World

PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron summoned government ministers for a crisis meeting on Monday, as tensions ran high a day before another major day of strikes and protests against his pension reforms.

Nearly two weeks after Macron rammed the new law through parliament using a special provision sidestepping any vote, unions have vowed no let-up in mass protests to get the government to back down.

They have called for another big day of action on Tuesday, the 10th such mobilisation since protests started in mid-January against the controversial law, which includes raising the retirement age to 64 from 62.

Macron, whose approvement ratings in opinion polls are at a low point, said last week he accepted the "unpopularity" that came with the reform.

His prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, meanwhile said that while there was no plan to drop the legislation, she was ready for fresh dialogue with unions.

"We have to find the right path... We need to calm down," she told AFP in an interview on Sunday.

Starting on Monday, Borne has scheduled talks over three weeks, including with members of parliament, political parties, local authorities and unions.

A state visit to France by Britain's King Charles III, which had been due to begin on Sunday, was postponed because of the current unrest.

'Very big move' 

Instead of hosting the UK monarch for a day of pomp and ceremony, Macron was instead due to meet Borne, other cabinet ministers and senior lawmakers for the crisis talks at the Elysee from 1:15 pm (11:15 GMT), the presidency said.

Borne was to present the plan for consultations to the president at Monday's meeting, and then take it to Macron's allies and Cabinet members, presidential sources said.

If unions accept her offer for talks, Borne is expected to put new measures on the table designed to ease the impact of the pensions law targeting physically demanding jobs, conditions for older workers and retraining.

But early reactions were not promising for the prime minister.

Laurent Berger, the head of the moderate CFDT union, who has taken an unexpectedly hard line against the pension reform, said he would accept the offer of talks but only if the reform was first “put to one side”.

Berger called on the government to come up with a “very big move on pensions”.

Left-wing firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon said on Sunday that there was “a very simple way” to return to peaceful relations, and that was “to withdraw the law”.

The protest movement against the pension reform has turned into the biggest domestic crisis of Macron’s second mandate, with police and protesters clashing regularly in Paris and other cities since the reform was forced through.

‘Highly disrupted’ 

Last Thursday, the previous major protest day, police reported 457 arrests across France and injuries to 441 police officers.

Government spokesman Olivier Veran called Melenchon and his party “profiteers of anger”, while Green party lawmaker Sandrine Rousseau accused Macron and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin of stoking the unrest.

According to Paris mass transit operator RATP, metros and suburban trains will be “highly disrupted” on Tuesday.

Rubbish collectors in the capital are continuing their strike, with close to 8,000 tonnes of garbage piled up in the streets as of Sunday.

France’s civil aviation authority has told airlines at Orly airport in Paris, as well as the Marseille, Bordeaux and Toulouse airports, to cancel 20 per cent of flights for Tuesday and Wednesday.

French police have meanwhile come under severe criticism for heavy-handed tactics during recent demonstrations.

The Council of Europe said on Friday that peaceful protesters and journalists had to be protected from police violence and arbitrary arrest.

On Sunday the IGPN, the internal affairs unit of the French police, said it had launched 17 investigations into incidents since the protests began.

ROLLING FORK, United States — Storm-ravaged Mississippi on Sunday struggled with the aftermath of a huge tornado that tore across the southern US state and killed at least 25 people, with devastated communities bracing for a fresh bout of extreme weather.

Shocked rescue workers surveyed the damage with homes shredded, buildings flattened, and cars smashed together amid piles of debris in Rolling Fork, a small town all but wiped out by nature's wrath.

Amid grieving and search-and-rescue operations, and after President Joe Biden declared an emergency which freed up disaster aid, Mississippians were girding for more storms Sunday which the National Weather Service warned could bring "strong" tornadoes, damaging winds and hail the size of tennis balls.

The earlier weather system, mixed with thunderstorms and driving rain, left a trail of havoc more than 160 kilometres long across the state late Friday, slamming several towns. Dozens of people have been injured, and officials say the death toll could rise.

The NWS gave the tornado a rating of four out of five on the Enhanced Fujita scale, cutting a path up to three-quarters of a mile wide, with ferocious wind gusts up to 321 kilometres per hour.

