Members of French union CGT hold a banner in a rally in Paris, Oct. 18.

President Nicolas Sarkozy faced the first national strike of his five-month presidency, the opening skirmish in a battle that could determine whether he can implement ambitious reforms and stimulate growth in Europe’s third-largest economy.
As most trains, subways and buses were brought to a halt across France and tens of thousands of demonstrators in Paris and elsewhere protested Sarkozy’s plans to eliminate early retirement privileges for about 500,000 public-sector workers, the message of labor unions was clear:
At stake is the president’s broader agenda to overhaul labor laws, curb union power and cut the expenses of the public sector.
“Remember this date: Oct. 18, 2007. On this day, Nicolas Sarkozy’s five-year term will really begin,“ the conservative newspaper Le Figaro wrote in an editorial.
“Here comes the confrontation that could define his presidency.“
Successive administrations have given way to mass protests over the last two decades: in 1986, 1994, 1995 and 2006, when the previous government withdrew an unpopular youth employment law.
Sarkozy, who traveled to Lisbon on Thursday (Oct. 18) for a summit meeting with fellow European Union leaders, has vowed to see his pension reform plans through. “We cannot back down,“ said the government spokesman, Laurent Wauquiez. “We are very determined.“
The strike was described by commentators as the worst railroad walkout in 12 years.
Regional traffic was severely disrupted, and only 46 of the country’s 700 high-speed trains were running.
Twenty percent of Eurostar service to Britain and 40 percent of Thalys service to Belgium and Germany was canceled.
Workers at the state-owned electric and gas utility companies joined the protests, leading to reduced electricity output and short-term blackouts in some areas.
Several hard-line unions voted to continue striking, causing further disruption to the MŽtro and local trains in the Paris region, Reuters reported.
The strike was not as severe as anticipated, dashing the hopes of some unions of a repeat of 1995, when protests against pension reform paralyzed the country for three weeks.
The civil aviation authority reported “everything normal“ with air traffic, although some flights had been canceled in advance.
In Paris, while most subway trains were halted, some key lines had limited service. Other towns and cities across the country also reported fewer bus and metro disruptions than predicted.
In a sign that technology had done its bit to sap the union’s disruptive power, several companies made provisions for their staff members to work from home.
Others used their cars, bicycles, skates, legs, even motorcycle taxi services to get to work. The capital’s new self-service bicycle rental system was sold out in many locations.
“We are used to strikes in this country,“ said Alexandre Barnier, a 47-year old teacher, who said he had bought a bicycle especially for this purpose. “In 1995 I walked an hour a day to work. Then I bought a bike--and I still have it for those occasions.“
Like scores of others interviewed on the streets of Paris on Thursday, Barnier said he supported Sarkozy’s pension reform, but was less sure about some of the president’s other plans.
Public opinion, which broadly supported the 1995 strikes, is now firmly behind the president’s plans to bring all public-sector pensions in line with the private sector: A survey by the BVA institute showed that only 42 percent of voters supported the walkout Thursday.
The challenge for the president will be to keep the conflict focused as much as possible on the pension measure rather than allowing it to take aim at other more controversial measures in his sprawling platform, analysts said.
A majority of French people are impatient for their country to change and no longer feel represented by labor unions. But many remain attached to strong job protection laws, long vacations and a relatively early retirement age.
That ambiguity was plain in a central bar in Paris on Thursday morning, where Matthieu Allix, an Internet project manager, and Pierre Bringuier, an investment banker, had very little sympathy with the striking train engineers who want to protect their right to retire at 50.
IHT.COM

