World

Striking French refinery workers vowed Friday to maintain their blockades after rejecting a pay offer from oil giant TotalEnergies, raising the spectre of worsening fuel shortages ahead of a general public-sector strike next week.

The hard-left CGT union, which initiated the industrial action, walked out of talks with Total late Thursday, though other unions representing a majority of workers accepted a deal.

“We’re not blind, we know this is impacting daily life for all the French,” CGT chief Philippe Martinez told Franceinfo radio, calling on the government to put pressure on the company to renegotiate.

His union has called a strike for Tuesday that could disrupt public transport, following anti-inflation marches planned for Sunday by left-wing opponents of President Emmanuel Macron.

Macron’s government has forced some strikers back to work to open fuel depots after three weeks of blockades, a move that infuriated unions but was upheld by a court on Friday, a judicial source told AFP.

Four of the country’s seven refineries remain shut, and around a third of the country’s service stations are either low on petrol or completely dry, according to the energy transition ministry.

France’s wholesale suppliers association warned that deliveries would be “severely compromised” beginning Friday, as motorists again faced long queues hoping to fill up before the weekend.

Officials in the southeastern Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region said it would make train and bus transport free until Sunday night because of the fuel shortages.

– ‘Time for confrontation’ –

Macron promised Wednesday that relief would come next week, but left-wing opponents see a chance to spark a broader protest against his reform drive.

In particular they are seeking to derail a pensions overhaul that would push back the retirement age from 62, which Macron wants to push through parliament in the coming months.

“The time for a confrontation has arrived,” parliamentarian Clementine Autain from the France Unbowed party told France 2 television on Thursday.

But not all unions have joined the call for the general strike next Tuesday, with the country’s biggest, the CFDT, opting out.  

Until this week, the government had been reluctant to inflame the pay dispute at TotalEnergies and the US giant Esso-ExxonMobil, prompting critics to say it was oblivious to the strike’s impact on everyday workers.

“For two weeks there was no management of this problem, they were in denial,” said Eric Ciotti of the right-wing Republicans party — whose support will be crucial for Macron after his centrist grouping lost its parliamentary majority earlier this year.

The CGT is pushing for a 10 percent raise, citing TotalEnergies’ net profit of $5.7 billion in the April-June period as energy prices soared with the war in Ukraine, and its payout of billions of euros in dividends to shareholders. 

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told RTL radio Thursday that given its huge profits, the company had “the capacity… and therefore an obligation” to raise workers’ pay.

But the union risks stoking resentment, with public support of the strike at just 37 percent in a BVA poll released Friday.

“For the past four or five days, it has been catastrophic”, said Francoise Ernst, who works at a driving school in Paris. 

“And I think that if it goes on, we will have to stop working.”

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UK finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng dashed home Friday from Washington for crisis talks with Prime Minister Liz Truss, with both their jobs on the line as their budget plans unravel.

Financial market turmoil sparked by the new government’s plan to slash taxes — financed via billions in more borrowing — has subsided somewhat since the Bank of England intervened in bond markets.

But the central bank is adamant it will end its bond-buying spree later Friday, and market analysts say only a bigger climbdown by Truss and Kwarteng will avert fresh panic with attendant spillover for UK households and businesses.

Kwarteng was due to conclude annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington this weekend, after earning a rebuke from IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva on the need for “coherent and consistent” policies.

A Treasury spokesman confirmed Kwarteng had cut short the trip “to continue work on his medium-term fiscal plan” due on October 31, after Truss held hurried meetings with her own financial advisors on Thursday in his absence.

In advance of the much-awaited spending plan, speculation was rife that the politicians would row back on planned changes to corporation tax, having already changed their minds about cutting income tax for the highest earners.

Asked whether he planned another U-turn following his disastrous “mini-budget” on September 23, Kwarteng told Friday’s edition of the Daily Telegraph newspaper: “Let’s see.”

But speaking in Washington on Thursday, the under-fire minister insisted that his job was safe. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

Truss has “total confidence” in her fellow free-marketeer, international trade minister Greg Hands told Sky News.

However, a new YouGov poll for The Times newspaper said 43 percent of Conservative voters want a new prime minister in Downing Street — only five weeks after Truss replaced Boris Johnson.

Other polls show a mammoth lead up opening up for the opposition Labour party, threatening electoral meltdown for the Tories. 

