Staffing shortages of about 10 per cent persist in all-day schools in primary and secondary education, MPs heard at the House education committee on Wednesday.

Committee chairman and Diko MP Chrysanthos Savvides said the scheme began in 1999 with nine school units and now covers 383, with participation having risen from 7,000 pupils to 18,000.

“Something right is being done” by the education ministry, he said, but urged that the staffing gap “should be eliminated by next year”.

A new list of appointees has been created for the schools in the hope of easing the problem.

He said technical and vocational schools had shown interest but had no units available.

Akel MP Christos Christofides said the ministry should now make sure all-day schools open on the first day of term and that teachers know their postings by the end of summer.

“It is not possible for parents who planned to take their children to all-day schools to not know what to do with them for about a month,” he said.

Late hiring was pulling teachers from full-time schools and from private schools, which had reported closing classes when staff left mid-year.

Disy MP Prodromos Alampritis said steps had been taken “in the right direction”, with the optional schools now opening a week earlier.

Ninety teacher positions in optional all-day schools had still not been requested. He said teachers should be told by June where they will work in September, and proposed converting most contracts to 29 hours “so that they are more attractive to teachers”.

Elam MP Sotiris Ioannou, whose party registered the issue, said parents were entitled to “a more substantial and supportive approach” from the state.

He said a child’s right to withdraw from the programme, for tutoring or sport, should be respected, and that its optional nature should not stop the search for solutions so that children do not leave.

France imposed scattered curfews on Monday after weekend protests over living costs and poor school conditions devolved into riots.

© Jeff Pachoud/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Student demonstrations converged on Saturday with a broader protest movement against rising living costs, heightening a national reckoning.

© Abdul Saboor/Reuters

A poor sugarcane crop in India, the world’s second-largest producer, is hurting consumers and farmers — plus undermining the country’s energy security goals.

The Iran conflict has exposed a glaring blind spot in US war strategy. America can escalate in hours, but it can take years to rebuild the arsenal it consumes. Washington has begun addressing the arms-replenishment problem, a calculation it should have made before escalating. The Pentagon’s recent awards reflect the intensity of the challenge. In […]

The post Iran war-depleted arsenal making US a less potent power appeared first on Asia Times.

Brent crude retreated on Friday after President Donald Trump signalled a pause in further attacks on Iran, but European governments remain concerned about diesel supplies, refining capacity and the continuing disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

European fuel markets remained under pressure on Friday, 9 October, despite a decline in international oil prices following comments by President Donald Trump suggesting that Washington would refrain from further military strikes against Iran before the November midterm elections.

Brent crude fell by $1.37 to $102.91 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate declined by $1.09 to $90.40. The retreat reflected expectations of renewed diplomatic negotiations with Tehran, although oil prices remained considerably higher than before the disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

According to the latest oil-market developments, Iran is examining an American proposal that could allow the strategic waterway to reopen within a week. There is, however, no confirmed agreement on restoring maritime traffic.

For the European Union, the immediate concern extends beyond crude oil prices. A prolonged shortage of refined petroleum products, particularly diesel and aviation fuel, is threatening to increase costs across transport, agriculture, manufacturing and logistics.

Brussels Coordinates Emergency Measures

The European Commission has already established a closer system of coordination with member states and the International Energy Agency to address the pressure on fuel markets.

At an Energy Union Task Force meeting on 2 October, officials confirmed that European diesel supplies remained stable, although prices continued to reflect severe constraints in global markets.

The Commission’s assessment distinguished between the physical availability of fuel and the cost of obtaining it. European refineries have maintained high production levels, while importers have sought alternative suppliers to replace disrupted shipments from the Middle East.

A further assessment of European oil supplies published on 29 September found that refineries were operating close to maximum capacity and that stocks in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp trading hub remained below their five-year average.

Although emergency reserves remained available, officials warned that continuing disruption could place additional pressure on the market during autumn and winter.

The next scheduled meeting of the EU Oil Coordination Group is 15 October, although the Commission has indicated that it could convene an earlier meeting if conditions deteriorate.

G7 Plans Major Release of Emergency Stocks

The international response has moved beyond the coordination of existing reserves.

On 2 October, G7 leaders agreed to implement a coordinated release of 100 million barrels through the International Energy Agency framework over four months.

The agreement includes an accelerated release of diesel during the first 20 days, reflecting the difficulties facing markets for refined fuel.

The G7 also called for improved coordination of refinery maintenance schedules and higher utilisation rates where possible, to prevent temporary shutdowns from aggravating shortages.

These measures follow an earlier international commitment, announced in March, to make approximately 400 million barrels of oil available to the market.

Questions remain over how the October measures will be accounted for alongside the March commitments. During a Commission briefing on 7 October, officials said that the International Energy Agency would oversee the process and that Brussels would seek a coordinated European position.

The Commission did not provide figures showing how much oil individual EU countries had released.

European Transport and Industry Face Higher Costs

Diesel has become particularly important to the European response because it remains central to commercial road transport, agricultural machinery and parts of the industrial economy.

