One of the major incidents involved prominent figure Jerome Rodrigues who was shot at by riot police with “flashball” rounds which resulted in the activist being seriously injured, facing the prospect of losing one of his eyes, Le Figaro reports.
Mr Rodrigues is a close associate of one of the leaders of the Yellow Vest movement Éric Drouet with the latter calling on members of the movement to harden their pressure on the government of French President Emmanuel Macron. In a statement, Drouet made clear reference to the French national anthem writing, “Citoyens, formez vos bataillons!” or, “citizens form your battalions!” — a far more overtly militant stance than the movement has previously made. “Thus, we declare the state of emergency of the people,” he said and added, “We call for an unprecedented uprising by all the means useful and necessary so that no one is a victim of these wounds of war.” Drouet had previously been visited by police after calling for the storming of the Elysée Palace on French television and arrested earlier this month for holding an impromptu protest. On Sunday, Rodrigues clarified that the message was to increase pressure but not to resort to violence and said, “I will not give up, I will be at the demonstrations as soon as my state will allow me.” Rodrigues captured footage of the attack whilst live streaming during the protest around the Bastille, showing police firing directly at him. Rodrigues’s lawyer Philippe de Veulle claimed that a complaint against the actions of the police had already been filed and blamed the use of flashball ammunition for the injuries. The injury comes after French emergency room doctors sounded the alarm over the high number of serious injuries suffered by Yellow Vest protesters over the last 11 weeks which have seen several people lose eyes and hands due to riot police tactics
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SHANGHAI, January 29 -- Workers are seen at a cement plant of the Shengwei Group in Tongchuan City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. Tongchuan, once a manufacturing base for coal mining industry and cement production, used to suffer from environment pollutions. The local government has focused on sustainable development in the recent years and helped industries transform to grasp more opportunities. China has pledged to coordinate its efforts of environmental protection and economic development in 2019, an important year for winning the tough battle against pollution. At the annual Central Economic Work Conference earlier this month, authorities called for building on this year's achievement in pollution control, making more efforts and input in 2019. Since the turn of this year, China has made solid efforts to combat pollution and seen constant improvement of the environment. The Central Economic Work Conference made it clear that local governments must avoid past simple and unscrupulous practices in dealing with environmental problems. HONG KONG, January 29 -- Hong Kong retailers are one group of shares being left behind as the city’s benchmark stock index trades near a four-month high. Cosmetics seller Sa Sa International Holdings Ltd. and Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd. are near the lowest levels in at least a year versus the benchmark Hang Seng Index, which has climbed 6.4 percent in 2019. Investor interest in retail stocks has been muted as the opening of new transport links with the mainland failed to translate into a sizable increase in spending by tourists from across the border. Hong Kong retail sales grew just 1.4 percent in November from a year earlier, the slowest pace in 17 months, amid a worsening economic slump and a Chinese crackdown on gray-market imports of luxury goods. "Hong Kong retailers’ sales are much worse than expected," said Emily Lee, Hong Kong-based analyst at Nomura International (HK) Ltd. "It’ll be hard for same-store sales to recover in the first half." Analysts are cutting their share price targets at the fastest pace in years this month, though they still project sales of the city’s three major consumer companies will grow around 10 percent in the year ended March. A test of whether the disconnect between rising tourist numbers and slowing sales growth will come on Wednesday, when retail data for December is released. The number of mainland tourists visiting the city surged 26 percent year-on-year to 4.6 million in November, near the highest since 2014, after the cross-border openings of a high-speed rail link to Shenzhen and bridge spanning the Pearl River Delta. Retail stocks traded mixed as of 2 p.m. on Tuesday in Hong Kong. Sa Sa and Luk Fook Holdings International Ltd. fell at least 1.3 percent, while Chow Tai Fook rose 4 percent. Hong Kong is seeing more daytrippers thanks to the new links, but that’s not translating into higher retail sales, Lee said. Analysts have been tempering their expectations, with the average price target for Sa Sa falling 23 percent in January, in line for the biggest monthly drop since 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. They still project an 8.3 percent gain in the shares over the next 12 months. Their average price targets for seven major Hong Kong retailers, including Chow Tai Fook and Luk Fook, have been cut by about 8 percent. "Christian woman free to leave after petition against her acquittal on blasphemy charges dismissed by Supreme Court" ISLAMABAD, January 29 -- Pakistan's Supreme Court has upheld the acquittal of a Christian woman charged with blasphemy, standing by its earlier verdict that sparked days of protests, death threats and nationwide chaos. The country's top court in the capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday, dismissed the review petition against Aasia Bibi, who spent eight years on death row for blasphemy before being released last October. The three-judge panel said arguments of the lawyer acting on behalf of the petitioners did not satisfy the judges. "On merit, this petition is dismissed," Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa said in court. She is now free to leave the country. Unconfirmed Pakistani media reports said her two daughters have