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Students Protest Sarko Plans
French police on Thursday fired tear gas at high school students and made several arrests as protests in Paris against education job cuts turned violent.
According to AFP, about 13,000 students took part in the rally, according to police, but organizers said the protest action drew between 40,000 and 50,000 people.
Police arrested at least six students who attacked a restaurant storefront near Paris’ eastern Place de la Republique and three others were detained in nearby clashes between youths, according to police.
Protesters smashed car windows and shop owners shut down during the tense march, the latest in a series of demonstrations over the past three weeks against the government’s plan to cut 11,200 jobs including 8,830 teaching positions. The job cuts are part of a drive by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s rightwing government to streamline the public service and cut France’s huge spending deficit.
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Democrats Sliding
In White House Race
Democrats’ high hopes for winning the White House are slipping as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama continue their fierce battle for their party’s presidential nomination, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo news poll released Thursday.
The poll found that John McCain, who has already wrapped up the Republican Party nomination, has pulled even with the two Democrats.
Democrats had been favored to retake the White House in the November election, with the weak economy and the unpopular war in Iraq casting shadows over the President George W. Bush’s Republican Party.
But McCain, running for weeks without opposition, has an increasingly likable image and has won support from disgruntled Republican voters, independents and even some moderate Democrats, according to the poll.
Just five months ago--before either party had winnowed its field--the AP-Yahoo survey showed people preferred sending an unnamed Democrat over a Republican to the White House by 13 percentage points.
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Putin, Berlusconi Meet
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Russian President Vladimir Putin (l) shakes hands with Italian Prime Minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi (r) on arrival at Olbia Airport in Sardinia.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Sardinia on Thursday as the guest of Silvio Berlusconi at the Italian prime minister-elect’s luxury villa Porto Rotondo, AFP said.
Giant umbrellas protected the two men from a light rain as Berlusconi, smiling broadly and wearing a black shirt with no tie, greeted his Russian friend, also informally attired in a black turtleneck.
Shortly before Putin’s plane touched down, Berlusconi mooted the possibility of reconsidering the Russian airline Aeroflot as a possible partner in the rescue of Italy’s near bankrupt flagship Alitalia, telling reporters that “all options remain valid,“ the ANSA news agency reported.
The visit by Putin, the first by a world leader since Berlusconi scored a convincing victory in general elections on Monday, “confirms the importance of our bilateral relations,“ Berlusconi said before the pair headed to his villa in Porto Rotondo.
Putin was stopping in Sardinia on his way home from a two-day trip to Libya, where Italian energy giant Eni and its Russian counterpart Gazprom plan joint gas projects, for what Berlusconi described as a “quiet meeting“ at his summer residence.
Berlusconi noted that Italy relies on Russia for 30 percent of its gas and oil imports.
The media magnate said earlier that he and Putin would discuss “relations between the European Union and the Russian Federation, as well as divergences and disputes (between Russia) and the West.“
The premier-in-waiting had said that Europe’s relations with Moscow should be “much closer, warmer and cordial,“ adding that he thought he could “play a role“ because of his friendship with Putin.
Some two hours after Putin arrived, a Russian plane overshot the runway at the same airport.
No one was injured and no damage resulted from the mishap.
The Russian government Yak-42 aircraft was carrying a team of public safety experts who will observe joint European exercises to fight forest fires on Friday, ANSA said.
Putin last visited Berlusconi at Villa Certosa in August 2003 during the media tycoon’s second premiership.
Alitalia Tie-up
Before leaving for Sardinia on Thursday, Berlusconi said that he planned to discuss the future of Alitalia with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, while reiterating that a tie-up with French-Dutch giant Air France-KLM would have to be “on an equal footing.“
The conservative tycoon made a campaign issue of the plight of Alitalia, which is rapidly heading towards bankruptcy.
As talks faltered between Alitalia unions and the management of Air France-KLM ahead of the vote, Berlusconi claimed on several occasions that a viable Italian consortium was forming as an alternative but the companies he mentioned issued repeated denials.
While campaigning for a third stint as prime minister since 1994, he said he would reject a takeover by Air France-KLM out of hand.
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Controlled Blast
Police carried out a controlled explosion Friday in the city of Bristol after arresting a 19-year-old man under anti-terror laws, a spokesman said.
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Spain’s Ruling Party Office Bombed
A bomb exploded outside the office of Spain’s governing Socialist Party in Bilbao, the Basque region’s main city, wounding seven police officers after a warning call in the name of the Basque separatist group ETA.
According to AP, the early morning blast badly damaged the party office. The officers were helping to evacuate people and cordon off the zone. The Socialist prime minister, JosŽ Luis Rodr’guez Zapatero, beginning his second term, appealed last week to opposition conservatives to join him in a united front against ETA.
Spanish police detained around 10 Basque separatists early Friday on charges of attacking rail installations and electricity substations, police said. The suspected supporters of the militant Basque separatist group ETA were held in Guipuzcoa province. Police searched several addresses, including a separatist bar in Errenteria.
ETA bombed an office of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s Socialist Party in Bilbao on Thursday, causing slight injuries to seven police officers.
ETA has killed three people since ending a ceasefire in June 2007 after a negotiation attempt with the government collapsed. The most recent victim, former Socialist councilor Isaias Carrasco, was shot dead two days before the March 9 elections.
Zapatero’s priorities for the upcoming legislature include the fight against ETA, which has killed more than 800 people in its four-decade campaign for an independent Basque Country.
Pope Turns to Global Audience
After a dramatic three days in which he put the country’s clergy sexual abuse scandal front and center, Pope Benedict XVI turned his attention Friday to the original purpose of his first US visit as leader of the Roman Catholic Church, reported AP.
The pope will deliver an address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, taking his first opportunity to truly talk globally.
The setting will contrast dramatically with the intimacy of a meeting Thursday, in which he prayed with weeping victims of childhood sexual abuse by priests.
When Benedict addresses diplomats from around the world, he’ll likely touch on several broad themes, said Jo Renee Formicola, a Seton Hall University political science professor who has studied the papacy and international affairs.
Among them: a call for bedrock ethical and moral principles as a guiding force even in pluralistic societies, a human rights agenda that encompasses religious freedom and the sacredness of human life, and the responsibility of first-world nations to aid developing ones.
On Thursday, Benedict met privately with abuse victims between an open-air Mass at Nationals Park and a meeting with Catholic educators.
Thailand Extends Emergency Rule
Thailand’s Cabinet approved a three-month extension of emergency powers in the country’s insurgency-plagued southern provinces Friday.
According to AP, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said the state of emergency, imposed since July 2005, “is unlikely to be in place forever, but it is still necessary for now.“
Emergency powers, which are renewed by the Cabinet every three months, cover the provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, where an insurgency has left more than 3,000 dead since violence flared in 2004. Southern Muslims, the majority in Buddhist Thailand’s far south, accuse the central government of discrimination, especially in jobs and education.
The state of emergency allows the government to impose curfews, prohibit public gatherings, censor and ban publications, detain suspects without charge, confiscate property and tap telephones. It also gives officials legal immunity for acts--including killings--carried out under its provisions.
Human rights activists have criticized the continued use of emergency rule, saying it has failed to contain violence and has worsened the situation by allowing violations of constitutional rights.
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