Energy firms warned against paying dividends
Energy suppliers have been warned they should retain profits rather than pay out returns to shareholders, to ensure firms can weather future price shocks.
Regulator Ofgem said firms "must learn the lessons of the energy crisis", adding "a return to the practices we saw before isn't on the table".
Some 30 suppliers have gone bust since energy prices started to rise in 2021.
Higher wholesale gas prices, driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, made price deals to customers undeliverable.
The biggest supplier to go bust was Bulb, which had 1.6 million customers. It was bailed out by taxpayers to the tune of about £3.8bn and has since been taken over by Octopus Energy.
Households have seen their gas and electricity bills soar, but prices are starting to fall, with the bills for using a typical amount of energy being £2,074 a year on average.
However, despite a drop of £426 per year, bills are much higher than before the Covid pandemic.
The reduction in wholesale gas prices means domestic suppliers are expected to return to profit after five years of losses.
While companies such as Shell and BP have made record profits in recent years from oil and gas extraction, the two firms - along with other smaller domestic energy suppliers - have been making much less, often inducing losses, for selling that energy to households.
Jonathan Brearley, chief executive of Ofgem, warned firms that he expected "no return to paying out dividends" until suppliers had met the regulator's financial stability requirements, which are aimed at preventing a repeat of mass company collapses.
In an open letter to the bosses of energy suppliers, Mr. Brearley said an energy industry where companies can make "a reasonable profit" was important to "create a sustainable and competitive market for consumers".
"However, a return to the practices we saw before the energy crisis isn't on the table - suppliers must reciprocate the support the sector was given by consumers and taxpayers when wholesale prices increased by behaving responsibly as prices fall and profits return," he added.
The Ofgem boss also warned that this winter, if prices remain as forecast, it is likely "a large group of customers will struggle to pay their bills, so the sector will need to be fully focussed on how best to support customers in financial distress".
Since 2019, Ofgem has set a price cap on energy bills, which is the maximum price that suppliers can charge customers per unit of gas and electricity. It applies to households on variable or default tariffs in England, Wales, and Scotland.
After the price cap soared, the government stepped in with the Energy Price Guarantee which limited annual bills to £2,500, but that has since ended now the cap is £2,074.
Last week, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt met with several regulators, including Ofgem, and told them they needed to "work at pace" to ensure businesses reflected any falling costs in the prices they charged customers.
Mr. Brearley said firms needed to "play their part by making sure they're financially robust" in order to "absorb potential losses".
He said while he was "observing some good practice" the regulator was also finding evidence that some suppliers may have "breached" pricing rules. "We are investigating further and will take action if we find abuse," Mr Brearley warned.
Source- BBC
Ex-Liverpool midfielder named manager of Saudi Pro League Al-Ettifaq
Former England and Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard has been named manager of Saudi Arabian side Al-Ettifaq.
The 43-year-old had said in June he had been invited over to the country to "look at a potential offer" but that he would not be taking it up.
"Without a doubt, Gerrard's presence will be an addition and a quantum leap to our league," said Khalid Al-Dabal, the club's chairman.
Gerrard has signed a two-year contract with the Saudi club.
Al-Ettifaq was seventh in the 16-team Saudi Pro League last season, finishing 35 points behind champions Al-Ittihad.
Gerrard has been out of work since being sacked as Aston Villa's manager in October last year.
The former England midfielder's move to Saudi Arabia follows a summer of heavy investment by Pro League clubs as several top European players have joined Manchester United striker Cristiano Ronaldo in the Middle East.
Former Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema, Wolves midfielder Ruben Neves, and Chelsea trio N'Golo Kante, Kalidou Koulibaly, and Edouard Mendy are among those to move to Saudi Arabia, with Inter Milan's Marcelo Brozovic to Al-Nassr the most recent deal to be completed.
Fulham-managed Marco Silva has also reportedly turned down a £17m offer to coach Al-Hilal.
The trend underlines the league's ambition to be one of the top five in the world and follows a decision in June by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns Newcastle United, to take over four leading clubs in the country. Al-Ettifaq is not one of those clubs.
Gerrard retired from playing in 2016 and his first managerial role was at Scottish club Rangers.
He took over the Ibrox side in 2018 and led the club to their first Scottish Premiership title in 10 years in 2020-21.