already gone to Canada, where they've been granted asylum. Bibi is currently under guard at a secret location in Pakistan for her own safety. "I am really gratefully to everybody. Now after nine years it is confirmed that I am free and I will be going to hug my daughters," a friend quoted Bibi as saying to The Associated Press, on condition of anonymity fearing for his own safety. Her lawyer, Saiful Malook, who returned to Islamabad after fleeing the country amid death threats, called the decision a victory for Pakistan's constitution and rule of law. ADELAIDE, January 29 -- A Dutch man who has driven 89,000km from Amsterdam to Adelaide in a small electric car says he is proving to Australians that electric vehicles are a viable alternative. Since March 2016, adventurer Wiebe Wakker has driven across 33 countries from Europe to the Middle East to south-east Asia and finally to Australia in a 2009 Volkswagen Golf, converted to electric. Over the past seven months he has continued the journey around Australia from Darwin down to Perth, across the Nullarbor to Newcastle, up to Queensland, and back down to Adelaide. After Adelaide, Wakker will finish once he reaches Melbourne and then Sydney. “I expected that by this time I would be exhausted and starving but I’m still having a lot of fun,” he told Guardian Australia from Adelaide. “I’m actually a little bit sad that I’m coming to the end of the journey.” By driving such extreme distances, Wakker said he hoped to bust Australian anxieties over the lack of charging stations and how far electric cars can travel. Australia has one of the slowest uptakes of electric vehicles in the developed world. In 2016, only 0.1% of all new car sales were electric, compared to 29% in Norway, 6% in Wakker’s native Netherlands and 1.5% in China and the UK. “In Australia the infrastructure for electric cars is still getting off the ground, but it’s already possible to drive all around Australia using charging stations,” he said. “A lot of people say they are just waiting for the price to come down. Others say the electric car is just not viable for Australia because the distances are so big, which is a bit weird I think. The average daily commute is just 20km or so. “My car is from 2009 and it has a limited range of 200km. Most cars that are available on the market now do 300km to 500km, so if you buy a current car in Australia you won’t have this problem. You can cover the whole country.” Wakker’s car, which he calls “Blue Bandit”, is a first-generation electric car that can be charged on domestic power sockets. “When I started this journey I thought I would mainly charge at people’s homes and whenever I get a charging station that will be a bonus,” he said. He said those with newer electric cars would find the journey even easier. The Royal Automobile Club has built a chain of charges in WA, and the Queensland statement government has built a 2,000km superhighway of chargers from Cairns to Coolangatta, which Wakker used. “Some states are supportive of installing infrastructure – Queensland has been doing very well. But it’s a pity that the [federal] government doesn’t really support it,” he said. “Most Western countries where electric cars are taking off, the government is giving a lot of incentives for electric cars.” In Norway, electric cars are exempt from import taxes and the 25% VAT, users are exempt from tolls and sometimes get free parking and the right to bus lanes. Despite his positive experience, Wakker said he found the journey between Glendambo to Coober Pedy in South Australia a challenge in his 2009 car. “It was 255km – I knew I wasn’t going to make it,” he said. “So I checked on my app to see how the wind was going, I saw that 12 hours later I would have a tailwind. I waited and drove very slow to save energy – 60km. I did 235km, which was my record. Just 20km from Coober Pedy I ran out, I put on a lot of sunscreen and waited for someone who could give me a tow. Someone came by within 10 minutes and said yes.” BANGKOK, January 29 -- Thailand has officially received a request from Bahrain to extradite a soccer player who plays in Australia where he also has refugee status. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Busadee Santipitaks said Bahrain filed an extradition request for Hakeem al-Araibi on Monday that has been forwarded to prosecutors for deliberation. Al-Araibi is a former Bahraini national team player who says he fled political repression in that country. He was detained in November on arrival in Bangkok while on a holiday. Bahrain wants him returned to serve a prison sentence for a charge he denies. A Thai court in December ruled that al-Araibi could be held for 60 days pending the completion of an extradition request by Bahrain. AMSTERDAM, January 29 -- Dutch airline operator KLM has installed pop-up hologram bars at airports in Norway, Brazil and the Netherlands, where passengers can speak with fellow travelers to exchange local travel tips. Using a live connection, customers can chat with a hologram of their counterparts at the destination airport, enabling them to share real cultural insights of the country in question. With the help of the Take-Off Tips bar, customers can talk to each other at airports in Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Oslo Airport and Rio de Janeiro – Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport. Natascha van Roode, head of marketing, KLM, said, “In our industry it is such a joy to be able to bring people together time and time again. We have been celebrating this in our latest marketing campaign and Take-Off Tips is no exception. We continuously strive to facilitate contact between customers, including using new technologies to create memorable experiences.” ANKARA, January 28 -- Turkey is aiming to form safe zones in northern Syria so that Syrian refugees hosted by Turkey could return to their home country, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. Speaking in Istanbul on Monday, Erdogan also said nearly 300,000 Syrians had already returned to areas controlled by Turkish-backed rebels in northern Syria, adding that he expected millions of Syrian nationals to return to the proposed