World Archives - Page 1397 of 1962

Macron meets France opposition, retains PM after poll blow

21 Jun 2022 21 Jun 2022

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday held talks with opposition leaders on ending the deadlock sparked by his failure to secure a majority in parliamentary elections, after rejecting an offer by the prime minister to resign.

Macron met right-wing, Socialist and Communist party chiefs at the Elysee, including rare talks with far-right leader Marine Le Pen, as he seeks solutions to a tricky situation that risks plunging his second term into crisis two months after it began.

The spectre of political paralysis and the breakthrough performance by the far-right under Le Pen has also raised questions over Macron’s leadership in Europe as he seeks to keep a prime role in dealing with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Elysee said French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, blamed by some analysts for heading a lacklustre campaign, had offered her resignation to Macron but the head of state turned it down.

Macron believes the government needs to “stay on task and act” and the president will now seek “constructive solutions” to the political deadlock in talks with opposition parties, said a presidential official.

Macron started Tuesday’s flurry of discussions by talking with Christian Jacob, head of the traditional right-wing the Republicans (LR), a party on the decline in recent months but which now may be courted by the president to give him a majority.

– ‘No question of pact’ –

The options available to Macron range from seeking to form a new coalition alliance, passing legislation based on ad hoc agreements, or even calling new elections.

One option would be an alliance with the Republicans, which have 61 MPs.

But Jacob after the talks appeared to close the door on such a solution. “I told the president there was no question of entering into what could be seen as betrayal of our voters”.

“We will stay in opposition,” he added, while vowing his party would not block the work of institutions.

Macron had hoped to mark his second term as president with an ambitious programme of tax cuts, welfare reform and raising the retirement age. All that is now in question.

“What can he (Macron) do now?” said the headline in the Le Parisien daily. “Macron in an impasse,” was Le Figaro’s line.

Despite vowing a new method of politics after his April presidential election victory, Macron has remained characteristically remote and has made no public comment on the outcome of the parliamentary polls.

The Le Monde daily called it Macron’s great hesitation,” saying that the president was in no hurry to work out his post-election strategy.

While Macron’s Ensemble (Together) coalition remains the largest party in parliament after Sunday’s National Assembly elections, it fell dozens of seats short of keeping the absolute majority it has enjoyed for the last five years.

The NUPES left-wing alliance became the main opposition force but the coalition of Socialists, Communists, Greens and the hard-left France Unbowed faces an uphill struggle to retain unity.

– ‘Wait for fruit to fall’ –

Jean-Luc Melenchon, the France Unbowed chief who orchestrated the NUPES alliance, proposed Monday to make it a permanent left-wing bloc but the offer was immediately rejected by the three other NUPES parties.

In a snub to the president, Melenchon is believed to be sending representatives to Elysee talks with Macron on Wednesday rather than going himself.

“I am neither hot nor cold” on Borne staying in power, said Melenchon, whose party has vowed to submit a no confidence motion against the premier at the beginning of July.

“All I have to do now is wait for the fruit to fall from the tree. This woman has no legitimacy. Zero. This is a democracy not a monarchy,” he added.

Socialist leader Olivier Faure, whose party is part of NUPES, adopted a more conciliatory stance after his meeting with Macron, saying his party is prepared to move forwards with the government if it takes measures on the key issue of purchasing power.

The far-right under Le Pen posted the best legislative performance in its history, becoming the strongest single opposition party with 89 seats, up from eight in the outgoing chamber.

Le Pen said changing the prime minister “would not change much”, urging Macron to “listen to what the French voters said”.

Even if Borne is to stay in her post for now, a cabinet shake-up is on the horizon after the health, environment and maritime ministers failed to win seats in the election and will now resign.

burs-sjw-jh/pvh

More strike calls cloud summer for European low-cost airlines

21 Jun 2022 22 Jun 2022

Europe’s low-cost airlines face a summer of discontent as staff in Spain and France announced new strikes over labour conditions on Tuesday.

Trade unions representing Ryanair cabin crew in Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain have called for strikes this coming weekend, while easyJet’s operations in Spain face a nine-day strike next month.