Gerrard then became Villa boss in November 2021 but left after 13 wins from 40 games during his time in charge.
Source- BBC
Actor behaved like a 'predator', accuser says
Kevin Spacey was a "predator" who would attack one of his accusers when the two were left alone together, a court in London has heard.
The trial of the actor heard testimony from one of the four men who accuse him of sexual assaults committed in the UK between 2001 and 2013.
The court heard the man was groped so forcefully on one occasion while driving that he swerved off the road.
Mr Spacey has pleaded not guilty to all 12 charges against him.
As the trial against him heard from its first witness, the 63-year-old sat in the dock of Southwark Crown Court and listened to his accuser detail the alleged abuse, which relates to seven of the charges against him.
Jurors were played a recording of the first complainant's police interview, before the man - who has lifelong anonymity under UK law due to the nature of the charges - was questioned in court by Mr Spacey's lawyer.
The man alleges Mr Spacey assaulted him up to 12 times, saying this happened when they were "in a car or in a lift, any time when we became alone".
"Multiple occasions he would try and grope me," he said.
He said that over a number of years, Mr Spacey's behaviour progressed from "eerie and awkward" to physical groping and how the actor would "laugh it off and change the subject".
The complainant said Mr Spacey started making him feel awkward a few weeks after they first met, adding: "Right from the get-go I would say he was grooming me."
The man added that Mr Spacey had told him he could introduce him to A-list celebrities.
When Mr Spacey groped him, the complainant said he would make it clear the actor's behaviour was wrong, but he felt Mr Spacey "was getting more excited by this".
If he attended the American actor's south London apartment, Mr Spacey would be "half-naked, if not naked" and would "try to touch me" before he left, the court heard.
He said on one occasion Mr Spacey grabbed his crotch while he was driving, forcing him to come off the road.
Mr Spacey spent significant periods of time in the UK while serving as the director of the Old Vic Theatre in south London between 2004 and 2015.
Cross-examining the complainant, defence barrister Patrick Gibbs KC questioned the timing of the alleged incident. The accuser said he was assaulted on the way to Elton John's White Tie and Tiara Ball, an annual charity event held by the singer for a number of years.
The barrister said it was "completely untrue" as Mr Spacey went to the ball once in 2001 - and the complainant said the alleged incident had taken place in the mid-2000s.
"You'll have to forgive me if I've got the dates wrong, it happened 20 years ago," the complainant responded.
The man said he would be relieved when Mr Spacey went back to the US on trips.
"I used to dread when he was coming back," the complainant told police, adding: "My heart used to sink."
The complainant said Mr Spacey was "pretending to be nice" but was a "predator" who was "aggressive".
He described Mr Spacey as a "slippery, snaking, difficult person", adding: "He would tell me he had a troubled childhood. He was a confused man. Didn't know at the time whether he was gay or straight."
The complainant alleged it was "well-known he [Mr Spacey] was up to no good" among those associated with the Old Vic theatre and young, good-looking people were warned to "be careful".
He said he now cannot bring himself to watch anything featuring the actor and it "makes me feel sick thinking about that man".
Mr Gibbs asked the man if he found Mr Spacey's behaviour "a bit exciting" or "a bit naughty", to which he replied that he has a female partner and found it "distressing".
As questioning continued, he said: "I was ashamed... after the event, yes I was ashamed."
He dismissed a question about his own sexuality as "ridiculous" and refuted any suggestion he had solicited attention from Mr Spacey or reciprocated contact.
The complainant said: "You're trying to suggest we had something going on which we... a million per cent didn't."
The man said it was "not true at all" that he reported the allegations to the police because he "saw a bandwagon coming" and decided to "hop on board".
"It was the fact that it was in the news and it was all coming back to me. It made me have those feelings that I had then, thinking some others have been brave enough to come forward. It caused me to come forward and tell the truth as well," he said.
In January, Mr Spacey - who is referred to in court proceedings by his full name, Kevin Spacey Fowler - pleaded not guilty to three counts of indecent assault, three counts of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent.
He also previously denied four further charges of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
It is these 12 charges which Mr Spacey is currently on trial for and he continues to deny them.
All four accusers are entitled to lifelong anonymity under the law.
