Month: January 2019

Jaguar Land Rover said Thursday it will cut 4,500 jobs as the carmaker addresses slowing demand in China and growing uncertainty about the U.K.’s departure from the European Union. The luxury carmaker, owned by India’s Tata conglomerate, said the cuts will be in addition to 1,500 people who left the business in 2018. The cost-cutting program will begin with a voluntary reduction program in the U.K., where some 44,000 people are employed.   The latest job losses follow on from last year’s 2.5 billion-pound ($3.2 billion) turnaround plan that was designed to deal with many of the headwinds facing the …

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Officials in Davos have authorized a protest by a Socialist youth group against U.S. President Donald Trump and other expected attendees of the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort this month. Authorities rejected a similar protest request last year when Trump attended the elite event, citing heavy snowfall. Julia Baumgartner, secretary-general of Switzerland’s Young Socialists, said Thursday that her group was “very excited” about the chance to demonstrate. Baumgartner said she expected no more than 150 to 200 protesters because the rally falls on a Thursday when people are at work and school. The protest is to …

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More than a million euros have been donated to French police hurt in clashes with yellow vest protesters as both sides take to online crowdfunding to rally support. The police fund-raising campaign came in response to a similar support drive for a boxer who was captured on video punching police officers during Saturday’s protests in Paris. Fund-raising site Leetchi suspended donations for the boxer, Christophe Dettinger, amid government outrage. Dettinger is in custody until his trial next month on charges of violence against public officials. Conservative lawmaker Renaud Muselier then launched a fund-raising campaign for police injured since the protests …

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Hungary’s prime minister says his country’s objective for the upcoming European Parliament elections is for “anti-immigration forces” to become a majority in all European Union institutions, including Parliament and the EU’s executive Commission. Viktor Orban also said that he had “great hopes” for cooperation between Italy and Poland, both of which oppose immigration, and said he continues to view hard-line Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini as “my own hero.” Orban, who won a third consecutive term in April with an electoral campaign based on anti-immigration policies, predicted that there would be two civilizations in Europe — one “that builds its …

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Spain’s far-right Vox party has staked its claim to a place in the political mainstream, dropping its more extremist positions to help form a regional government in Andalusia as far-right parties build their influence across Europe. The anti-migrant, anti-feminist and euroskeptic party played kingmaker by supporting an alliance of the conservative Popular Party and the center-right Citizens party that is poised to end 36 years of center-left Socialist party rule in Spain’s most populated region. Vox initially demanded the deportation of 52,000 immigrants and the scrapping of tough laws protecting women from domestic abuse in return for its 12 votes …

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Japan’s Shinzo Abe is likely to urge British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday to do everything she can to avoid a disorderly Brexit that some of Japan’s leading companies have warned could be a disaster. Japanese firms have spent more than 46 billion pounds  ($59 billion) in Britain, encouraged by successive British governments since Margaret Thatcher promising them a business-friendly base from which to trade across Europe. Future unsure The future of Brexit remains deeply uncertain — with options ranging from a disorderly exit from the EU to another membership referendum — because British lawmakers are expected on Jan. …

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Macedonian lawmakers are in the final stretch of renaming their country North Macedonia as part of a deal with neighboring Greece in return for membership of NATO and potentially the European Union.  Speaking at the start of a debate on essential constitutional amendments that are part of the deal, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev told lawmakers that by signing the agreement, the country is finally ending a decades-long dispute with a deal that recognizes Macedonian national identity and language. “This is a historic and patriotic choice. We can be the generation that has made a bold decision,” Zaev said.  The parliamentary …

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Italy and Poland should join forces to reshape Europe, Italy’s far-right Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Wednesday during a visit to Warsaw to drum up support for a euroskeptic alliance to contest May elections to the European Parliament. The euroskeptic governments in Rome and Warsaw are both keen to repatriate some EU powers from Brussels to national capitals and hope like-minded parties will do well in the May elections, which will follow Britain’s planned exit from the bloc in March. “Poland and Italy will be part of the new spring of Europe, the renaissance of European values,” he …

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A far-right party on Wednesday took a role in the formation of a regional government in Spain, for the first time since the Franco dictatorship ended in 1975. The far-right, anti-immigrant Vox agreed to support a Conservative/center-right coalition in the southern Andalusia region. It had become a potential kingmaker in Spain’s most populous region — a traditional Socialist Party stronghold — after 12 Vox lawmakers were unexpectedly elected to the regional parliament in December. “Today illegal immigration and corruption lose […] and the Andalusians, the defence of the family and a more pluralistic politics win,” Vox leader Javier Ortega told …

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Fears are mounting for Paul Whelan, the former U.S. Marine seized last month in a Moscow hotel after being accused of espionage. Western intelligence officers and analysts fear he may remain in detention in Russia for a long time and are casting doubt on the likelihood of a spy exchange. Kremlin officials are dismissing the idea he’d be a candidate for a prisoner swap. Their U.S. counterparts say there can’t be any kind of exchange, as he’s not a spy. Kremlin officials Wednesday dismissed a claim by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt that Russia might use the former Canadian-born U.S. …

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