Macron meets Le Pen under pressure to name new PM

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, member of parliament for the Rassemblement National party and Jordan Bardella, President of the French far-right Rassemblement National party, walk outside the Elysee Palace on August 26, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 19 December 2024
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Macron meets Le Pen under pressure to name new PM

  • Deadline to present draft 2025 budget for the heavily-indebted government looming a month away

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron hosted far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen for rare talks Monday, as pressure mounts for him to finally name a prime minister after July’s inconclusive parliamentary poll.
The three-time National Rally (RN) presidential candidate called after the meeting for an extraordinary session of parliament so MPs would be able to immediately depose any new government in a confidence vote.
“I don’t want a prime minister to have a month to implement by decree a toxic policy that would be dangerous for the French people,” Le Pen said.
Snap elections called by centrist Macron failed last month to extricate France from the hung-parliament deadlock that had seen his camp run a minority government since 2022.
Instead, the National Assembly (lower house) is largely divided among three blocs: the New Popular Front (NFP) alliance of left-wing parties with over 190 seats, followed by the president’s supporters at around 160 and the far-right National Rally on 140.
None is close to a majority of 289 in the 577-seat chamber.
Since the second-round polls closed on July 7, the left has pushed for Macron to name one of their own as prime minister, saying the position falls to them as the largest power.
They have named largely unknown 37-year-old economist and civil servant Lucie Castets as their prospective candidate for head of government.
Macron has for his part delayed installing a new PM, leaving a caretaker government in place for an unprecedented period as he seeks a figure with broad support who would not immediately be toppled in a confidence vote.
“The president’s weakness is that since the night of the second round, he hasn’t been able to change the game or get anything moving... he is dependent on others’ goodwill to fix his own mistakes,” wrote commentator Guillaume Tabard in conservative daily Le Figaro.

The pressure is now on, with the deadline to present a draft 2025 budget for the heavily-indebted government looming just over a month away.
Since Friday, Macron has invited party leaders for talks at the Elysee in hopes of finding the elusive consensus candidate.
All have stuck to their guns, with the NFP alliance of Socialists, Communists, Greens and hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) insisting they have won the right to implement their big-spending program.
“I don’t want to participate in a show where the dice are loaded” against the left, Socialist party chief Olivier Faure said of the talks with Macron.
One big step came from LFI figurehead Jean-Luc Melenchon saying Friday that his followers need not be ministers in any government, a key objection of Macron and other political players.
The president has repeatedly called LFI an “extreme” movement, attempting to brand the party as equally beyond the pale as the far right.
Before, Macron “thought he could eliminate a Castets government as an option in two days of talks,” center-left daily Le Monde wrote.
After Melenchon’s offer, “he will have to justify more seriously than he planned to the French public why he’s ruling out the NFP,” the paper added.
Top Macron allies, conservatives and the RN still vow to vote no confidence in any left-wing government, shifting their fire since Melenchon’s offer to the NFP’s big-spending manifesto rather than its personnel.
France’s 2027 presidential election, in which Macron cannot stand again after serving two terms, further stacks political incentives against compromise.
Many leaders instead appear set on demonstrating their ideological purity to voters in the long race for the country’s top job.


DR Congo, M23 armed group sign ceasefire deal

Updated 3 sec ago
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DR Congo, M23 armed group sign ceasefire deal

  • The truce was agreed in a Declaration of Principles signed by the two sides after three months of talks in Doha
  • A separate Congolese-Rwandan peace deal was signed in Washington last month
DOHA: The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda-backed armed group M23 signed a ceasefire deal on Saturday to end fighting that has devastated the country’s mineral-rich but conflict-torn east.
The truce was agreed in a Declaration of Principles signed by the two sides after three months of talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, which follows a separate Congolese-Rwandan peace deal signed in Washington last month.
“The Parties commit to uphold their commitment to a permanent ceasefire,” including refraining from “hate propaganda” and “any attempt to seize by force new positions,” said the agreement.
The M23, which seized vast swathes of territory in eastern DRC in a lightning offensive in January and February, had insisted on seeking its own ceasefire deal with Kinshasa, saying the Washington deal left out various “problems” that still needed to be addressed.
The African Union hailed the new deal as a “significant development,” saying: “This... marks a major milestone in the ongoing efforts to achieve lasting peace, security, and stability in eastern DRC and the wider Great Lakes region.”
Under the deal, the warring parties agreed to open negotiations on a comprehensive peace agreement.
The deal, which the two sides said aligns with the Washington agreement, also includes a roadmap for restoring state authority in eastern DRC.
Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said the deal took account of the DRC’s “red lines,” including “the non-negotiable withdrawal of the M23 from occupied areas followed by the deployment of our institutions,” including the national armed forces.
He said a comprehensive peace agreement would follow “in the coming days.”
The deal said the two sides had agreed to implement its terms by July 29 at the latest, and to start direct negotiations toward a permanent agreement by August 8.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi are due to meet in the coming months to solidify the Washington peace deal, whose terms have not yet been implemented.
Previous ceasefire agreements for eastern DRC have collapsed in the past.
Neighboring Rwanda denies providing military backing to the M23, but UN experts say that the Rwandan army played a “critical” role in the group’s offensive, including combat operations.
Rich in natural resources, especially lucrative minerals, eastern DRC has been racked by conflict for more than three decades, creating a humanitarian crisis and forcing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
Thousands were killed in the M23 offensive earlier this year, which saw the group capture the key provincial capitals of Goma and Bukavu.
The front line has stabilized since February, but fighting was still breaking out regularly between the M23 and multiple pro-government militias.

