The aim was to get more done in a shorter amount of time and ensure people had the energy to enjoy their private lives. Source: Independent
Social Policy
France will limit a U.N. climate summit in Paris starting in two weeks’ time to core negotiations and cancel planned marches and concerts, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Monday. He said no foreign leaders had asked France to postpone the Nov 30-Dec 11 summit. Source: Reuters
Employment shrank considerably last month, as according to the Labor Ministry’s Ergani database, salaried jobs declined by 56,473 in October, with the balance between hirings and departures negative for the fourth month in succession. Source Ekathimerini
A revamp of the 125 pages (out the of 3,800 pages of the labour code) on working hours will be presented in 2016. France, with an unemployment of 10%, promises to speed up reforms demanded by its EU partners in exchange for more leeway on deficit reduction. Source: France 24
The coming years will be crucial for the Chinese economy and decisive for the realization of the „Chinese dream” of a prosperous society. This dream is to be achieved through the 13th Five-Year-Plan. This conglomerate of strategic goals will have a cascading effect; it will affect the global economy as well.
Many see the Five-Year-Plan (FYP) as a Stalinist holdover of China’s old command economy1; disregarding those „Guidelines” is a mistake. Investors should be fully aware of China’s five year economical cycles. China’s economic cycles are dictated by the elite of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and not by the invisible hand of the market.
China is run by the CPC whom does not see a free markets as a goal, but as a mean to improve the wealth of the citizens of China. The website of the CPC states the following ”The Communist Party of China takes Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development as its guide to action.”
To understand the importance of the FYP, one must understand exactly what it is. Continue reading
OPEC+ headed for a clash with the U.S. as more members rejected President Joe Biden’s call for the group to raise oil production faster and help reduce gasoline prices. On Monday, Kuwait said the cartel should stick with its plan to increase output gradually because oil markets were well-balanced. That followed similar statements from other key members in recent days, including Iraq, Algeria, Angola and Nigeria. Source Al Jazeera
“If a state buys (weaponry) from us, it’s no longer a Turkish product. It might be manufactured in Turkey, but it belongs to Ukraine,” Cavusoglu told reporters after meeting his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on the margins of the G20 summit in Rome. “Turkey cannot be blamed for this,” he said. Source The Defence Post
Bulgaria has sent 350 additional military personnel to its border with Turkey amid rising migration levels. Defense Minister Georgi Panayotov told Bulgarian media that the troops were arriving to “support the border police”. Source EuroNews
Russia is warning Turkey over arms sales to Ukraine after a Turkish-made drone attacked Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine.
A Kremlin spokesman has warned that Turkey’s ongoing arms sales to Ukraine threaten to destabilize the region. Source VOA
A police patrol was attacked by three individuals this Wednesday evening in a street east of Lille (North). The perpetrators managed to escape. Was a Lille police crew the victim of an ambush around 8:40 p.m. Wednesday evening? The police were called for three hooded individuals who were stealing tires in the rue Massenet. Once there, they found no one. Source Actu17
Police officers were targeted by gunfire in Lyon this Monday evening, in the district of La Duchère. There are no injuries to deplore. The author (s) are actively sought. The police from the RAID branch are on site as reinforcements. Source Actu17
France: Night of urban violence in the district of Perseigne in Alençon (Orne). About fifteen vehicles were set on fire. The police and firefighters came under firework mortar fire and projectile jets. Source Actu17
Poland must pay daily fines of €1 million over its controversial judiciary reforms, the European Union’s Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled. The penalty is believed to be the highest ever imposed on a member state. The punitive measures will be in place until Warsaw agrees to comply with an ECJ ruling issued back in July that ordered the immediate suspension of the disciplinary chamber of judges of the Supreme Court and the reversal of the decisions it had already taken on the lifting of judicial immunity. The chamber can punish magistrates according to the content of their resolutions. Source Euronews
Maréchal, who runs the Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences in Lyon, claims that Kosovo has been colonized by Albanian Muslims for years. Commenting on the great arrival of Muslims in France, from the countries that were once occupied and ruled by France. Maréchal said that it could change history. Source B92
Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovenia said their EU-wide initiative to expand the bloc’s military units was inspired by recent events in Afghanistan. Source DW
The Israeli Air Force will begin practicing for a strike on Iran’s nuclear program beginning next year, having set aside funding and updated its training schedule for the mission, The Times of Israel has learned. Source Times of Israel
President Vladimir Putin told Gazprom PJSC to turn to refilling European gas-storage facilities next month, signaling that long-awaited additional Russian supplies could be on the way. The move will “create a more favorable situation on the European energy market,” Putin said at a meeting broadcast on state television Wednesday. Source Al Jazeera
The chaos in gas and electricity markets is set to hit one group of people the hardest this winter: the four million households that use prepayment meters (PPMs).
While most people pay their bills monthly for energy they have already used, PPMs require people to pay for energy before they use it. PPMs take whatever money is in the meter and supply energy to the household. Source Open Democracy
Russia’s Gazprom has damped hopes for additional gas exports to Europe next month as the continent struggles with record prices, despite recent hints from President Vladimir Putin that more could be forthcoming.
UK and European gas prices surged as much as 18 per cent on Monday after a keenly awaited pipeline capacity auction showed no increase from Russia either through the Ukrainian pipeline system or lines passing via Poland to north-west Europe. Source FT
As of Sunday, the national price of a litre of Diesel was €1.555, according to the European motor association ADAC. This is just above the previous record price of €1.554 per litre set on August 26th, 2012. Source The Local
French ministers floated the possibility of petrol vouchers for low-income households on Monday, as President Emmanuel Macron’s government seeks to limit the damage from surging energy prices to his economic record six months from a presidential election. Source France24
Skoda started a two-week cut in output on Monday as the Czech brand contends with the global shortage of chips and other components, the company said. The Volkswagen Group unit wants to complete 10,000 unfinished cars during the outage, which will leave only one production line running, a spokesman said. Source Automotive News
“What is happening today in the energy markets of Europe is, to a certain extent, a man-made result of short-sighted policy,” the Russian President added Source TASS
India is facing an impending energy crisis as several states saw coal-fired power plants shut down due to a coal shortage. Major cities such as the capital New Delhi experienced electricity cuts that ran for hours over the weekend. Source DW
India is grappling with an escalating crisis as stockpiles of coal, the fuel used to generate about 70% of the nation’s electricity, dwindle to the lowest in years just as power demand is set to surge. Source EconomicTimes
Soaring gas prices are forecast to drive a switch to oil and put more energy suppliers in Britain out of business, while industry groups called on Thursday for government action to ensure there is no supply interruption this winter. Source GCaptain
- November contracts at the Dutch TTF hub — a European benchmark for natural gas — were trading at around 118 euros per megawatt hour (MWH) just after midday in London.
- The front-month contract has risen almost 400% since the start of the year.
- Several British energy suppliers have collapsed amid the gas price crisis. September alone reportedly saw nine companies cease trading.
- In recent weeks, governments in Spain, Italy, Greece, and France have taken drastic actions to minimize the impact of wholesale price rises on consumers. Source CNBC