Under warm spring sunshine and cloudless blue skies, stunned residents were seen walking among obliterated homes, sifting through debris and comforting one another as crews fought fires and cleared emergency routes.

The American Red Cross moved into a National Guard building in Rolling Fork hours after the storm razed much of the town, which is home to fewer than 2,000 people.

An area was set up as an infirmary and boxes full of cereal bars and baby diapers were shuttled in to provide food and medical support for storm victims who had lost everything, said John Brown, a Red Cross official for Alabama and Mississippi.

Anna Krisuta, 43, and her 16-year-old son Alvaro Llecha took shelter at the site, saying their house was in pieces.

Twenty-five people were killed and dozens more injured, according to Mississippi's emergency management agency.

The severe weather also left a man dead in neighbouring Alabama when he was trapped under an overturned trailer, the sheriff's office in Morgan County said.

Officials including US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas gathered in Rolling Fork Sunday afternoon, praising rescue efforts and pledging support "for the long haul".

"It is heartbreaking to hear of the loss of life, to see the devastation firsthand," Mayorkas told a press conference held with Governor Tate Reeves and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) head Deanne Criswell.

He warned that the country is seeing "extreme weather events increasing... in gravity, severity and frequency and we have to build our communities to be best prepared for them".

Earlier on Sunday, Criswell said on ABC the tornado zone was "still very much in life-saving, life-sustaining mode".

She praised first responders, saying some "may have lost their homes themselves", and that FEMA had sent teams, with more on their way, to "help plan for and start the recovery process".

Biden's order to support Mississippi recovery efforts will provide grants for temporary housing, home repairs and low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, the White House said on Sunday in a statement.

Emergency supplies 

Reeves thanked Biden on Twitter "for recognising the scale of the damage in Mississippi and quickly approving our disaster declaration — a critical step in disaster response".

Electricity repairs were underway to restore service to the nearly 6,000 customers still without power in Mississippi, along with more than 7,000 in Alabama, monitor poweroutage.us reported.

Volunteers poured in from surrounding towns, including Lauren Hoda, who travelled 112 kilometres from Vicksburg to help.

"When I woke up this morning, I wanted to cry for the people of this town because I don't think they had much time before [the tornado] came," she said.

She spent Saturday night in Rolling Fork bringing donations of water, food, canned goods, diapers, wipes, medicine and toothpaste from collection points.

Mississippi was girding for more turbulent weather Sunday, with the emergency management agency raising the threat to level 4 on a 1-5 scale and warning that "damaging winds and tornadoes, some potentially strong, are possible".

Tornadoes, a weather phenomenon notoriously difficult to predict, are relatively common in the United States, especially in the central and southern parts of the country.

In January, a series of damaging twisters, all on the same day, left several people dead in Alabama and Georgia.

NEW DELHI — India’s parliament was adjourned on Monday after noisy protests by opposition lawmakers over the expulsion from the house of top opposition figure Rahul Gandhi.

Gandhi was stripped of his parliamentary seat on Friday in a move that critics say heightens concerns about creeping authoritarianism in the world’s largest democracy.

Prime Minister NarendraModi’s Hindu nationalist government has been widely accused by political opponents and rights groups of using the legal system to target and silence critics.

Members of Gandhi’s opposition Congress Party wore black shirts and scarves as parliament opened on Monday. Some threw paper at the speaker, who then adjourned proceedings.

“I want to run the House with dignity,” Speaker Om Birla said. “Proceedings of the House are adjourned till 4 pm.”

Gandhi’s expulsion came a day after he was convicted of defamation in Modi’s home state of Gujarat for a 2019 campaign-trail remark seen as an insult to the premier.

Gandhi, 52, is the leading face of Congress, once the dominant force of Indian politics but now a shadow of its former self.

He is the scion of India’s most famous political dynasty and the son, grandson and great-grandson of former prime ministers, beginning with independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru.

But he has failed to challenge the electoral juggernaut of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its nationalist appeals to India’s Hindu majority.

The lower house of parliament ruled him ineligible to continue sitting as an MP on Friday, a day after his conviction in the defamation case.

