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US happy underdogs ahead of England World Cup clash: Adams

24 Nov 2022 25 Nov 2022

United States skipper Tyler Adams says his teammates are embracing their underdog status as they chase another World Cup upset against mighty England on Friday.

The US head into Friday’s Group B clash at the Al Bayt Stadium desperately needing a positive result after being held to a 1-1 draw against Wales on Monday.

England meanwhile go into the game on a high after a 6-2 mauling of Iran, and a win for Gareth Southgate’s side would see them assured of a place in the last 16.

Leeds midfielder Adams however says the Americans are unfazed by the prospect of taking on a team he regards as one of the tournament favourites.

“I think England are currently one of the favourites to win the World Cup,” Adams told a press conference on Thursday.

“I think that in a lot of games people say we’re the underdogs. But we carry that with pride. It doesn’t mean anything to us to be underdogs, or to be favourites. That being said, when we step on the field against England we have to be prepared or else a win is not possible.”

In two previous meetings at the World Cup, the United States have never lost to England.

They famously sent the English crashing out of the tournament in 1950 with a 1-0 defeat, and in 2010 held a star-studded England team to a 1-1 draw in South Africa.

Adams says Friday’s game is a chance to accelerate a positive shift in how American soccer is perceived around the world.

“It’s a huge opportunity to fast track the impact that we can have,” Adams said.

“These are the games where it’s a high pressure, privileged moment to step on the field against some of these guys… When you get a result in a game like this people start to respect Americans a little bit more.”

US coach Gregg Berhalter meanwhile said the Americans were confident of being able to pose a threat to England’s hopes of victory.

“We think there’s areas that we can exploit and we can hurt them,” Berhalter said.

The United States have the second youngest team in the World Cup, with a talented largely Europe-based squad brimming with technical ability.

Berhalter however said suggestions that the current crop of American players represented a “Golden Generation” were premature.

“That’s just TBD (to be determined),” Berhalter said. “We haven’t achieved anything as a group on the world stage.

“When you’re talking about England — they came fourth (at the 2018 World Cup) and second (at Euro 2020). Those are tangible things that you can point to. We’re just not there yet.

“We need to use this World Cup to establish ourselves and then hopefully move to the next World Cup and do the same. We’re getting a little bit of ourselves calling the team that.”

Berhalter meanwhile revealed that his off-field friendship with Southgate had been put on hold in the build-up to Friday’s game.

“I’ve been Whatsapping him but I haven’t seen the blue check marks,” Berhalter said.

“We kind of took a hiatus. I’m sure we’ll pick up our relationship after tomorrow.”

Emperor Charles V's secret code cracked after five centuries

24 Nov 2022 26 Nov 2022

A team of researchers has cracked a five century-old code which reveals a rumoured French plot to kill the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain Charles V.

Charles was one of the most powerful men of the 16th century, presiding over a vast empire that took in much of western Europe and the Americas during a reign of more than 40 years.

It took the team from the Loria research lab in eastern France six months to decipher the letter written in 1547 by the emperor to his ambassador in France.

The tumultuous period saw a succession of wars and tensions between Spain and France, ruled at that time by Francis I, the Renaissance ruler who brought Leonardo da Vinci from Italy.

The letter from Charles V to Jean de Saint-Mauris had languished forgotten for centuries in the collections of the Stanislas library in Nancy.

Cecile Pierrot, a cryptographer from Loria, first heard of its existence at a dinner in 2019, and after much searching was able to set eyes on it in 2021.

Bearing the signature of Charles V, it was at once mysterious and utterly incomprehensible, she told reporters on Wednesday.

– ‘Snapshot of strategy’ –

In painstaking work backed by computers, Pierrot found “distinct families” of some 120 symbols used by Charles V.

“Whole words are encrypted with a single symbol” and the emperor replaced vowels coming after consonants with marks, she said, an inspiration probably coming from Arabic.

In another obstacle, he also used symbols that mean nothing to mislead any adversary trying to decipher the message.

The breakthrough came in June, when Pierrot managed to make out a phrase in the letter, and the team then cracked the code with the help of historian Camille Desenclos.

