‘Uber considers concessions to save London licence’

LONDON: Us-based taxihailing company Uber has indicated that it is open to discuss concessions with transport authorities to continue operating in London, days after it lost its license to ply on the streets of the UK’S capital.

Transport for London (TFL) had announced last week that it would not be renewing Uber’s licence after it expires on September 30 over safety concerns.

More than 625,000 people have since signed a “Save Your Uber in London” petition calling on the mayor of London Sadiq Khan to reverse the decision as the company prepares to appeal against the decision.

“We’d like to know what we can do to get this right. But that required a dialogue we haven’t been able to have,” Tom Elvidge, Uber’s general manager in London, told ‘The Sunday Times’ as part of the company’s conciliatory stance against Tfl’s verdict that it is not “fit and proper” to operate on the streets of London.

The report quoted a source close to TFL as saying that the statement could lead the way for talks with Uber on a possible solution.

It claimed that Uber’s concessions were likely to involve passenger safety and employment benefits for drivers, including possible holiday pay and limits on work hours.

“By wanting to ban our app from the capital Transport for London and the mayor have caved in to a small number of people who want to restrict consumer choice. This ban would show the world that, far from being open, London is closed to innovative companies who bring choice to consumers,” Elvidge had said in a statement soon after the TFL decision on Friday.

Uber is London’s biggest and increasingly most popular taxi operator with more than 3 million customers and 40,000 drivers now facing an uncertain future.

Meanwhile, the London mayor urged the thousands of people who had signed a petition against the ban to “direct their anger” at the firm.

“I have every sympathy with Uber drivers and customers affected by this decision but their anger really should be directed at Uber. They have let down their drivers and customers by failing, in the view of TFL, to act as a fit and proper operator,” Khan said in his latest statement. “I suspect it will take some time before this situation with Uber fully plays out,” Khan said. WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump dialled up the rhetoric against North Korea again at the weekend, warning the country’s foreign minister that he and leader Kim Jong Un “won’t be around much longer”, as Pyongyang staged a major anti-us rally.

North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday that targeting the US mainland with its rockets was inevitable after “Evil President” Trump called Pyongyang’s leader a “rocket man” on a suicide mission.

“Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at UN If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!” Trump said on Twitter late on Saturday.

Trump and Kim have traded increasingly threatening and personal insults as Pyongyang races towards its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the United States — something Trump has vowed to prevent.

Analysts say the escalation in rhetoric is increasing the risk of a miscalculation by one side or the other that could have massive repercussions.

North Korea’s state-run television KRT aired a video on Sunday showing tens of thousands of people attending an anti-us rally at Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang.

The North’s official KCNA news agency said more than 100,000 people gathered for the rally on Saturday and delivered speeches supporting comments made by Kim earlier in the week. “We are waiting for the right time to have a final battle with the US, the evil empire, and to remove the US from the world,” KCNA quoted Ri Il-bae, a commanding officer of the Red Guards, as saying.

“Once respected Supreme commander Kim Jong Un gives an order, we will annihilate the group of aggressors.”

In an unprecedented direct statement on Friday, Kim described Trump as a “mentally deranged US dotard” whom he would tame with fire.

Kim said the North would consider the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history” against the United States and that Trump’s comments had confirmed his nuclear programme was “the correct path”.

Kim’s comments came after Trump threatened in his maiden UN address on Thursday to “totally destroy” the country 26 million people.

It was not clear from Trump’s latest tweet if he was referring to Ri and Kim, or North Korea more broadly.

North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear bomb test on Sept. 3, prompting another round of UN sanctions.

Pyongyang said on Friday it might test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean.

“It is only a forlorn hope to consider any chance that the DPRK (North Korea) would be shaken an inch or change its stance due to the harsher sanctions by the hostile forces,” Ri told the UN General Assembly on Saturday.

US Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers escorted by fighters flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea on Saturday in a show of force the Pentagon said indicated the range of military options available to Trump.

The US bombers’ flight was the farthest north of the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea that any U.S. fighter jet or bomber had flown in the 21st century, the Pentagon said. of