safe zones. Turkey hosts about four million Syrian refugees. US President Donald Trump announced in December the withdrawal of the 2,000 US troops from Syria and Erdogan subsequently said they had discussed setting up a 32km-deep safe zone in Syria along the border with Turkey. On Friday, Erdogan said that Turkey expected the safe zone to be set up within a few months, otherwise, it would establish a buffer zone without the help of other nations. He added that the zone will aim to protect Turkey from "terrorists", referring to the US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia that controls areas in northeastern Syria along the Turkish border. Ankara wants the zone to contain the fighters of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which the United States has armed and trained to fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). The YPG is seen as an effective ground force by the US in the fight against ISIL, but Turkey says it is linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Ankara and Washington list as a terrorist group. Turkey's foreign minister said on Thursday that Turkey has the capacity to create a safe zone in Syria on its own, but will not exclude the US, Russia, or others if they want to cooperate. "Turkey has not forced refugees to go back to Turkey for years. However, around 300,000 refugees returned to areas held by Turkey and Turkey-backed rebels in northern Syria, such as Jarablus and Al-Bab," Al Jazeera's Osama Bin Javid, reporting from Gaziantep on Turkey-Syria border, said. "And more refugee returns are only possible, according to Erdogan, if Turkey can have some sort of control from the west side of the Euphrates River until the Iraqi border." MOSCOW, January 28 -- A Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet (NATO reporting name: Flanker) intercepted a US P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea. The airspace control equipment registered a target over the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea approaching the Russian state border, the ministry said. "A quick reaction alert Su-27 fighter jet from the Air Defense Force was scrambled to intercept the target in the air. The Russian fighter’s crew approached the air object at a safe distance and identified it as a P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane of the US Air Force," the ministry noted. The Russian plane subsequently returned to its home airbase, the ministry said. The Su-27 is a fourth-generation multirole supersonic all-weather fighter aircraft armed with air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles of various types (it has from 10 to 12 external hardpoints for missiles). The fighter jet is also furnished with a 30mm automatic aircraft gun (with a rate of fire of 1,500 rounds per minute and an ammunition load of 150 rounds). The P-8 Poseidon is an anti-submarine warfare patrol plane designed to spot and destroy enemy subs in the areas of patrolling and reconnaissance and take part in anti-ship and rescue operations. Russia’s Defense Ministry regularly provides the statistics of flights by fighter jets of the Aerospace Force to intercept and shadow foreign military planes near the Russian borders but without giving details of specific incidents. The Defense Ministry’s newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda reported on January 25 that fighter jets of the Russian Aerospace Force were scrambled twice over the week to prevent violations of the country’s airspace. According to the paper, the fighter aircraft thwarted an attempt to breach Russia’s airspace. "The SET index added 1.41 points or 0.09% to 1,625.03 on Monday" BANGKOK, Januari 28 -- Thai shares closed higher for a ninth straight session, while Philippine stocks ended flat on Monday. It's retreating from an over 10-month high hit earlier in the session, as investors booked profits ahead of US-China trade talks and Federal Reserve meeting later this week. The Stock Exchange of Thailand index ended 1.41 points or 0.09% higher to 1,625.03, in turnover of 48 billion baht. It closed higher for a ninth straight session. Philippine shares have outperformed regional peers so far this year, gaining about 7.9%, helped by cooling inflation, a dovish Fed and hopes of an ease in the country's central bank monetary policy. Investors now await resolution of US-China trade negotiations as attention shifts to Chinese Vice Premier Liu He's visit to the United States on Wednesday and Thursday for the next round of talks. "An open and constructive dialogue is expected, given low-hanging fruits on trade deficit reduction. But a comprehensive deal will elude," said Vishnu Varathan, head of Economics and Strategy at Mizuho Bank in Singapore, in a note. Most investors are cautious and therefore "we are seeing profit-taking activity", said Rachelle Cruz, a research analyst at AP Securities in Manila. The Fed is expected to leave interest rates unchanged after raising them for a fifth time in as many quarters in December. Markets in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia fell as the region's biggest trade partner, China, echoed signs of a slowing global economy after data showed earnings at China's industrial firms shrank for a second straight month in December. Indonesian shares fell 0.4%, hurt by losses in telecommunication services and financials. Unilever Indonesia and Bank Mandiri (Persero) were the biggest drag, falling over 2.5% each. The country's index of 45 most liquid stocks fell about 0.7%. Malaysian shares slipped 0.2%, as Genting Bhd lost 1%, while Malaysia Airports Holdings fell 1.8%. Photos of BNK48 singer Pichayapa "Namsai" Natha went viral over the weekend and caused Israel's deputy ambassador to Thailand, Smadar Shapira, to express dismay at her choice of outfit. The 19-year-old singer, who wore the shirt during a rehearsal on Friday, delivered a tearful apology after the backlash and pleaded for forgiveness, claiming full responsibility for her ignorance. "Please give me advice so that I can grow up to be a good adult in the future... I cannot fix the mistake but I promise I will not let it happen again," she wrote on her Facebook page.
