Common approaches to Trump and euro sought
French fuel depots targeted
FRANKFURT, Germany, Nov 19, (Agencies): French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel consulted Sunday on migration, fixing the euro currency, Europe’s defense, taxing digital companies and other issues as the two leaders looked to preserve their influence abroad while their authority flags at home.
Macron, who came to Berlin to take part in Germany’s national remembrance day for the victims of war and dictatorship, urged European government to seize more responsibility for their own fate, especially regarding defense.
Macron said that the FrenchGerman alliance “is invested with this obligation not to allow the world to slide into chaos, and to accompany it on the road of peace.”
He said that Europe can’t play its role “if it doesn’t take more responsibility for its defense and security and is content to play a secondary role on the international scene.” Macron looked ahead to the European Parliament elections in May, which will give populist and anti-EU parties another chance to test their appeal with voters.
The two biggest countries in Europe can be a powerful force, but their leaders at the moment are hampered by falling domestic support. Macron has seen his poll ratings sag at home, where more than a quarter-million people protested Saturday over proposed gas tax hikes. Merkel has been a lame duck since saying she wouldn’t seek another term.
Merkel has offered support for Macron’s proposal for a European army someday. Both leaders have said Europe needs to depend less on others – such as the US – for its defense.
US President Donald Trump has unsettled NATO allies by demanding member countries either pay more for defense or “protect themselves,” as he put it in a recent tweet.
Merkel
French fuel depots targeted:
Protesters angry over high fuel prices blocked access to fuel depots and stopped traffic on major roads on Monday with the government refusing to back down on fuel taxes after a weekend of demonstrations across France.
One person was accidentally killed and more than 400 people injured during the “yellow vest” protests which began Saturday with nearly 300,000 participants nationwide.
Early Monday, dozens of barricades were still being manned on motorways and roundabouts, far fewer than the more than 2,000 sites on Saturday.
Around 200 trucks were backed up along a road leading to a fuel depot in the western city of Rennes, where some protesters had camped out overnight, an AFP reporter said. Others continued to camp out in supermarket parking lots.
‘Student probably suffocated’:
A Japanese student who went missing in eastern France in 2016 was probably suffocated to death in her university room by her fugitive Chilean ex-boyfriend, prosecutors said Monday.
Narumi Kurosaki disappeared in the city of Besancon, where she had been studying French, on the night of Dec 4, 2016.
Local prosecutor Etienne Manteaux said that determining the exact cause of death was difficult because investigators had not found her body despite extensive searches involving dogs and divers.
But he confirmed that no blood had been found in her room in a university residence in Besancon where terrified cries and the sound of a physical struggle were heard by fellow students at around 3:30 am.
He said Kurosaki’s ex-boyfriend Nicolas Zepeda, who posted videos online threatening her before her disappearance, was “more than ever considered the main suspect in this killing”.
Migrants from Iran showing up:
British authorities say they found nine suspected migrants from Iran after they landed on a coast in southeastern England.
The Home Office said the group landed Sunday at Folkstone, near the town of Dover, on an inflatable boat. It said they will be “processed in line with immigration rules.”
The BBC reported that a member of the public found them “clambering up rocks” on the coast.
Border officials reported other incidents involving Iranian migrants on the Dover coast in recent days.
On Wednesday, coast guard crews picked up three boats carrying more than 20 migrants from Iran, including a woman and a toddler. And on Tuesday, 14 men and three minors on a fishing boat, also from Iran, were stopped at Dover Harbor.
Turkish coast guard rescues 44:
Turkey’s coast guard said Monday it rescued 44 migrants stuck on an island after they attempted the crossing to Greece.
The coast guard said in a statement that it dispatched two helicopters and one boat following a rescue request call by a migrant. Aerial footage showed groups of people on an island off the coast of the western province of Balikesir.
Videos showed coast guard officers aiding women and children to board its ship. The statement did not specify the nationalities of the migrants but said they included 13 children.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants have set out from Turkey’s coasts in the past few years to try to reach neighboring Greece, which is a member of the European Union. A deal with the EU in 2016 to send those migrants back to Turkey significantly curbed the number of border crossings but many desperate migrants still attempt the journey.
Charges against Kremlin critic:
Russian prosecutors on Monday announced a new criminal case against Kremlin critic Bill Browder, raising the pressure on him before European Union discussions about a set of sanctions he is advocating.
They also revealed a “theory” that he could be behind the death of his employee, Sergei Magnitsky, in a Russian prison.
Magnitsky, a lawyer, died in 2009 following a year in pre-trial detention after alleging he had uncovered $230 million in tax fraud by Russian officials. A Russian presidential commission concluded that he had been beaten and denied medical care. Two prison doctors were charged with negligence leading to his death, but one was acquitted by a court in 2013 and another didn’t face justice because of a statute of limitations.