PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday he would offer proposals to widen referendums in France to allow a possible ballot on immigration demanded by conservatives and the far right.
His promise in a letter to party leaders comes after a 12-hour meeting last week designed to break deadlock in the National Assembly, or lower house, where Macron’s supporters have no majority but no alternative bloc exists.
The president promised a detailed proposal — which would mean changing referendum rules laid out in France’s constitution — “in the coming weeks.”
That would “allow us to continue our talks, which I hope will reach conclusion when we next meet” in the autumn, he added.
Immigration has been top of the political agenda over the summer as Macron’s camp have failed to bring aboard conservatives for a proposed reform that would toughen conditions for irregular arrivals but allow some undocumented people working in critical industries to remain in France.
Macron wrote that the law would be debated in parliament “from this autumn” ahead of any possible public vote.
There are “known disagreements” on the subject but “it cannot be avoided,” he added.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne will be charged with coming up for further proposals on institutional reform, including decentralising France’s notoriously Paris-centric administration and some form of proportional representation in parliament.
In a bone thrown to the left, Macron added that he would hold a “social conference” in October to discuss improving the lot of people on low incomes.
And he promised a roadmap on planning for climate protection measures in the week of September 18.
Reactions were slow to arrive from a political class still seemingly weighing up the possible benefits and risks of cooperating with the president.
Greens chief Marine Tondelier charged on X — formerly Twitter — that environmental policy had “a minuscule place in this letter” but promised more detailed responses in the coming days.
Macron plans changes to allow immigration referendum in France
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Macron plans changes to allow immigration referendum in France
- The president promised a detailed proposal — which would mean changing referendum rules laid out in France’s constitution — “in the coming weeks”
- Immigration has been top of the political agenda over the summer
Nepal’s ‘Everest Man’ claims record 29th summit
- Kami Rita Sherpa, a guide for two decades, first summitted Everest in 1994
- He climbed Everest twice last year to reclaim record after another guide equaled it
KATMANDU: Nepali climber Kami Rita Sherpa reached the top of Mount Everest for the 29th time Sunday, breaking his own record for the most summits of the world’s highest mountain.
“Kami Rita reached the summit this morning. Now he has made a new record with 29 summits of Everest,” Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks, his expedition organizer, told AFP.
A guide for more than two decades, Sherpa, also known as “Everest Man,” first summited the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) peak in 1994 when working for a commercial expedition.
Since then he has climbed Everest almost every year, guiding clients. It was not immediately clear whether he had a client with him on Sunday.
“Back again for the 29th summit to the top of the world... One man’s job, another man/woman’s dream,” Sherpa posted on his Instagram from base camp last week.
Last year, Sherpa climbed Everest twice to reclaim his record as another guide, Pasang Dawa Sherpa, equaled his number of ascents.
Sherpa, 54, has previously said that he has been “just working” and did not plan on setting records.
He has also conquered other challenging 8,000-meter peaks including the world’s second-highest mountain, K2 in Pakistan.
Nepal has issued 414 Everest permits to mountaineers for this year’s spring climbing season, which runs from April to early June.
Most Everest hopefuls are escorted by a Nepali guide, meaning more than 800 climbers will tread the path to the top of the world’s highest peak in the coming weeks after a group of Nepali climbers opened the route to the summit on Friday.
This year, China also reopened the Tibetan route to foreigners for the first time since closing it in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 10 highest peaks and welcomes hundreds of adventurers each spring, when temperatures are warm and winds are typically calm.
A climbing boom has made mountaineering a lucrative business since Edmund Hillary and sherpa Tenzing Norgay made the first ascent in 1953.
Last year, more than 600 climbers made it to the summit of Everest but it was also the deadliest season on the mountain, with 18 fatalities.
Canada arrests fourth Indian national in killing of Sikh activist
- Three Indian nationals were arrested this month for Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar last year
- Killing sparked diplomatic tow between two countries after Canadian PM linked Indian intelligence to killing
MONTREAL: A fourth Indian national was charged by Canadian authorities Saturday in the 2023 killing of a separatist Sikh leader in Vancouver.
Amandeep Singh, 22, was already being held for unrelated gun charges before being charged with “first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder” in the slaying of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Three other Indian nationals were arrested this month.
The killing sparked a diplomatic row between Ottawa and New Delhi when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau linked Indian intelligence to the killing.
Nijjar — who immigrated to Canada in 1997 and became a citizen in 2015 — had advocated for a separate Sikh state, known as Khalistan, carved out of India.