Damien Mourgues, a representative of the SNPNC trade union at Ryanair in France, said the airline did not respect rest-time laws. The union was also calling for a raise for cabin crew, still paid at the minimum wage.

Cabin crew will walk out on Saturday and Sunday.

Strike action on the weekend of June 12-13 already prompted the cancellation of about 40 Ryanair flights in France — about a quarter of the total.

Ryanair’s low-cost rival easyJet also faces nine days of strikes through July at the Barcelona, Malaga and Palma de Mallorca airports.

The union said Tuesday that Spanish easyJet cabin crew, with a base pay of 950 euros per month, have the lowest wages of the airline’s European bases.

An easyJet spokeswoman said: “should the industrial action go ahead we would expect some disruption to our flying programme” and “we would like to reassure customers that we will do everything possible to minimise any disruption.”

– Aviation sector ‘chaos’ –

The strikes come as air travel has rebounded since Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted.

But many airlines, which laid off staff during the pandemic, are having trouble rehiring enough workers, forcing them to cancel flights. That includes easyJet, which has been particularly hard hit by employee shortages.

On Monday, the European Transport Workers’ Federation called “on passengers not to blame the workers for the disasters in the airports, the cancelled flights, the long queues and longer time for check-ins, and lost luggage or delays caused by decades of corporate greed and a removal of decent jobs in the sector”.

The Federation said it expected “the chaos the aviation sector is currently facing will only grow over the summer as workers are pushed to the brink”.

In Spain, trade unions have urged Ryanair cabin crews to strike from June 24 to July 2 to secure their “fundamental labour rights” and “decent work conditions for all staff”.

Ryanair staff in Portugal plan to go on strike from Friday to Sunday to protest work conditions, as do employees in Belgium.

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has been dismissive of the strikes.

“We operate two and half thousand flights every day,” he said earlier this month in Belgium.

“Most of those flights will continue to operate even if there is a strike in Spain by some Mickey Mouse union or if the Belgian cabin crew unions want to go on strike over here,” told journalists.

– Airport staff discontent –

But Ryanair pilots in Belgium decided over the weekend to join cabin crew in a strike from Friday.

Meanwhile, staff at Brussels Airlines, a Lufthansa unit, have called a three-day strike from Thursday.

In Italy, a 24-hour strike is set to hit Ryanair operations on Saturday with pilots and cabin crew calling for the airline to respect the minimum wages set for the sector under a national agreement.

Ryanair continued to dismiss the strike threat, saying they were being called by minority unions.

“We do not expect widespread disruption this summer,” an airline spokeswoman told AFP, adding it had collective workplace agreements in place covering 90 percent of its European staff and was in talks to improve labour conditions.

“These minority union strikes are not supported by our crews,” said the spokeswoman.

Airports have also been plagued by staff shortages, which have caused long lines at check-in counters and security checks, provoking the ire of travellers.

On Monday, a strike by security agents caused the cancellation of all departures from Brussels’ Zaventem airport.

Cleaning staff at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport temporarily stopped working on Monday after missing out on a bonus.

And at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport, one of Europe’s largest, staff are set to strike from July 1.

Meanwhile, London moved Tuesday to halt a spate of cancellations at its airports by relaxing the requirement that airlines use their landing and takeoff slots or risk losing them.

The move will enable “airlines to plan ahead and deliver a realistic summer schedule that minimises disruption at the airports”, said the government.

NASA Moon rocket test met 90% of objectives

21 Jun 2022 23 Jun 2022

NASA’s fourth attempt to complete a critical test of its Moon rocket achieved around 90 percent of its goals, but there’s still no firm date for the behemoth’s first flight, officials said Tuesday.

Known as the “wet dress rehearsal” because it involves loading liquid propellant, it is the final item to cross off the checklist before the Artemis-1 mission slated for this summer: an uncrewed lunar flight that will eventually be followed by Moon boots on the ground, likely no sooner than 2026.

Teams at the Kennedy Space Center began their latest effort to complete the exercise on Saturday.

Their objectives were to load propellant into the rocket’s tanks, conduct a launch countdown and simulate contingency scenarios, then drain the tanks.