Even when crude oil prices fall, the price of diesel may remain elevated if refining capacity is constrained or supplies of finished products are insufficient.

European refiners cannot automatically compensate for shortages elsewhere. Their capacity depends on crude oil availability, technical configurations, maintenance schedules and the profitability of different refined products.

The situation also complicates efforts to contain inflation. Higher freight charges eventually affect the cost of food, construction materials and other goods transported across the European single market.

Member states are therefore considering how to protect vulnerable consumers without introducing measures that would distort fuel distribution or encourage additional consumption.

The Commission has not declared a general shortage of diesel within the EU, and the available evidence does not support suggestions that European fuel supplies are close to exhaustion.

Nevertheless, the current pressure demonstrates the limits of relying on emergency reserves when disruption affects both international shipping and the refining system.

Strait of Hormuz Remains Central

The prospect of diplomatic progress between Washington and Tehran provided some relief to markets on Friday.

However, the physical restoration of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz will depend on security conditions, commercial insurance arrangements and the willingness of shipping companies to resume normal operations.

Oil prices may respond immediately to political statements, but restoring established supply routes and rebuilding commercial confidence can take considerably longer.

For European governments, the forthcoming decisions will concern the management of emergency stocks, refinery production and the costs imposed on consumers and businesses.

Even if negotiations between the United States and Iran produce a temporary reduction in hostilities, the European diesel market will remain exposed until the disruption to international energy trade is substantially reduced.

On March 28, 2025 a rollout ceremony took place at Lockheed Martin’s F-16 production facility in Greenville, South Carolina. Two F16V block 70 jets were ready for final testing, and the ceremony marked the formal handover to Taiwan. The Greenville ceremony was attended by Taiwan’s Defense Minister and by Taiwan’s US representative. Taiwan does not […]

The post The politics limiting US arms deliveries to Taiwan appeared first on Asia Times.

The European Parliament has backed calls for an EU-wide strategy to tackle worsening shortages of healthcare professionals, including an ambition to increase the health workforce by one million, as doctors, nurses, pharmacists and dentists urged the European Commission to turn the recommendations into concrete action.

The own-initiative report, led by MEPs Loucas Fourlas (EPP, Cyprus) and Ruggero Razza (ECR, Italy), warns that shortages of doctors, nurses, carers and other professionals are becoming structural, driven by ageing populations, rising demand for care and persistent burnout...

Executive Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu presents Fair Labour Mobility package © European Union

The European Commission has unveiled what it calls an ambitious “Fair Labour Mobility” package aimed at making it easier for people to work across EU borders while strengthening protections against exploitation and fraud.

The proposals would allow workers to prove social security and health insurance entitlements digitally and make qualifications easier to understand and recognize. The Commission estimates the measures could generate €6 billion in benefits by 2040.

Central to the package is a European Social Security Pass, or ESSPASS, enabling people to request and receive documents such as the European Health Insurance Card and the A1 certificate for posted workers online. Documents could be stored in the EU Digital Identity Wallet and verified by national authorities.

Brussels is also proposing faster recognition of professional qualifications. Procedures for regulated professions, including doctors and nurses, with the aim of reducing the target processing time from three months to five weeks.

Recognition of qualifications obtained outside the EU would also be streamlined, with common standards intended to cut average processing times from 14 months to four months.

The European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN) has welcomed the Commission’s plans for recognising qualifications from outside the EU, arguing that they bring greater transparency to a labour market already heavily reliant on internationally recruited healthcare professionals.

EFN Secretary General Paul De Raeve said recruitment from third countries was already well established and frequently organised through bilateral arrangements between governments. Denmark, he noted, has gone considerably further, establishing a school in Delhi to prepare Indian nurses for work in Denmark, including Danish-language training.

“This is going on,” De Raeve said, arguing that international mobility cannot simply be prevented when European health systems need staff and qualified professionals want to move. In the short term, he said, overseas recruitment is also difficult to avoid given that educating a nurse takes around four years.

For De Raeve, an important improvement in the Commission proposal is therefore not simply facilitating recruitment, but putting it within a clearer European framework. The proposed directive would establish common rules for recognising qualifications obtained outside the EU, including aligned documentation requirements.

It would also provide stronger mechanisms for checking whether qualifications are genuine and meet European standards. Training programmes and institutions seeking access to automatic recognition would undergo EU-level assessment, potentially including independent review, site visits and direct examination of training environments.

De Raeve particularly welcomed this approach, pointing to the risks of fraud in diploma accreditation. Having universities and training institutions formally assessed and certified would give regulators and employers greater confidence that somebody arriving with a qualification has been trained by a legitimate institution to an appropriate standard.

He also welcomed plans to reduce administrative delays for individual professionals.

For nursing, De Raeve argued, faster recognition and stronger verification could help Europe recruit internationally without lowering professional standards, while replacing opaque bilateral arrangements with more consistent EU-level rules.

The proposals still require approval by the European Parliament and EU governments. Key measures would then be phased in over several years, with improvements to the Labour Authority expected during 2028–2030.