French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has held meetings with senior leaders of labor unions as rolling strikes in the railway section continue to cripple services across the country.

Philippe sought to convince union leaders on Monday that the French government would work on mechanisms to settle debt claims related to state rail operator SNCF, an issue at the heart of the strikes that began on April 3.

One union boss said Philippe had expected that the SNCF would be able to pay its 46 billion euros ($55 billion) of debt by 2022 to reach a financial breakeven.

He said the premier vowed to make announcements on debt management before the end of May, but added that he failed to offer concrete proposals to put an end to the current strikes, which are mainly focused on SNCF’s plans aimed at ending its domestic passenger rail monopoly and scrapping hiring contracts that are more protective than other sectors.

Philippe Martinez, who leads the CGT union, and other representatives of the hard-line group, said after the meeting that nothing had changed as far as they saw, vowing that stoppages would continue for two days out of every five up to the end of June.

However, the CFDT and the UNSA unions said they would welcome initiatives by the government in the coming weeks. That could mean a crack in the united line of the unions during the strikes.

Laurent Berger, head of the CFDT union, who announced more details from the meeting with Philippe, said his union was also open to negotiation if the government showed genuine willingness to engage in such talks in the weeks ahead.

The French Senate is planned to discuss a law on the SNCF reform on May 29. President Emmanuel Macron, who came to power last year on promises of carrying out economic reforms, hopes the law, the biggest affecting France’s railway sector since nationalization in the 1930s, could bring him a major success at the end of his first of five years in power.

Source: Presstv

Officials in the UK capital London are struggling to control an unprecedented surge in crimes as murder rate is predicted to surpass the highest numbers in the early 2000s.

Concerns peaked in February and March, when London surpassed New York City in terms of homicides for the first time in history.

London has never recorded more murders in a year than America’s most populous city, which recorded 290 homicides in 2017, the lowest number in decades, compared to London’s 130.

This year, however, it has been a different story as 37 people were killed in London in February and March this year compared to the 35 murders that happened in the Big Apple.

Both cities are similar in terms of population and size but one noticeable difference between them is that London banned in 1997.

Police and community workers have attributed the spike to battles over control of the illegal drug trade and a “postcode war” between street gangs, among other things.

Part of the blame has also been put on Mayor Sadiq Khan, who oversees London’s Metropolitan Police. The Labour mayor, however, says it is the Tory government’s budget policies that have weakened the police and affected the city’s overall safety.

“Since I first became mayor, I have been saying to the government that it’s not sustainable to make the level of cuts they have been making to London,” Khan said recently.

The huge cuts, that according to Labour leader Jeremy COrbyn have seen over 20,000 officers removed from the streets, is not the only gripe critics have with Conservative government’s policy.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s administration has also cut funding to local councils, forcing them to shutter youth clubs, libraries and programs for young people in order to save money.

May herself has been held responsible by some critics for the policies that she undertook when serving as Home Secretary. During her tenure, May put curbs to police stop-and-search powers and made it more difficult for security forces to detect potential crime.

Source: Presstv

Millions of French commuters and holidaymakers faced another wave of crippling transport stoppages on Sunday, as rail workers protested at President Emmanuel Macron’s economic reform plans and some unions warned they could step up strike action.

Train staff last week kicked off three months of nationwide rolling strikes in a dispute over the government’s planned overhaul of state-run rail firm SNCF, in the biggest challenge yet to Macron’s attempts to modernize the French economy.

Just over a third of workers needed to make the train network run smoothly were expected to walk out on Sunday, a dip in participation compared to the last 48 hours of walkouts on Tuesday and Wednesday, the SNCF said.

But some labor unions have already signaled a hardening stance as negotiations with ministers over the reforms hit a wall. Officials at the Communist-rooted CGT said on Friday that strikes could drag on well beyond June if nothing shifted.

Laurent Brun, head of the CGT’s railway section, added that workers were ready for a “marathon” if needed.

Unions have so far called strikes for two days out of every five until the end of June, to fight a shake-up of monopoly SNCF before it is opened to competition in line with European Union rules.

That includes ending job-for-life guarantees and early retirement for rail workers, which the government argues will help transform the heavily-indebted company into a profitable public service.

