Monday, April 28, 2025
Time. Topic
10:00 Minister of Labor, Mohammad Haidar, chairs a meeting at his office in the Ministry to continue discussions about the Wage Index Committee on ways to improve salaries and wages for workers in the private sector
10:30. A session of the Committee on Public Health, Labor, and Social Affairs, chaired by MP Bilal Abdullah, will be held at the office building, 5th floor, Room 515
12:00.
Members of the French Senate — Étienne Blanc, Loïc Hervé, and Gisèle Jourda — will hold a meeting with the Lebanese Parliamentary Friendship Committee with the French Senate, chaired by MP Michel Moussa, and the Lebanese Parliamentary Friendship Committee with the French National Assembly, chaired by MP Simon Abi Ramia.
The meeting will be attended by the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Emigrants Committee, MP Fadi Alameh, and will take place at the Human Rights Committee Hall, within the Office Building of Members of Parliament, 2nd Floor, Room 201
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Nahar Net
2 hours ago
- Nahar Net
Tariff threats, wars will slow but not collapse global luxury sales in 2025
by Naharnet Newsdesk 20 June 2025, 15:14 Global sales of personal luxury goods are "slowing down but not collapsing," according to a Bain & Co. consultancy study released Thursday. Personal luxury goods sales that eroded to 364 billion euros ($419 billion) in 2024 are projected to slide by another 2% to 5% this year, the study said, citing threats of U.S. tariffs and geopolitical tensions triggering economic slowdowns. "Still, to be positive in a difficult moment — with three wars, economies slowing down, inequality at a maximum ever — it's not a market in collapse,'' said Bain partner and co-author of the study Claudia D'Arpizio. "It is slowing down but not collapsing." Alongside external headwinds, luxury brands have alienated consumers with an ongoing creativity crisis and sharp price increases, Bain said. Buyers have also been turned off by recent investigations in Italy that revealed that sweatshop conditions in subcontractors making luxury handbags. Sales are slipping sharply in powerhouse markets the United States and China, the study showed. In the U.S., market volatility due to tariffs has discouraged consumer confidence. China has recorded six quarters of contraction on low consumer confidence. The Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia are recording growth. Europe is mostly flat, the study showed. This has created a sharp divergence between brands that continue with strong creative and earnings growth, such as the Prada Group, which posted a 13% first-quarter jump in revenue to 1.34 billion euros, and brands like Gucci, where revenue was down 24% to 1.6 billion euros in the same period. Gucci owner Kering last week hired Italian automotive executive Luca De Meo, the former CEO of Renault, to mount a turnaround. The decision comes as three of its brands — Gucci, Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta — are launching new creative directors. Kering's stock surged 12% on news of the appointment. D'Arpizio underlined his track record, returning French carmaker Renault to profitability and previous roles as marketing director at Volkswagen and Fiat. "All of these factors resonate well together in a market like luxury when you are in a phase where growth is still the name of the game, but you also need to make the company more nimble in terms of costs, and turn around some of the brands,'' she said. Brands are also making changes to minimize the impact of possible U.S. tariffs. These include shipping directly from production sites and not warehouses and reducing stock in stores. With aesthetic changes afoot "stuffing the channels doesn't make a lot of sense,'' D'Arpizio said. Still, many of the headwinds buffering the sector are out of companies' control. "Many of these (negative) aspects are not going to change soon. What can change is more clarity on the tariffs, but I don't think we will stop the wars or the political instability in a few months,'' she said, adding that luxury consumer confidence is tied more closely to stock market trends than geopolitics. President of Italian luxury brand association Altagamma Matteo Lunelli underlined hat the sector recorded overall growth of 28% from 2019-2024, "placing us well above pre-pandemic levels." While luxury spending is sensitive to global turmoil, it is historically quick to rebound, powered by new markets and pent-up demand. The 2008-2009 financial crisis plummeted sales of luxury apparel, handbags and footwear from 161 billion euros to 147 billion euros over two years. The market more than recovered the losses in 2010 as it rebounded by 14%, with an acceleration in the Chinese market. Similarly, after sales plunged by 21% during the pandemic, pent-up spending powered sales to new records.
