French President of far-right party Rassemblement National parliamentary group Marine Le Pen. PHOTO: AFP
PARIS (AFP) – French far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen yesterday threatened to back a no confidence motion that could topple the government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a standoff over the budget, saying after talks both sides were entrenched in their positions.
Months of political tensions since right-winger Barnier became prime minister at the helm of a minority government appointed by President Emmanuel Macron in the wake of this summer’s elections are coming to a head over the budget which has yet to be approved by Parliament.
The opposition on all sides of the spectrum have denounced the budget, prompting Barnier to consider brandishing the weapon of article 49.3 of the constitution which allows a government to force through legislation without a vote in Parliament.
However, that could prompt Le Pen’s far right National Rally (RN) to team up in an unholy alliance with the left-wing bloc in Parliament and find enough numbers to topple the government in a confidence vote.
Le Pen entered the Matignon residence of the French premier for the breakfast meeting and was followed later in the afternoon by hard left France Unbowed (LFI) parliamentary party leader Mathilde Panot as Barnier seeks to hear voices across the board.
“My position has not changed. No more, it seems, than that (the position) of the prime minister has changed,” Le Pen said after meeting Barnier, describing him as “at the same time courteous but also entrenched in his positions”.
Asked if the RN would back a no confidence motion, she replied, “Of course.”
French President of far-right party Rassemblement National parliamentary group Marine Le Pen. PHOTO: AFP
DUBLIN (AFP) – Ireland’s election race is set for a tight finish as frontrunner the centre-right Fine Gael led by Prime Minister Simon Harris has slumped in polls before Friday’s vote.
Fine Gael fell by six per cent, according to an Irish Times/Ipsos poll published yesterday, while a weekend poll by the Sunday Independent indicated a four-per-cent drop.
The party, which has been in office since 2010, entered the campaign which began on November 6 widely tipped for a smooth return to power along with its outgoing coalition partners Fianna Fail, also from the centre-right. But Fine Gael’s campaign has been hindered by missteps and gaffes.
Social media savvy Harris, who took over from predecessor Leo Varadkar as leader last April and oversaw a robust recovery in his party’s ratings, turned his back on a disability sector worker.
The clip has been seen more than 2.5 million times. Harris issued an apology to the worker the following day. According to yesterday’s poll, Fine Gael have slumped to third place (19 per cent) behind Fianna Fail (21 per cent) led by Micheal Martin and the leftist-nationalist Sinn Fein (20 per cent). The pro-Irish unity Sinn Fein won the largest vote share at the last election in 2020 and were seen as the most likely winner in 2024 until a plunge in support this year, mainly over its stance on immigration.
Tensions are running high over huge increases in asylum applications, exacerbating existing tensions about a lack of affordable housing.
Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein’s leader and potentially Ireland’s first ever female prime minister, has pledged to initiate a referendum on Irish unification by 2030 if she wins.
Kendrick Lamar during a performance at Coachella Music & Arts Festival. PHOTO: DAVE FREE & AP
AP – With his surprise-dropped GNX, Kendrick Lamar roars from zero to 60 faster than a turbocharged ‘87 Buick, faster than you can shout “Mustaaaaard”. And waaaaay faster than you can decode the dense centerpiece Reincarnated.
Keeping the same energy of his landmark Pop Out concert five months ago, Lamar surrounds himself with up-and-coming Los Angeles artistes – from AzChike to Peysoh – and raps over thumping New West Coast soundscapes shaped by his longtime producer Sounwave, along with Jack Antonoff and a garageful of other beat mechanics.
He’s once again “possessed by a spirit”, sprinkling 2Pac, Biggie and Nas references throughout and maintaining a me-against-the-world antipathy that includes but extends well beyond a certain Canadian: “I just strangled me a GOAT” and “now it’s plural”.
Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Andrew Schulz, and even Fox’s Super Bowl broadcast can’t escape K-Dot’s chaotic crosshairs. Here’s hoping the chorus of “tv off” – an urgent call to “turn this TV off” repeated eight times – confuses the masses during his New Orleans halftime show in February.
This is Lamar leaning into the same creativity-juicing pride, self-righteous anger and supreme confidence that fueled the Grammy-nominated Not Like Us and won his Drake feud: “I kill ‘em all before I let ‘em kill my joy.”
And yet, as with his first-ever hit Swimming Pools (Drank), even the most club-ready braggadocio songs – and there are plenty, including the massive “squabble up” and synth-stabbed Mustard production “hey now” – are slapped with a caution sticker.
