French trade unions are heading for what is expected to be a decisive showdown with President Emmanuel Macron over pension reform, with massive strikes from Tuesday aiming to bring the country "to a standstill".. All eight major French trade unions have called for the stoppages to bring the country "to a standstill" on Tuesday, with shopkeepers also encouraged to down shutters.
UN member states finally agreed Saturday, following years of talks, to a text on the first international treaty to protect the high seas, a fragile and vital treasure that covers nearly half the planet.. Following two weeks of intense talks at the United Nations headquarters in New York, including a marathon overnight session Friday into Saturday, delegates finalized a text that cannot be significantly altered.
Students and rail workers were preparing to rally in Athens on Sunday in the latest expression of grief and anger at Greece's worst rail disaster, which killed at least 57 people.. - Grief and anger - The demonstrations and vigils across Greece have expressed a combination of grief and anger at the disaster, which happened when a passenger train and a freight train collided.
"Everything Everywhere All At Once" swept up yet more film prizes Saturday, as it was named best feature at the Spirit Awards -- one of the last major Hollywood ceremonies before next weekend's Oscars.. Among the films that could receive a late Oscars boost from their Spirit Award wins Saturday were best documentary "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed," best first feature "Aftersun," and best cinematography winner "Tar."
Modern Texas was built on oil, and its production has long been a source of immense pride.. "It's true that when we think about Texas, we think about this very large oil and gas state," said Engie executive Frank Demaille.
Out in the California desert, nestled between billboards advertising hairline restoration and varicose vein removal, six hauntingly beautiful images of steel bridges and sunsets loom incongruously over the dusty highway.. California-raised Nichols was a keen photographer who trained his camera on the bridges, murals, neon lights and fiery sunsets of his adopted home city of Memphis, exploring the connections between people and their surroundings.
China's rubber-stamp parliament kicks off nine days of meetings Sunday, with lawmakers set to hand Xi Jinping a third term as president as well as unveil fresh growth targets and an increase in defence spending.. Also on the cards for lawmakers will be China's slowing economy, as well as an increase in the defence budget, the second-largest in the world.
Under-fire Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Saturday rejected any responsibility of her government for a devastating shipwreck off Italy's southern coast last weekend which left at least 69 people dead.. The Italian judicial system is investigating the time it took for rescue services to reach the vessel, which left Turkey with some 200 migrants and went down off Steccato in the southern region of Calabria.
Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant no longer produces electricity and serves solely as a military base for Moscow's troops, the exiled mayor of the city of Energodar, which houses the facility, told AFP. Moscow's troops seized the plant in the southern Zaporizhzhia region on March 4 last year, just days after the start of Russia's invasion.. "During a year under occupation, (Russians) have turned Europe's largest nuclear power plant into a military base," 37-year-old Energodar mayor Dmytro Orlov said in an interview to AFP. The plant has repeatedly made headlines and revived fears of nuclear catastrophies similar to the deadly Chernobyl disaster that shook Ukraine in 1986.
Russia's defence minister has inspected the front line in eastern Ukraine, the defence ministry said Saturday, with the battle for Bakhmut raging and the US offering to pump more money into Kyiv's survival.. Sergei Shoigu had "inspected a command post on the front" in the direction of the southern Donetsk region, the defence ministry said, without specifying exactly where or when.