“It was painstaking and long work but there was really a breakthrough that happened in one day, where all of a sudden we had the right hypothesis,” she said.

Another letter from Jean de Saint-Mauris, where the receiver had doodled a form of transcription code in the margin, also helped.

– More discoveries to come –

Desenclos said it was “rare as a historian to manage to read a letter that no one had managed to read for five centuries.”

It “confirms the somewhat degraded state” in 1547 of relations between Francis I and Charles V, who had signed a peace treaty three years earlier, she said.

But relations were still tense between the two, with various attempts to weaken each other, she said.

So much so that one nugget of information revealed was the rumour of an assassination plot against Charles V that was said to have been brewing in France, Desenclos said.

She said “not much had been known” about the plot but it underlined the monarch’s “fear”.

The researchers now hope to identify other letters between the emperor and his ambassador “to have a snapshot of Charles V’s strategy in Europe”, she said.

“It is likely that we will make many more discoveries in the coming years,” the historian said.

Emperor Charles V's secret code cracked after five centuries

24 Nov 2022 26 Nov 2022

A team of researchers has cracked a five century-old code which reveals a rumoured French plot to kill the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain Charles V.

Charles was one of the most powerful men of the 16th century, presiding over a vast empire that took in much of western Europe and the Americas during a reign of more than 40 years.

It took the team from the Loria research lab in eastern France six months to decipher the letter written in 1547 by the emperor to his ambassador in France.

The tumultuous period saw a succession of wars and tensions between Spain and France, ruled at that time by Francis I, the Renaissance ruler who brought Leonardo da Vinci from Italy.

The letter from Charles V to Jean de Saint-Mauris had languished forgotten for centuries in the collections of the Stanislas library in Nancy.

Cecile Pierrot, a cryptographer from Loria, first heard of its existence at a dinner in 2019, and after much searching was able to set eyes on it in 2021.

Bearing the signature of Charles V, it was at once mysterious and utterly incomprehensible, she told reporters on Wednesday.

– ‘Snapshot of strategy’ –

In painstaking work backed by computers, Pierrot found “distinct families” of some 120 symbols used by Charles V.

“Whole words are encrypted with a single symbol” and the emperor replaced vowels coming after consonants with marks, she said, an inspiration probably coming from Arabic.

In another obstacle, he also used symbols that mean nothing to mislead any adversary trying to decipher the message.

The breakthrough came in June, when Pierrot managed to make out a phrase in the letter, and the team then cracked the code with the help of historian Camille Desenclos.

“It was painstaking and long work but there was really a breakthrough that happened in one day, where all of a sudden we had the right hypothesis,” she said.

Another letter from Jean de Saint-Mauris, where the receiver had doodled a form of transcription code in the margin, also helped.

– More discoveries to come –

Desenclos said it was “rare as a historian to manage to read a letter that no one had managed to read for five centuries.”

It “confirms the somewhat degraded state” in 1547 of relations between Francis I and Charles V, who had signed a peace treaty three years earlier, she said.

But relations were still tense between the two, with various attempts to weaken each other, she said.

So much so that one nugget of information revealed was the rumour of an assassination plot against Charles V that was said to have been brewing in France, Desenclos said.

She said “not much had been known” about the plot but it underlined the monarch’s “fear”.

The researchers now hope to identify other letters between the emperor and his ambassador “to have a snapshot of Charles V’s strategy in Europe”, she said.

“It is likely that we will make many more discoveries in the coming years,” the historian said.

Ukraine battles to restore power after latest Russian barrage

24 Nov 2022 24 Nov 2022

Ukraine struggled Thursday to repair its battered power and water services after Russia targeted the electricity grid with dozens of cruise missiles and temperatures plunged.

The Ukrainian energy system is on the brink of collapse and millions have been subjected to emergency blackouts for weeks due to systematic Russian bombardments of the grid.

The World Health Organisation has warned of “life-threatening” consequences and estimated that millions could leave their homes as a result.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said more than two-thirds of the capital was still cut off despite municipal workers in Kyiv restoring some water service overnight.

“Seventy percent of the capital remains without electricity,” Klitschko said. “Energy companies are making every effort to return it as soon as possible,” he added.