Slightly radioactive Fukushima soil is used at Japanese prime minister’s office to prove safety

Updated 19 July 2025
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Slightly radioactive Fukushima soil is used at Japanese prime minister’s office to prove safety

  • Officials say the soil meets safety standards set by the Environment Ministry and the International Atomic Energy Agency
  • The government hopes this move will reassure the public of its safety as it seeks to reduce the massive volume of contaminated soil stored near the nuclear plant

TOKYO: Decontaminated but slightly radioactive soil from Fukushima was delivered Saturday to the Japanese prime minister’s office to be reused in an effort to showcase its safety.
This is the first soil to be used, aside from experiments, since the 2011 nuclear disaster when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered a cataclysmic meltdown following an earthquake and tsunami that left large amounts of radioactive materials spewing out from the facility, polluting surrounding areas.
The government is desperate to set people’s minds at ease about recycling the 14 million cubic meters of decontaminated soil, enough to fill 11 baseball stadiums, collected after massive clean-ups and stored at a sprawling outdoor facility near the Fukushima plant. Officials have pledged to find final disposal sites by 2045.
The Environment Ministry said the 2 cubic meters, now at Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s office complex in Tokyo, will be used as foundation material in one section of the lawn garden, based on the ministry’s safety guidelines endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The soil does not include any from inside the plant.
Despite assurances, there has been much public unease. The government has already been forced to scrap a plan to experiment using some of the soil in flower beds at several public parks in and around Tokyo following protests.


One dead, three missing after South Korea landslide

Updated 19 July 2025
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One dead, three missing after South Korea landslide

  • Sancheong county told all residents Saturday to ‘evacuate immediately to a safe area’
  • South Korea is regularly hit by flooding during the summer monsoon period, but is typically well-prepared

SEOUL: A landslide triggered by torrential rain killed at least one person in South Korea, the national fire agency said Saturday.

Three people were also missing after the landslide buried two houses in a village in southern Sancheong county, officials said, as heavy rain continued to pound the country.

“At least three people have been reported missing and we have recovered one body,” an official at Sancheong county fire station said.

The official said that one person in their twenties, and a couple in their seventies were reported missing.

Sancheong county told all residents Saturday to “evacuate immediately to a safe area.”

The county has a population of some 34,000 people.

South Korea typically experiences monsoon rains in July, but the country’s southern regions saw some of the heaviest hourly downpours on record this week, official weather data showed.

The Ministry of Interior and Safety said Saturday at least four people have been killed in rain-related accidents and more than 7,000 forced to evacuate their homes.

South Korea is regularly hit by flooding during the summer monsoon period, but is typically well-prepared and the death toll usually relatively low.

Scientists say climate change has made weather events around the world more extreme and frequent.

The country endured record-breaking rains and flooding in 2022 which killed at least 11 people.


Former South Korea president Yoon indicted again as martial law investigation continues

Updated 19 July 2025
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Former South Korea president Yoon indicted again as martial law investigation continues

  • The new charges include obstruction of the exercise of others’ rights by abuse of authority, ordering the deletion of records and blocking the execution of arrest warrants
  • The impeached and deposed former leader has been jailed at Seoul Detention Center since earlier this month

SEOUL: South Korea’s jailed ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol was indicted on additional charges on Saturday as a special prosecutor continues investigating him for his short-lived declaration of martial law in December.

The new charges include obstruction of the exercise of others’ rights by abuse of authority, ordering the deletion of records and blocking the execution of arrest warrants, the prosecutor’s office said in a briefing.

Yoon has been on trial on charges of insurrection, which is punishable by death or life imprisonment, facing additional charges since the special prosecutor was appointed in June to take over the cases against him.

Yoon has denied all wrongdoing. His lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new charges.

The impeached and deposed former leader has been jailed at Seoul Detention Center since earlier this month, and a court earlier this week rejected his request to be freed from detention.


Cuba ends maximum age limit of 60 for presidential candidates

Updated 19 July 2025
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Cuba ends maximum age limit of 60 for presidential candidates

  • Communist-ruled island’s restriction of two five-year presidential terms and minimum age of 35 for candidates were left unchanged
  • Cuba’s current president, 65-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel, was elected in 2018 and then re-elected in 2023

HAVANA: Cuba scrapped the maximum age limit of 60 for its presidential candidates as part of a constitutional reform approved Friday by parliament.

The communist-ruled island’s restriction of two five-year presidential terms and minimum age of 35 for candidates were left unchanged.

The measure, approved by the Council of State, imposes no age limits on people “in the full exercise of their physical and mental faculties, with... loyalty and revolutionary trajectory,” national assembly president Esteban Lazo said.

Former president Raul Castro, who at age 94 still holds a seat in the assembly, was the first to vote for the reform that will be on the books for the 2028 presidential elections.

Cuba’s current president, 65-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel, was elected in 2018 and then re-elected in 2023. No favored successor has been publicly designated.

The inclusion of term and age limits in the 2019 constitution marked a radical shift after the six decades in which Fidel Castro and his brother Raul were in power.

In 2016, Fidel had to hand over the reins to his brother due to health problems. He died later that year, after nearly half a century leading Cuba.

Raul Castro officially became president in 2008, at the age of 76. In 2021, he retired as Communist Party first secretary, handing over power to Diaz-Canel.

The nation of nearly 10 million people is suffering its worst economic crisis in three decades, with shortages of all kinds of supplies, power outages, and unprecedented emigration.