France scraps fuel tax hike
Tax on digital giants: FinMin
PARIS, Dec 6, (Agencies): French President Emmanuel Macron scrapped a fuel tax rise amid fears of new violence, after weeks of nationwide protests and the worst rioting in Paris in decades.
Protesters celebrated the victory, but some said Macron’s surrender came too late and is no longer enough to quell the mounting anger at the president, whom they consider out of touch with the problems of ordinary people.
Macron decided to “get rid” of the tax planned for next year, an official in the president’s office told The Associated Press. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told lawmakers the tax is no longer included in the 2019 budget.
The decision has ramifications beyond France, since the fuel tax rise was part of Macron’s efforts to wean France off fossil fuels in order to reduce greenhouse gases and help slow climate change. Its withdrawal is both a blow to broader efforts to fight climate change and a warning to other world leaders trying to do the same thing.
The “yellow vest” protests began Nov 17 over the government plan to raise taxes on diesel and gasoline, but by the time Macron bowed to three weeks of violence and abandoned the new fuel tax, protesters were demanding much more. Many workers in France are angry over the combination of low wages, high taxes and high unemployment that have left
have been recovered from river beds at two different locations after flash floods are believed to have swept them away.
Turkish Cypriot news agency TAK
In this Dec 5, 2018, photo released by the Bureau of Immigration Public Information Office, American Roman Catholic priest Rev Kenneth Bernard Hendricks poses for his mugshot at the Bureau of Immigration in Manila. Philippine immigration authorities say they have arrested Hendricks accused of sexually assaulting altar boys in a church in Naval town in the island province of Biliran, in a case one official described as ‘shocking
and appalling.’ (AP)
many people struggling financially.
On Tuesday, the government agreed to suspend the fuel tax rise for six months. But instead of appeasing the protesters, it spurred other groups to join in, hoping for concessions of their own. The protests took on an even bigger dimension Wednesday with trade unions and farmers vowing to join the fray.
Police warned of potential violence during demonstrations in Paris on Saturday, with one small security forces union threatening a strike.
So after nightfall Wednesday, as parliament debated the 2019 budget, Macron’s government suddenly gave in.
“I have no problem with admitting that on such or such question we could have done differently, that if there is such a level of anger ... it’s because we still have a lot of things to improve,” the prime minister told legislators.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Thursday said France will tax digital giants at a national level from 2019 if European Union states cannot reach an agreement on a tax on digital revenues for the bloc.
EU finance ministers failed to agree a tax on digital revenues on Tuesday, despite a last minute Franco-German plan to salvage the proposal by narrowing its focus to companies like Google and Facebook.
quoted police as saying Thursday that authorities are looking for a car near the location where one body was found south of the town of Kyrenia. They fear three more people may have been passengers.
Torrential rains over the past four days have pounded the small, eastern Mediterranean island nation, causing flooding and some power blackouts.
Turkish Cypriot media reported that authorities have closed all schools for Thursday, with the weather service forecasting more rain. (AP)
Release 24 Ukrainian sailors:
Ukraine’s foreign minister is demanding the release and safe return of 24 Ukrainian sailors captured by Russian military forces in the Black Sea.
Pavlo Klimkin told the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Thursday that even though Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 has dominated the group’s agenda for the past five years, Russia “has not pulled back.”
Instead, he said, it has extended operations into the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.
Relations between Ukraine and Russia have been further strained following a Nov 25 clash in which the Russian coast guard fired upon and seized three Ukrainian naval vessels and their crews.
The OSCE is holding a ministerial meeting in the Italian city of Milan. (AP)