Incidents involving insensitive use of Nazi symbols are not uncommon in Thailand, where there is little education about the Second World War. In 2016, Silpakorn University students caused outrage when they performed the Nazi salute in front of a fellow student dressed as Adolf Hitler during a cosplay event. After meeting with the Israeli ambassador, Namsai has now agreed to take part in an educational workshop to help raise better awareness about the Holocaust. "I understand that it was an act arising from lack of knowledge and lack of awareness, and I'm pleased that they have apologised and agreed to hold an educational workshop," the ambassador said in a statement. SHANGHAI, January 28 -- China on Saturday tested a new generation of maglev train with a top speed of 160 kilometres per hour in Changsha, the capital of central China's Hunan Province. The test indicates that China has achieved a breakthrough in the development of maglev technology, from medium-to-low speed to medium speed, reports Chinese news portal Huanqiu. According to Tong Laisheng, head of the Maglev Research Institute at CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive, the new model has a 30 percent increase in traction efficiency and can carry six extra tonnes in weight compared to the previous generation. In addition, its top speed is 60 percent faster than the current model. The new train is expected to lay the technical foundations for the introduction of medium-speed maglev train systems in the future, Tong believes. CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive is also developing a more advanced maglev model, which has a top speed of 200 km per hour.The country's first middle-to-low speed maglev rail line opened in May 2016 in Changsha, making China one of the first nations to master such technology. A study by the Chinese Academy of Engineering shows that China will build at least five middle-to-low speed maglev rail lines for commercial use by 2020. More than 10 cities are considering such projects. PARIS, January 2 -- France’s yellow vest movement has kept up the pressure on President Emmanuel Macron with mainly peaceful marches and scattered skirmishes on its 11th straight weekend of action. The rallies and protests took place despite internal divisions among the protesters and growing worries about violence. Multiple anti-government protests took place in Paris and other cities, centred on Macron policies which are viewed as favouring the rich. About 80,000 police officers were deployed to patrol the events and to disperse any trouble. A few cars were set ablaze in the Normandy town of Evreux. In Paris, crowds gathered at the columned headquarters of France’s lower house of parliament. Police used tear gas on demonstrators at the iconic Bastille Plaza, some of whom hurled missiles in response. STRASBOURG, January 27 -- The Kurdish youth in Europe are preparing to stage a Long March from Luxembourg to Strasbourg. The march, to take place between 10-16 February will be held under the motto “The time has come. Rise up, smash the conspiracy and free Leader Apo”. The kick-off event for the march will be held in the German city of Saarbürcken on the 10th of February. The march will continue till Strasbourg where a mass demonstration will take place this year once again on February 16th in protest at the international conspiracy against Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan. Calling attention to the critical conditions of Kurdish hunger strikers demanding freedom for Öcalan, the preparation committee called for strong participation in the march. MANILA, January 27 -- The number of casualties after twin explosions at a cathedral in the southern Philippines has risen to 27 dead and 71 wounded, a regional police director said Sunday. Fourteen civilians and seven soldiers were killed in the bombings at the cathedral in Jolo town in Sulu province, about 620 miles south of Manila, said Chief Superintenent Graciano Mijares. Fifty-six civilians and 15 security force members were hurt in the bombings, he added. The security forces were responding to the first blast, which occurred inside the cathedral, when the second explosion occurred at the parking lot, authorities said. The first bomb went off in or near the Jolo cathedral in the provincial capital, followed by a second blast outside the compound as government forces were responding to the attack, security officials said. The blasts blew away the entrance to the cathedral and ripped through the main hall, shredding to pieces the pews and toppling other doors. Police said at least 27 people died and 71 were wounded. The fatalities included 20 civilians and seven troops. Among the wounded were 10 troops, two police and 59 civilians. Photos showed debris and bodies lying on a busy street outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which has been hit by bombs in the past. Troops in armored carriers sealed off the main road leading to the church while vehicles transported the dead and wounded to the hospital. Some casualties were evacuated by air to nearby Zamboanga city. |
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