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Paris police fired water cannon and tear gas to push back yellow vest demonstrators from around the Arc de Triomphe monument Saturday, in the ninth straight weekend of protests against French President Emmanuel 

Macron’s economic reforms.

Thousands of protesters in Paris marched noisily but mostly peacefully through the Grands Boulevards shopping area in northern Paris, close to where a massive gas explosion in a bakery killed two firefighters and a Spanish tourist and injured nearly 50 people earlier in the day.

But small groups of demonstrators broke away from the designated route and threw bottles and other projectiles at the police. 

Around the 19th-century Arc de Triomphe at the top of the Champs-Elysees, riot police fired water cannon and tear gas at militant protesters after being pelted with stones and paint, witnesses said.

Groups of protesters also gathered on and around the Champs-lysees, the scene of disturbances in recent weeks, many of them calling loudly for Macron to resign. 

“Macron, we are going to tear down your place!” one banner read. 

84,000 across France

The Interior Ministry estimated that there were a maximum of about 84,000 demonstrators nationwide on Saturday — more than the 50,000 counted last week but well below the record 282,000 estimated on Nov. 17, the first day of the protests. 

In Paris, the ministry counted 8,000 demonstrators, more than in the past two weekends, when authorities tallied just 3,500 people on Jan. 5 and only 800 on Dec. 29. 

Much of central Paris was in lockdown on the first week of post-Christmas sales, with bridges across the Seine River closed and official buildings such as parliament and the Elysee presidential palace protected by police barriers.

In Paris, 156 “gilets jaunes” (yellow vest) protesters were arrested, some for carrying objects that could be used as weapons, police said. As of 2000 GMT, 108 remained in custody. Nationwide, 244 people had been arrested, of which 201 remained in custody. 

By nightfall, there had been no looting or burning of cars as seen in previous weeks and traffic circulation had resumed around the Arc de Triomple area. 

National debate

There were also thousands of marchers in the cities of Bordeaux and Toulon in southern France as well as Strasbourg in the east and the central city of Bourges. 

Bourges authorities said nearly 5,000 yellow vests stuck to the designated demonstration area. The historical city center was off-limits for demonstrators, but 500 protesters made their way to the center, where they scuffled with police and set garbage bins on fire. 

Many businesses in Bourges had boarded themselves up to avoid damage, and authorities had removed street furniture and building site materials that could be used for barricades. 

In Strasbourg, up to 2,000 demonstrators gathered in front of the European Parliament building and later marched to the center of the city on the Rhine River border with Germany. No serious violence or looting was reported there. 

More than 80,000 police were on duty for the protests nationwide, including 5,000 in Paris. 

Frustration over economy

The yellow vests take their name from the high-visibility jackets they wear. Their rage stems from a squeeze on household incomes and a belief that Macron, a former investment banker seen as close to big business, is indifferent to their hardships. 

Macron, often criticized for a monarchical manner, is to launch a national debate on Jan. 15 to try to mollify the yellow vest protest, which has shaken his administration. 

The debate, to be held on the internet and in town halls, will focus on four themes: taxes, green energy, institutional reform and citizenship. But aides to Macron have said changing the course of Macron’s reforms aimed at liberalizing the economy will be off-limits. 
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Several thousand people turned out Saturday in Belgrade for the sixth week of street protests against populist Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and his government. 

Demonstrations first started after thugs beat up an opposition politician in November, prompting calls for more democracy and an end to political violence in Serbia.  

Critics say Vucic has fostered an atmosphere of fear and hate speech against opponents in the Balkan nation while seeking to tighten his rule. He has denied the allegations. 

Whistle-blowing crowds marched through central Belgrade despite freezing temperatures and icy streets. Some carried banners reading “Rise Serbia” or “It’s started.” 

Smaller protests have been held in other towns in Serbia. Local media say Vucic plans to get his supporters out during next week’s visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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No one is sure about how many migrant children are living in Spain without their parents — and that’s part of the problem.

Three months ago, Spanish officials estimated there were 10,000 unaccompanied minors living in the country — 70 percent of them Moroccan. But more than 11,000 migrant children were recorded having arrived in Spain in 2018 alone, and previous migrant influxes had already swept in at least 4,000, say civil-society groups.

“The registry of unaccompanied minors is not working properly,” says the non-profit Fundacion Raices, which promotes the rights of migrant children. Not knowing the actual numbers is “very worrying, because it speaks of the mismanagement that prevails in our country in the protection policies of minors,” the non-profit has warned.