Introspection is baked into Lamar’s art. In “man at the garden”, he’s surveying his kingdom and glory and declares that while “I deserve it all,” “dangerously / nothing changed with me / still got pain in me.”
At age 37, Lamar remains in peak form (that breath control!) and stands alone in the rap world as a star who bridges generations without chasing trends. He generates his own gravity in the hip-hop universe. Pulling samples from the early ‘80s – Debbie Deb, Luther Vandross, Whodini – he’s able to switch cadences and lyrical perspectives mid-song without ever losing the listener.
Album closer gloria, one of two tracks featuring former TDE labelmate SZA, is a glorious celebration of the pain and power of writing. In the vein of Common’s I Used to Love H.E.R. or Nas’ I Gave You Power, Lamar’s love story details a “complicated relationship” that listeners at first may think is about his longtime partner Whitney Alford, but turns out to be dedicated to his pen.
While carefully structured, GNX feels a bit more scattershot than Lamar’s traditionally concept-heavy studio albums. And there are hints that this collection of 12 songs is more of a Part 1 or mixtape-type prelude to something more formal: The brief music video announcing the album features a snippet of a song that doesn’t even appear on GNX.
Whatever comes next, the Pulitzer Prize winner has written another thrilling chapter in what remains the most fascinating longform story in hip-hop: an ambitious and searingly talented poet from Compton working through his – and the world’s – contradictions on the biggest stage, forever discomforted by his crown.
Kendrick Lamar’s ‘GNX’ album cover. PHOTO: DAVE FREE & APKendrick Lamar during a performance at Coachella Music & Arts Festival. PHOTO: DAVE FREE & AP
ABOVE & BELOW: Journalists film as smoke rises from buildings hit in Israeli airstrikes in Tyre, southern Lebanon; and emergency responders arrive at the site of an Israeli strike in Tyre. PHOTO: AP & AFP
BEIRUT (AFP) – Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday an Israeli air strike that killed three journalists in Lebanon last month was an “apparent war crime” and used a bomb equipped with a United States (US)-made guidance kit.
The October 25 strike hit a tourism complex in the Druze-majority south Lebanon town of Hasbaya where more than a dozen journalists working for Lebanese and Arab media outlets were sleeping.
The Israeli army has said it targeted Hezbollah militants and that the strike was “under review”.
HRW said the strike, relatively far from the Israel-Hezbollah war’s main flashpoints, “was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime”.
“Information Human Rights Watch reviewed indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that journalists were staying in the area and in the targeted building,” the watchdog said in a statement. HRW “found no evidence of fighting, military forces, or military activity in the immediate area at the time of the attack”, it added.
The strike killed cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast engineer Mohammad Reda from Beirut-based broadcaster Al-Mayadeen and video journalist Wissam Qassem from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.
The watchdog said it verified images of Najjar’s casket wrapped in a Hezbollah flag and buried in a cemetery alongside fighters from the militant group.
But a spokesperson for the militant group said he “had no involvement whatsoever in any military activities”.
HRW said the bomb dropped by Israeli forces was equipped with a US-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit.
The JDAM is “affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates”, the statement said.
It said remnants from the site were consistent with a JDAM kit “assembled and sold by the US company Boeing”.
One remnant “bore a numerical code identifying it as having been manufactured by Woodard, a US company that makes components for guidance systems on munitions”, it added.
ABOVE & BELOW: Journalists film as smoke rises from buildings hit in Israeli airstrikes in Tyre, southern Lebanon; and emergency responders arrive at the site of an Israeli strike in Tyre. PHOTO: AP & AFPPHOTO: AP & AFP
Workers collect information from the public in Najaf, Iraq. PHOTO: AP
BAGHDAD (AP) – Preliminary results from an Iraqi national census, the first in nearly 40 years, show that the population has grown to 45.4 million, the prime minister said yesterday.
The nationwide population census, carried out earlier this month, is a step aimed at modernising data collection and planning in a country long impacted by conflict and political divisions.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said yesterday that initial results showed the country’s population has reached approximately 45.4 million people. In 2009, an unofficial count estimated the population at 31.6 million.
The gender distribution according to yesterday’s initial results shows a nearly even split, with males making up 50.1 per cent of the population and females 49.8 per cent of the population. The act of counting the population, the first in 37 years, is contentious in Iraq, with profound implications for the country’s resource distribution, budget allocations and development planning. Minority groups also fear that a documented decline in their numbers will bring decreased political influence and fewer economic benefits in the country’s sectarian power-sharing system.
By order of Iraq’s federal court, the census excluded questions about ethnicity and sectarian affiliation, focusing solely on broad religious categories.