He had been wanted by Indian authorities for alleged “terrorism” and conspiracy to commit murder — allegations he denied.
He was shot dead on June 18, 2023, by masked assailants in the parking lot of the Sikh temple he led in suburban Vancouver.
Trudeau announced several months later that Canada had “credible allegations” connecting Indian intelligence to the slaying.
India dismissed the allegations as “absurd” and responded furiously, briefly curbing visas for Canadians and forcing Ottawa to withdraw diplomats.
In November, the US Justice Department charged an Indian citizen living in the Czech Republic with allegedly plotting a similar assassination attempt on American soil.
Prosecutors said in unsealed court documents that an Indian government official was also involved in the planning.
The shock allegations came after US President Joe Biden hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a rare state visit, as Washington seeks closer ties with India against China’s growing influence.
US intelligence agencies have assessed that the plot on American soil was approved by India’s top spy official at the time, Samant Goel, the Washington Post reported in April.
Canada is home to some 770,000 Sikhs, who make up about two percent of the country’s population, with a vocal minority calling for an independent state of Khalistan.
Concern about Russia dominates as Lithuanians vote
- While the top three contenders have diverging views on Lithuania’s relations with China, they agree on helping Ukraine in its war against Russia
- The Baltic state of 2.8 million people fears it could be next in Russia’s crosshairs if Moscow wins its war against Ukraine
VILNIUS: Lithuania votes Sunday in a presidential election dominated by security concerns with the main candidates all agreed the NATO and EU member should boost defense spending to counter the perceived threat from neighboring Russia.
The Baltic state of 2.8 million people fears it could be next in Russia’s crosshairs if Moscow wins its war against Ukraine, which began with an invasion in 2022.
While the top three contenders agree on defense, they have diverging views on social issues and on Lithuania’s relations with China, which have been strained for years over Taiwan.
“Lithuania’s understanding of the Russian threat is unanimous and unquestionable, so the main candidates are following suit,” Eastern Europe Studies Center director Linas Kojala told AFP.
Polls close at 1700 GMT and the result is expected later on Sunday — although a run-off on May 26 will probably be needed as no candidate is expected to win an overall majority.
Opinion polls give the incumbent, 59-year-old former banker Gitanas Nauseda, a comfortable lead over the other seven candidates, who include Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte and prominent lawyer Ignas Vegele.
The Lithuanian president steers defense and foreign policy, attending EU and NATO summits, but must consult with the government and parliament on appointing the most senior officials.
Lithuania, a former Soviet republic, is a top donor to Ukraine and a big defense spender, with a military budget currently equal to 2.75 percent of GDP.
Defense spending
The Simonyte-led government is expected to come forward with proposals within several weeks that could help increase defense spending even further to three percent.
Lithuania notably intends to use the funds to purchase tanks and additional air defense systems, and to host a German brigade, as Berlin plans to complete the stationing of around 5,000 troops by 2027.
None of the top candidates appear to question these plans, but Vegele has pledged to ask for a defense audit to effectively manage finances if he is elected.
Nauseda is projected to receive more than 35 percent of the vote in the first round, according to the latest opinion poll, and is expected to prevail in any eventual run-off.
Vegele, a 48-year-old lawyer who gained prominence after speaking out against mandated vaccination during the pandemic, presents himself as an alternative to established politicians and vows more transparent governance.
Simonyte, 49, is a fiscal conservative with liberal views on social issues. She notably supports same-sex partnerships, which still stir controversy in the predominantly Catholic country.
Simonyte is running for president for a second time after losing to Nauseda in a run-off in 2019.
“Simonyte is supported by conservative party voters and liberal people, while Nauseda is a candidate of the left in terms of economic and social policy,” Vilnius University analyst Ramunas Vilpisauskas told AFP.
Meanwhile, “Vegele will get support from those who simply want change,” he added.
Divergence over China
The uneasy relationship between Nauseda and his rival Simonyte’s ruling conservatives has at times triggered foreign policy debates, most notably on Lithuania’s relations with China.
Bilateral ties turned tense in 2021, when Vilnius allowed Taiwan to open a de facto embassy under the island’s name in a departure from the common diplomatic practice of using the name of the capital Taipei to avoid angering Beijing.
China, which considers Taiwan a part of its territory and bristles at support for the island that might lend it any sense of international legitimacy, downgraded diplomatic relations with Vilnius and blocked its exports.