– ‘Romcom-worthy dash’ –

Hands said “I don’t recognise” multiple reports that senior Tory MPs were plotting to unseat Truss by installing a new leadership team under her defeated rival Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, who also ran to succeed Johnson.

Pressed on whether Truss will still be in 10 Downing Street in a week, Hands told ITV: “Oh definitely.”

The dismal reaction to the Truss-Kwarteng budget has vindicated Sunak’s warnings on the Conservative campaign trail. 

“Borrowing your way out of inflation isn’t a plan — it’s a fairy tale,” he said in one debate clash with Truss, warning of higher interest rates and mortgage repayments for hard-pressed Britons. 

She in turn accused her rival of “scaremongering”.

The chancellor of the exchequer’s September 23 budget sparked markets chaos because of fears it would drive up state debt. 

The pound tumbled to a record dollar low and bond yields surged, before stabilising.

With the Bank of England’s costly interventions ending Friday, markets have already priced in a fresh volte-face by the government, leaving Downing Street with no room for manoeuvre.

“Do it now,” Mel Stride, chairman of the Treasury select committee in the House of Commons, urged Kwarteng.

“If it doesn’t happen, then the markets may have an adverse reaction to that,” he said on BBC television.

Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, agreed with Stride’s analysis.

“There is a sense of urgency in this move and it would seem the market is optimistic that Kwarteng’s romcom-worthy dash through the airport suggests a dramatic reconciliation between stubborn existing policy and the U-turn investors have been waiting for,” she commented.

For many pundits, the self-inflicted damage risks proving terminal for Truss and her hard-right platform.

“This is a government in meltdown and an economic policy in tatters, and frankly I think the Conservative party should be hanging their head in shame at what it’s putting the country through,” senior Labour MP Ed Miliband told Sky News.

Dozens of Iranian children have been killed and hundreds detained after being caught up in protests over Mahsa Amini’s death, some of them even ending up in “psychological centres”, it has emerged.

Iran has been rocked by a month of demonstrations driven by public outrage over Amini’s death after the morality police arrested her for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

Fed up over the lack of change, the country’s Gen-Z teens — those born before 2010 — have come of age and been credited for their bravery while facing off with the security forces.

“Iranian Zoomers are frustrated/angry with the status quo and aren’t afraid to say it online and push outside the red lines” of the Islamic republic, tweeted Holly Dagres, an Iran specialist at the Atlantic Council think tank.

Night after night, young women and schoolgirls have taken to the streets with their hair exposed and fists raised, chanting “Woman, life, freedom” and “Death to the dictator”.

Youths involved in the protests have paid with their lives, however, with the US-based rights group HRANA naming at least 26 dead children — three of them as young as 12.

Iran’s Children’s Rights Protection Society said at least 28 had been killed, including many from the underprivileged province of Sistan-Baluchestan.

It said families were being “kept in the dark” about the whereabouts of their children, and that their cases were going ahead without proper legal representation.

– ‘Unrelenting brutal crackdown’ –

Amnesty International said Iran’s “unrelenting brutal crackdown” involved an “all-out attack on child protesters” that had cost the lives of at least 23 minors.

But the overall number of children killed is widely believed to be much higher.

Human rights lawyer Hassan Raisi said some arrested children were being held in detention centres for adult drug offenders.

“This is very concerning,” he was quoted as saying by the London-based Iran Wire news website.

Anyone “under the age of 18 must never be held with any criminal over 18… This is a legal requirement, not a recommendation”.

“Around 300 people between the ages of 12-13 and 18-19 are in police custody,” he said, without elaborating.

Among those slain in the protests are Nika Shahkarami and Sarina Esmailzadeh — 16-year-old girls whose deaths triggered an outpouring of grief in Iran and around the world.

Protesting children have also been arrested inside classrooms, said Iran’s Education Minister Yousef Nouri.

“They are not that many,” he told Shargh newspaper in response to a question on the number of schoolchildren arrested. “I can’t give an exact number.”

Nouri said those detained were being held in “psychological centres”.

The aim, he said, was “correction and rehabilitation” to stop them from becoming “anti-social characters”.

– ‘Video games’ –

Iran’s Teachers’ Union blasted the minister in a statement that said it “strongly condemns these unwise actions that will lead to education centres becoming like military camps”.