Workers have hit back with complaints that the SNCF was being dismantled to pave the way for a privatization.

The showdown between Macron and the rail unions is one of the toughest tests yet of the former investment banker’s presidency.

The 40-year-old came to power last May on a promise to shake up Europe’s second-biggest economy, in a bid to modernize some of France’s creaking institutions, and spur jobs growth. Macron has so far liberalized labor regulations for instance.

But locking horns with the rail sector has backfired on previous French governments — paralyzing train strikes in 1995 forced prime minister Alain Juppe to pull planned reforms — and unions are seeking to show they still have clout.

Some insisted they did not want a drawn-out conflict but called on Macron’s government to compromise.

“The ball is in the government’s court,” Laurent Berger, head of the CFDT union, told Europe 1 radio on Saturday. The CFDT is also joining stoppages called for Sunday and Monday.

The government has so far said it will stand firm on the main points of the reform.

“The status quo is not viable,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said in an interview published in Le Parisien newspaper on Sunday. “It’s urgent, we need to advance, and everyone should know we are determined to see this through to the end.”

Though nowhere near as potent, the various protests come as France prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of the student-led riots of May 1968, which gridlocked the country and led to the adoption of more progressive social policies.

Disruptions on Sunday were set to hit local trains as well as regional high-speed trains and some international journeys.

(Source: Reuters)

France says it will “launch” a deployable European military crisis force in June, with French defense officials confirming that the army would work outside of existing European Union efforts.

French Defense Ministry sources revealed on Wednesday that the French government had been in touch with a dozen countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Denmark, over the military crisis force and had organized a working group to outline the idea in March, Reuters reported.

It was not clear what countries had joined the initiative — the sources did not reveal the names of the countries — but enough countries had apparently agreed to be involved to make a launch possible.

The initiative reportedly aims to unite European countries with a military capacity and political desire to cooperate on planning, carry out joint analyses of emerging crises, and swiftly react.

“It would not be within the European Union and would allow countries outside it, like Britain, to be part of it,” one French military source said, even as the UK is yet to officially leave the EU.

“It’s creating a smaller group of countries that have common analysis and procedures,” another source said. “It would plug in the different military planning and operations centers.”

The sources left the door open to other countries joining the force later.

It was also unclear why the plan involved so much secrecy. The French discussions on the matter with other countries had not been previously reported.

Germany has been loath to participate in military intervention forces. But French Defense Minister Florence Parly is expected to discuss the project with her German counterpart, Ursula von der Leyen, in Paris on April 5, according to Reuters.

During a speech on Europe last September, French President Emmanuel Macron stressed the need for a shared European military intervention force and defense budget by the end of the decade.

Two month later, 25 participating EU member states signed a pact to fund and develop a new military union that would coordinate policies and projects among members in the face of alleged threats from the east of the continent.

The agreement on the Permanent Structured Cooperation, or PESCO, was part of efforts led by Germany and France to bring the EU closer to having a permanent joint military force parallel to NATO but exclusive to the EU.

Denmark, Malta, and Britain are EU members absent from the PESCO scheme, which came into force in December.

French officials insist that the newly-proposed European military crisis force will not cannibalize the PESCO defense pact.

Source: Presstv

Students in Nantes marched in a show of solidarity with public-sector workers, who began a three-month strike campaign against French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed labor reforms on Tuesday.

More than 2,000 protesters amassed outside Nantes railway station, which has been badly affected by the strike at SNCF, France’s publicly-owned train operator. Police used tear gas in an effort to break up the protest.

Earlier, students voted for an unlimited blockade of Nantes’ university in support of the nationwide strike.

Around 33 percent of railway workers and more than three-quarters of train drivers were on strike, causing severe disruption across the network. The three-month strike will see walkouts two days in every five.

Source: Presstv

Around four thousand people have rallied in the Belgian capital to denounce racism and discrimination and demand equality for all.

The Saturday rally was organized by social groups and left-wing parties in Brussels where participants marched five kilometers (three miles) through the city.

They held up signs reading, “United against racism” and “together against discrimination.”

“I am here today to demonstrate against racism in Belgium and in the world, against the Federal Government that takes racist measures against refugees,” said one protester.