The prosecution stemmed from a remark made during the 2019 election campaign, during which Gandhi had asked why “all thieves have Modi as [their] common surname”.

His comments were portrayed as a slur against the prime minister, who went on to win the election in a landslide.

Members of the government also said the remark was a smear against all those sharing the Modi surname, associated with the lower rungs of India’s traditional caste hierarchy.

Gandhi was sentenced to two years imprisonment on Thursday but walked free on bail after his lawyers vowed to appeal.

A BJP spokesman said Thursday the court acted with “due judicial process” in arriving at its judgement.

Legal action has been widely deployed against opposition party figures and institutions seen as critical of the Modi government in recent years.

Gandhi faces several other defamation cases and a money-laundering case that has been snaking its way through India’s glacial legal system for more than a decade.

The Editors Guild of India said there is also a wider “trend of using government agencies to intimidate or harass press organisations that are critical of government policies”.

On Saturday, Gandhi, who recently completed a walk across India that was hailed as a success by commentators, said he would “do whatever I have to do to defend the democratic nature of this country”.

ROLLING FORK, United States — Mississippi started clean-up operations on Sunday after a destructive tornado tore across the state, killing at least 25, shredding houses and largely wiping out the small town of Rolling Fork.

Under warm spring sunshine, shocked rescue workers surveyed the damage with roofs blown away, buildings flattened and cars smashed together amid piles of debris.

The weather system, mixed with thunderstorms and driving rain, left a trail of havoc across the southern state late Friday, slamming several towns.

The National Weather Service gave the tornado a rating of a four out of five on the Enhanced Fujita scale.

The American Red Cross moved into a National Guard building in Rolling Fork less than 24 hours after the storm struck the town, which is home to fewer than 2,000 people.

An area was set up as an infirmary and boxes full of cereal bars and baby diapers were shuttled in to provide food and medical support for storm victims who had "lost everything", said John Brown, a Red Cross official for Alabama and Mississippi.

Anna Krisuta, 43, and her 16-year-old son Alvaro Llecha took shelter at the site, saying their house was “in pieces”.

Twenty-five people were killed and dozens more injured, according to Mississippi’s emergency management agency.

The severe weather also left a man dead in neighboring Alabama when he was trapped under an overturned trailer, the sheriff’s office in Morgan County said.

Emergency supplies 

President Joe Biden ordered federal aid to Mississippi on Sunday to support recovery efforts.

The funding will provide grants for temporary housing, home repairs and low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, the White House said in a statement.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves thanked Biden on Twitter “for recognising the scale of the damage in Mississippi and quickly approving our disaster declaration — a critical step in disaster response”.

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Deanne Criswell, said she was travelling to Mississippi on Sunday to “see first-hand the impacts that some of these communities have had”.

“They’re still very much in life-saving, life-sustaining mode,” she told ABC.

She praised first responders, saying some “may have lost their homes themselves”, and said FEMA had sent teams, with more on their way to “help plan for and start the recovery process”.

Electricity repairs were underway to restore power to the more than 6,000 customers still in the dark in Mississippi, along with nearly 10,000 in Alabama, monitor poweroutage.us reported.

Volunteers poured in from surrounding towns, including Lauren Hoda, who travelled 112 kilometres from Vicksburg to help.

“When I woke up this morning, I wanted to cry for the people of this town because I don’t think they had much time before [the tornado] came,” she said.

She spent Saturday night in Rolling Fork bringing donations of water, food, canned goods, diapers, wipes, medicine and toothpaste from collection points.

Mississippi was girding for more turbulent weather Sunday, including damaging winds and hail, with the emergency management agency warning that “tornadoes cannot be ruled out”.

After separate storms in the region, two tigers were recaptured in Georgia when a tornado damaged animal enclosures at the Wild Animal Safari, in Pine Mountain.

Tornadoes, a weather phenomenon notoriously difficult to predict, are relatively common in the United States, especially in the central and southern parts of the country.

In January, a series of damaging twisters, all on the same day, left several people dead in Alabama and Georgia.

