Civil crisis in France deepened on Saturday night as political efforts to quell widespread unrest collapsed and the country braced for a national strike tomorrow.
Violence and looting in central Paris last week led the UK's Foreign Office to advise Britons against visiting parts of the city this weekend. The mood worsened on Saturday when students boycotted meetings between Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and opponents of a new employment law.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy heightened political pressure and distanced himself from de Villepin when he urged the government to find a compromise to end the turmoil. In a speech to his UMP party, Sarkozy, candidate for next year's presidential elections, sympathized with young demonstrators.
"Twenty years of mass unemployment, 15 years of mediocre economic growth, 10 years of sluggish purchasing power, seven political changes since 1981 -- how can we blame the young for saying out loud what their parents think?" he said.
In Saturday's setback to talks over the contrat de premiere embauche (CPE, or first job contract), Julie Coudry, leader of the Confederation Etudiante, said de Villepin had written a letter asking for talks on implementing the CPE when "the government knows we want the legislation to be dropped ... This letter is a joke, a provocation, which if anything feeds the social tensions in our country."
Two right-leaning students' unions said they remained keen to meet de Villepin. The five main labor unions met de Villepin on Friday and did not rule out further talks.
The focus for now is to minimize violence at tomorrow's demonstrations, which could draw hundreds of thousands of people all over France. Disruption will be widespread, including reduced train, metro and bus services. Schools, banks, post offices and state-run media will be closed. Air France and air traffic controllers are expected to strike.
Up to 90 people, including 27 police and paramilitary gendarmes, were injured in last Thursday's protests in Paris, Rennes and Marseille.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the