The plight of child migrants in Spain is being highlighted once again, this time in the run-up to a possible snap election later this year that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who leads a fragile minority government, may decide to call. Populist right wing parties are following the playbook of their counterparts in neighboring Italy and have focused on migrants as a possible vote-winning issue in pre-election campaigning.

Last month, Vox became the first far-right party in four-decades to win seats in a regional assembly in Spain, partly on the back of its call for illegal immigrants to be repatriated and for walls to built around Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish enclaves in North Africa, to stop illegal migrants who have been climbing over the border fences.

The leader of Spain’s conservative opposition Popular party, led by Pablo Casado, is hardening its anti-immigrant rhetoric, prompting Sanchez to accuse it of fueling “the politics of fear.”

And there’s plenty of fear and frustration to go around. In Barcelona, locals cite lawlessness as their biggest headache, ahead of affordable housing or the intractable Catalan independence issue. With petty theft, violent robberies and burglaries all increasing as well begging and illegal street selling, many neighborhood associations in the Catalan capital blame asylum-seekers — among them migrant children.

Thousands of unaccompanied children in Spain are housed in overcrowded migrant centers and hundreds are living in squalid and dangerous conditions on the streets as potential prey for sexual exploitation.

Last month, police in Barcelona — as they do in some other Spanish cities — periodically clear the youngsters off the streets, taking them to already strained centers, which aren’t allowed under the law to detain them, if they want to leave, as many do.

For civil-society groups the primary concern shouldn’t be about crime when it comes to minors, but about their safety and well-being. With Spain now the main gateway into Europe for irregular immigration from Africa, surpassing Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Malta, the problem of what to do with migrant children is only going to get sharper, they warn.

Under Spanish law migrant children cannot be sent back to their country against their will, if their families can’t be tracked down. When they reach 18,they are entitled to Spanish nationality, if they have been in a center for atleast two years.

Last year, the Spanish government prompted an outcry from rights groups when it started negotiating with the Moroccan government an arrangement to repatriate Moroccan children and explored possible agreements with Algeria and other African states. Many migrant children, rights groups say, flee their countries of origin because of poverty, family and social violence and terrorism.

Last month, the U.N.’s child agency highlighted the story of Sabba, a 17-year-old girl who fled her native Morocco to escape abuse. She decided at the age of 14 to get married to a 27-year-old because her farther was violent.

“At first it was good, before we got married, then my husband began to treat me badly, he would ask me for disgusting things that I did not want to do, and he would force me. It was worse than when I lived with my parents,” she says in an interview released by UNICEF.

Non-governmental organizations say aside from the issue of whether children should be returned or not to their native countries — the system for handling and protecting them in Spain is chaotic. Children are transferred haphazardly from center to center without proper planning and “overlooking the best interests of the children,” says Fundacion Raices. The NGO has demanded the assignment of independent legal guardians for migrant children to protect their legal rights.

Last year, hundreds of migrant children were moved from the southern region of Andalusia, where most migrants arrive, to Barcelona and other northern cities with little advance notice.

With reception centers packed, the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan police force, was forced to shelter temporarily as many as they could, turning police stations into makeshift dormitories. Many kids, though, were turned away. In a statement, the Catalan police union complained that officers had in effect been “blackmailed” into accommodating the minors.
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The United States on Friday signaled it would not bow to the European Union’s request to keep agriculture out of planned U.S.-EU trade talks, publishing negotiating objectives that seek comprehensive EU access for American farm products.

The objectives, required by Congress under the “fast-track” trade negotiating authority law, seek to reduce or eliminate EU tariffs on U.S. farm products and break down non-tariff barriers, including on products developed through biotechnology, the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office said.

Agricultural issues were among the major sticking points in past negotiations for a major U.S.-EU trade deal, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), before talks were shelved after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.

EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in Washington on Wednesday that the 28-country bloc could not negotiate on agriculture in a new, more limited set of negotiations expected to start this year.

“We have made very clear agriculture will not be included,” Malmstrom told reporters after meeting Lighthizer, adding that the two sides had not yet agreed on the scope of the talks.

Trump and EU president Jean-Claude Juncker agreed last July to re-launch negotiations to cut tariffs on industrial goods, including autos, and also discuss ways for Europe to buy more U.S. soybeans.

Trump told Juncker that he would refrain from levying threatened 25-percent tariffs on EU-produced cars and auto parts, which he is considering imposing worldwide on national security grounds.

