France paralyzed by taxi drivers strike – grouse against Uber cabs lead to chaos

There is chaos and mayhem in France as taxi drivers go on strike to protest against the Uber cabs al across France and riot police were involved in running battles with the taxi drivers – Britons have got caught up in the ensuing snarl.
This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 24 June 2015.

Police had to resort to tear gas and baton charges around the major Paris airports due to massive traffic jams that got created during the morning rush hour. Access to the city's ring road was blocked off, along with entrances to Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports.
Clashes have been reported from other cities.
Moreover, burning tyres were put inside tunnels, causing thick black smoke and anyone caught in an Uber taxi had to face the ordeal of saw the vehicle being rocked from side to side or even tipped upside down.
It was a nationwide protest against car-sharing service Uber. The French cabbies are furious at competition from Uber, the rival service based on an increasingly popular app. UberPOP offers the cheapest prices hence regular drivers lose out on customers.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Xenophobia spreads in South Africa - foreign-owned shops looted

#xenophobia #johannesburg #jacobzuma #rubberbullets South Africa is faced with xenophobic attacks as attacks are carried out on foreign-owned shops which have been looted in east Johannesburg. The police are trying to restore law and order by forming a barrier between an angry crowd and the foreign-owned shops.
The crowd began to loot foreign-owned shops in the region and, about 200 foreigners took refuge at a police station while the police resorted to firing tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the looters. They also arrested 12 people. This has been reported in bbc.com dated 17 April 2015.

The violence has come in spite of a rally against xenophobia in the coastal city of Durban, along with condemnation from President Jacob Zuma. So far, at least five people have died in anti-foreigner attacks.
It may be recalled that migrants, mostly from other African states and Asia, have come into South Africa after the end of the white-minority rule in 1994 and many South Africans accuse these so-called outsiders of taking jobs in a country where the unemployment rate is 24%.

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Violence in Missouri – white police shoot dead an unarmed black teenager

This is a report from America, the land of plenty where everyone enjoys equal rights but where racist deaths happen. America is the greatest world power and a land of plenty and, very few countries have the guts to defy Americans. Their NASA sends astronauts to space and Americans also dictate terms to others and are involved in hate crimes. In this highly civilized world, a white policeman had shot to death a black teenager in the city of Ferguson where majority population is black and the police are whites. That death of 18-year-old Michael Brown had set off an unrest, police had to fire tear gas shells and the Governor had to clamp curfew. The death of the teenager enraged the locals and scores of them descended on the scene, about four miles south east of Canfield Drive – the teenager had been shot at least six times by a police officer of Ferguson on August 9. The police had to deploy tear gas and stun grenades in recent nights as peaceful protests turned violent after nightfall. As per the authorities, protesters had hurled bottles and Molotov cocktails at lines of police who had arrived to quell looting and violence in the neighborhood. As a result, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon had to summon the National Guard to try to restore order to Ferguson which is a town of about 21,000 people that is overwhelmingly African-American. It has now been reported in news.sky.com that a man wielding a knife has been shot dead by police in the north St Louis which is located some four miles from Ferguson. The suspect has been identified as a 23-year-old African-American male – he was approached by officers following reports of a robbery in a convenient shop. The report also mentioned of a man who had a knife and was acting erratically.