The last nationwide census in Iraq was held in 1987. Another one held in 1997 excluded the Kurdish region.
The next phase of the census will run over the coming weeks before final results, which will include information on religious groups, are announced, according to the executive director of the census at the Ministry of Planning Ali Arian Saleh.
Workers collect information from the public in Najaf, Iraq. PHOTO: AP
LOS ANGELES (AP) – GloRilla burst onto the hip-hop scene, lighting up the rap world a couple years ago with breakout tracks like Tomorrow and F.N.F. (Let’s Go) – even snagging a Grammy nomination. But as her name skyrocketed, so did the pressure.
With critics predicting GloRilla’s career would fizzle, she found herself overthinking every move. The noise shook her confidence, leading her to pause and reassess before getting back in the game.
“They started downing me. It was kind of getting to me,” said the Memphis-born rapper, who recently released her debut studio album, Glorious, which features several popular performers including Megan Thee Stallion, Latto, Sexyy Red, Kirk Franklin, T-Pain, Kierra Sheard and BossMan Dlow. On her album, she wanted to showcase her versatility blending romance, gospel and crunk-infused melodies.
But before GloRilla could bring her new project to life, she had to rediscover her rhythm as an artiste.
“Anytime I would put out a song, they weren’t really feeling it,” said the 25-year-old rapper, whose Hitkidd-produced song F.N.F. (Let’s Go) was nominated for best rap performance at the 2023 Grammys.
“I lost a little confidence. But I knew I could get it back. That’s why I didn’t give up. I took it as motivation.”
‘Glorious’ by GloRilla. PHOTO: INTERSCOPE RECORDS
GloRilla, a choir girl turned husky-voiced rap queen, held onto her faith. She hit the studio more, made affirmations, cleared her mind, adopted a consistent workout routine and and let the creativity flow. That combination led to the release of her mixtape Ehhthang Ehhthang with tracks like Wanna Be featuring Megan Thee Stallion and the breakout hit Yeah Glo!, which had fans buzzing while catching the attention of LeBron James and even President Joe Biden.
“I was shocked,” she said. “I knew it was a good song. Every time I played it for people, they loved it. I didn’t know it would go as crazy as it did.”
GloRilla might’ve been surprised by the track, but Yo Gotti saw her potential as a hitmaker all along. He was captivated by her genuine character and rap flow, powered by her unmistakable Southern drawl.
“It’s the authenticity,” said the rapper-music executive who signed GloRilla to his Collective Music Group label in 2022. He’s known for rap anthems such as Down in the DM, Rake It Up with Nicki Minaj and Act Right featuring Jeezy and YG.
“Even when she talks about the struggles throughout this journey, it’s refreshing,” said Yo Gotti, a fellow Memphis native. “I don’t think many artistes do that. Everybody wants to play perfect. I think that’s why so many people gravitate to her. She relates to real people.”
Through Yo Gotti’s mentorship, GloRilla found someone she can trust.
“Anytime I have problem, he’s always giving me great advice,” she said. “He’s already been through the mistakes, so he tries to steer me away from that. He’s always telling me the right thing to do.”
Last year, GloRilla was met with devastation after a deadly stampede toward the end of her concert in upstate New York killed three women.
GloRilla’s public reputation seemed untarnished following the tragedy, and her profile has grown in recent months to make her one of rap’s most promising new voices.
A flare for burning excess methane, or natural gas, from crude oil production is seen at a well pad in Watford City, North Dakota in the United States. PHOTO: AP
ANN/THE STAR – Oil prices hovered near two-week highs yesterday following six per cent gains last week, as geopolitical tensions heightened between western powers and major oil producers, raising risks of supply disruption.
Brent crude futures climbed 13 cents, or 0.2 per cent, to USD75.30 a barrel by 0115 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures were at USD71.38 a barrel, up 14 cents, or 0.2 per cent. Both contracts last week notched their biggest weekly gains since late September to reach their highest settlement levels since November 7.
“The recent exchanges indicate the war has entered a new and dangerous phase, raising concerns of disruptions to supplies,” ANZ analysts led by Daniel Hynes said in a note.
Investors were also focused on rising crude oil demand at China and India, the world’s top and third-largest importers, respectively.
China’s crude imports rebounded in November as lower prices drew stockpiling demand while Indian refiners increased crude throughput by three per cent on year to 5.04 million bpd in October, buoyed by fuel exports.