Trump has long complained about Europe’s 10-percent import tariff on autos. The U.S. passenger car tariff is only 2.5 percent, although U.S. tariffs on pickup trucks and other commercial trucks are 25 percent.

The U.S. negotiating wish list does not specifically mention autos, but pledges to seek duty-free market access for U.S. industrial goods that eliminate non-tariff barriers such as “unnecessary differences in regulation.”

USTR’s decision to push for a full-fledged trade negotiation on agricultural goods follows a hearing in December at which U.S. farm, food and beverage groups argued for their products to be included.

Influential lawmakers such as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa farmer, have warned they might not support an EU deal that did not include agriculture. Now that the U.S. objectives have been published, the USTR may be ready to formally launch negotiations in as little as 30 days.

But the EU’s own negotiating mandates on industrial goods and regulatory cooperation need to be cleared by the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, and approved by member states, and it is unclear how long that process will take.

The United States had a $151 billion goods deficit with the EU in 2017, despite two-way annual trade of about $1.1 billion. USTR also said it will seek commitments by Europe not to impose duties on any digital downloads of U.S. software, movies, music and other products nor any rules that restrict cross-border data flows or require data localization, USTR said.

In an objective aimed at Europe’s efforts to tax products and services from U.S.-based internet giants, including Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook and Amazon.com, USTR said it would seek a “guarantee that these products will  not face government-sanctioned discrimination based on the nationality or territory in which the product is produced.”
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The New York Times is reporting that FBI officials were so alarmed by President Donald Trump’s behavior after he fired former FBI Director James Comey that they started investigating whether he was working against American interests.

The Times cited anonymous former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation Friday who said counterintelligence investigators looked into whether “Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.”

The officials told the newspaper that after Comey was fired in May 2107, they become concerned when Trump tied the firing of Comey to the Russia investigation.

Trump actions questioned

Law enforcement officials have previously confirmed that after the firing the FBI opened an investigation into whether the action constituted obstruction of justice. However, what has not been made public is that law enforcement officials also sought to determine whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security, according to the Times.

The entire investigation was taken over several days later when special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election as well as possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

There has been no public evidence that Trump was in contact with Russia during the election campaign and Trump has long denied any illicit connection. Russia has also denied the allegations.

Giuliani: Nothing found

A lawyer for Trump, Rudolph Giuliani, told the Times that if FBI officials had concluded Trump was working against American interests, the public would have heard about it.

“The fact that it goes back a year and a half and nothing came of it that showed a breach of national security means they found nothing,” Giuliani told the paper.

Two days after Trump dismissed Comey in May 2017, he told NBC News anchor Lester Holt that he was going to fire Comey regardless, “knowing there was no good time to do it,” but was thinking of the Russia investigation when he decided to dismiss him.

“When I did this, now I said to myself, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won,’” Trump said.

Comey’s firing, rather than ending the Russia investigation, led directly to the appointment, over Trump’s objections, of Mueller, another former FBI director, to take over the Russia probe. Trump has repeatedly called the Russia probe a “witch hunt.”
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In the latest blow to the International Olympic Committee’s efforts to rid itself of scandal, marketing head Tsunekazu Takeda is being investigated for alleged corruption related to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. 

Takeda, who is also the president of the Japanese Olympic Committee, was placed under formal investigation for “active corruption” on Dec. 10, France’s financial crimes office said Friday. 

French investigators are in the midst of a years-long and wide-ranging probe into sports corruption that is looking, among other things, at the bidding contests for the 2020 Olympics and other major sports events. 

Takeda’s career in Olympic circles has ticked almost every box, starting with representing Japan in equestrian competition at the 1972 Munich Games and 1976 Montreal Games. 

As the head of the IOC’s marketing commission since 2014, Takeda has overseen the signing of sponsorship deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including new partnerships with Alibaba, Intel and Allianz. 

In a statement issued Friday by the Japanese Olympic Committee, Takeda denied any wrongdoing. The JOC said he was in Tokyo but gave no further details. 

“The case is causing tremendous concern among the people who are supporting the Tokyo Games, but I will continue to cooperate in the investigation in order to clear any suspicion of me,” Takeda said. 

The IOC ethics commission was scheduled to meet later Friday in Lausanne, Switzerland. Takeda could be provisionally suspended from Olympic duty, or offer to step aside during the investigation. 

“The IOC ethics commission has opened a file and will continue to monitor the situation,” the IOC said in a statement. “Mr. Takeda continues to enjoy the full presumption of innocence.” 