Kyiv shivered Thursday as temperatures hovered just above zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) with some rain.

Ukraine’s military accused Russian forces of firing around 70 cruise missiles at targets across the country on Wednesday and of deploying attack drones.

Ten people were killed and around 50 wounded, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin told local media.

But Russia’s defence ministry denied striking any targets inside Kyiv and said damage in the capital was the result of Ukrainian and foreign air defence systems.

– ‘Scariest day’ –

“Not a single strike was made on targets within the city of Kyiv,” it said.

Moscow’s targeting of power facilities is their bid to force capitulation after nine months of war that has seen Russian forces fail in most of their stated territorial objectives.

“So many victims, so many houses ruined,” 52-year-old Iryna Shyrokova told AFP in Vyshgorod on the outskirts of Kyiv after Wednesday’s Russian strikes.

“People have nowhere to live, nowhere to sleep. It’s cold. I can’t explain it. What for? We are also human beings,” she said, calling it “the scariest day”.

This month Moscow’s troops withdrew from the only regional capital they had captured, destroying key infrastructure as they retreated from Kherson in the south.

Kostin said Ukrainian authorities had discovered a total of nine torture sites used by the Russians in Kherson as well as “the bodies of 432 killed civilians”. He did not specify how they were killed.

Wednesday’s attacks disconnected three Ukrainian nuclear plants automatically from the national grid and provoked blackouts in neighbouring Moldova, whose energy network is linked to Ukraine.

Ukraine’s energy ministry said that all three nuclear facilities had been reconnected by Thursday morning.

The governor of Kharkiv region — home to the country’s second largest city — said the eponymous city was suffering electricity supply issues and “emergency power shutdowns”.

The head of the central region of Poltava, Dmytro Lunin, said authorities were “working around the clock to restore power”.

– ‘Shutdowns’ –

“In the coming hours, we will start supplying energy to critical infrastructure and then to the majority of households,” Lunin said.

About 50 percent of central Dnipropetrovsk region had electricity, governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.

“The energy supply situation is complicated. So shutdowns will continue in the region to reduce the pressure on the grid as much as possible,” Reznichenko warned.

Repair work was ongoing elsewhere, including in the Rivne, Cherkasy, Kirovograd and Zhytomyr regions, officials said.

The Kremlin said Ukraine was ultimately responsible for the fallout from the strikes and that Kyiv could end the strikes by acquiescing to Russian demands.

Ukraine “has every opportunity to settle the situation, to fulfil Russia’s demands and as a result, end all possible suffering of the civilian population,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Moscow announced separately it had issued tens of thousands of Russian passports to residents of four Ukrainian territories, which President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed in September.

“More than 80,000 people received passports as citizens of the Russian Federation,” Valentina Kazakova, a migration official with the interior ministry, said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies.

In September, Russia held so called referendums in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson and claimed residents had voted in favour of becoming subjects of Russia.

Putin formally annexed the territories at a ceremony in the Kremlin later that month, even though his forces have never had full control over them.

EU fails to agree gas price cap amid deep divisions

24 Nov 2022 24 Nov 2022

EU energy ministers failed Thursday to agree a cap on gas prices to mitigate the energy crunch in Europe amid deep divisions over an initial proposal slammed by many as a “joke”.

The ministers will now meet in the first half of December to try to bridge differences, said Czech Industry Minister Jozef Sikela, whose country holds the current presidency of the EU.

He added that the ministers did manage to adopt a couple of other “important measures”, including joint gas purchases to avoid intra-EU competition driving up prices, supply solidarity in times of need, and hastening authorisation of renewable energy sources.

Several ministers going into Thursday’s meeting complained that the gas price cap proposal on the table, unveiled by the European Commission just two days earlier, was clearly designed to never be used.

The Polish and Spanish energy ministers called the proposal a “joke”.

Greek Energy Minister Kostas Skrekas said the cap “is not actually a ceiling” on gas prices, and “we are losing valuable time without results”.

The price cap plan — which the commission was never keen on — sets a maximum threshold of 275 euros per megawatt hour.