A flare for burning excess methane, or natural gas, from crude oil production is seen at a well pad in Watford City, North Dakota in the United States. PHOTO: AP
The Sukhoi Superjet 100 SSJ-100. PHOTO: ASIA TIMES
MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia’s largest plane builder announced a shake-up in its management yesterday..
Moscow plans to build more than 600 planes by 2030 to replace ageing Boeing and Airbus models, but it is not clear how many it has built or to what extent it has been able to scale up production.
Russia is no longer able to properly service or import new Western aircraft due to sanctions, with half the country’s Airbus neo fleet grounded due to issues repairing engines, according to the Kommersant newspaper.
The state-owned United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) said it was taking over managerial roles at subsidiaries Yakovlev and Tupolev, citing the need to “launch serial production of domestic civil airliners” in an “unprecedentedly short period of time”.
Both companies – which were merged into UAC on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s orders – manufacturer civilian aircraft.
“Andrey Boginsky, the CEO of Yakovlev, and Konstantin Timofeev, Managing Director of Tupolev, are leaving their posts,” UAC said in a statement.
The Kommersant newspaper reported that Boginsky had been fired over the “failure of the civil aviation programme”, quoting a source, although a second source cited by the paper refuted this.
The government has pledged to spend over USD2.7 billion to build and develop homegrown aircraft like the Sukhoi Superjet and UAC-built MC-21.
But the rollout of the MC-21 – a narrow-body aircraft comparable to the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 – has been delayed several times and is not expected to enter service until at least next year. The Sukhoi Superjet has also faced problems.
On Sunday, more than 90 passengers and crew were evacuated from a Superjet 100 operated by Russia’s Azimuth Airlines after one of its engines caught fire while landing at an airport in southern Turkiye.
The Sukhoi Superjet 100 SSJ-100. PHOTO: ASIA TIMES
WELLINGTON (XINHUA) – Bank of China (New Zealand) Ltd marked its 10 years of operations in New Zealand this month, making a significant impact on New Zealand’s banking landscape not only by growing its market share but also by financing major infrastructure projects, its chief executive Warren Hu has said.
Bank of China (NZ) Ltd has served as a vital financial bridge between New Zealand and China, fostering trade and economic ties between the two countries over the past decade, Hu said in a statement released this past weekend.
It has become the eighth-largest bank in New Zealand and sixth in corporate lending, provided approximately 20 per cent of New Zealand’s infrastructure banking finance, and serves over 2,500 customers with NZD2.1 billion in residential mortgages, Hu said.
Selected as a senior financing partner for the New Zealand government’s infrastructure partners initiative last year, the bank has delivered crucial funding to support urban development initiatives in the essential construction and modernisation of municipal facilities, including museums, footpaths and commercial infrastructure, he said.
Established in 2014, Bank of China (NZ) Ltd expanded its presence in 2021 by opening a branch in Christchurch, becoming the first and only Chinese bank to operate in New Zealand’s South Island.
It has enabled New Zealand customers to engage in global markets by leveraging the bank’s extensive international network, Hu said, adding that the bank offers policy consultation for import-export businesses, supporting New Zealand companies expanding into Chinese markets.
Regarding green finance, the bank has supported New Zealand’s energy transition, financing projects such as solar farms and waste management facilities, as well as embedding sustainability into core business strategies, he said.
UniCredit’s main headquarters in Italy, Rome. PHOTO: AFP
ROME (AFP) – Italy’s second-largest bank Unicredit yesterday said it had bid EUR10.1 billion in an all-share deal for rival BPM.
Unicredit said the bid to combine Italy’s number two and three banks would seek to reinforce its position in the domestic market, adding the proposed deal remains subject to regulatory approval.
A Unicredit statement said the plan was to create a “stronger number two bank in an important market capable of creating significant long-term value for all shareholders and for Italy.”
Unicredit expects to be able to complete the takeover bid in June 2025 “with (BPM’s) full integration completed in the following 12 months and most synergies achieved in 24 months. “Unicredit has a strong track record in successfully integrated acquisitions,” the bank added.
“With this acquisition, we are strengthening our position in Italy and at the same time increasing even more the value we can create for all parties involved and for our shareholders in this market,” Unicredit Chief Executive Andrea Orcel was quoted as saying in the statement.
Unicredit said the takeover would benefit BPM shareholders, customers and employees with both groups, as well as the Italian and European banking system at a time of “geopolitical uncertainty.”
Unicredit estimates the mooted deal will lead to annual cost savings of about EUR900 million (USD942 million) and increased revenue of some EUR300 million.
UniCredit’s main headquarters in Italy, Rome. PHOTO: AFP