This sparked controversy among Lithuanian politicians, with some urging a restoration of relations for the sake of the Lithuanian economy.
“China’s reaction to the opening of the office was harsher than predicted, and that sparked the debate,” Kojala said, adding that China’s response was hurting local businesses.
Trump tells Jersey Shore crowd he’s being forced to endure ‘Biden show trial’ in hush money case
- The former president’s extraordinary legal woes, which include three other unrelated criminal cases, have emerged as a central issue in the campaign
WILDWOOD, N.J.: Sandwiched between his appearances in court, Donald Trump headed on Saturday to the Jersey Shore, where he repeatedly blamed President Joe Biden for the criminal charges he’s facing as the presumptive nominees prepare to face off in the November election and called his New York hush money case “a Biden show trial.”
Blasting the Democratic president “a total moron,” Trump before a crowd of tens of thousands repeatedly characterized the cases against him as politically motivated and timed to harm his ability to campaign.
“He’s a fool. He’s not a smart man,” Trump said of Biden. “I talk about him differently now because now the gloves are off.”
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, drew what his team called a “mega crowd” to a Saturday evening rally in the southern New Jersey resort town of Wildwood, 150 miles (241 kilometers) south of the New York City courthouse where he has been forced to spend most weekdays sitting silently through his felony hush money trial.
Lisa Fagan, spokesperson for the city of Wildwood, told The Associated Press that she estimated a crowd of between 80,000 and 100,000 attendees, based off her own observations on the scene Saturday, having seen “dozens” of other events in the same space.
Trump was joined on stage by several high-level endorsers including North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor, who is still listed as a registered sex offender after pleading guilty in New York in 2011 to misdemeanor criminal charges of sexual misconduct and patronizing an underage prostitute.
The beachfront gathering, described by Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., as the largest political gathering in state history, was designed to serve as a show of force at a critical moment for Trump, who is facing dozens of felony charges in four separate criminal cases with the election less than six months away.
Hours before he was scheduled to take the stage, thousands of Trump loyalists donning “Never Surrender” T-shirts and red “Make America Great Again” hats crowded onto the sand between the boardwalk and carnival rides to greet the former Republican president.
“The everyday American people are 100 percent behind him,” said Doreen O’Neill, a 62-year-old nurse from Philadelphia.
“They have to cheat and smear him and humiliate him in that courtroom every single day,” O’Neill said. “This country is going to go insane if they steal the election again.”
Trump’s extraordinary legal woes, which include three other unrelated criminal cases, have emerged as a central issue in the campaign.
Trump has repeatedly accused the Biden administration and Democratic officials in New York of using the legal system to block his return to the White House. Prosecutors allege the former president broke the law to conceal an affair with a porn actor that would have hurt his first presidential bid.
On Saturday, Trump posited that even those whom he accuses of politically motivated prosecutions didn’t bring every case they could have, pointing to the boosts his campaign has sustained with each wave of charges.
“I heard they were going to do a couple of other things and they said from Washington ... ‘we’re indicting him into the White House,’” Trump said. “They said, ‘Don’t do it.’”
While Trump seized on his legal woes Saturday, a judge’s gag order — and the threat of jail — limit Trump’s ability to comment publicly on witnesses, jurors and some others connected to the New York trial, which is expected to consume much of the month. The judge in the case already has fined Trump $9,000 for violating the order and warned that jail could follow if he doesn’t comply.
The order doesn’t include references to Judge Juan M. Merchan, whom Trump called “highly conflicted” or District Attorney Alvin Bragg, both of whom Trump said are “doing the bidding for crooked Joe Biden.”
Trump’s responsibilities as a defendant have limited his ability to win over voters on the campaign trail.
He spent last week’s off-day from court in the general election battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Michigan. And he was campaigning with tens of thousands of voters Saturday in New Jersey, a reliably Democratic state. Parts of New Jersey have deep-red enclaves and the southern shoreline in particular draws tourists and summer homeowners from neighboring Pennsylvania, a key swing state.
Biden, meanwhile, opened his weekend with a series of fundraising events on the West Coast.
He avoided Trump’s legal challenges — as he has done consistently — while addressing donors in Seattle. Instead, the Democratic president focused on Trump’s recent interview with Time magazine in which the Republican former president said states should be left to determine whether to prosecute women for abortions or to monitor their pregnancies.
Saturday’s visit to the New Jersey Shore resort wasn’t Trump’s first.