The trial continues.
Source- BBC
Twitter began to restrict how many tweets its users could read
Elon Musk tweeted that unverified users could read 1,000 tweets, and verified users 10,000 per day.
People began to share screengrabs of messages that they'd "exceeded" their daily allowance of tweets.
Elon Musk was doing something that seems unfathomable for a social media company - he was limiting user activity.
The move has baffled advertising executives.
However, this is part of a much longer game that Elon Musk is playing - a battle with AI companies.
Let's first start off with how Twitter actually makes money. The vast majority of its revenue comes from advertising, just like Meta and Google.
When users go onto the platform, they're served ads. The more time they spend on Twitter, the more ads they see. The equation is pretty simple. That's the business.
However, Elon Musk has traditionally eschewed advertising. Tesla famously doesn't do ads.
In 2019 he tweeted "I hate advertising".
And yet he's bought a company that is totally reliant on it.
So, Elon Musk is desperate to generate different revenue streams.
This is not just a business decision. He believes that advertisers hold too much power over social media companies when it comes to moderation.
Advertisers can, and have, pulled their money from Twitter.
Advertisers don't want their ads placed next to racist or extremist content. And so Twitter's main revenue stream also has an influence over how much "free speech" is allowed on the platform.
Mr. Musk told me in April that "most" of the advertisers had returned after initially pausing their ads from Twitter after his takeover.
However, Mr. Musk has another plan to turn Twitter into a profitable company.
He wants Twitter to make money out of the vast amount of data it holds.
Platforms like Twitter and Reddit hold a treasure trove of hundreds of billions of real human conversations - an incredible resource for AI companies.
Large language models (LLMs), can learn from these interactions, and work out how to respond to questions in more human-like ways.
But platforms like Twitter and Reddit want to be paid for the use of their data in this way.
In April, Reddit's chief executive Steve Huffman told the New York Times that he was unhappy with what AI companies were doing.
"The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable," he said. "But we don't need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free."
At around the same time, Elon Musk said that Microsoft was "ripping off the Twitter database, demonetizing it (removing ads), and then selling our data to others".
On Saturday it became clear how frustrated Mr Musk was getting.
"We were getting data pillaged," he said.
"Almost every company doing AI, from start-ups to some of the biggest corporations on Earth, was scraping vast amounts of data," he said.
And so, by restricting usage, Elon Musk is hoping to prevent its data from being pulled into LLMs. He wants to negotiate with AI companies and get paid for the content that they take.
Source- BBC
Tesla delivers record number of cars
Electric carmaker Tesla says it delivered a record number of vehicles in the three months to the end of June, after cutting prices to boost sales.
It has lowered prices in markets including the US, UK, and China to compete with rival manufacturers.
This weekend, major Chinese car makers also reported a surge in sales in June.
Earlier this year, Tesla boss Elon Musk said he believed pursuing higher sales, with lower profits, was the "right choice" for the company.
On Sunday, Tesla said it delivered 466,140 vehicles in the second quarter, which was more than 80% higher than a year earlier.
Meanwhile, the company said it had increased vehicle production to nearly 480,000 in the same period.
"Tesla has made a strategic choice to be a volume manufacturer," Bill Russo, the founder and chief executive of advisory firm Automobility, told the BBC.
"This was the main contributor to the sales increase, as its mainly higher-volume Model 3 and Model Y benefitted from the price war," he added.
Dan Ives from investment firm Wedbush Securities told the BBC that "the price cuts in China have been a smart poker move that was massively successful for Tesla".
China is Tesla's second-largest market after North America.
The firm has been cutting prices in the world's second-largest economy, where it faces competition from local electric car makers.
Over the weekend, Beijing-based Li-Auto said its deliveries had hit an all-time high of 32,575 in June, marking its third consecutive monthly sales record.
Meanwhile, deliveries by Shanghai-based Nio and Guangzhou-based Xpeng jumped to 10,707 and 8,620 respectively during the month.
Tesla has also been grappling with increased competition in other parts of the world, and the impact of higher borrowing costs for customers.
It has responded by cutting prices this year.
In April, Tesla said it had no plans to stabilize the prices of its vehicles, even though repeated price cuts had dented profits.