Three previous bids, starting in March, were plagued by glitches and failed to fuel up the rocket with hundreds of thousands of gallons of supercooled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

On Monday, engineers finally succeeded in fully loading up the tanks. But they also encountered a new hydrogen leak issue they were unable to resolve.

“I would say we’re in the 90th percentile in terms of where we need to be overall,” Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin told reporters Tuesday.

He added NASA was still deciding whether it needed another rehearsal, or could proceed straight to launch. The agency previously said an August window for Artemis-1 was possible.

NASA officials have repeatedly emphasized that delays involving the testing of new systems was common during the Apollo and Space Shuttle era, and the issues affecting SLS are not of major concern.

With the Orion crew capsule fixed on top, the Space Launch System (SLS) Block 1 stands 322 feet (98 meters) high — taller than the Statue of Liberty, but a little smaller than the 363 feet Saturn V rockets that powered the Apollo missions to the Moon.

It will produce 8.8 million pounds of maximum thrust (39.1 Meganewtons), 15 percent more than the Saturn V, meaning it’s expected to be the world’s most powerful rocket at the time it begins operating.

Artemis-1 is set to journey around the far side of the Moon sometime this summer on a test flight.

Artemis-2 will be the first crewed test, flying around the Moon but not landing, while Artemis-3 will see the first woman and first person of color touch down on the lunar south pole.

NASA wants to build a permanent presence on the Moon, and use it as a proving ground for technologies necessary for a Mars mission, sometime in the 2030s.

UK hit by biggest rail strike in over 30 years

21 Jun 2022 22 Jun 2022

Travel across British railway stations ground to a halt Tuesday as widespread strike action billed as the biggest in more than three decades plunged commuters into chaos and persuaded many to stay at home.

The RMT rail union argues the strikes are necessary as wages have failed to keep pace with UK inflation, which has hit a 40-year high and is on course to keep rising.

Last-ditch talks to avert the work stoppage broke down Monday, prompting more than 50,000 RMT members to walk out.

But negotiations will resume Wednesday, the RMT announced. Network Rail, which looks after the country’s rail tracks, told AFP discussions would begin at 10:00 am (0900 GMT).

Railway and London Underground stations, normally a sea of people for the morning and evening rush hours, were deserted or even locked, with just a skeleton service running on many networks across the country.

Passengers were warned not to travel all week, with two more days of strike action scheduled for Thursday and Saturday playing havoc with schedules.

Cab firms reported a surge in demand, while the main roads were packed with buses and cars, with cyclists weaving in between.

Long queues formed at bus stops on the outskirts of London shortly after 6:00 am (0500 GMT), but many gave up as services carried on without stopping, already full.

Commuters trying to make their way home faced similar struggles.

– ‘Frustrating’ –

Amber Zito, 24, a canine hydrotherapist from Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, called the strikes “frustrating” after missing her morning train, but supported the rail workers.

“Everything is kind of going tits up at the moment — planes, trains, everything.

“I blame the government. I don’t blame the people who work for train companies at all, they are only trying to do what everyone wants for their job.”

The country appeared divided over the strikes, with 37 percent in favour this week compared with 45 percent against, according to a snap YouGov survey.

The government maintains the issue must be resolved by the private train operators and the unions.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he “deplored” the strikes, which he said evoked the “bad old days of the 1970s” when industrial action was far more common.

“The people that are hurting are people who physically need to turn up for work, maybe on lower pay, perhaps the cleaners in hospitals,” he told Sky News.

– ‘Stay the course’ –

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, addressing his cabinet, urged “the union barons to sit down with Network Rail and the train companies” to thrash out a deal.

The country needed to “stay the course”, defending reforms to the rail network as needed and in the public interest.

RMT general-secretary Mick Lynch has described as “unacceptable” offers of below-inflation pay rises by both overground train operators and London Underground, which runs the Tube in the capital.

The walkouts risk causing significant disruption to major events including the Glastonbury music festival.

Thousands of teenagers taking national school exams were also hit. Some decided to leave at least an hour earlier to make it in time, while others took taxis.