Nahar Net
2 hours ago
- Nahar Net
NATO summit success in doubt after Spain rejects big hike in defense spending
by Naharnet Newsdesk 20 June 2025, 15:06 The success of a key NATO summit hung in the balance on Friday, after Spain announced that it cannot raise the billions of dollars needed to meet a new defense investment pledge demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump and his NATO counterparts are meeting for two days in the Netherlands from next Tuesday. He insists that U.S. allies should commit to spending at least 5% of gross domestic product, but that requires investment at an unprecedented scale. Trump has cast doubt over whether the U.S. would defend allies that spend too little. Setting the spending goal would be a historic decision. It would see all 32 countries invest the same amount in defense for the first time. Only last week, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte expressed confidence that they would endorse it. But in a letter to Rutte on Thursday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote that "committing to a 5% target would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive." "It would move Spain away from optimal spending and it would hinder the (European Union's) ongoing efforts to strengthen its security and defense ecosystem," Sánchez wrote in the letter, seen by The Associated Press. Spain is not entirely alone Belgium, Canada, France and Italy would also struggle to hike security spending by billions of dollars, but Spain is the only country to officially announce its intentions, making it hard to row back from such a public decision. Beyond his economic challenges, Sánchez has other problems. He relies on small parties to govern, and corruption scandals have ensnared his inner circle and family members. He's under growing pressure to call an early election. In response to the letter, Rutte's office said only that "discussions among allies on a new defense investment plan are ongoing." NATO's top civilian official had been due to table a new proposal on Friday to try to break the deadlock. The U.S. and French envoys had also been due to update reporters about the latest developments ahead of the summit but postponed their briefings. Rutte and many European allies are desperate to resolve the problem by Tuesday so that Trump does not derail the summit, as he did during his first term at NATO headquarters in 2018. Budget boosting After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, NATO allies agreed that 2% of GDP should be the minimum they spend on their military budgets. But NATO's new plans for defending its own territory against outside attack require investment of at least 3%. Spain agreed to those plans in 2023. The 5% goal is made up of two parts. The allies would agree to hike pure defense spending to 3.5% of GDP. A further 1.5% would go to upgrade roads, bridges, ports and airfields so that armies can better deploy, and to prepare societies for future attacks. Mathematically, 3.5 plus 1.5 equals Trump's 5%. But a lot is hiding behind the figures and details of what kinds of things can be included remain cloudy. Countries closest to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine have all agreed to the target, as well as nearby Germany, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, which is hosting the June 24-25 summit. The Netherlands estimates that NATO's defense plans would force it to dedicate at least 3.5% to core defense spending. That means finding an additional 16 billion to 19 billion euros ($18 billion to $22 billion). Supplying arms and ammunition to Ukraine, which Spain does, will also be included as core defense spending. NATO estimates that the U.S. spent around 3.2% of GDP on defense last year. Dual use, making warfighting possible The additional 1.5% spending basket is murkier. Rutte and many members argue that infrastructure used to deploy armies to the front must be included, as well as building up defense industries and preparing citizens for possible attacks. "If a tank is not able to cross a bridge. If our societies are not prepared in case war breaks out for a whole of society approach. If we are not able to really develop the defense industrial base, then the 3.5% is great but you cannot really defend yourselves," Rutte said this month. Spain wanted climate change spending included, but that proposal was rejected. Cyber-security and counter-hybrid warfare investment should also make the cut. Yet with all the conjecture about what might be included, it's difficult to see how Rutte arrived at this 1.5% figure. The when, the how, and a cunning plan It's not enough to agree to spend more money. Many allies haven't yet hit the 2% target, although most will this year, and they had a decade to get there. So an incentive is required. The date of 2032 has been floated as a deadline. That's far shorter than previous NATO targets, but military planners estimate that Russian forces could be capable of launching an attack on an ally within 5-10 years. The U.S. insists that it cannot be an open-ended pledge, and that a decade is too long. Still, Italy says it wants 10 years to hit the 5% target. Another issue is how fast spending should be ramped up. "I have a cunning plan for that," Rutte said. He wants the allies to submit annual plans that lay out how much they intend to increase spending by. The reasons for the spending hike For Europe, Russia's war on Ukraine poses an existential threat. A major rise in sabotage, cyberattacks and GPS jamming incidents is blamed on Moscow. European leaders are girding their citizens for the possibility of more. The United States also insists that China poses a threat. But for European people to back a hike in national defense spending, their governments require acknowledgement that the Kremlin remains NATO's biggest security challenge. The billions required for security will be raised by taxes, going into debt, or shuffling money from other budgets. But it won't be easy for many, as Spain has shown. On top of that, Trump has made things economically tougher by launching a global tariff war — ostensibly for U.S. national security reasons — something America's allies find hard to fathom.