Meanwhile, 16 anti-racism and migrant support organizations hailing from the country’s Brussels, Flanders, and Wallonia regions issued a joint statement, commemorating the “victims of hatred and terror in Brussels and elsewhere.”

The government has tightened migration laws since Daesh’s bombings of the Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station in Brussels two years ago, which left 32 people dead and hundreds more wounded.

In their statement on Saturday, the protesters said they will not allow “terrorists” to create division within the Belgian society.

Europe has been the scene of rallies especially since 2015, when the continent was hit by an influx of refugees, mostly fleeing violence in the Middle East.

Countries across Europe have seen a significant rise in xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments, mostly toward Muslims. Amnesty International has sounded the alarm about right-wing parties in Europe advocating anti-immigration and anti-Islam policies.

Last year alone, extremists in Germany which is home to some three to four million Turks launched 950 attacks against Muslims, including many arson attacks targeting mosques.

Source: Presstv

Thousands of people have demonstrated in the capital of Spain’s Catalonia region to demand that lawmakers elect a new regional leader and continue working toward total secession from Spain.

An estimated 45,000 demonstrators, holding Catalan flags, rallied in Barcelona on Sunday, according to the city’s urban police. They were holding banners calling for a “republic now!” and chanting “freedom for political prisoners.”

Vice President of the National Assembly of Catalonia (ANC) Agusti Alcoberro said during the rally that what the Spanish state was doing was “outrageous.”

“We mobilized people and on December 21 [2017], we got a majority in the parliament in favor of the Catalan republic,” he said. “What we are doing today is taking to the streets as citizens to demand that the republic that we voted for in October continue forward.”

Catalonia’s pro-independence leaders held a referendum on October 1, 2017, which had been banned by Spain’s central government and declared illegal by the country’s Constitutional Court. Organizers said 90 percent of voters backed secession. Before and during the referendum, Spanish police carried out a heavy crackdown on separatists.

Former regional president, Carles Puigdemont, who unsuccessfully declared independence from Spain on October 27 last year — in violation of the nation’s constitution — later fled to Belgium to escape arrest.

Catalonia, one of Spain’s wealthiest and most productive regions, is now theoretically under the direct control of the Spanish national government in Madrid. Pro-independence parties won a slim majority after a December 2017 election called by the Spanish government. However, they have since been locked in drawn-out negotiations on forming a government.

Puigdemont announced earlier this month that he was temporarily withdrawing his bid for presidency and proposed the jailed Catalan independence leader, Jordi Sanchez, to take the job.

The regional parliament was due to vote on the region’s new leader on Monday, but the speaker of the parliament, Roger Torrent, suspended the vote on Friday. He decided to wait for a European Court of Human Rights ruling on whether a jailed leader of Catalonia’s independence movement can be the next president.

Torrent made the decision after Spain’s Supreme Court turned down Sanchez’s request to leave prison and attend the planned session of parliament.

Lawmakers had planned to vote on making him the region’s leader. But Spain’s central government says individuals who face charges and who are unable to be present at the debate and vote in Barcelona can’t be elected by the regional parliament.

Sanchez, the former head of Catalan National Assembly, has been imprisoned near the Spanish capital, Madrid since October over allegations that he and another secessionist figure used a major protest in September to stop Spanish police officers from following a judge’s orders to halt the banned referendum.

Source: Presstv

An extreme cold snap across Europe claimed more lives, forced the closure of airports in Scotland, Switzerland, France, and Ireland, and left hundreds of drivers stranded on snowy highways Thursday.

Heavy snow and high winds halted all flights in and out of Dublin Airport, with authorities saying they are unlikely to resume until Saturday. Irish Rail said no trains are likely to run until Saturday.

Forecasters said a new storm is bringing blizzards, 100-kph winds, freezing rain, and thunderstorms to Ireland, southwestern England, and Wales later Thursday. They predicted zero visibility and deep pockets of snow.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar urged people to get home by 4 pm Thursday and stay there until the storm has passed. The Irish stock exchange shut down at midday and will be closed all day Friday.

“The risk to life and limb presented by severe weather conditions should not be underestimated,” said Varadkar.