"We're not 'starting a price war', we're just lowering prices to enable affordability at scale," Mr. Musk wrote on his social media platform, Twitter.
At the time Tesla said that its overall revenue had risen by almost a quarter in the first quarter from a year ago, as car sales increased.
However, its profit for the same period dropped by 24%, because of price cuts and higher costs of raw materials and other commodities.
The company is due to report its financial results for the second quarter on 19 July.
Source- BBC
Up To 9 Inches Of Rain Floods Chicago Metro Area
Chicago is cleaning up after torrential rain led to flooding problems Sunday.
Swim bans have been lifted at almost all Chicago beaches as of 3 p.m.
The bans were initially put in place due to unsafe water quality from elevated levels of bacteria after the rain forced the city to reverse the flow of the Chicago River into Lake Michigan to prevent downtown flooding.
As of 4 p.m. Monday, a swim advisory was still in place at Foster Beach, Rainbow Beach, and South Shore Beach, while the only remaining swim ban was at Marion Mahony Griffin Beach.
Sunday's flooding meant city officials had to reverse the flow of the river into Lake Michigan. The flooded Riverwalk had receded by Monday, and the city was cleaning up the leftover debris and muck.
By Monday night, the city reopened the eastern half of the Riverwalk but the portion west of Clark Street remains closed.
So much water came down Sunday that locks in Wilmette and Navy Pier had to be opened to relieve pressure on the system, but it wasn't enough to prevent water from backing up into at least 2,000 homes in the city, primarily on the West Side.
"I'm angry but I don't know who to point the finger at, me or the city," said Al Thomspon, whose West Side home flooded Sunday afternoon. "I don't know. I'm just very disappointed and upset. I mean, I woke up yesterday to my whole basement being flooded."
The two bedrooms where his sons sleep are ruined. Two hot water heaters and his furnace were also destroyed by the water that overwhelmed three sump pumps he bought after it started flooding.
Mayor Brandon Johnson and Alderwoman Emma Mitts toured parts of the 37th ward, talking to residents to see the impact firsthand.
"And we're not just showing up to say hi, we're showing us to hear and listen. And again we have the full force of government on display today," Johnson said. The mayor is a resident of the city's Austin community.
Tim Williams said his basement filled up with nearly three feet of water. He said he's never seen so much rain come down.
"I still have to get someone down here to clean this all out. My hot water tank is out my heater is out, freezers, refrigerators, everything's destroyed," he said.
"We had USGS gauges with eight and a half inches of rain," said Ed Staudacher, assistant director of maintenance for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. "That's it, it was a large amount of rain in a short amount of time that short timespan also has a big impact because you get so much all at once. There's nowhere for that rain to go."
On Sunday evening, in the 4600 block of West Roosevelt Road, cars were stranded after trying to make it through with several feet of water still in the roadway Sunday night. At one point Sunday at least seven vehicles and their passengers were trapped in a flooded viaduct near I-290 at 5th Avenue and Cicero Avenue.
Katera Fisher had to be towed after her SUV couldn't make it through the rising water.
"I went and my car just started floating, and I said, 'Oh, snap.' So, my first reaction was to try and get out of the car. I opened the door, and the water started flooding my feet," Fisher said.
OEMC said from Sunday into Monday morning, they received 59 calls of flooded viaducts, 1,485 calls of water in basements, and 396 calls of water on the street.
Source- abc7
Aston Martin’s first electric car will be an SUV in 2025
Aston Martin has revealed the first steps on its journey towards an electric future, with the British brand offering a fully electrified option for every core model in its line-up by 2030. Before this however, Aston's first EV will break cover in 2025 – and we've already heard early technical details of the platform its cars will be based on and the motors that will power it, thanks to a new deal signed with American EV firm Lucid.
Aston is working on its own, in-house developed a modular platform that will underpin everything from low GT and sports cars to higher-riding SUV models. At a recent briefing ahead of Aston's Capital Markets Day for investors, Aston chairman Lawrence Stroll outlined that: “We were always building our own platform, our own chassis, it's what we do very well.
“What was most important to me was to find what is the greatest technology to give us high performance,” he added. “We know how to do ultra-luxury, but what's the best technology on the marketplace to accomplish our goal of having an SUV, having an EV on the market at launch in 2025 – which most of you guys doubted and never believed? Well, here we go. We believe Lucid represented the best existing, mature technology, with the highest horsepower, and the lowest battery height to enable our EV strategy.”
