separatists in the east opposed to Kiev's rule.

In a statement issued after the ceremony, Tefft said he was committed to maintaining "open and frank lines of communication" with the Russian authorities.

"We have serious differences over Russia's policy in Ukraine. As President Obama said at the G-20 summit in Brisbane, we hope Russia will choose 'a different path', to resolve the issue of Ukraine in a way that respects Ukraine's sovereignty and is consistent with international law," he said.

"We would prefer a Russia that is fully integrated with the global economy; that is thriving on behalf of its people; that can once again engage with us in cooperative efforts around global challenges."

Moscow approved the appointment of Tefft even though Russian officials said privately he was not entirely to their liking.

Tefft was the United States' ambassador to Georgia during its short with Russia in 2008 and was the US envoy to Ukraine for nearly four years until July last year. He was deputy chief of mission in Moscow in the second half of the 1990s.

Other strains in ties are differences over regional conflicts such as the civil war in Syria, arms control and human rights issues, and Putin's treatment of opponents.

BUFFALO, New York — A ferocious storm dumped massive piles of snow on parts of upstate New York, trapping residents in their homes and stranding motorists on roadways, as temperatures in all 50 US states fell to freezing or below.

Even hardened Buffalo residents were caught off-guard Tuesday as more than 1.2 metres in parts of the city. Authorities said snow totals by Wednesday afternoon could top 1.8 metres in the hardest-hit areas south of Buffalo, with another storm expected Thursday.

Cold weather enveloped the entire country Tuesday, leading to record-low temperatures more familiar to January than November. Racing winds and icy roads caused accidents, school closings and delays in municipal operations from the Midwest to the South even where snowfall was low or mercifully absent.

In a region accustomed to highway-choking snowstorms, this one is being called one of the worst in memory. Snow blown by strong winds forced the closing of a 212-kilometre stretch of the main highway across New York state.

The storm was blamed for at least six deaths in New York, New Hampshire and Michigan.

"We have tried to get out of our house, and we are lucky to be able to shovel so we can open the door," said Linda Oakley of Buffalo. "We're just thinking that in case of an emergency we can at least get out the door. We can't go any further."

The snowstorm forced motorists in 150 vehicles, including a women's basketball team, to ride out the onslaught in their vehicles. They waited for hours to be freed, with some waiting more than a day. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo deployed 150 members of the National Guard to help clear snow-clogged roads and remove abandoned vehicles.

By early Wednesday, a Thruway official said most but not all passenger vehicles had been cleared.

"It seemed like a nightmare. It just didn't feel like it was going to end," Bryce Foreback, 23, of Shicora, Pennsylvania, told The Associated Press by cellphone 20 hours into his wait for help. "I haven't slept in like 30 hours and I'm just waiting to get out of here."

Foreback had become stuck in a long line of cars just south of Buffalo about 10:30 Monday night.

Members of the Niagara University women's basketball team were napping on and off 17 hours into their wait on Tuesday night. Some got so thirsty they drank melted snow, said Coach Kendra Faustin, who was travelling with her 1-year-old.

The lake-effect snow created a stark divide: In downtown Buffalo and north of the city, there was a mere dusting of precipitation, while in the south parts, snow was everywhere. The snow band that brought the snow was very much evident throughout the day as gray clouds persistently hovered over the southern part of the city. The band was so apparent, that the wall of snow could be seen from 1.6 kilometres away.

In New Hampshire and elsewhere, icy roads led to accidents. Lake-effect storms in Michigan produced gale-force winds and as much as 18 inches of snow, and cancelled several flights at the Grand Rapids Airport.

In Atlanta, tourists Morten and Annette Larsen from Copenhagen were caught off-guard by the -1^oC weather as they took photos of a monument to the 1996 summer Olympics at Centennial Olympic Park.

"It's as cold here as it is in Denmark right now. We didn't expect that," Larsen said, waving a hand over his denim jacket, buttoned tightly over a hooded sweatshirt.

TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Tuesday that he would call an early election to seek a fresh mandate for his economic policies, and postpone an unpopular sales tax rise, a day after data showed the economy had slipped back into recession.

The world's third-biggest economy unexpectedly shrank for a second consecutive quarter in July-September, a sign the pain from an initial rise in the sales tax to 8 per cent from 5 per cent in April was lasting longer than expected.

Abe said he would delay a second increase to 10 per cent that had been scheduled for October 2015 for 18 months. He added he would dissolve the lower house on Friday for an election that must be held within 40 days. The vote is expected on December 14.

The prime minister — who returned to power in December 2012 pledging to revive growth with a radical mix of hyper-easy monetary policy, spending and reform — insisted his policies were working and challenged the opposition to come up with an alternative.

"I am aware that critics say 'Abenomics' is a failure and not working but I have not heard one concrete idea what to do instead... Are our economic policies mistaken, or correct? Is there another option?" he asked at a televised news conference. "This is the only way to end deflation and revive the economy."

But Abe pledged that the sales tax rise, needed to fund swelling social security costs and curb Japan's massive public debt, would be implemented without fail in April 2017.

Abe is seeking to renew his mandate just as doubts about the success of his strategy are deepening.

No election for parliament's lower house needed to be held until late 2016. But Abe is hoping to cement his grip on power before his support ratings, now below 50 per cent in some surveys but still sturdy by Japanese standards, slip further.

His voter support took something of a hit from funding scandals in his Cabinet last month, and next year he is expected to tackle unpopular policies such as restarting nuclear reactors that went off-line after the 2011 Fukushima crisis.

Flag of fiscal reform

Critics say that Abenomics has benefited big companies and affluent city dwellers by weakening the yen and boosting the stock market, but that ordinary Japanese have been hurt because inflation has outpaced wage increases.

Abe said consumption was stalling despite other positive signs and he would prepare stimulus steps, especially for smaller firms and regions.

European shares followed Tokyo higher on hopes for further stimulus, but Japanese media reports said the package would be modest at around 2-3 trillion yen ($17-$26 billion).

Measures will include shopping vouchers to promote consumption, a government official said.

The sales tax has been a jinx for Japanese leaders in the past, several of whom lost their jobs over the levy. A hefty majority of voters were opposed to raising it now.

Still, Abe took care to avoid the impression that Japan was abandoning fiscal reform despite a public debt that is already twice the size of the economy.

"We are by no means surrendering the flag of fiscal reform," he said. "[The tax rise] will not be delayed a second time."

The bad economic news has given the opposition camp ammunition for the election campaign, although the parties are weak and divided and likely to have trouble cooperating.

Tatsuo Kawabata, a senior official of the opposition Democratic Party, told a news conference that the prime minister was attempting to cover up signs that Abenomics was failing.

Few expect the LDP and its smaller ally to lose their majority. But financial markets and analysts are now contemplating the possibility that the ruling bloc might fare less well than initially anticipated and that Abe could emerge weaker after the vote.

Abe said he would resign if the ruling coalition, which now holds two-thirds of the seats in the chamber, failed to win a majority.

"A recession will give opposition party attacks on Abe more salience, suggesting the possibility that the ruling coalition could lose seats," wrote Tobias Harris at consultancy Teneo Intelligence. The LDP and the Komeito party now hold a two-thirds majority in the lower house.

Abe, who is serving his second term as prime minister after a troubled 2006-2007 term, inherited the sales tax plan from his predecessor based on a ruling-opposition party agreement in which he played no direct part.