WASHINGTON — At least 23 people have died as violent storms and at least one tornado ripped through the southern US state of Mississippi, tearing off roofs and flattening neighbourhoods, officials and residents said Saturday.

The state's emergency management agency said at least four people were missing and dozens were injured, while tens of thousands of people in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee were without power.

In the hard-hit town of Rolling Fork, all that was left of an entire row of houses and buildings was scattered debris. Cars were overturned and smashed, fences were ripped up and trees uprooted, according to local television footage.

"At least 23 Mississippians were killed by last night's violent tornados. We know that many more are injured. Search and rescue teams are still active," Governor Tate Reeves said on Twitter.

"The loss will be felt in these towns forever. Please pray for God's hand to be over all who lost family and friends."

Confirming the death toll at 23, the emergency management agency cautioned: "Unfortunately, these numbers are expected to change."

Search and rescue operations were under way in Sharkey and Humphreys counties, about 110 kilometresnorth of the state capital Jackson.

"My city is gone," Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker, whose town is located in Sharkey county, told CNN. 

"Devastation, as I look from left to right, that's all I see."

Town resident Shanta Howard said residents had to help remove the dead from the wreckage of their homes.

"That is very disturbing, actually seeing people losing their lives over bad weather like this," she told ABC affiliate WAPT.

Woodrow Johnson, a local official in Humphreys County, told CNN his wife woke him up and they heard what sounded like a train. He said his home was destroyed.

“It was a very scary thing,” Johnson said, adding his neighbour’s house, a trailer, was “completely gone”.

The National Weather Service warned residents that as clean-up operations continue, “dangers remain even after the storms move on”.

A local tornado watch expired in the early hours of Saturday, meteorologists said. More thunderstorms were expected, but they were not forecast to be severe.

Malary White, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said damage assessments would not be possible until officials could do a complete survey in the daylight.

“Our main priority right now, especially for the local first responders, it’s life safety and accounting for the people and making sure they are safe,” she told CBS News affiliate WJTV.

In Rolling Fork, Walker said several people were rescued from the wreckage of their homes and taken to hospital for treatment.

“A lot of families are hurting. This community is in a situation that we never expected,” he told CNN.

“Houses that are torn up can be replaced but we can’t replace a life.”

NEW YORK — Donald Trump created a "false expectation" of his imminent arrest, the New York prosecutor investigating the ex-president over hush money said on Thursday, as tensions build over a possible indictment.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office made the comments in a letter sent to three Republican lawmakers who had written to Bragg requesting that he testify before Congress about his probe.

The Republicans — who are all chairmen of House committees — accused Bragg, a Democrat, of waging a "politically motivated prosecution" in their letter dated on Monday.

It was sent after Trump had said on Saturday, without providing any evidence, that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday.

"Your letter... is an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution," Leslie Dubeck, the general counsel for Bragg's office wrote in Thursday's response, seen by AFP.

"The letter only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene. Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry," she added.

Trump's post on Truth Social sparked a media frenzy, calls for protests by supporters, and saw New York police erect barricades outside Bragg's office, Trump Tower and the courthouse.

But the timing of any indictment is unclear.

The grand jury, which will be tasked with voting on whether to charge Trump, was not expected to sit on Thursday, meaning any decision would come next week at the earliest.

The 76-year-old Trump would become the first former or sitting president to ever be charged with a crime if the panel, formed by Bragg, indicts.

The unprecedented move would send shock waves through the 2024 election campaign, in which Trump is running to regain office.

Bragg is investigating a $130,000 payment to pornographic actress Stormy Daniels in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

The payment was allegedly made to stop her from going public about a liaison she says she had with Trump years earlier.

Trump's ex-lawyer-turned-adversary Michael Cohen, who has testified before the grand jury, says he made the payment on his then boss's behalf and was later reimbursed.

If not properly accounted for, the payment could result in a misdemeanor charge for falsifying business records, experts say.

That might be raised to a felony if the false accounting was intended to cover up a second crime, such as a campaign finance violation, which is punishable by up to four years behind bars.

Analysts say that argument is untested and would be difficult to prove in court. Any jail time is far from certain.

Trump denies the affair and has called the inquiry a "witch hunt".