John Howard

They’re off and racing. No sooner has Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced an election date than he is promising a $34 billion tax cut, the biggest in the nation’s history.
Caught napping, his would-be replacement, Kevin Rudd, had the television cameras on him in a remote provincial hospital just as the doctors were ordering him out so they could treat an emergency case.
Even his Treasury spokesman, Wayne Swan, was begging for more time to answer Howard’s vote-grabbing bonanza. And these tactical gaffes from a political party that has been taunting the government for months with: “Bring on the election.“
Yes, the awaited national election is in full swing. And with only a month to go before the Nov. 24 poll, both the Liberal-National government and the Labor opposition are at screaming pitch to convince highly skeptical electors of their merits.
It’s anybody’s guess who will win. After 11 years in Canberra, Howard’s conservative government could be looking old and tired and lacking ideas. Indeed, the latest Newspoll survey shows Labor ahead 56 percent to 44. All polls have been hovering around these figures all year.
And Rudd, the bright, youngish, former Labor apparatchik who pushed aside a bevy of ambitious hopefuls to lead his party, is portraying a brilliant future for a country already riding high on a minerals export boom. His latest speech used the word “future“ 27 times.
One problem not of Rudd’s making, however, is that all governments in seven states and territories are already held by Labor, and Australians traditionally like to balance their federal and state politicians between conservative Liberal and left-leaning Labor. His mighty task is to convince voters the whole country should be handed over to one party. And right now voters are pretty happy with the lifestyle they’ve grown accustomed to.
And why not? To coin a phrase, they’ve never had it so good. After 16 years of unbroken expansion, the economy is in fine fettle. The nonfarm economy jumped 5.2 percent in the three months to June, the fastest in a decade. The jobless rate fell to 4.2 percent, the lowest in 33 years. Some 60,000 skilled immigrants are needed each year to cope with export demand from Asia, notably China.
Howard is telling voters he wants a fifth term in Canberra to augment his superior handling of the economy and maintain national security.
He points to a labor market functioning with minimal strikes despite the biggest resources boom in 50 years. He claims to have cured once-shaky budgets, saving the economy from the Asian crisis, which has become, he might add, the envy of the world.
In foreign affairs, former diplomat Rudd--he served in Beijing and Stockholm-- will be offering some excitement. Howard’s globe-trotting has, however, notched up a few triumphs with old allies America and Japan, and new economic partners China, India and Russia.
In the struggling mortgage belt around state capital cities and among drought-stricken farmers, voters are far from over-awed by such esoteric reminders.
“It’s the economy, stupid“ is an Americanism chillingly clear in a string of electorates held by the slimmest of margins. Hence Howard is jumping in with promises of lower tax rates. Now it’s up to Rudd to match them.
But there’s always a trap, of course--like the environment. Party differences have narrowed since the government announced emissions trading and renewable energy schemes. Labor says it will sign the Kyoto protocol that Howard will not touch. And Labor will drop Howard’s approval of uranium exports to India.
National security is one area where the Liberals always rate higher, but Rudd may well be able to change this. Labor is promising a dedicated coast guard service and a department of homeland security. Iraq has hurt the government, with polls saying 60 percent of Australians want our troops pulled out. Labor agrees.
The coalition says a pullout would damage the U.S. alliance. Rudd retorts that he would send more troops to Afghanistan.
Alan Goodall
JAPANTIMES.COM