The strikes are the biggest dispute on Britain’s railway network since 1989, according to the RMT. And rail operators warn of disruption throughout the week.

Only about 20 percent of services are running during the walkouts and half of all lines are closed. Those lines that are still open are running at reduced capacity.

And as well as the above-ground rail strike, RMT members on the London Underground are staging a 24-hour Tube train stoppage Tuesday.

Service is expected to reach 60 percent Wednesday, threatening further disruption.

– Teachers, lawyers, NHS –

Countries around the world are being hit by decades-high inflation as the Ukraine war and the easing of Covid restrictions fuel energy and food price hikes.

Unions also warn railway jobs are at risk, with passenger traffic yet to fully recover after the lifting of coronavirus pandemic lockdowns.

The strikes are compounding wider travel chaos after airlines were forced to cut flights owing to staff shortages, causing long delays and frustration for passengers.

Thousands of workers were sacked in the aviation industry during the pandemic, and the sector is struggling to recruit workers back as travel demand rebounds following the lifting of lockdowns.

The Criminal Bar Association, representing senior lawyers in England and Wales, have voted to strike from next week in a row over legal aid funding.

Teaching staff, workers in the state-run National Health Service and the postal service are also mulling strike action.

US to drastically reduce nicotine content in cigarettes: reports

21 Jun 2022 21 Jun 2022

President Joe Biden’s administration is set to announce a new policy requiring cigarette producers to reduce nicotine to non-addictive levels, US media reported Tuesday — a move that would deal a powerful blow to the tobacco industry.

If successful, the policy could save millions of lives by the end of the century, and shape a future where cigarettes are no longer responsible for addiction and debilitating disease.

The initiative could be announced as soon as Tuesday, the Washington Post said, quoting a person familiar with the matter.

It would require the Food and Drug Administration to develop and then publish a rule, which could then be contested by industry, added the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the issue.

The entire effort is expected to take several years and could be delayed or derailed by litigation, or reversed by a future administration unsympathetic to its aims.

Nicotine is the “feel good” chemical that hooks millions to tobacco products. Thousands of other chemicals contained in tobacco and its smoke are responsible for diseases such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes and more.

Though smoking is less prevalent in the United States than Europe and has been declining for years, it is still responsible for 480,000 deaths a year in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some 13.7 percent of all US adults are current cigarette smokers, according to CDC data.

Reducing the nicotine content of cigarettes has been a topic under discussion for years among US authorities.

Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb in 2017 announced he wanted to move forward on the issue, and funded a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2018 that found “reduced-nicotine cigarettes versus standard-nicotine cigarettes reduced nicotine exposure and dependence and the number of cigarettes smoked.”

The FDA found that if the policy were enacted in 2020, it would prevent eight million premature deaths from tobacco by 2100.

The tobacco industry rejects the findings and says people would in fact smoke more.

Biden has made a “cancer moonshot” a centerpiece of his agenda and nicotine-reduction policy would fit within its goals, at minimal cost.

The total economic cost of smoking is more than $300 billion a year, according to the CDC, including more than than $225 billion in direct medical care for adults, and more than $156 billion in lost productivity due to premature death and exposure to secondhand smoke.

US confirms death of second citizen in Ukraine

21 Jun 2022 21 Jun 2022

The United States on Tuesday confirmed that a second American was killed fighting for Ukraine, as it warned of risks amid worries over two other US citizens captured battling Russia.

The State Department said that 52-year-old Stephen Zabielski died in Ukraine and that it was providing his family with consular assistance.

“We once again reiterate US citizens should not travel to Ukraine due to the active armed conflict and the singling out of US citizens in Ukraine by Russian government security officials,” a State Department spokesperson said.

The spokesperson called on US citizens in Ukraine to “depart immediately if it is safe to do so using any commercial or other privately available ground transportation options.”

Zabielski is the second American known to be killed fighting for Ukraine since Russia attacked its neighbor in February.

A 22-year-old former Marine, Willy Joseph Cancel, was confirmed as the first American killed fighting for Ukraine in late April.

