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world news Dialuna 21 Maart 2022

French leftist Melenchon rallies before presidential vote

(AP) — Three weeks be- stumbles of the French So-
fore France’s presidential cialists in recent years.
election, far-left leader
Jean-Luc Melenchon ral- “We are going to win! Me-
lied tens of thousands of lenchon! President!” chanted
supporters Sunday on supporters ahead of a 45-min-
the streets of Paris for his ute speech during which the
biggest campaign event rebellious leftist highlighted
to date — one in which contrasts with Macron, the
he framed himself as the incumbent president who
anti-Emmanuel Macron polls consider the favorite to
candidate. win the vote. The 70-year-
old criticized Macron’s plan
Polling in third or fourth for different teaching meth-
place in the presidential vote, ods in school and backed
Melenchon — who has been lowering the retirement age
known as “Melen-show” for from 62 to 60.
his crowd-attracting rhetoric
— aimed to unite left-leaning Under Macron, it will be, he
supporters after the brutal said, “the end of the repub-

lican school, the end of the ers attended the central Paris right.
one and indivisible French rally.
people,” he claimed. “Vote In 2017, the charismatic Me-
(for me and) you will retire France’s first round of the lenchon failed to reach the
at 60!” presidential election takes presidential runoff, in which
place on April 10, with a Macron beat far-right chal-
Melenchon’s campaign of- presidential runoff on April lenger Marine Le Pen.
ficials said 100,000 support- 24 if no candidate wins out-

Surrogate babies born in Ukraine wait out war in basement

some fresh air but don’t dare Europe, Latin America and
stay out too long. She wor- China.
ries about her own children,
too — both her sons, ages 22 Yashchenko would not say
and 30, are fighting to defend how many parents have come
their country. to get their children, how
many infants are still waiting
Exhaustion is constant. or how many more surrogate
mothers are expected to de-
“We are almost not sleep- liver soon.
ing at all,” Yashchenko said.
“We are working round the While there’s plenty of food
clock.” and baby supplies to care
for their young charges, the
Ukraine has a thriving sur- nurses are left to hope and
rogate industry and is one of wait for the newborns to be
the few countries that allow picked up — just as they wait
the service for foreigners. for the war to end.
These babies’ parents live in

(AP) — At a makeshift even below ground the blasts circle the city.
basement bomb shelter in of occasional shelling can be
Ukraine’s capital, at least heard clearly. “Now we are staying here
20 babies born to surro- to preserve our and the ba-
gate mothers are waiting Many of the surrogacy cen- bies’ lives,” said Lyudmilia
for their foreign parents ter’s nurses are also stranded Yashchenko, a 51-year-old
to be able to travel to the in the shelter because it’s too nurse. “We are hiding here
war-torn country and take dangerous to travel to and from the bombing and this
them home. from their homes. Ukrainian horrible misery.”
troops have been resisting
Some just a few days old, the Russian forces in Kyiv’s sub- Yashchenko said they leave
infants are well cared for, but urbs as they attempt to en- briefly during the day to get