Global News

By Frédéric Bourigault and Stuart Williams AFP | Posted by TOE French high school students lit fires outside schools and faced off with police on Friday as a protest movement that has forced the closure of some 400 establishments showed no sign of abating. The movement, which began last week in the Paris region and rapidly spread nationwide, has seen teenage pupils at lycees in their final years of schooling block access to buildings and clash with police. The students say their school hours are excessively long, conditions inadequate including overheated classrooms, and that there are too many staff absences. The government says the grievances are legitimate but has condemned what it has described as “urban violence”. Students have accused police of using excessive force and causing injuries by regularly firing tear gas canisters to disperse the protests. In Paris on Friday, fire damaged the entrances of two high schools — Leonard de Vinci in ...

By Emma Farge and Clement Bonnerot Reuters | Posted by TOE Thousands of displaced residents at an Ebola-hit camp in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have fled after soldiers entered ​the site, UN and Congolese officials said on Thursday, raising concern about ‌the disease’s spread. Security forces went to the Kigonze camp looking for weapons and clashes ensued, causing camp residents to flee over the last week, according to Congolese and health officials The camp for ​some 19,000 displaced residents in Ituri province now lies abandoned, UN Senior ​Ebola Coordinator Julien Harneis said in a statement Reuters reported in June ⁠that more than 30 people had died in the camp in just over a ​month, many from Ebola Two health officials with knowledge of the situation said that about ​1,000 Ebola contacts were resident in the camp. Only about a fifth of those have since been traced, one of the sources added “The enormous challenge of halting the spread...

By Lili Bayer and Mark Trevelyan Reuters | Posted by TOE Russia has warned NATO it would be ready to resort to nuclear weapons if the Western alliance attempted to cut off Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave that borders the Baltic Sea. In a document sent to NATO and seen by Reuters, Moscow accused the ‌alliance of a “dangerous and reckless course” that entailed “high risks of the outbreak of a direct armed conflict”. The document said this included the possibility of “Russian strikes against decision-making centers ‌in the alliance’s member states right from the outset”. “Russia will be ready to use the entire arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal, including nuclear weapons, in order to defend its territory should NATO countries undertake any attempt aimed ​at isolating the Kaliningrad Region from the rest of the country,” the diplomatic note said. The warning highlighted Moscow’s urgent concern at...