The preliminary charge of active corruption against Takeda announced by the National Financial Prosecutors office was first reported on Friday by French newspaper Le Monde. The preliminary charge means the investigating magistrate has determined there are serious grounds for suspicion but has not yet ruled on whether to pursue a prosecution. 

Secret deals suspected

Le Monde said the magistrate overseeing the probe, Renaud Van Ruymbeke, suspects the IOC vote for Tokyo in 2013 was swayed by secret deals that secured the backing of IOC members from Africa for the Japanese capital over Istanbul and Madrid. 

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike told Japan’s NHK television she was “very surprised and puzzled” but declined to speculate how it might affect the Tokyo Olympics. 

“I just got the initial report on this, so I don’t have sufficient information,” she said. 

Le Monde reported French investigators suspect Takeda of authorizing the payment of bribes. French financial prosecutors are looking at two payments, totaling 1.8 million euros ($2 million), made on either side of the IOC vote in September 2013 to a Singapore company, Black Tidings, Le Monde said.  

French prosecutors have linked Black Tidings to Papa Massata Diack, one of the sons of Lamine Diack, who presided over the IAAF from 1999 to 2015. 

Lamine Diack, who had huge influence on African voters in Olympic contests, is also under investigation in France on corruption-related charges and allegations that he, his son and others were involved in blackmailing athletes and covering up failed drug tests. The 85-year-old Diack has had to turn in his passport and is not allowed to leave the country. 

His son is believed to be in Senegal. France has issued a wanted notice for him via Interpol.  

‘No such illegal activity’

Takeda, who is a distant relative of the Japanese imperial family but does not have royal status, said he was cooperating with French investigators. He said the money paid by the bid committee is a legitimate cost for the service provided by the Black Tidings under the consultancy contract between the two sides. He also said he did not know Lamine Diack. 

“I have explained [to the French authorities] that there was no such illegal activity tantamount to bribery,” Takeda said. 

Takeda was leading Tokyo’s second straight bid for the Summer Games, after losing in the 2016 Olympics race to Rio de Janeiro. French prosecutors are also investigating Rio officials and IOC members for alleged financial wrongdoing in 2009 linked to Papa Massata Diack.  

The Japanese Olympic Committee said it has conducted its own internal investigation and found no illegality involved in all payments made by the Japanese bid committee at the time. 

The organizers of the 2020 Olympics referred questions to the JOC. 

In Takeda’s Olympic career, he has led a national Olympic committee, been a vice president of an Olympic sport’s governing body (equestrian), a chef de mission for Olympic teams, a sports director for a Winter Olympics (Nagano in 1998), a Summer Games bid leader, an IOC member since 2012, and now chair of one of the most financially significant IOC panels. 

Takeda also works closely with Sheikh Ahmad of Kuwait, the influential IOC member who has stepped aside from the IOC while awaiting trial in Geneva this year in a fraud case unrelated to Olympic business. Takeda is a board member of the global group of Olympic committees, known as ANOC, and the Olympic Council of Asia, both led by the Kuwaiti sheikh. 
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Poland has arrested a Chinese employee of Huawei and a Polish national involved in cyber business on allegations of spying, Polish media reported Friday, deepening the controversy over Western criticism of the Chinese telecoms equipment maker.

Polish public TV channel TVP said security services had also searched the local offices of Huawei Technologies Cos Ltd, as well as the offices of telecoms firm Orange Polska, where it said the Polish national works.

Orange said in a statement the security agency had on Tuesday gathered materials related to an employee, whom it did not identify. The company added that it did not know if the investigation was linked to the employee’s professional work, and that it would continue to cooperate with the authorities.

Huawei Poland did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Huawei in China could not immediately be reached for comment.

Arrest in Canada

In December, Canadian authorities arrested a top Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou, at the behest of U.S. authorities as part of an investigation into alleged violations of U.S. trade sanctions.

U.S. intelligence agencies allege Huawei is linked to China’s government and that its equipment could contain “backdoors” for use by government spies. No evidence has been produced publicly and the firm has repeatedly denied the claims.

The U.S. criticism has led to a number of Western countries and companies to review whether they should allow Huawei’s equipment to be used in their telecoms networks.

“The Chinese national is a businessman working in a major electronics company … the Pole is a person known in circles associated with cyber business,” Maciej Wasik, the deputy head of Poland’s special services, told state news agency PAP.

Held for three months

The arrested pair will be held for three months, PAP reported, citing the spokesperson for Poland’s head of special services.