The deal (worth £182 million, which allows Aston access to Lucid's tech and also includes an ongoing supply cost) will see Aston use Lucid electronic drive units that incorporate the motors, inverter, and transmission on its cars' rear axles. These will feature bespoke calibration and software for Aston Martin products, with Lucid chief executive and chief technology officer Peter Rawlinson, highlighting that these EDUs will be based on existing Lucid tech. Currently, the maximum output of the tri-motor Lucid Air Sapphire stands at “more than 1,200bhp”, meaning the all-wheel drive saloon can sprint from 0-60mph in a claimed 1.89 seconds, offering a top speed of more than 200mph.
However, Aston's CTO Roberto Fedeli confirmed to Auto Express that the British brand's future models will use four motors, with a twin-motor drive unit of Aston's own design for the front axle. This will most likely be influenced by the mid-engined Valhalla plug-in hybrid coming in 2024, which will use a similar front axle set-up.
“We are learning how to develop the front twin-motor axle for the next generation”, Fedeli said. He added that “A characteristic we like very much about Lucid's components is the size. The size of the component is very well suited to our platform and the constraints that we have in order to create just one platform to support not just SUVs, but also sports cars.
“We want to be able to create [EV] cars with a roof height of a little bit less than the Vantage.” Fedeli went on to point out that this will mean we see battery modules packaged differently than the current convention of sandwiching them in the floor, with multiple modules positioned around the car potentially possible.
Rawlinson commented further on the power density of Lucid's drive units – which fit inside a carry-on suitcase – saying that “Hyundai is at 1.1bhp per kg, a Tesla Model S Plaid is about 3.9bhp per kg, we're at 9bhp per kg, so over twice as much. Our racing power unit looking towards the future is near to 17.”
Fedeli elaborated a little more on Aston's future quad-motor set-up, highlighting a comparison between a digital test mule with four-motor torque vectoring and a current DBX707, with the new car outscoring the current model for dynamic ability on the track. “You see what can happen when you apply this kind of technology? Four-wheel torque vectoring – there is no need to correct the car. What do you want in terms of power? 1,400bhp? 1,500bhp? It's not a problem.”
Asked if the comparison between Aston's first EV and the DBX707 was significant and if the 2025 car would take the form of an SUV, Fedeli nodded. As previewed by our exclusive image, it seems logical given the appetite in the market and the profit-making potential of these vehicles, and we'll soon see test mules on the road, according to Aston's top technology exec.
Our target is to see the first mule running by the beginning of next year, the first mule to represent the platform – the most complicated model we want to develop on the platform has to be on the road by the beginning of next year. By the end of summer, we are going to have the full powertrain on the test bench. We did the concept phase of the platform last year, this year we are completing this phase, and then we are going to start testing – first on the bench, then on the road.”
Expect Aston's first EV to feature some funky aerodynamic solutions as a result, taking the energy from the aerodynamic flow at the front of the car and bringing it to the rear to “destroy the vortex”, according to Fedeli. “It means a huge reduction in drag”, he said.
Fedeli hinted that weight and aerodynamics will be key to achieving the project's goals, too. “Intensity. Driven. Emotion. That's what will define it. Because we are building a BEV the weight could be a killer of the emotion and fun-to-drive – and not just the emotion, but the efficiency. The two pillars that are behind our concept of the platform, the concept of product, are emotion and efficiency.
“Aerodynamics is becoming the king. We have to manage the aerodynamics, and this could be done by using our partnership with the F1 team through simulation. We have some ideas about blowing the wake at the tailgate of the car in order to reduce the drag as much as possible. We are going to reduce the drag by 50 percent, and this is what we need in order to avoid making the car heavy because of the energy we need on board for range.”
Expect Aston's first EV to feature some funky aerodynamic solutions as a result, taking the energy from the aerodynamic flow at the front of the car and bringing it to the rear to “destroy the vortex”, according to Fedeli. “It means a huge reduction in drag”, he said.
Aston is also working on reducing the rolling resistance of its upcoming EV, with a clever brake-by-wire system from Brembo that controls the movement of the brake calipers' pistons electronically, retracting them to reduce drag on the discs. A new P Zero tire from Pirelli that features 'Cyber Tyre' tech that can sense loads on individual tires is also under development.