The World Health Organization warned Thursday that the cold weather poses particular risks to vulnerable people such as the elderly, children, and those with chronic diseases or disabilities.

Swedish media reported that a woman who had left her home at an asylum center with her daughter and son, aged 8 and 9, was pronounced dead in the hospital after being found in a forest.

Danish police said an 84-year-old woman with dementia became the second person to die in the country because of the cold weather.

It was travel chaos at Europe’s airports and on its highways.

Geneva’s airport closed after the Swiss city was hit with 13 centimeters of snow over a three-hour period early Thursday. It reopened several hours later after extensive de-icing of the runway, plans and facilities.

Snow also shut down Glasgow and Edinburgh airports in Scotland, and there were cancellations at Heathrow and other airports in Britain. Airports in the southern French cities of Montpellier and the Atlantic beach resort of Biarritz were also affected.

Around the Paris region, about two dozen officials braved Arctic temperatures for a night outdoors to call attention to the plight of the homeless after at least 13 died from exposure since January 1.

Dragging blankets and sleeping bags, officials from an array of political parties wearing their blue, white, and red sashes hunkered down near Austerlitz train station as snow began falling early Thursday.

Hundreds of drivers were trapped in their cars overnight in Scotland, and authorities said everyone except emergency workers should stay off the roads.

Police in the county of Lincolnshire in eastern England said most roads there are impassable, with as much as 60 centimeters of snow in rural areas.

In southern France, about 2,000 cars were blocked on highways in the Herault region, where snow — and snowplows — are extremely rare.

Macedonia’s government urged employers to exempt pregnant women and people over 60 from working for a day and to pay special attention to keeping construction workers warm due to the freezing conditions. The low temperature Thursday in Macedonia dropped to -18 Celsius near the border with Bulgaria.

(Source: AP)

The UK’s National Grid says it needs to buy gas in order to meet the demand amid severe drops in temperature and gas supply outages due that have raised consumption levels to a five-year high.

The NG requested shippers on Thursday to post offers on the OCM locational market after wholesale gas prices soared 74 percent within a day.

Earlier, the company issued another warning after forecast for the day initially showed a shortfall of 49.5 million cubic meters below the country’s projected need of 395.7mcm per day.

According to the Guardian, the deficit had been narrowed down to 35.2mcm.

“We are in communication with industry partners and are closely monitoring the situation,” the NG said.

Widespread snow and unprecedentedly cold temperatures following the arrival of the “Beast from the East” polar vortex and Storm Emma have forced people across the UK to fire up their heating.

The situation has been further affected by several outages in the supply line, which has proven vulnerable to very cold weather over the past.

So far, problems have been have been reported at a pipeline to the Netherlands, while there has been reduction in gas flows from Norway.

Technical issues have also been plaguing main gas facilities in the UK, including the North Morecambe Barrow terminal.

The UK’s gas storage has also hit the lowest levels since 2006, mainly because of the decision last year by energy company Centrica to close down the country’s biggest gas storage facility, Rough. The site accounted for 70 percent of the UK’s gas storage.

Last year, a “perfect storm” of energy supply crisis forced Britian import gas from Russia, despite London’s role in a series of strict sanctions that were supposed to cripple the Russian energy industry.

Source: Presstv

Demonstrators from vegan and animal activists group “269 Life France” demonstrated against French president Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, February 24, during his first visit as president to the country’s main agricultural fair in Paris.

Macron received whistles and other protests as he met visitors to the fair and journalists. French farmers are discontent over producer prices, European Union trade talks and Chinese land purchases.

In a country with a profound attachment to its pastoral roots, the Salon de l’Agriculture is a mandatory rite of passage for political leaders, who tend either to relish the event – as former president Jacques Chirac visibly did – or endure it. Nicolas Sarkozy, during his presidential farm show debut a decade ago, let rip with an expletive-laden insult against a man in the crowd who had declined to shake his hand. His words were caught on video and haunted him for the rest of his term.

Macron responded differently to provocation on Saturday, scrapping his itinerary to engage several of his hecklers in a lengthy and detailed exchange on trade policy, social charges and food standards in front of TV cameras.