Lebanon is peopled with ghosts. But the phantoms now returning to haunt this damaged country--the militias which tore it apart more than 30 years ago--are real.
Guns are flooding back into the country-- $800 for an AK-47, $3,700 for a brand-new French Famas--as Lebanon security apparatus hunt desperately for the leadership of the new and secret armies.
Only last week, they arrested two followers of ex-General Michel Aoun for allegedly training pro-Aounist gunmen.
After themselves being accused of acting like a militia for arresting Dario Kodeih and Elie Abi Younes, the Lebanese Internal Security Force issued a photograph of Christian gunmen holding AK-47 and M-16 rifles. Aoun’s party replied quaintly that “they were just out having fun with real weapons but were not undergoing any military training“. Fun indeed.
What now worries the Lebanese authorities, however, is the sheer scale of weaponry arriving in Lebanon. It appears to include new Glock pistols (asking price $1,000). There are growing fears, moreover, that many of these guns are from the vast stock of 190,000 rifles and pistols which the US military “lost“ when they handed them out to Iraqi police officers without registering their numbers or destination.
The American weapons included 125,000 Glock pistols. The Lebanese-Iraqi connection is anyway well established. A growing number of suicide bombers in Iraq come from the Lebanese cities of Tripoli and Sidon.
Widespread reports that Saad Hariri--son of the assassinated ex-Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri--has himself created an embryo militia have been officially denied.
But a number of armed Hariri supporters initially opened fire into the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian camp after its takeover by pro-Al-Qaida gunmen last April.
Hariri’s men also have forces in Beirut (supposedly unarmed) and again this is denied.
Those who suspect the opposite, however, might like to check the register of the Mayflower Hotel in the western sector of Beirut.
The Fatah Al-Islam rebels who took over Nahr el-Bared last April--400 died in the 206-day siege by the army, 168 of them soldiers--also used new weapons, including sniper rifles.
In a gloomy ceremony last week, the military buried 98 of the 222 Muslim fighters who died, in a mass grave in Tripoli. They included Palestinians but also men from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, Tunis and Algeria.
Among the militants of Fatah Al-Islam still sought by Lebanese authorities are three Russians--“Abu Abdullah“, Tamour Vladimir Khoskov and Aslan Eric Yimkojayev--all believed to be from the former Soviet Muslim republics.
A fourth Russian citizen, Sergei Vladimir Fisotsk, is in custody in Beirut. Along with three Palestinians member of Fatah Al-Islam, he faces a possible death sentence.
Siniora’s government is well aware of the dangers that these new developments represent--“such a situation could lead to a new civil war“, one minister said of the military training taking place in Lebanon. Aoun’s supporters were allegedly practising with weapons near the town of Byblos north of Beirut but there are reports of further training in the Bekaa Valley.
Military outposts manned by Palestinian gunmen loyal to Syria have reappeared in the Bekaa, closely watched by a Lebanese army which was severely blooded in the Nahr El-Bared fighting.
Sayed Mohamed Hussein Fadlallah, one of the most senior--and wisest--Shi’ite clerics in Lebanon, warned last Friday: “Rearming as well as the tense and sectarianism-loaded political rhetoric, all threaten Lebanon’s diversity and expose Lebanon to divisions.“ Fadlallah stated that the US--which supports Hariri--wished to divide the country.
The American plan to chop up Iraq, it seems, is another ghost that has crept silently into Lebanon.
Robert Fisk
independent.co.uk

The Chilean Supreme Court’s extradition to Peru of ex-president and dictator Alberto Fujimori could contribute to the consolidation of Peru’s fragile democracy and may even reduce the culture of fear.
“In this neighborhood almost everyone supports Fujimori,“ says Nelly, seated on a bench at the outdoor restaurant Virgen del Carmen in the El Oasis slum of Villa El Salvador on the outskirts of Lima.
El Oasis is a monument to poverty--dirt roads; shacks constructed from tarps, cardboard sheets, and bits of plastic, lacking running water or sanitation.
The areas recently taken over by squatters still fly a small Peruvian flag on each new shack to try to dissuade possible eviction. The community’s little cafeteria is made from plywood; it is the only structure in town built on concrete foundations.
At about noon kids are hanging around, waiting for lunchtime and a meal prepared on a rotating schedule by 25 co-op members. For just half a dollar, the children receive what, for most, is their only hot meal of the day.
Without being asked, Nelly feels the need to explain herself: “They told us that if we didn’t go to the pro-Fujimori demonstrations the community cafeteria wouldn’t receive any more food.
They’d pass around attendance lists and the intelligence service checked to make sure that the co-op members applauded and shouted “Viva“ for El Chino.
If we didn’t show enthusiastic support, the next month we’d receive a smaller delivery of rations.“ (“El Chino“ literally means the Chinaman. Fujimori is of Japanese descent; however, his Peruvian nickname is El Chino.)
The day after the extradition of Fujimori, a dozen supposed supporters of the ex-dictator attacked a monument called “The eye that cries“ constructed in memory of the civil war that wracked the country since 1980 when the Shining Path took up arms.
The mob threatened the only guard protecting the monument with guns. They chained the guard, forcing him to his knees, while they set about breaking the stone monument on which the names of the disappeared are inscribed, throwing paint over the center of the sculpture.
The monument is the work of sculptor Lika Mutal. It is located in a park called the Campo de Marte near the center of Lima. It was part of the first phase of a tree-lined avenue dedicated to the memory of that era. It represents the first symbolic rapprochement of the victims of political violence.
Physically it consists of a circular labyrinth with a four-ton center-stone symbolizing the center of each person; on top of this is another stone, which symbolizes the eye from which a stream of water falls. Surrounding this are 27,000 stones each with a name of a victim recognized by the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation.
For the mothers who live in El Oasis showing their support for Fujimori wasn’t a political choice but rather a question of survival. So, to speak of “clientele politics“ really adds little to the understanding of the unequal power relationship under which Peru’s poor operate.
WORLDPRESS.COM