But it comes with so many conditions attached that it would not even have been activated back in August, when the gas price briefly soared above 300 euros, alarming Europe used to historic prices around 10 percent of that.

– Drop in Russian gas –

The cap proposal would only be triggered if the 275-euro limit was breached continuously for at least two weeks, and then only if the price for liquified natural gas (LNG) rose above 58 euros for 10 days within that same two-week period.

The price of wholesale gas in Europe on Thursday was around 124 euros, according to the main TTF benchmark.

The commission’s proposed price cap was seen as neutered under pressure from members including Germany and the Netherlands, which feared a cap could divert gas supplies to more lucrative markets, especially Asia.

Yet at least 15 EU countries — more than half the bloc — want some form of workable ceiling on wholesale gas prices to tackle a crunch in supply forced by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

While the European Union hasn’t banned Russian gas, the Kremlin has been turning off the taps in retaliation for sanctions imposed by Brussels in the wake of Moscow’s invasion.

Before the war, Russian gas supplies accounted for more than 40 percent of all imported gas into the European Union, with export powerhouse Germany particularly needy.

That has now dropped to less than 10 percent.

But alternative sources — such as LNG shipped from the United States and the Gulf — cannot make up the shortfall, and Europe faces a pricey heating bill for winter.

EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson acknowledged the divisions over the price cap as she went into the meeting.

She noted that the ministers have “a right to calibrate the different parameters” if they wished — something that may happen in time for their next meeting, likely to be called for December 13.

The price cap plan, if adopted, would start in January. It would run alongside a voluntary initiative for EU member states to cut natural gas use by 15 percent over the northern hemisphere winter.

rmb/dc/raz

For political activists, Twitter packs a vital punch

24 Nov 2022 26 Nov 2022

From the Arab Spring uprisings to the MeToo movement in which women spoke up about sexual assaults, Twitter has proven itself a formidable ally for political activists and opposition groups, one whose reach and impact would be difficult to replace.

Other social media platforms may have more users, but the network now owned by the billionaire Elon Musk dominates the global conversation — even as Twitter’s future is being called into doubt.

“Twitter is clearly very influential in getting the media and officials to pay attention. So it has a very special and unique place in that way,” said Mahsa Alimardani, a senior researcher at the human rights NGO Article 19.

During the anti-government protests that have rocked Iran in recent months, tweets are “helping Iranians bear witness to the pain and struggles of their fellow countrymen, helping the world bear witness to what’s happening,” she told AFP.

Especially in countries that have clamped down on independent journalism or foreign correspondents, Twitter provides a crucial lifeline to the outside world.

This week, posts from inside the Chinese iPhone factory operated by Foxconn showed workers rebelling against a total Covid lockdown, shattering the government’s attempts to portray a veneer of calm amid its draconian efforts to contain the virus.

“It’s very important to get information out to the international media but also to document human rights violations and atrocities,” said Marcus Michaelsen, a researcher specialised in digital activism under authoritarian regimes.

– ‘Protest identity’ –

Twitter had some 237 million daily users at end-June, well below the nearly two billion Facebook or one billion TikTok users.

But its pithy, at-a-glance format allows the network to punch far above its weight for opposition groups, since anyone can become a “citizen journalist” who instantly shares images that government authorities don’t want to be seen.

For  Nadia Idle, an Egyptian-British activist who took part in the Tahrir Square uprising in Egypt in 2011, tweets of anti-regime protests across the Middle East also encouraged people by showing that they were not alone.

“Its capacity to broadcast this event, and the amount of activists that were tweeting in English, made it a spectacle for people from the outside,” she said.

Faced with viral tweets provoking global outrage, outside governments can also feel domestic pressure to take action or at least condemn repressive governments.

And even in democratic countries, Twitter’s function as a digital town hall can provide activists with a megaphone that previously might have been out of reach.

Over the past decade, the BlackLivesMatter hashtag has become synonymous with the movement to highlight racism and police violence against African Americans, shining a light on discriminations that often went unseen.

“They use the features of Twitter, of social media, to create a protest identity, to create a common feeling within the movement,” Michaelsen said.

“They know that they can reach journalists and policymakers more, more directly than on Instagram, for instance.”