The teachers called on “all those involved, including the unfit education minister, to quickly release the jailed protesting pupils and colleagues of ours that have been arrested for supporting the protests”.

The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said this week it was “extremely concerned” over reports of “children and adolescents being killed, injured and detained” in Iran.

Despite the crackdown and blocks on smartphone apps popular among Iranian teens, such as Instagram and TikTok, internet-savvy youths have still managed to get out videos of their protests.

They have adopted new tactics for the street too.

Those heading out to protests wear masks, leave phones behind to avoid being tracked, and take extra clothes to change into if they are marked by paintballs that the security forces deploy to identify them later. 

Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Ali Fadavi told Iranian media on October 5 that the “average age of the detainees from many of the recent protests was 15”. 

“Some of the teenagers and young adults arrested used similar key phrases in their confessions, such as likening street riots to video games,” he was quoted as saying by Mehr news agency.

Concerns over the influence of video games have also been raised by other officials.

Cleric Aboulfazl Ahmadi, head of a provincial organisation linked to the morality police, said Iran’s enemies “have banked on” the country’s teenagers and that “some video games were designed to bring the youth to the streets at times like these”.

At a bookshop in Kyiv, 33-year-old Yulia Sydorenko was dumping an entire collection of old books — some gifts from childhood friends — that have recently lost their appeal.

Why? They were written in Russian.

“Since February 24, Russian books have no place in my house,” Sydorenko said, referring to the day Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.

“I got them for my 20th birthday with inscriptions from my friends. I took pictures of them,” she said of the books she once treasured. 

Showing a collection of children’s books, she said she was convinced her children “will never read Russian tales now”.

Sydorenko is among a steady stream of people hauling piles of books, sometimes by the suitcase or carload, to the Siayvo bookshop. 

Inspired by customers who wanted to clear out unwanted sections of their home libraries, the bookstore decided to recycle Russian-language books, giving the paper a new lease of life and helping the army.  

“In two months, we collected 25 tons of books. Their recycling brought in 100,000 hryvnias (2,700 euros),” Iryna Sazonova, the shop’s owner, told AFP.

Following the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the Donbas war in 2014, Ukraine embarked on dismantling Soviet-era monuments and changing place names.

But since February, Ukrainians are contemplating the presence of Russian in private and public spaces, even though 19 percent of Ukrainians say their native language is Russian.

– ‘Nuances are essential’ –

The Bulgakov Museum, where famed Kyiv-born Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov lived for 13 years, has come under pressure, with the National Writers’ Union of Ukraine moving to close it down. 

Bulgakov is accused of being imperialist and anti-Ukrainian, notably in his novel “The White Guard” which is at the heart of the museum’s main exhibition.

“War is black and white, but in art, nuances are essential,” the museum’s director Lyudmila Gubianuri told AFP.

“There are many nuances with Bulgakov’s works, but people tend to ignore them,” she said.

Gubianuri accepts that the museum must adapt to reflect the challenges of the situation.

“Our team is working on a new concept which will be established in dialogue with the public,” she said.

People passing the museum are divided.

For Anton Glazkov, a 27-year-old teacher, closing the museum would be wrong because “war and works of art are not always linked”.

But Dmytro Cheliuk, 45, who runs a nearby clothes store, said “the time has come for us to de-Russify ourselves and remove the Russian empire from our streets”.

Oleg Slabospitsky, an activist, takes a hands-on approach to removing Russian from public spaces.

Several times a week since Ukraine’s 2014 revolution, the 33-year-old dons a high-visibility vest and hauls a stepladder around the city taking down overly Russian street signs like “Moscow Street”.

– ‘Language of the enemy’ –

“These kinds of initiatives must come from the people themselves,” he told AFP before setting out with a friend to unbolt three plaques on Moscow Street.

In Kyiv, famous for its long avenues, the team sometimes spend whole days “de-Russifying” city streets.

Kyiv City Hall recently voted to rename 142 streets which contained references to Russia. Another 345 streets await the same fate.

The street formerly known as “Moscow” now honours the Ostrozky Princes, a dynasty of 16th century Ukrainian politicians.

At Shevchenko University — damaged by a recent salvo of Russian missiles — management took down a plaque last August that honoured Bulgakov, who studied there a hundred years ago.

