Russian police try to head off an opposition rally. French socialists advance in Sunday’s election. I’m David DeForest reporting from Washington.
Investors have pushed stock markets across Asia and Europe higher following an agreement by eurozone countries to provide up to $(125) billion to rescue Spain’s ailing banks. Markets in Britain, Germany and France were all up about 2 percent in early trading today. Shares in Spain, led by financial stocks, surged nearly 4 percent. But economic analyst Miguel Murado says the bailout of the Spanish banks may have a temporary benefit.
“In the long-term, though, in the case of Spain, the main worry is the deficit because we have to hit this very difficult, I would say almost impossible, deficit target that has been set by Brussels. If we don’t hit that at the end of this year, we will be again in trouble, because once again there will be talk of Spain becoming (insolvent), there will be again distrust in the markets. That is the main worry in the long-term.”
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Russian police and investigators have raided the houses of several (opposition) leaders on the eve of a planned protest against President Vladimir Putin. The Federal Investigative Committee says the searches targeted the organizers of an anti-Putin rally held last month. They were Alexei Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov and Ilya Yashin. Anna Veduta is a spokeswoman for Alexei Navalny.
“I’m almost sure that they are doing this to prevent us from participating in tomorrow’s action, you know, tomorrow’s event. And I’m sure they are able to do anything to prevent him (from) saying anything there. So, they will ask him to go to officials, to foreign interview or something like that, in order to for him not to speak.”
Opposition leaders are hoping to draw a large crowd for Tuesday’s protest.
French President Francois Hollande’s Socialist party and its allies are on track to win a solid majority in parliament after winning the largest bloc of seats in the first round of (voting) in the country’s lower house of parliament. Lisa Bryant has more.
The France’s left hailed its gains in the first round of legislative voting Sunday. Socialist Party head Martine Aubrey said it signaled a call for change on the part of the country’s electorate. Speaking on TV, Aubrey said the left’s score was much higher than during the last legislative elections in 2007. But she warned that nothing was certain, and urged French to vote in the runoffs next Sunday. UMP head Jean-Francois Cope put a positive spin on the right’s score. He said many French are worried that President Francois Hollande will increase taxes and roll back the fight against (crime). Lisa Bryant for VOA News, Paris.
The U.S. Commerce Department said Secretary John Bryson suffered a seizure which led to two hit-and-run car crashes in Southern California. A department spokeswoman said Bryson was taken to the hospital and remained overnight for observation, and has been released. Los Angeles County officials say the secretary’s car twice struck another (vehicle) at a railroad crossing. Some time later, in the nearby community the vehicle allegedly struck a second car.
NATO says it has agreed to restrict the use of airstrikes in Afghan residential areas that comes following an attack by, that Afghan officials say killed 18 civilians last week.
A tense calm settled over Burma’s western Rakhine state today, as riot police intervened to stop violence between Muslims and Buddhists. Ethnic Rohingya Muslims, speaking to VOA’s Burmese service, described scenes of (devastation) and fear in the border town of Maungdaw. Maung Kyaw Nu is the president of the Rohinya organization in Thailand, and made an appeal to the United Nations.
“Today, I am coming here to express, to hand over the letter to Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations. I would like to, I would like his (intervention), U.N. intervention to save my people who are killing, who are killed. And there, you know, genocide is there.”
In the nearby city in the south, Buddhists voiced fears that security forces deployed in the city were not sufficient to control more than 3,000 Muslims who have flooded there.
I’m David DeForest. More news on the Internet at voanews.com.