Author: Olivier Depaul

On the afternoon of February 14, 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ebrahim Raisi, who is in China on a state visit, at the Great Hall of the People. As Xi Jinping noted, China and Iran are bound by traditional friendship, and bilateral relations have stood the test of various major changes in the international situation. In the face of a difficult situation, when world, epochal and historical changes are taking place, China and Iran support each other, cooperate and fight the COVID-19 pandemic together. Mutual strategic trust is constantly being strengthened and…

Rosstat postponed the publication of statistics on Russia’s GDP for the fourth quarter of last year, which was supposed to take place a few days before President Vladimir Putin’s address to the Federal Assembly. The data, which is traditionally published on Fridays, did not appear on the Rosstat website on February 17. As Bloomberg notes , Rosstat, without explaining the reasons, shifted the publication to Wednesday, February 22, the day after Putin’s speech. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg predict a sharp acceleration in the economic downturn in October-December to 4.6% yoy, the worst since a recession during the pandemic. In the third quarter, Russian…

The ranks of marchers were thinner during a new wave of strikes and protests in France Thursday against an unpopular pension reform, but unions put the accent on a planned March 7 general strike which they hope will bring the country to its knees. The fifth round of nationwide protests that began last month came a day before the deadline for lawmakers in the lower house of parliament to wrap up what has been one of the most rancorous debates in recent years. It concerns the flagship policy of President Emmanuel Macron’s second term, which would raise the minimum retirement…

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Saturday that the European Union is partly to blame for prolonging Russia’s war in Ukraine, doubling down on his government’s insistence that supporting Kyiv was a mistaken strategy for Europe. Speaking at an annual state of the nation address in Budapest, Orban said the EU had fanned the flames of the war by sanctioning Russia and supplying Ukraine with money and weapons, rather than seeking to negotiate a peace with Moscow. “When Russia launched its attack, the West didn’t isolate the conflict but elevated it to a pan-European level,” Orban said.…

Adds detail and background PARIS, Jan 20 (Reuters) – Recent strikes in protest at plans to raise the French retirement age are unlikely to hurt the country’s economy, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told Bloomberg TV on Friday. “I don’t think the strikes will have a really important economic impact on the French economy,” said Le Maire at the World Economic Forum in Davos, adding that the French economy was “doing well”. More than a million people marched through French cities on Thursday to denounce President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to raise the retirement age, with a wave of nationwide strikes…

There’s little chance of students in Adèle Guilloteau’s Grade 1 French immersion class at Willingdon Elementary addressing her in English. Even if they tried, the teacher doesn’t understand much of her anglophone pupils’ mother tongue anyway. Guilloteau is one of three new instructors from France recently hired by the English Montreal School Board amid a teacher shortage in Quebec that has also prompted French service centres to recruit abroad. But the language barrier may be a blessing in disguise for her young English-speaking students. “In two months, I already see progress. Certain students didn’t speak French at all when I…

Boxing could be dropped from the 2024 Paris Olympics due to governance issues within the sport. The IOC said in a statement Thursday, first reported by the Washington Post, that recent International Boxing Association (IBA) decisions could lead to “the cancellation of boxing” for the 2024 Paris Games. Some of the already reported governance issues led to the IOC stripping IBA — then known as AIBA — of its Olympic recognition in 2019. AIBA had suspended all 36 referees and judges used at the 2016 Rio Olympics pending an investigation into a possible judging scandal, one that found that some medal bouts were fixed…