Nahar Net
4 hours ago
- Nahar Net
Israel and Iran launch new strikes even as diplomatic effort gets underway
by Naharnet Newsdesk 20 June 2025, 13:56 Israel and Iran exchanged strikes a week into their war Friday as President Donald Trump weighed U.S. military involvement and new diplomatic efforts got underway. Trump has been weighing whether to attack Iran by striking its well-defended Fordo uranium enrichment facility, which is buried under a mountain and widely considered to be out of reach of all but America's "bunker-buster" bombs. He said he'll decide within two weeks whether the U.S. military will get directly involved in the war given the "substantial chance" for renewed negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi appeared to be en route to Geneva for meetings with the European Union's top diplomat and counterparts from the United Kingdom, France and Germany. A plane with his usual call sign took off from the Turkish city of Van, near the Iranian border, flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24 showed. Iran typically acknowledges his departure hours afterward. Britain's foreign secretary said he met at the White House with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss the potential for a deal that could cool the conflict. Before his flight, Araghchi said on Iranian state television that his country was "not seeking negotiations with anyone" as long as Israel's attacks continued, underscoring the diplomatic challenges ahead. He also accused the U.S. of collaborating with Israel, noting that Trump regularly used "we" in social media posts and interviews talking about the attacks on Iran. "It is the Americans who want talks," he said in comments Thursday that were broadcast Friday. "They've sent messages several times — very serious ones — but we made it explicitly clear to them that as long as this aggression and invasion continue, there is absolutely no room for talk or diplomacy. We are engaged in legitimate self-defense, and this defense will not stop under any circumstances." He added that he expected the Switzerland talks to focus only on Iran's nuclear program, and that Iran's missile capabilities were "for defending the country" and not up for discussion. French President Emmanuel Macron said top European diplomats in Geneva will make a "comprehensive, diplomatic and technical offer of negotiation" to Iran, as a key response to the "threat" represented by Iran's nuclear program. "No one can seriously believe that this threat can be met with (Israel's) current operations alone," he told reporters on the sidelines of the Paris Air Show, saying some plants are heavily fortified and nobody knows exactly where all uranium enrichment is taking place. "We need to regain control on (Iran's nuclear) program through technical expertise and negotiation." Iran had previously agreed to limit its uranium enrichment and allow international inspectors in to its nuclear sites under a 2015 deal with the U.S., France, China, Russia, Britain and Germany in exchange for sanctions relief and other provisions. After Trump pulled the U.S. unilaterally out of the deal during his last term, however, Iran began enriching uranium to higher levels and limiting access to its facilities. Israel says air campaign will target more sites Israel said it conducted airstrikes into Friday morning in Iran with more than 60 aircraft hitting what it said were industrial sites to manufacture missiles. It did not elaborate on the locations. It also said it hit the headquarters of Iran's Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, known by its acronym in Farsi, SPND. The U.S. in the past has linked that agency to alleged Iranian research and testing tied to the possible development of nuclear explosive devices. It also carried out airstrikes targeting the areas around Kermanshah and Tabriz in western Iran, where the military said 25 fighter jets struck "missile storage and launch infrastructure components" Friday morning. There had been reports of anti-aircraft fire in the areas. Iran did not immediately acknowledge the losses, and has not discussed the damage done so far to its military in the weeklong war. "We are strengthening our air control in the region and advancing our air offensive," Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin told reporters. "We have more sites to strike in Tehran, western Iran and other places." Israeli airstrikes also reached into the city of Rasht on the Caspian Sea early Friday, Iranian media reported. The Israeli military had warned the public to flee the area around Rasht's Industrial City, southwest of the city's downtown. But with Iran's internet shut off to the outside world, it's unclear just how many people could see the message. Damage from missiles in southern Israel In Israel, the paramedic service Magen David Adom said Iranian missiles struck a residential area in southern Israel causing damage to buildings, including one six-story building. They have provided medical treatment to five people with minor injuries such as bruises, smoke inhalation, and anxiety, it said. This comes a day after at least 80 patients and medical workers were wounded in a strike on the Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Beersheba. On Thursday, Israel's defense minister threatened Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after the Iranian missile crashed into the hospital. Israel's military "has been instructed and knows that in order to achieve all of its goals, this man absolutely should not continue to exist," Defense Minister Israel Katz said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he trusted that Trump would "do what's best for America." Speaking from the rubble and shattered glass around the hospital, he added: "I can tell you that they're already helping a lot." The war between Israel and Iran erupted June 13, with Israeli airstrikes targeting nuclear and military sites, top generals and nuclear scientists. At least 657 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 2,000 wounded, according to a Washington-based Iranian human rights group. Iran has retaliated by firing 450 missiles and 1,000 drones at Israel, according to Israeli army estimates. Most have been shot down by Israel's multitiered air defenses, but at least 24 people in Israel have been killed and hundreds wounded. Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. But it is the only non-nuclear-weapon state to enrich uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Israel is widely believed to be the only Middle Eastern country with a nuclear weapons program but has never acknowledged it. The Israeli air campaign has targeted Iran's enrichment site at Natanz, centrifuge workshops around Tehran, a nuclear site in Isfahan and what the army assesses to be most of Iran's ballistic missile launchers. The destruction of those launchers has contributed to the steady decline in Iranian attacks since the start of the conflict.