– ‘Would be a big loss’ –

Since the upheaval created by Musk’s takeover, Twitter has seen a wave of defections as people worry that posts will no longer be sufficiently curated to weed out disinformation and provocations.

Activists warn that if Twitter dies, the world will lose a crucial historical record of social movements that might not have gained traction without the digital documentation.

“Twitter has maintained an archive of so many different movements and so many different events… So losing that archive would be a big loss, it’s a historical record in some way,” Alimardani said.

Charles Lister, a political scientist at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said oppressive regimes or terror groups would be the only beneficiaries of losing a powerful check on their behaviour.

In his work on the Syria civil war, Lister says Twitter has been “vital” to documenting war crimes and providing aid.

Ukraine battles to restore power after latest Russian barrage

24 Nov 2022 24 Nov 2022

Ukraine struggled Thursday to repair its battered power and water services after Russia targeted the electricity grid with dozens of cruise missiles and temperatures plunged.

The Ukrainian energy system is on the brink of collapse and millions have been subjected to emergency blackouts for weeks due to systematic Russian bombardments of the grid.

The World Health Organisation has warned of “life-threatening” consequences and estimated that millions could leave their homes as a result.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said more than two-thirds of the capital was still cut off on Thursday despite municipal workers in Kyiv restoring some water service overnight.

“Seventy percent of the capital remains without electricity,” Klitschko said. “Energy companies are making every effort to return it as soon as possible,” he added.

Ukraine’s military accused Russian forces of firing around 70 cruise missiles at targets across the country on Wednesday and of deploying attack drones.

Moscow’s targeting of Ukrainian power facilities is their latest strategy hoping to force capitulation after nine months of war that has seen Russian forces fail in most of their stated territorial objectives.

– ‘Scariest day’ –

Wednesday’s attacks left multiple people dead, disconnected three Ukrainian nuclear plants automatically from the national grid and even provoked blackouts in neighbouring Moldova, whose energy network is linked to Ukraine.

“So many victims, so many houses ruined,” 52-year-old Iryna Shyrokova told AFP in Vyshgorod on the outskirts of Kyiv after the Russian strikes.

“People have nowhere to live, nowhere to sleep. It’s cold. I can’t explain it. What for? We are also human beings,” she said, calling it “the scariest day”.

Ukraine’s energy ministry said that all three nuclear facilities had been reconnected by Thursday morning.

The governor of Kharkiv region — home to the country’s second largest city — said the eponymous city was suffering electricity supply issues and “emergency power shutdowns”.

The head of the central region of Poltava, Dmytro Lunin, said authorities were “working around the clock to restore power”.

“In the coming hours, we will start supplying energy to critical infrastructure and then to the majority of households,” Lunin said.

– ‘Shutdowns’ –

About 50 percent of central Dnipropetrovsk region had electricity, governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.

“The energy supply situation is complicated. So shutdowns will continue in the region to reduce the pressure on the grid as much as possible,” Reznichenko warned.

Repair work was ongoing elsewhere, including in the Rivne, Cherkasy, Kirovograd and Zhytomyr regions, officials said.

Moscow announced separately it had issued tens of thousands of Russian passports to residents of four Ukrainian territories, which President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed in September.

In September, Russia held so called referendums in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson and claimed residents had voted in favour of becoming subjects of Russia.

Putin formally annexed the territories at a ceremony in the Kremlin later that month, even though his forces have never had full control over them.

Stocks rise, dollar slips as Fed signals softer rate hike pace

24 Nov 2022 24 Nov 2022

Stock markets mostly rose Thursday and the dollar largely weakened after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting suggested it could slow the pace of its rate hikes.

The news provided traders with a cushion against concerns about surging Covid-19 cases in China that have fanned speculation authorities will revert to lockdowns and other economically debilitating measures to fight the outbreak.

Oil prices extended Wednesday’s sharp losses fuelled by worries about the impact on demand from China’s Covid outbreaks.

Wednesday’s much-anticipated minutes showed most US central bank chiefs felt smaller increases would “likely soon be appropriate” as the economy shows signs of weakness following almost a year of monetary tightening.

