1 Eurozone struggles for a response to Greece (Ian
Traynor in The Guardian) Germany and France have scrambled to avoid a major
split over Greece as the eurozone delivered a damning verdict on Alexis
Tsipras’s landslide referendum victory and Angela Merkel demanded that the
Greek prime minister put down new proposals to break the deadlock.
As concerns mount that Greek banks will run out of
cash, and about the damage being inflicted on the country’s economy, hopes for
a breakthrough faded. EU leaders voiced despair and descended into
recrimination over how to respond to Sunday’s overwhelming rejection of
eurozone austerity terms as the price for keeping Greece in the currency.
Tsipras, meanwhile, moved to insure himself against
purported eurozone plots to topple him and force regime change by engineering a
national consensus of the country’s five mainstream parties behind his
negotiating strategy, focused on securing debt relief. Tsipras also sacrificed
his controversial finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, in what was seen as a
conciliatory signal towards Greece’s creditors.
In Paris, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President
François Hollande tried to plot a common strategy after Greeks returned a
resounding no to five years of eurozone-scripted austerity. The two leaders
were trying to find a joint approach to the growing crisis. But Merkel said
there was no current basis for negotiating with the Greek side and called on
Tsipras to make the next move.
As eurozone leaders prepared for today’s emergency
summit in Brussels, the heads of government were at odds. France, Italy and
Spain are impatient for a deal while Germany, the European Commission and
northern Europe seem content to let Greece stew and allow the euphoria
following Sunday’s vote to give way to the sobering realities of bank closures,
cash shortages and isolation.
2 UK June car sales at record high (BBC) UK new car sales
in the year to June rose at the fastest rate on record, a motor industry survey
has found. The Society of Motoring Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said there
was a 7% rise in new car sales in the first six months of the year, taking the
total to more than 1.3 million.
In June alone, there was a 12.9% surge in car sales
compared with a year ago, amounting to 257,817 sales. About 15% of buyers chose
a UK-manufactured vehicle, the SMMT said. That was the highest level in five
years, it added. However, it said it expected slower growth in the next six
months.
Low interest rates, attractive finance deals and the
launch of new models continued to encourage consumers to buy new cars. SMMT also
reported a strong surge in demand for alternatively fuelled vehicles in June. The
Ford Fiesta remained the top-selling car last month, as it has all year,
selling 12,543 units in June and 71,990 in the year to date.
3 Uber as the way forward (Johannesburg Times) Protests
and legal action against Uber have increased exponentially as the online ride-sharing
service - created in 2010 by two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs frustrated by
existing taxi services - has expanded around the world. Uber is banned in
several countries and faces lawsuits, even prosecution, in others.
In France last week existing taxi operators rioted
in several cities in an effort to force the government to crack down on it. Following
the riots, and the arrests of two Uber executives, the company has suspended
its UberPOP ride-hailing service in France.
Similar protests took place in London in April, and
in just about every city where the app-based service operates it faces threats
or legal trouble. Protests by established taxi operators have also occurred in
Cape Town, South Africa where Uber drivers are struggling to secure provincial
vehicle operating permits timeously and have had their vehicles impounded.
In Johannesburg, protests against Uber turned
violent as metered-taxi drivers harassed their Uber counterparts . Some
passengers were even pulled out of Uber cars and manhandled. And yet, the
reason Uber has expanded, in just five years, to about 300 cities worldwide and
has a valuation of about $50-billion is because millions of passengers find it
cheap, quick, efficient and convenient.
The world is changing and metered-taxi operators
need to change too. Provided that the company is acting lawfully and that its
operators have the requisite permits, it is incumbent on the police and local
authorities to protect Uber's drivers and its passengers.
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