The EV represents a new era for Aston, and chairman Stroll believes the company is well on track to achieve its financial turnaround targets. “I said to you that between 2024 and 2025 we would do £ 2 billion in revenue and deliver £400 to £ 500 million in earnings before costs – well, I can confirm to you today that we are well on the way to hitting those targets. We said that next year this company would be cashflow positive, that remains the case.”
Stroll was also spiky in his comments, however, following this by saying: “All of the heavy lifting I've done over the last three years that all of you have been very critical of, at times it pains me to read some of your comments and lack of appreciation of what it takes to turn an industrial company around. But I'm very happy to say, we've turned this place around.
“I've found all the capital for this company, I've just spent $300-odd million building a new F1 factory, plus hundreds of millions invested in the F1 team, I've saved thousands of jobs in this country – I should be knighted for what I've done.”
Stroll believes the real key is Aston's future products, however, and he has surrounded himself with people who have “seen the movie and written the script.”
“The key focus of every business is product,” he said, “The three most important things in any successful business are product, product, product.” Aston's 2025 EV has a lot riding on it, then.
Source- Auto Express
France deploys 45,000 officers amid riots over teen's killing by police
France's interior minister said on Friday the coming hours would be crucial as he sent 45,000 police into the streets following three nights of riots since an officer shot dead a teenager at a traffic stop in a working-class suburb of Paris.
The violence, in which buildings and vehicles have been torched and stores looted, has plunged President Emmanuel Macron into the gravest crisis of his leadership since the Yellow Vest protests that started in 2018. Unrest has flared nationwide, including in cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg, and Lille as well as Paris where Nahel M., a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was shot on Tuesday in the Nanterre suburb. His death, which was caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor, racially mixed, urban communities of police violence and racism.
"The next hours will be decisive and I know I can count on your flawless efforts," Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin wrote to firefighters and police officers, seeking to quell the unrest that has been breaking out after nightfall.
He asked local authorities to halt bus and tram traffic from 9 p.m. local time across France.
Asked on TF1's main evening television news program whether the government could declare a state of emergency, Darmanin said: "Quite simply, we're not ruling out any hypothesis and we'll see after tonight what the president of the republic chooses."
Some 40,000 officers had been deployed Thursday night. More than 200 of them were injured. Darmanin said more than 900 people were arrested following Thursday's unrest, saying their average age was 17.
While so far the worst of the violence has been confined to city suburbs, any sign it is spreading into the centers of France's biggest cities would mark a significant escalation.
Police started clearing protesters from the iconic central Paris square of Place de la Concorde on Friday evening after an impromptu demonstration.
Looters ransacked shops including an Apple store in Strasbourg on Friday, a local official said. A source told Reuters that several Casino supermarkets had also been looted.
In the Chatelet Les Halles shopping mall in central Paris, a Nike shoe store was broken into, and several people were arrested after store windows were smashed along the adjacent Rue de Rivoli shopping street, police said.
Events including two concerts at the Stade de France on the capital's outskirts have been canceled. Tour de France organizers say they are ready to adapt to any situation when the race enters the country on Monday after starting in the Spanish city of Bilbao. In the southern city of Marseille, France's second-largest, authorities banned demonstrations set for Friday, and encouraged restaurants to close outdoor areas early. They said public transport would stop at 7 p.m.
Police said they had dispersed small groups in the city and arrested 36 people. Two police officers were wounded. A police helicopter flew overhead.
Macron left a European Union summit in Brussels early to attend a second cabinet crisis meeting in two days. He has asked social media to remove "the most sensitive" footage of rioting and to disclose the identities of users fomenting violence. Darmanin met representatives from Meta, Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok. Snapchat said it had zero tolerance for content that promoted violence.
A friend of the victim's family, Mohamed Jakoubi, who watched Nahel grow up as a child, the rage was fuelled by a sense of injustice in the suburbs after incidents of police violence against minority ethnic communities, many from former French colonies.
"We are fed up, we are French too. We are against violence, we are not scum," he said.
Macron denies there is systemic racism inside law enforcement agencies.