“Equities are revelling in the wake of the… minutes after the Fed telegraphed a downshift from jumbo to extra-large rate hikes,” said SPI Asset Management’s Stephen Innes.

“A commitment to moving toward restrictive monetary policy remains intact, but the (policy board) is ready to slow the path toward that destination.”

He added that a less aggressive Fed “should pave the runway for take-off in Asia, fuelled by expectations of China’s reopening by March next year”.

Bets were growing on officials announcing a 50-basis-point lift at their December gathering, down from four straight 75-point hikes.

The latest indicators showed the manufacturing and services sectors continued to contract last month, while jobless claims picked up.

The developments allowed Wall Street traders to head off to their Thanksgiving break with a spring in their step, the S&P 500 ending at a two-month high as they finally see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel after a painful year.

Asia and Europe mostly followed suit.

Kuala Lumpur surged more than three percent and the ringgit held gains after opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was named prime minister, ending a days-long leadership impasse after inconclusive polls that had rattled Malaysia’s markets.

The more risk-on environment was also reflected in a further drop in the dollar against its peers, having surged for much of the year as traders bet on ever-higher US interest rates.

Investors were keeping a close watch also on China after it announced a record number of new Covid cases, as authorities worked to curb the spread with snap lockdowns, mass testing and travel restrictions.

While officials are trying more targeted measures to contain the disease, concerns remain that they will resort to the painful city-wide shutdowns seen in Shanghai earlier this year as part of the zero-Covid strategy, which hammered the economy.

However, that worry has been tempered somewhat after China signalled fresh support measures aimed at boosting growth, with the State Council saying tools would be used to ensure liquidity in markets.

The comments led to talk of another cut in the amount of cash that banks must keep in reserve, freeing them to lend more.

– Key figures around 1130 GMT –

London – FTSE 100: UP 0.1 percent at 7,475.73 points

Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.6 percent at 6,716.21

Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.9 percent at 14,550.77

EURO STOXX 50: UP 0.5 percent at 3,967.92

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 1.0 percent at 28,383.09 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.8 percent at 17,660.90 (close)

Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.3 percent at 3,089.31 (close)

New York – Dow: UP 0.3 percent at 34,194.06 (close)

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0391 from $1.0401 on Wednesday

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 138.28 yen from 139.52 yen

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2099 from $1.2064

Euro/pound: DOWN at 85.91 pence from 86.18 pence

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.6 percent at $77.44 per barrel

Brent North Sea crude: DOWN 0.9 percent at $84.63 per barrel

Stocks rise, dollar slips as Fed signals softer rate hike pace

24 Nov 2022 24 Nov 2022

Stock markets mostly rose Thursday and the dollar largely weakened after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting suggested it could slow the pace of its rate hikes.

Oil prices extended Wednesday’s sharp losses fuelled by worries about the impact on demand from China’s Covid outbreaks.

“Equities are revelling in the wake of the… minutes after the Fed telegraphed a downshift from jumbo to extra-large rate hikes,” said SPI Asset Management’s Stephen Innes.

“A commitment to moving toward restrictive monetary policy remains intact, but the (policy board) is ready to slow the path toward that destination.”

He added that a less aggressive Fed “should pave the runway for take-off in Asia, fuelled by expectations of China’s reopening by March next year”.

Bets were growing on officials announcing a 50-basis-point lift at their December gathering, down from four straight 75-point hikes.

The latest indicators showed the manufacturing and services sectors continued to contract last month, while jobless claims picked up.

Asia and Europe mostly followed suit.

The more risk-on environment was also reflected in a further drop in the dollar against its peers, having surged for much of the year as traders bet on ever-higher US interest rates.

However, that worry has been tempered somewhat after China signalled fresh support measures aimed at boosting growth, with the State Council saying tools would be used to ensure liquidity in markets.

The comments led to talk of another cut in the amount of cash that banks must keep in reserve, freeing them to lend more.