TVP said the Polish national was a former agent of the internal security agency. The agency did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
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Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard who lived an unassuming life in New York City for decades until his past was revealed and he was deported to Germany last year, has died, German media reported Thursday. He was 95.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Westfaelische Nachrichten newspapers independently quoted German officials saying Palij died Wednesday in a care home in the town of Ahlen.

U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell, who lobbied for Germany to take Palij, said he had been informed of the death. He credited U.S. President Donald Trump with seeing through Palij’s August 2018 deportation after it had been stalled for a quarter-century.

“It would have been upsetting to many Americans if he had died in the U.S. in what many viewed as a comfortable escape,” Grenell told The Associated Press.

Palij was the last Nazi facing deportation from the United States when he was taken from his Queens home on a stretcher and put on a plane to Germany.

“An evil man has passed away. That, I guess, is a positive,” said Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman, who had led protests at Palij’s home.

Dov Hikind, a longtime New York lawmaker who fought for Palij’s deportation, said the death brings “the closure survivors of the Holocaust needed.”

Lying about past

From the time American investigators first accused Palij of lying about his Nazi past, it took 25 years for his removal from the United States despite political pressure and frequent protests outside his home. He was not prosecuted in Germany and spent his last months in the nursing home.

Palij, an ethnic Ukrainian born in a part of Poland that is now in Ukraine, entered the U.S. in 1949 under the Displaced Persons Act, a law meant to help refugees from postwar Europe.

He told immigration officials he worked during the war in a woodshop and farm in Nazi-occupied Poland, as well as at another farm in Germany and finally in a German upholstery factory.

Palij said he never served in the military. In reality, the U.S. Justice Department said he played an essential role in the Nazi program to exterminate Jews as an armed guard at the Trawniki training camp, southeast of Lublin in German-occupied Poland.

When investigators knocked on his door in 1993, he told them: “I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied.”

According to a Justice Department complaint, Palij served in a unit that “committed atrocities against Polish civilians and others” and then in the notorious SS Streibel Battalion, “a unit whose function was to round up and guard thousands of Polish civilian forced laborers.”

Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered.

Palij eventually acknowledged serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Stripped of citizenship

The U.S. lacks jurisdiction to prosecute such cases since the crimes were not committed in the United States and the victims were not Americans. Instead, it has focused on revoking the U.S. citizenship of suspects and deporting them — or extraditing them if another country is seeking to prosecute them.

A judge stripped Palij of his U.S. citizenship in 2003 for “participation in acts against Jewish civilians.” He was ordered deported a year later. But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-story, red brick home in Queens he shared with his now-late wife, Maria.

After a diplomatic push, the U.S. finally persuaded Germany last year to take Palij. However, German investigators concluded there was not enough evidence of wartime criminal activity to bring charges against him.

“Good riddance to this war criminal,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said after Palij’s deportation was announced.

Palij had managed to live quietly in the U.S. for years as a draftsman and then as a retiree until a fellow former guard told Canadian authorities in 1989 that Palij was “living somewhere in America.”

Investigators asked Russia and other countries for records on Palij beginning in 1990 and first confronted him in 1993. It wasn’t until after a second interview in 2001 that he signed a document acknowledging he had been a guard at Trawniki and a member of the Streibel Battalion.

Palij suggested at one point during the interview that he was threatened with death if he refused to work as a guard, saying, “If you don’t show up, boom-boom.”

As his case languished, his continued presence in New York City outraged many, especially members of the Jewish community. The frequent protests outside his home featured chants such as “Your neighbor is a Nazi!”

In 2017, all 29 members of New York’s congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to follow through on his deportation.
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Opposition is rising among Italian mayors and regional governors who are against the central government’s crackdown on asylum-seekers. They are planning court challenges to the new measures in defiance of the populist government and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.

A controversial security decree, backed by Salvini and recently approved by parliament, has significantly tightened the criteria for migrants requesting humanitarian protection. The mayors and governors who oppose the decree contend parts of it are unconstitutional. 

But Salvini has made clear that in the past Italy has provided humanitarian protection too easily, and now only those who are truly fleeing from a war will be able to stay in the country.

The interior minister stressed recently that those who were not fleeing a conflict, and instead were bringing conflict to Italy by selling drugs, stealing and committing other crimes, would not be staying in Italy. 

He added that there are 5 million Italians living in poverty and that they take priority over anyone else. But mayors from such cities as Palermo, Naples and Florence are refusing to bow to a law they do not consider to be in line with the Italian constitution.  