A newspaper in upstate New York, where Zabielski used to live, ran an obituary saying that he died on May 15 “while fighting the war in Village of Dorozhniank, Ukraine.”

Zabielski, who went by Steve, was employed in construction for 30 years and was survived by a wife and five stepchildren, said the obituary in The Recorder.

“Steve enjoyed life to the fullest. He enjoyed hunting, fishing, & riding his Harley,” it said.

The obituary said that he was born in Amsterdam, New York, near the state capital Albany, and lived in the area until 2018 before moving to Florida.

The death was confirmed amid US concerns about two US military veterans volunteering for Ukraine who were captured earlier this month in the east of the war-wracked country.

Alexander Drueke and Andy Huynh, who had both been living in Alabama, were seen in videos aired by Russian state media but it was unclear where they were being held.

The State Department has said that Russia is required to treat volunteers humanely as they would other prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in an interview with NBC News released on Monday, called them “soldiers of fortune” and said they should be “held responsible for those crimes that they have committed.”

Peskov also said the Geneva Conventions would not apply to the pair.

Reacting to Peskov’s remarks, a senior US official said Tuesday, “We obviously disagree vigorously.”

The official said that Russia has not yet provided any information directly about the pair.

In communication with Russia, the official said, “One of the asks was — who have you got, if any, and where are they? And if you’ve got anybody, you’re obliged to treat them consistently with the Geneva Conventions.”

US high court denies Bayer bid to block Roundup weedkiller lawsuits

21 Jun 2022 21 Jun 2022

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a bid from Bayer-owned Monsanto that aimed to challenge thousands of lawsuits claiming its weedkiller Roundup causes cancer — a potentially costly ruling.

The high court did not explain its decision, which left intact a $25 million ruling in favor of a California man who alleged he developed cancer after using the chemical for years.

The decision marks a major blow to the German conglomerate’s legal fight against Roundup-related cases, and Bayer has set aside more than $15 billion to deal with a wave of US lawsuits linked to the weedkiller.

“Bayer respectfully disagrees with the Supreme Court’s decision,” the company said in a statement.

“The company believes that the decision undermines the ability of companies to rely on official actions taken by expert regulatory agencies,” it added, referring to a 2020 federal finding that Roundup’s active ingredient is not risky.

Bayer has been plagued by problems since it bought Monsanto, which owns Roundup, in 2018 for $63 billion and inherited its legal woes around the chemical’s ingredient glyphosate.

The German firm says it has not committed any wrongdoing, and maintains that scientific studies and regulatory approvals show glyphosate is safe.

Glyphosate is nonetheless classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the World Health Organization (WHO).

– Billions in claims –

However, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, on its website, says “there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label.”

The Supreme Court’s decision not to intervene leaves in place Monsanto’s appellate conviction in the lawsuit filed by Edwin Hardeman, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2015.

In addition to the some 30,000 cases about health problems allegations against the weedkiller, Bayer’s own shareholders have taken legal action as well.

Investors are seeking 2.2 billion euros ($2.5 billion) in damages in a German court for losses incurred following its troubled takeover of Monsanto, their lawyers said in January.

The investors accuse Bayer of having “misled capital markets about the economic risks from pending consumer lawsuits in the United States in connection with glyphosate and the herbicide Roundup,” law firm Tilp said in a statement.

Tilp said around 320 investors have submitted complaints, most of them institutional investors such as banks, wealth managers, insurers and pension funds.

Some three-quarters of the claims targeting Roundup originate with residential consumers, and not large-scale farmers.

Bayer executives have argued that its agricultural users know the proper use of the product better than residential ones.

The firm said it is transitioning its glyphosate-based products in the US residential market to new formulations that have alternative active ingredients beginning in 2023.

“The company is taking this action exclusively to manage litigation risk in the US and not because of any safety concerns,” it said in a statement.

Bayer says it has resolved around 107,000 of a total of 138,000 cases related to the herbicide.

Bayer’s share price was down just under two percent after the court’s decision on Tuesday.