Videos on social media showed urban landscapes ablaze. A tram was set alight in the eastern city of Lyon and 12 buses were gutted in a depot in Aubervilliers, northern Paris.
In Nanterre on the capital's outskirts overnight into Friday, protesters torched cars, barricaded streets, and hurled projectiles at police following an earlier peaceful vigil.
The energy minister said stones injured several staff of power distribution firm Enedis during clashes. The Interior Ministry said 79 police posts and 119 public buildings, including 34 town halls and 28 schools, were attacked overnight.
Source- CBC News
Dominica Ramps Up Hurricane Preparedness
Until June 30, residents of Dominica can apply for the government’s program in hurricane preparedness, which aims to strengthen homes and protect families during the hurricane season.
Dominica’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Development is leading the Hurricane Preparedness Initiative in Dominica, which in turn will provide residents with essential supplies to make their homes a safer place during storms and hurricanes.
The ministry’s chief, Melissa Skerrit, announced the initiative on her Facebook page at the beginning of the month.
“DIY Hurricane Preparedness Initiative— strengthening your homes to protect your family. Ensure that your home is adequately secured! Contact your constituency representative for distribution information,” Skerrit wrote.
Eligible applicants for the initiative must be residents of Dominica; be willing to comply with all relevant building codes and regulations; access the necessary tools or human resources to install the materials themselves; be ready to provide feedback or participate in monitoring and evaluation activities; and be committed to actively participating in the initiative.
Application Forms can be obtained at any Ministry of Housing and Urban Development office or at Constituency Offices.
Meanwhile, Dominica’s new housing development is in Grand Bay and Dubic.
“The new development consists of 88 standalone units, 29 empty plots for construction, and 17 housing units for restoration. The project is expected to be completed in 2024,” Associates Times reported.
“This is a major project of building new homes, as after Erika, we had to relocate the residents of Dubic,” Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in an interview. “Some of [the residents] were impacted by the hurricane, and we decided to put efforts for greater resilience by redeveloping the homes. So we have in excess of 40 homes for the residents of Dubic combination of three and two bedrooms.”
This development is part of Dominica’s Housing Revolution, an ambitious project that has already provided thousands of climate-resilient houses to Dominica’s residents.
Most of the housing development projects are funded by the country’s Citizenship by Investment (CBI) program, and led by MMC Development Ltd.. This private developing company has been working closely with the government since Typhoon Erika in 2015.
Source- Caribbean News Now
The Ministry of Immigration Launches Consultation on Proposed Amendments to the Immigration Ordinance and Regulations
The Ministry of Immigration and Border Services has announced the launch of public consultations on the proposed amendments to the Turks and Caicos Islands Immigration Ordinance.
The Ministry, working in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs, which has a remit for citizenship, and the Immigration and Population Policy Council (IPPC), has concluded its internal reviews of the ordinance and has gained Cabinet’s approval to engage the public on the proposed amendments.
Key highlights are the proposed time limits on work permits, the changes to residency by investment, the increased powers of officers, the vestment of authority in the Director General, and the need for persons to carry proof of status producible upon request by an officer.
Additionally, there are new categories of PRC and Temporary Work Permits and the opportunity for Business Visas and some classifications of Temporary Work Permits to be purchased at ports on arrival.
The public consultation will be undertaken in three main phases, the first being the publication of the proposed amendments on June 30th, followed by the launch of an online survey and email address for feedback on July 15th, and countrywide face-to-face live engagement with the public commencing the week of July 17th. The entire process will be brought to a close on July 31st, 2023.
The Minister of Immigration and Border Services, the Hon. Arlington A. Musgrove, in speaking on the initiative states, “My team and I, along with the members of Cabinet, have put in long hours and engaged in deep debate about what improvements should be proposed for the Immigration Ordinance. Likewise, the Chair and members of the IPPC and the management of the Ministry of Home Affairs have also been instrumental in their contribution to this process.
“I am now asking that the public make a concerted effort to actively participate in the many avenues for engagement on the proposed amendments and to ensure that they provide feedback so that we all work together to shape the future of our beloved country.”
Notices of the commencement of future phases will be issued in due course and the public is encouraged to participate in the consultation process.
Please see the attached proposed amendments to the TCI Immigration Ordinance and Regulations 2021.