Leoluca Orlando, mayor of Palermo, said this month that because of this law, up to 120,000 people in the country legally would be thrown onto the streets, becoming invisible and without rights. He added that the new decree would incite criminality, not prevent it.

At least eight regional governors have also joined the ranks of those who feel the matter should be taken to a judge who can decide whether the decree complies with the constitution. Among them is Sergio Chiamparino, president of the region of Piedmont in northern Italy, who expects to mount a legal challenge by early February.

He said there was a risk that the decree could indirectly affect policies, starting with health and social policies under the regions’ jurisdiction. And he said he thought there had been a violation in the attribution of responsibilities between the central state and regions. 

The new law bans asylum-seekers from gaining residency in Italy, which is needed to apply for public housing or a place for their children in public nursery schools, as well as for complete access to national health care. 

Cesare Mirabelli, president emeritus of Italy’s Constitutional Court, said what was occurring was basically a political act of dissent against the law, which would most likely lead to a challenge of its constitutional legitimacy  — for example, in cases where limits arise regarding the right to health, which is a human right that affects all, or the right to education, which pertains to minors, whether they are Italian citizens or foreigners.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has agreed to meet with a delegation of mayors next week to discuss how the technical application of the law could be modified.
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Jaguar Land Rover said Thursday it will cut 4,500 jobs as the carmaker addresses slowing demand in China and growing uncertainty about the U.K.’s departure from the European Union.

The luxury carmaker, owned by India’s Tata conglomerate, said the cuts will be in addition to 1,500 people who left the business in 2018. The cost-cutting program will begin with a voluntary reduction program in the U.K., where some 44,000 people are employed.

The latest job losses follow on from last year’s 2.5 billion-pound ($3.2 billion) turnaround plan that was designed to deal with many of the headwinds facing the company — Brexit, rising trade tensions between China and the U.S. and new European emissions standards combined to push Jaguar into the red in the three months to Sept. 30, compared with the same period the year before. The company also announced further investment in electrification.

“The next chapter in the story of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands will be the most exciting — and challenging — in our history,” CEO Ralf Speth said in a statement. “Revealing the iconic Defender, investing in cleaner, smarter, more desirable cars and electrifying our facilities to manufacture a future range of British-built electric vehicles will all form part of building a globally competitive and flourishing company.”

Christian Stadler, professor of strategic management at Warwick Business School, said Jaguar was facing a “perfect storm of challenges,” with the drop in Chinese sales being the most immediate problem.

“That is JLR’s biggest market, but car buyers there are reluctant to make expensive purchases as the economy is growing at its slowest rate for a decade and the country is locked in a trade war with the U.S.,” Stadler said. “At the same time Chinese dealers are demanding better terms, which JLR has resisted.”

The cuts will not just be bad news for the Jaguar staff, Stadler said. Thousands more workers in the U.K. are part of Jaguar supply chain to the carmaker — jobs that will now also be at risk.

“Brexit is another factor, with businesses increasingly concerned about the prospect of a ‘no deal’ Brexit, which would mean tighter border controls,” he said. “That would cause massive disruption as the U.K. car manufacturing industry is so closely integrated with Europe.”

Also Thursday, Ford signaled “significant” cuts among its 50,000-strong workforce under plans to make it more competitive. The Dearborn Michigan-based company also said it would shift to more electric models.
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Officials in Davos have authorized a protest by a Socialist youth group against U.S. President Donald Trump and other expected attendees of the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort this month.

Authorities rejected a similar protest request last year when Trump attended the elite event, citing heavy snowfall.

Julia Baumgartner, secretary-general of Switzerland’s Young Socialists, said Thursday that her group was “very excited” about the chance to demonstrate.

Baumgartner said she expected no more than 150 to 200 protesters because the rally falls on a Thursday when people are at work and school. The protest is to show opposition to Trump, freshly inaugurated Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and the wealthy elites gathered in Davos, she said.

Local officials approved Wednesday the Jan. 24 demonstration near City Hall, saying the right to peaceful protest and free expression was important. Officials say the authorization could be reviewed if the security situation or weather conditions change.

Security is heavy during the annual event, which is taking place Jan. 22-25.

It’s unclear if a partial shutdown of the U.S. government over a standoff over funding for Trump’s proposed border wall will complicate his travel to Davos. Last year, a brief government shutdown threatened to derail his trip to Davos too, but he did attend and gave remarks asserting that his “America First” agenda can go hand-in-hand with global cooperation.

 
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