US attorney general vows help to prosecute war crimes in Ukraine

21 Jun 2022 21 Jun 2022

US Attorney General Merrick Garland pledged during a surprise visit to Ukraine on Tuesday to help the Ukrainian authorities prosecute war crimes committed during the Russian invasion.

“I’m here to express the unwavering support of the United States for the people of Ukraine in the midst of the unprovoked and unjust Russian invasion,” Garland told reporters after meeting Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova at Krakovets on the Polish-Ukrainian border.

Garland announced the launch of a War Crimes Accountability Team headed by Eli Rosenbaum, a 36-year veteran of the Justice Department who previously led US efforts to identify and deport Nazi war criminals.

“America — and the world — has seen the many horrific images and read the heart-wrenching accounts of brutality and death that have resulted from Russia’s unjust invasion of Ukraine,” Garland said in a statement.

“There is no hiding place for war criminals. The US Justice Department will pursue every avenue of accountability for those who commit war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine,” he said.

Venediktova thanked Garland for his support, calling it “very important.”

“We all understand that we have huge enemies,” she said.

Garland is stopping in Ukraine on his way to a US-EU justice and home affairs ministerial meeting this week in Paris.

Nearly four months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Kyiv says it has identified thousands of suspected war crimes cases.

Most notorious have been the allegations of wanton murder of scores of civilians in Bucha, just outside the Ukrainian capital.

US President Joe Biden has denounced the killing of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha as “war crimes.”

“Civilians executed in cold blood, bodies dumped into mass graves, the sense of brutality and inhumanity left for all the world to see, unapologetically,” Biden said in April.

“There’s nothing less happening than major war crimes,” he said. “Responsible nations have to come together to hold these perpetrators accountable.”

The US State Department announced the creation of a new unit in May to research, document and publicize alleged war crimes by Russia in Ukraine.

Battered Lysychansk clings on as Russians advance

21 Jun 2022 21 Jun 2022

The strike had left a gaping hole in the police station in Ukraine’s Lysychansk, one of a barrage of increasingly heavy Russian attacks on this eastern city where soldiers were busy Tuesday digging defensive positions.

The police station was hit on Monday night after Lysychansk endured heavy shelling that left at least one dead, adding to the “catastrophic destruction” in the strategic industrial city across the river from Severodonetsk in the eastern Donbas region.

Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said the city was “very heavily shelled” throughout the day and was also hit by air strikes, badly damaging the police station and nearby apartment blocks.

The police station, which is on a side street leading down to the river, suffered a “direct hit” during the night that wounded 20 police officers, special forces colonel Oleksandr Kutsepalenko told AFP.

He said there were nine direct hits in the neighbourhood around the police station, two caused by “rockets”, with the strikes leaving “54 craters” in the surrounding area.

The wounded police officers were taken to Lysychansk hospital, which has no electricity.

Heavy bombardment of the city began in the early afternoon and continued into the night, police said.

And the sound of Grads firing could still be heard on Tuesday morning.

Despite the strike, the police station was still running Tuesday, it being one of the few public services still working in this devastated city with locals turning up to register deaths, get help contacting relatives or even use the toilet.

Regional and city officials also hold meetings there.

“Partition walls fell down and the doors were blown out,” said a policeman who gave his nickname as Petrovich, showing the damage to the building.

Outside were three burnt-out police cars which went up in flames after shrapnel caused a gas cylinder to explode, he said.

The station was also hit in March but with lower-calibre weaponry, he said.

Closer to the frontline, police have dragged the wreckage of destroyed cars and vans into the streets to create a network of obstacles aimed at slowing any advance by the Russians.

A block of flats opposite the station also had a huge hole in its facade and there was a Russian missile lying in the yard.

A woman from the second floor had suffered “shrapnel injuries”, Petrovich said, and the road outside was strewn with pages of school textbooks and a stuffed toy.

– Bleeding soldier –

Along the road into the city, numerous Ukrainian military vehicles including tanks, ambulances and armoured personnel vehicles were going back and forth.

On a baking hot day, a military ambulance had pulled off the road to attend to a burst tyre, its back doors flung open to let in some air.