Oleksandr Bondarenko, who heads a Slavic studies department, said the measure is “understandable” as the plaque could offend passers-by who had lost loved ones in the war.

Ukraine’s school curricula no longer features Russian language courses, nor works of Russian writers. Instead, a new course on the war with Russia has been added.

The history of the USSR is also now presented through the prism of imperialism.

Bondarenko’s faculty did not enrol new Russian students this year because the literature and language programmes are currently being adapted. 

“Courses on information warfare meanwhile are now at the heart of the curriculum,” said Bondarenko.

“In a hybrid war, like this, you have to learn the language of the enemy to know him well. Sworn translators will be in high demand at war crimes trials.”

Xi Jinping’s China has dragged millions out of extreme poverty, sent spacecraft to the Moon and committed itself to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

On the brink of securing a third term, the president can boast of several achievements in his first 10 years in power, though some do come with caveats.

Here AFP looks at some of the key advances made under Xi:

– End of extreme poverty –

China’s Communist Party prides itself on being “at the service of the people”, so Beijing’s announcement in 2020 that it had brought an end to extreme poverty was hailed as a critical milestone.

People’s living conditions, their livestock and access to education were among the factors assessed by officials on door-to-door visits.

The government said it had invested 1.6 trillion yuan ($230 billion) between 2013 and 2021 to improve living standards — for example by building roads, houses and infrastructure.

Millions of rural households have been relocated to villages with better economic opportunities.

A year after Xi became leader, 82 million Chinese people lived in extreme poverty, according to World Bank data. By 2019, the figure was six million.

However, Xi warned in 2020: “The task of consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation remains difficult.” 

– Wealth surge –

The average disposable income per urban household surged 66 percent from 2013 to 2020, according to official statistics.

In rural households it rose 82 percent in that same period.

Cars per urban dwelling doubled from 0.22 in 2012 to 0.45 in 2020, while the number of mobile phones grew from 2.17 to 2.49 per urban household in the same period. 

However, housing costs have quadrupled, putting a strain on purchasing power.

Migrant workers — people who have moved from the countryside to cities for work — have significantly increased their earnings, according to Jean-Louis Rocca, a specialist in Chinese social movements at Sciences Po in Paris.

“But with rent increases, education costs and the need to dress fashionably to fit in, their situation — which has improved in medium-sized cities — has often stagnated or even declined in large metropolises,” Rocca said. 

– Space programme –

A source of national pride, China’s space programme has narrowed much of the gap with the US, Russia and Europe. 

Rovers reached the Moon in 2013 and 2019 — the latter the first ever to make a soft landing on its far side.

Another subsequent unmanned spacecraft returned to Earth in 2020 with the first lunar samples collected in four decades.

The same year, satellite navigation system Beidou was finalised, a rival to the American GPS.

After landing its first robot on Mars last year, China is expected to complete its space station in 2022.

– Corruption clampdown –

From civil servants to government ministers, army generals to bank managers, 11.3 million people were given warnings for discipline cases between 2012 and 2022, according to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and 4.7 million were investigated for more serious misconduct.

At least 1.5 million were punished, with the most extreme prosecutions carrying the death penalty. 

A culture of “frugality” has been imposed by Xi — meaning, for example, fewer lavish banquets for party officials.

While the campaign is popular with the public, critics say it is also a way for Xi to eliminate political rivals.

– The environment –

Beijing signed the Paris climate agreement in 2016, and in 2020 Xi pledged his country would reach its peak carbon emissions by 2030, and aim for carbon neutrality by 2060.

Environment groups have called on China — the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases — to act faster, saying that otherwise meeting the Paris agreement’s goal of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is not possible.

After turning a blind eye to China’s choking cities for decades, the environment ministry started to publish more comprehensive data on air pollution in 2012. 

The concentration of very fine and dangerous particles in the air fell by 34.8 percent between 2015 and 2021, according to the ministry.

Waste separation schemes are progressing. In megacity Shanghai, for example, they have been mandatory since 2019.

– Transport –

The length of the high-speed rail network has quadrupled, from about 9,300 kilometres in 2012 to 40,000 kilometres in 2021.

China now has 250 civilian airports, with 82 built in the last decade, and air passenger traffic doubled between 2012 and 2019.

The infrastructure projects have boosted travel and tourism, stimulated the economy, and opened the less-developed west of the country.