AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -- The possibility of Marine Le Pen winning the French presidential elections is a worrying prospect for the European Union, which needs to be prevented by the French people, Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said on Monday. “I am very worried, I hope that we won’t get Le Pen as French president”, Asselborn said before a meeting with fellow European ministers in Luxembourg. “It would not only be a break away from the core values of the EU, it would totally change its course. The French need to prevent this.”

 

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LONDON (Reuters) -- Russia has made a “massive strategic blunder” as Finland and Sweden look poised to join NATO as early as the summer, The Times reported on Monday, citing officials.  The United States officials said that NATO membership for both Nordic countries was “a topic of conversation and multiple sessions” during talks between the alliance’s foreign ministers last week attended by Sweden and Finland, report added.

 

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SYDNEY (Reuters) -- Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government could lose the federal election to be held on May 21, according to polls on Monday, even as they showed him consolidating his position as the country’s preferred leader on the first day of campaigning. A Newspoll survey conducted for The Australian newspaper showed Morrison gaining a point to 44%, while opposition leader Anthony Albanese falling 3 points to 39%, the largest lead the prime minister has held over his rival since February. But the poll said Morrison’s conservative Liberal-National Party coalition, with a one-seat majority in the lower house of parliament, could lose 10 seats to Albanese’s center-left Labor in a campaign set to focus on cost-of-living pressures, climate change and questions over the major parties’ competence.

 

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) -- Authorities in China’s financial center of Shanghai said they would start lifting lockdown in some areas from Monday, despite reporting more than 25,000 new COVID-19 infections, as they strive to get the city moving again after more than two weeks. Shanghai has classed residential units into three risk categories, to allow those in areas without positive cases for a stretch of two weeks to engage in “appropriate activity” in their neighborhoods, city official Gu Honghui said. That promises relief for some of the city’s 25 million residents, many of whom struggled to find food and medicine after more than three weeks locked down in the battle on China’s biggest outbreak since coronavirus was first discovered in central Wuhan in late 2019. Gu said Shanghai had divided the city into 7,624 areas that are still sealed off, a group of 2,460 now subject to “controls” after a week of no new infections, and 7,565 “prevention areas” that will be opened up after two weeks without a positive case.

 

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JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian police fired tear gas and deployed water cannon on Monday during a protest by students in the capital Jakarta, a Reuters witness said. Students had marched to the parliamentary building to protest against high cooking oil prices and after speculation that President Joko Widodo intended to postpone elections due to take place in 2024 and extend his term. Demonstrations took place in several parts of Indonesia, including South Sulawesi, West Java and the capital Jakarta, where hundreds of students wearing neon jackets marched towards parliament to complain about rising goods costs and the prospect of the president outstaying his two-term limit.

 

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Johannesburg (AFP) -- President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday blasted vigilante groups for harassing migrants in South Africa, likening their behavior to strategies adopted by the apartheid regime to target blacks. Scores of people have been staging demonstrations in recent months against the proliferation of undocumented migrants in the country. Last week a Zimbabwean man was killed and burnt in an apparent mob attack in the northern Johannesburg township of Diepsloot. A small group of vigilantes had gone door-to-door demanding to see people’s identity documents after seven people in the township had been murdered the previous weekend. Angry residents complained that police were not doing enough to stem crime.

 

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ABUJA (Reuters) -- Nigerian vice president Yemi Osinbajo will seek the ruling All Progressives Party (APC) ticket to run for president next February, he said on Twitter on Monday, as he bids to succeed his boss Muhammadu Buhari in Africa’s top oil producer. Political parties in Nigeria should pick presidential candidates by June 3. Official campaigning will begin in September, according to the country’s electoral commission. With Buhari set to step down after serving two four-year terms, the Feb. 23, 2023 ballot is expected to be a hotly contested affair. “I am today, with utmost humility formally declaring my intention to run for the office of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the platform of APC,” Osinbajo said, ending months of speculation.