While president, Trump held a rally there in January 2020 to thank Van Drew, the New Jersey congressman who had just left the Democratic Party for the GOP as a rebuke for the former president’s first impeachment.
Trump drew a crowd at the time that lined the streets, filled bars and supported numerous vendors in what is usually a sleepy city in the winter. This time, the summer season is around the corner for the resort known for its wide beaches and boardwalk games and shops.
Wildwood is in New Jersey’s 2nd District, which Van Drew has represented for three terms and covers all or part of six counties in southern New Jersey. It went for Trump in 2016 and again in 2020 after earlier backing Barack Obama.
Trump is set to return to the courtroom next week, when key prosecution witness Michael Cohen, Trump’s fixer-turned-foe, is expected to take the witness stand. Last week, he was visibly angry at times as he was forced to sit through testimony from former porn actor Stormy Daniels, who described a sexual encounter with the former president in shocking detail.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organization business records. The charges stem from paperwork such as invoices and checks that were deemed legal expenses in company records. Prosecutors say those payments largely were reimbursements to Cohen, Trump’s attorney, who paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet.
The prosecution could rest its case by the end of the week. It’s unclear if Trump himself will take the stand when the defense presents its case.
Back on the Jersey Shore, 65-year-old Pat Day said she felt some urgency to see Trump in person on Saturday.
“We want to see Trump before they take him out,” said Day, who was visiting from the Florida Keys. “I’m worried. They’re going to do everything they can so he doesn’t get elected again.”
US university apologizes after contractors spray paint in faces of pro-Palestine protesters
LONDON: The president of a Cleveland university in the US state of Ohio has apologized to students after hired contractors sprayed pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the face earlier this week while attempting to cover up a mural, local media has reported.
Students at Case Western Reserve University painted the Advocacy and Spirit walls on Monday night with the Palestinian flag and messages that included “I dream of breaking the siege,” “Come together in peace” and the number of Palestinian children killed in Gaza since war between Israel and Hamas broke out in October, Cleveland.com said.
Prompted by an unprecedented attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, Israel retaliated with an offensive that has so far killed almost 35,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
A video showed the students, who are accusing the contractors of assault, trying to block the contractors from painting over the wall by standing in front of it, and one student wearing a face shield, was seen completely covered in white paint.
The video was shared by the Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com by Case’s Students for Justice in Palestine group.
The contractors had been hired by the university’s president, Eric Kaler, early on Tuesday because “the administration said the messaging was ‘threatening, intimidating and antisemitic,’” Cleveland.com said, adding that he later released a statement apologizing to the community for the incident, saying he was “disturbed by what occurred.”
He added: “Let me be clear: No students — or any individuals — should ever be treated this way, especially on a campus where our core values center on providing a safe, welcoming environment. This is not who we are as an institution, and I am deeply sorry this ever occurred.”
Palestinian-Ameican student, Ameer Alkayali, 18, who was seen being completely sprayed in the video, said: “I stood against the wall, and the painters asked ‘Should we continue?’ The cops showed general confusion and didn’t tell them to stop. So, as seen in the video, they continue to just paint right over us.
“They told us to not put our hands in front of the machine because it’s dangerous. And we put our hands up, and they still continued to paint on our hands and sprayed us with it?”
Alkayali, who has been protesting with Case students sine they set up their encampment last week has also previously been detained and released by local police and now says “plans to take legal action against Case’s administration and its public safety department,” Cleveland.com reported.
“We were coughing, and it didn’t come out of my skin for hours,” he said. “Like it’s still in my hair. I can see it under my nails, and there was no sort of medical or any assistance with the situation after from Case or local police.”
Case said it was investigating the incident and since then, the wall has been painted over with a pro-Israeli message, saying: “They call for intifada so we call them terrorists.”
“Kaler said the college will ‘hold individuals responsible for this behavior, including the failure of our own officers to intervene,’” Cleveland.com said.
On Wednesday, “Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and the city’s police chief, Annie Todd, urged Kaler and his administration to think of the students’ rights,” the news outlet said.
“We support 1st Amendment rights and implore CWRU leadership to consider this and think about how the decisions they make and the actions they take – especially against those who are abiding by the law – will influence some of the progress we have collectively made as a city. At the same time, we urge individuals to demonstrate peacefully,” Bibb and Todd said.
Sit-ins and demonstrations demanding an end to the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip continued to spread across several American and European universities, while local media reported that US police have arrested or detained more than 2,400 students who participated in protests in support of Palestine.