– Key figures around 1130 GMT –

London – FTSE 100: UP 0.1 percent at 7,475.73 points

Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.6 percent at 6,716.21

Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.9 percent at 14,550.77

EURO STOXX 50: UP 0.5 percent at 3,967.92

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 1.0 percent at 28,383.09 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.8 percent at 17,660.90 (close)

Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.3 percent at 3,089.31 (close)

New York – Dow: UP 0.3 percent at 34,194.06 (close)

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0391 from $1.0401 on Wednesday

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 138.28 yen from 139.52 yen

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2099 from $1.2064

Euro/pound: DOWN at 85.91 pence from 86.18 pence

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.6 percent at $77.44 per barrel

Brent North Sea crude: DOWN 0.9 percent at $84.63 per barrel

French lawmakers to vote on bullfighting ban

24 Nov 2022 24 Nov 2022

French MPs are expected to vote for the first time Thursday on whether to ban bullfighting after a national debate that has pitched animal rights’ defenders against fans of the traditional blood sport.

Though public opinion is firmly in favour of outlawing the practice, the bill is expected to be rejected by a majority of lawmakers who are wary about stirring up the bullfighting heartlands in the south of the country.

There is also a chance that the legislation, proposed by a vegan left-wing lawmaker, fails to be presented for a vote in the National Assembly at the last minute.

“We need to go towards a conciliation, an exchange,” President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday, adding that he did not expect the draft law to pass. “From where I am sitting, this is not a current priority.”

His government has urged members of the ruling centrist coalition not to support the text from the opposition France Unbowed party, even though many members are known to personally favour it.

During a first debate on the parliament’s law commission last week, a majority voted against the proposal by MP Aymeric Caron, who denounced the “barbarism” of a tradition that was imported from Spain in the 1850s.

“Caron has antagonised people instead of trying to smooth it over,” a lawmaker from Macron’s party told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The bill proposes modifying an existing law penalising animal cruelty to remove exemptions for bullfights that can be shown to be “uninterrupted local traditions”.

These are granted in towns such as Bayonne and Mont-de-Marsan in southwest France and along the Mediterranean coast including Arles, Beziers and Nimes.

“The traditional character of an activity has never been a moral justification for it,” Caron told the BFM news channel on Thursday.

“There are traditions that we’ve been able to stop when this activity is no longer in line with the ethics of our society, which evolve fortunately,” he added.

Around 1,000 bulls are killed each year in France, according to the National Observatory of Bull Cultures.

– ‘Tackling death’ –

Many so-called “bull towns” depend on the shows for tourism and see the culture of bull-breeding and the spectacle of the fight as part of their way of life — idolised by artists from Ernest Hemingway to Pablo Picasso.

They organised demonstrations last Saturday, while animal rights protesters gathered in Paris — highlighting the north-south and rural-versus-Paris divide at the heart of the debate.

“Caron, in a very moralising tone, wants to explain to us, from Paris, what is good or bad in the south,” the mayor of Mont-de-Marsan, Charles Dayot, told AFP recently.

Other defenders of “la Corrida” in France view the focus on the sport as hypocritical when factory farms and industrial slaughter houses are overlooked.

“These animals die too and we don’t talk enough about it,” said Dalia Navarro, who formed the pro-bullfighting group Les Andalouses in southern Arles.

Modern society “has more and more difficulty in accepting seeing death. But la Corrida tackles death, which is often a taboo subject,” she told AFP.

Previous judicial attempts to outlaw bullfighting have repeatedly failed, with courts routinely rejecting lawsuits lodged by animal rights activists, most recently in July 2021 in Nimes.

The scheduled vote Thursday might not take place because of the tabling of more than 500 amendments from other MPs, some of which appear designed to waste parliamentary time.

One from far-right MP Yoann Gillet suggests changing the title of the bill to “Imposing the ideology of grain-eaters on the inhabitants of southern France.”

Even if the bill were approved in the lower house on Thursday, the draft legislation would face a struggle to pass in the conservative-dominated Senate.

The debate in France about the ethics of killing animals for entertainment is echoed in other countries with bullfighting histories, including Spain and Portugal as well as Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela.

In June, a judge in Mexico City ordered an indefinite suspension of bullfighting in the capital’s historic bullring, the largest in the world.

The first bullfight took place in France in 1853 in Bayonne to honour Eugenie de Montijo, the Spanish wife of Napoleon III.

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