European Union leaders agreed on a “united EU approach” to keeping the Iran nuclear deal alive after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the pact, a European source said after talks in Bulgaria.
The 28 EU leaders also backed a plan for dealing with trade tariffs that Trump is imposing on European metals, saying that the “EU will not negotiate with a gun at its head”, the source told AFP.
“The EU will continue fighting for a rules-based international system despite recent decisions on climate change, tariffs and Iran,” the source said after the leaders met over dinner in Sofia.
Their show of unity comes after EU president Donald Tusk lashed out at Trump, saying that “looking at the latest decisions of President Trump, someone could even think with friends like that who needs enemies.”
On Iran, the leaders expressed backing for a plan including “EU support for JCPoA, as long as Iran respects the deal,” the source said, referring to the deal’s formal name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
They also agreed to “initiate work to protect European companies negatively affected by the US decision,” which involves Washington reimposing sanctions on Iran.
But with the US saying it had pulled out of the deal because of broader worries about Tehran’s actions, the leaders said they would also “address concerns about Iran’s role in the region, Iran’s ballistic missile programme and what happens after 2025”.
On trade, the EU leaders agreed to “strengthen” the European Commission as it seeks to negotiate a permanent exemption from US tariffs on metal and aluminium that are due to take effect on June 1, the source said.
If it gets the exemption, the source said the EU was ready to take steps including “voluntary regulatory cooperation” with the US, and working on reform of the World Trade Organisation, after Trump claimed the US was unfairly treated.
It was also ready to “improve reciprocal market access, for industrial products, including amongst others cars, and liberalisation of public procurement.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party has emerged as the single largest party in the Karnataka Assembly, but has fallen short of the halfway mark to form a government.
BJP : 104
CON: 78
JD (S) : 37
OTHERS : 3
Moscow, May 10: Russian President Vladimir Putin today said he was seriously concerned by US President Donald Trump’s abandoning the Iran nuclear deal.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti news agency that Putin in comments to his national Security Council expressed “deep concern over such a decision and once more stressed the importance of this document.”
Putin was set later today to hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who backed Trump’s decision.
Netanyahu before leaving Israel said that “the meetings between us are always important and this one is especially so.”
The two leaders earlier today watched a Red Square parade marking the anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, with some of the country’s latest weaponry on display.
Russia’s foreign ministry said late Tuesday it was “deeply disappointed” by Trump’s announcement that the United States would pull out of the Iran deal, while Netanyahu strongly supported the US president’s “bold” move.
Moscow and Tehran have close political and economic relations.
In the nuclear field, Russia has already built one reactor at Iran’s Bushehr plant, the country’s only nuclear power plant, and has started work on two new ones.
By contrast Netanyahu on Monday held a televised presentation of what he called “proof” of Iran’s alleged past military nuclear ambitions.
Netanyahu and Putin have held a series of meetings and phone conversations in recent months, particularly related to the conflict in Syria where Israel has vowed to prevent Iran building a military presence.
Seoul, May 10: South Korea is reducing its maximum working week from 68 hours to 52 hours in a bid to boost the country’s productivity and the number of children being born.
A BBC News report, written by Fernando Duarte, has said that the average working week varies depending where you live in the world. So, which countries are “burning the midnight oil”?
In March, South Korea’s National Assembly passed a law that will give a substantial amount of its workforce a well-deserved break.
It is the developed nation with the longest working hours, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
This new law will come into force in July 2018, although initially it will only apply to large companies before reaching smaller businesses.
Despite opposition from the business community, the South Korean government believes the law is necessary to improve living standards, create more jobs and boost productivity.
The South Korean government also believes it could even increase the country’s birth rate, which has decreased substantially in the last few decades.
South Korea has currently longer working hours than any other developed country: an average 2,069 hours per year, per worker, according to 2016 data compiled by the OECD.
The analysis covered 38 countries and showed that only Mexicans (2,225 hours/year) and Costa Ricans (2,212 hours/year) worked longer hours.
South Koreans bucked a global trend: studies carried out by the International Labor Organisation (ILO) show that lower and middle-income countries tend to work longer hours than their richer counterparts, thanks to a series of factors that range from the proportion of self-employed workers in the labour force to lower wages, job insecurity and cultural issues.
But South Korea is not the only rich country to defy the odds. Japan has a problem with “death by overwork”, expressed not only by statistics but also the fact that the Japanese language has a word for this: karoshi.
In more specific terms, the word means employees dying either from stress-related ailments (heart attacks, strokes) or the ones who take their own lives because of the pressures of the job.
The average of 1,713 hours worked per year in Japan is not among the highest in the OECD list, but beyond the number, there is the grim reality that the country has no legislation at all stipulating a maximum weekly hours limit and neither overtime limit.
In the 2015-16 financial year, the government registered a record 1,456 karoshi cases. Workers’ rights groups claim that the actual figures could be many times higher due to under-reporting.
According to ILO’s most recent figures, Asia is a continent where more people work the longest hours: most of the countries (32 per cent) have no universal national limit for maximum weekly working hours and another 29% have high thresholds (60 weekly hours or more). And only 4 per cent of the countries abide by the ILO recommendations and set the international labour standards of a maximum of 48 hours or fewer for the working week.
In the Americas and the Caribbean, 34 per cent of the nations have no universal weekly hours limit, the highest rate amongst regions. One of the countries without a limit is the United States.
But it is in the Middle East where the legal limits are more open for long hours: eight out of 10 countries permit weekly working hours in excess of 60 hours per week.
In Europe, on the other hand, all countries have maximum weekly hours, and only Belgium and Turkey have legal working hours of more than 48 hours.
But it is Africa that shows the greatest number of countries in which more than one of third of the labour force works over 48 hours per week. The rate in Tanzania, for instance, is 60 per cent.
Surveys have also identified cities in terms of average hours. In 2016, Swiss Bank UBS released an analysis of 71 cities that showed Hong Kong with an average of 50.1 weekly working hours, ahead of Mumbai (43.7), Mexico City (43.5), New Delhi (42.6) and Bangkok (42.1).
Mexicans, apart from the longest hours, are also subjected to one of the meanest holiday regimes in the world: their legal minimum paid annual leave is less than 10 days, like in Nigeria, Japan and China, for example, while regional neighbours Brazil offer a minimum of between 20 to 23 days.
It could be worse, though. In India, where there is no universal national limit for maximum working hours, workers do not have a guaranteed minimum amount of annual leave.
United Nations, May 9: The international community must present a united front against gun violence which kills nearly 250,000 each year and injures many more, has said a senior United Nations official, marking the start of a Global Week of Action Against the scourge.
“Every day, hundreds of lives are lost due to gun violence worldwide,” the UN Disarmament Affairs chief, Izumi Nakamitsu, said in her message on Monday at the start of the Global Week of Action Against Gun Violence. “Guns are responsible for about half of all violent deaths – nearly a quarter-million each year.”
The High Representative said that for every death, there were “many more injured, maimed and forced to flee their home and community” and those who just live with the threat of being shot.
New Delhi, May 9: Government on Tuesday opened 9th round of bidding for city gas distribution (CGD) licensing, in another 86 GAs (Geographical Areas) covering 174 districts.
Speaking at the ninth CGD Bid Round here Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said this is the largest ever round which covers 20 States and 2 Union Territories (UT) of the country.
After this round, India will have CGD coverage in nearly 50 per cent of the total 640 districts in the country and about 50 per cent (61 crore) of the population of the country, a Petroleum Ministry release said.