Court upholds employees complaint on English
GRENOBLE, France: A French court ruled Friday in favor of employees of food industry group Danone who sued their employer for imposing an English-language computer program. The court in Vienne in southeastern France agreed that a 1994 law outlining the “obligatory use of the French language” had to be upheld in the factory. The CGT union, the workplace health, security and hygiene committee and the works council had filed a complaint after the management at the unit in Saint-Just-Chaleyss introduced the English-language management program last year. “We are very happy, we launched a difficult fight but finally we were right,” said CGT official Mario Pisanu. “It was a real barrier for employees who do not speak this language and a form of discrimination,” he added. Danone, which was given six months to provide a French version of the program or face a fine of 1,000 euros per day, said it would appeal. Terming it a “regrettable decision,” the head of the unit Denis Hernant said that things there were “working perfectly well until now.”
Jordan TV show produces torrent of insults
AMMAN: A live television talk show in Jordan produced a torrent of insults, a shoe flying across the studio and a pistol being whipped out, as the host desperately tried to keep two rival politicians apart. The show on private satellite channel Jo Sat, aired on Friday, started to spin out of control after MP Mohammad Shawabka accused former deputy Mansur Murad of working as a spy for the Syrian regime. The charge led to a sharp exchange of insults and accusations. “You are a spy in the pay of the Syrian regime,” insisted Shawabka, only to be accused by Murad of being “spy in the pay of (Israel’s secret service) Mossad and a thief.” The MP hurled his shoe as his accuser threatened him with a pistol as both men jumped out of their seats, with the moderator scrambling between the men close up in front of the camera to keep tempers from flaring into all-out violence. Jordan, where activists have been staging pro-reform and anti-corruption demonstrations, has also been the scene of several anti-Damascus protests since the outbreak of the March 2011 revolt in neighboring Syria.
German metal band front man ‘hates’ noise
BERLIN: The lead singer of German metal band Rammstein says he “hates noise” and likes to withdraw to the country to listen to the “phenomenal” sounds of nature, in an interview published Friday. Till Lindemann, 49, who fronts the hard rock group whose lyrics have at times proved controversial, said that when bustling Berlin gets him down, he goes to his village in northern Germany to be with family and friends. “I hate noise. I hate chatter. When I expose myself to that, it is sheer masochism. And so I have to protect myself from it. Noise drives you nuts. It kills you,” he told the magazine supplement of Friday’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung. “I fish. I hunt. I gaze at the lake. I sleep at night in the woods and observe. I listen to nature. Phenomenal, what you hear at night in the woods. It’s indescribably lovely,” he added. In 2009 German authorities banned the sale of Rammstein’s album to fans under 18 for what they deemed explicit sadomasochist lyrics. The band, which formed in 1994 and takes its name from Ramstein, the site of a 1988 air crash, did a song about Armin Meiwes, a German man dubbed the “cannibal of Rotenburg” jailed in 2006 for killing and eating a willing victim.
— Compiled from agencies