Inside, the paramedic pressed down on the bandages of a bleeding soldier, with another young soldier on a stretcher next to him.

As the situation became more desperate for those left inside the city, locals could still be seen venturing out on bikes or on foot to buy food and get water.

Several older residents surveying the damage said they had hoped to buy bread at a nearby bakery but heard it had also been shelled.

Others were filling plastic bottles with water only meant for household use from a tub near the main fire station.

“They consider us to be separatists because we stayed,” said a pensioner called Igor, speaking of local officials and even the region’s governor.

“We are normal people,” insisted a younger woman, pushing a pram full of plastic bottles.

Several also complained that they hadn’t received their pensions.

“We’re in Ukraine. Let them bring an armoured vehicle and hand out money,” grumbled Igor.

Markets climb as calm returns after sharp selloff

21 Jun 2022 21 Jun 2022

Stock markets rose Tuesday as calm returned following last week’s rout, but analysts warned that recession fears have not gone away and will cause more turmoil.

After a three-day holiday weekend, Wall Street burst higher, with the Dow up 1.9 percent while the broad-based S&P 500 gained 2.6 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq shot up 3.2 percent in late morning trading.

European equities rose for a second straight day, but pared down some of their gains from the morning.

Oil prices extended gains on hopes of improving energy demand in key consumers China and the United States, while the euro climbed on the prospect of rising eurozone borrowing costs.

“Risk appetite has managed to recover for now, perhaps because we get a much needed-break from central bank decisions this week,” IG analyst Chris Beauchamp told AFP.

“But while a bounce is overdue, it is probably only temporary.”

There remains an overarching sense of gloom as traders speculate that the sharp lift in borrowing costs around the world will tip economies into recession.

The focus this week is on Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell’s two days of testimony to lawmakers in Washington, which will be closely watched for clues regarding the bank’s plans for fighting surging consumer prices.

“Where we go from here depends largely on whether Federal Reserve Chair Powell spooks the markets with his pre-released comments and what inflation data from the UK shows tomorrow (Wednesday),” City Index analyst Fiona Cincotta told AFP.

The Fed announced a hefty interest rate hike last week, days after inflation data had smashed forecasts and hit a four-decade high.

Several officials — including at the Fed, Bank of England, Reserve Bank of Australia and European Central Bank — have come out in recent days to flag a further tightening of borrowing costs.

Inflation has rocketed to multi-decade highs around the world on a host of factors, including the global supply crunch and the Ukraine conflict, which has fuelled strong gains for food and energy prices.

“These small recoveries in stock markets shouldn’t provide any comfort,” said Craig Erlam, senior analyst at OANDA trading platform.

“Recession is increasingly becoming the base case and so equities are vulnerable to further losses,” he said.

In currency trading, the yen struck a 24-year dollar low of 136.34 yen following comments by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida that it “is up to the central bank” how to maintain its easy money policy while central banks elsewhere are raising rates.

“The market is clearly looking to test the resolve of the Bank of Japan in terms of how much they are prepared to tolerate further currency weakness,” said market analyst Michael Hewson at CMC Markets UK.

In corporate news, shares in German chemicals group Bayer fell by 4.7 percent following the US Supreme Court declining to hear a bid from Bayer-owned Monsanto to quash lawsuits claiming its weedkiller Roundup causes cancer, before clawing back part of the drop.

– Key figures at around 1530 GMT –

New York – Dow: UP 1.9 percent at 30,445.23 points

EURO STOXX 50: UP 0.7 percent at 3,494.00

London – FTSE 100: UP 0.4 percent at 7,152.05 (close)

Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.2 percent at 13,292.40 (close)

Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.8 percent at 5,964.66 (close)

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 1.8 percent at 26,246.31 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 1.9 percent at 21,559.59 (close)

Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.3 percent at 3,306.72 (close)

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.0558 from $1.0511 late Monday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2276 from $1.2253

Euro/pound: UP at 86.00 pence from 85.78 pence

Dollar/yen: UP at 136.18 yen from 135.07 yen

Brent North Sea crude: UP 0.6 percent at $114.84 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: UP 1.4 percent at $111.13

burs-rl/lth