Source: BBC
Security & Justice
Southern Lebanon Endures Massive Damage: 40,000 Homes Leveled Across 37 Towns
Israeli forces have systematically destroyed entire neighborhoods in southern Lebanon, leveling more than 37 towns and wiping out over 40,000 residential units, according to Lebanon's National News Agency.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Gaps in Coastal Radar Enabled Israeli Raid in Batroun, Army Commander Says
Lebanon’s army chief, General Joseph Aoun, detailed to Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati how Israeli forces likely exploited gaps in the country's coastal radar system during the recent raid carried out in Batroun. The briefing comes as Lebanese officials seek answers on how Israel’s elite Shayetet 13 unit carried out the landing undetected.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Opinion
The Emptying of Baalbek Is a Moment to Take Stock
“Large numbers of people continue to flee their homes every day, as Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have been going on unabated.” These disturbing words could be from almost any news report about Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbour over the past month. However, they can be found in a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre issued on July 27, 2006.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
A Future Without Hezbollah
At the end of September, when Israel’s campaign to destroy Hezbollah was reaching its height, I met one of the group’s supporters in a seaside café in western Beirut. He was a middle-aged man with a thin white beard and the spent look of someone who had not slept for days. He was an academic of sorts, not a fighter, but his ties to Hezbollah were deep and long-standing.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Sports
Tottenham Forward Son Heung-min Crowned Asia’s International Player of the Year
Tottenham forward Son Heung-min was crowned as Asia’s International Player of the Year for the fourth time by the Asian Football Confederation at its annual awards ceremony Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Real Madrid Launch Investigation into Racist Insults After El Clasico Defeat
Real Madrid has launched an investigation into racist insults directed at players during Saturday’s 4-0 home loss to Barcelona in LaLiga, it said on Sunday.
Monday, October 28, 2024
Tuesday 31 January 2023 15:18:02
French Retirement Age Strike Hits Schools and Trains
A nationwide strike is under way in France in a second wave of protests against President Emmanuel Macron's plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Eight big unions are taking part in the strike, which is disrupting schools, public transport and oil refineries.
Protests are taking place across France, after a first day of action attracted more than a million people.
The unions said half the country's teachers had joined the strike.
The education ministry said the number was just over a quarter.
The Macron government is pushing ahead with its pension age reforms in the face of opinion polls that suggest two-thirds of voters are opposed to the changes, which begin their passage through National Assembly next week.
Without a majority in parliament, the government will have to rely on the right-wing Republicans for support as much as the ruling parties' own MPs.
Ahead of the main protest in Paris, thousands of marchers turned out in Toulouse, Marseille and Nice in the south, and Saint Nazaire, Nantes and Rennes in the west.
Street protests were expected in at least 200 towns and cities and a reported 11,000 police were deployed to cover the demonstrations.
In several cities, the numbers were said to be higher than during the first national strike 12 days ago. Thierry, 58, told Le Figaro that he had begun working at the age of 18 and felt that working even longer felt unfair.
"Mr Macron is certain to lose," far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon told reporters in Marseille. "Nobody wants his reforms, and the more the days go by, by the greater the opposition to them."
There was severe disruption to transport, with one in three high-speed trains running and only two driverless metro lines operating normally in Paris. Large crowds were reported on one of the main overground lines in the capital.
The CGT union said at least three-quarters of workers had walked out at the big TotalEnergies oil refineries and fuel depots, although the company said the number was far lower.
Power plants reported reduced production after workers went on strike at the main electricity company EDF.
One of the main teachers' unions said some 55% of secondary school teachers had walked out. High school pupils staged protests outside some schools and students said they would occupy Sciences Po university in Paris in support of the strikers.
"A lot of French people feel that working is more and more painful. It's not that they don't want to work, they don't want to work in these conditions," Sciences Po political scientist Bruno Palier told the BBC.
The government has indicated it may move some way on the detail of the reform but has refused to give in on the main thrust of the raising the retirement age by two years to 64.
"Any kind of reform that is going to ask people to work longer will be unpopular, but we've been elected on this reform," said Christopher Weissberg, an MP in President Macron's Renaissance party.
At 62, France's retirement age is lower than most other countries in Western Europe. Italy and Germany have moved towards raising the official retirement age to 67, while Spain's retirement age is 65 and in the UK it is 66.
In France, very few workers have personal pensions linked to capital investments, but there are now only 1.7 workers paying into the shared pension fund per person in retirement.
"We have a universal system, and the system has to pay for itself. If not, it's weakening and if it's weakening, at some point, people will lose their pension," Mr Weissberg warned.
Economist Prof Philippe Aghion said the reforms were necessary because France had a structural deficit of some €13bn ($14bn; £11bn) and raising the retirement age would also help increase the rate of employment in France.
"That will give the government credibility to make some investments that it needs to make in schooling, in the hospital system that it needs to improve, and more investment in innovation and green industrialisation," he told the BBC.
