Headline

King Charles III’s Visit To France Postponed Over Unrest

Published

1 year ago

March 24, 2023

Editor

Violent protests against pensions reform in France led to the postponement Friday of King Charles III’s trip to the country, highlighting the growing security and political problems faced by President Emmanuel Macron.

The French president has condemned the violence overnight, but the Council of Europe has criticised the “excessive use of force” by some police officers during recent demonstrations.

Charles’ first foreign trip as monarch had been intended to highlight warming Franco-British relations. Instead, it has underlined the severity of demonstrations engulfing Britain’s neighbour.

Macron asked for the postponement during talks on Friday morning, a UK government spokesperson said, the change blamed on a call for fresh strikes next Tuesday on the second day of the king’s tour.

The decision to postpone was made “in order to be able to welcome His Majesty King Charles III in conditions which reflect our friendly relations”, Macron’s office said.

Police arrested more than 450 people on Thursday, according to interior ministry figures. In addition, 441 members of the security forces were injured during the most violent day of protests since the start of the year against Macron’s bid to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

More than 900 fires were lit around Paris, with radical anarchist groups blamed for setting uncollected rubbish ablaze and smashing shop windows, leading to frequent clashes with riot police.

But rights groups, magistrates and left-wing politicians have also denounced alleged police brutality in recent days.

And the Council of Europe — the continent’s leading human rights watchdog — on Friday warned that sporadic acts of violence “cannot justify excessive use of force by agents of the state” or “deprive peaceful protesters of their right to freedom of assembly”.

– Over a million –
In southwestern Bordeaux, protesters on Thursday set fire to the ancient wooden entrance to city hall. Charles III had been set to visit the city on Tuesday, after a day in Paris.

Some Parisians felt the cancellation would avoid further embarrassment for France, with the streets of the capital strewn with rubbish because of a strike by waste collectors and protesters threatening to disrupt the royal visit.

“It would be a wiser decision for him to come in a little while so that we avoid a disaster,” Annick Siguret, a retiree in her 60s, told AFP near overflowing bins and a vandalised bank in the capital.

The second leg of Charles’ European tour — to Germany — is expected to proceed as scheduled on Wednesday.

More than a million people marched in France on Thursday, the protest movement reinvigorated by Macron’s tactics and statements over the last week.

Uproar over the legislation to change the retirement age — which Macron pushed through parliament without a vote last week — has created another huge domestic crisis for the president just 10 months into his second term in office.

“I condemn the violence and offer my full support to the security forces who worked in an exemplary manner,” Macron told reporters Friday during a trip to Brussels.

Macron’s decision to force the legislation through parliament and his refusal to back down in a television interview on Wednesday appeared to have energised many opponents on Thursday.

– Trash –
Commentators are questioning how the crisis will end, just four years after the “Yellow Vest” anti-government demonstrations rocked the country.

“No one knows where the way out lies,” political scientist Bastien Francois from the Sorbonne University in Paris told AFP.

“Everything depends on one man who is a prisoner of the political situation.”

The leader of the moderate CFDT union, Laurent Berger, said Friday he had spoken to an aide to the president and suggested a pause on implementing the pensions law for six months.

“It’s the moment to say ‘listen, let’s put things on pause, let’s wait six months’,” Berger told RTL radio. “It would calm things down.”

Piles of partially burnt rubbish littered the streets of Paris on Friday, while blockades of oil refineries by striking workers are beginning to create fuel shortages around the country.

The ministry of energy transition on Thursday warned that kerosene supply to the capital and its airports was becoming “critical”.

More flights have been cancelled until at least Wednesday at airports around the country due to a strike by air traffic controllers.

AFP

Headline

400 Bodies Found In Mass Grave In Gaza Hospital

Published

20 hours ago

April 28, 2024

Editor

The government in Gaza have concluded their search of mass graves at a hospital in the south of the strip and said they have uncovered a total of 392 bodies, including some still wearing surgical gowns.

Speaking at a Thursday news conference at Rafah, on April 25, an official from the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza said workers have identified 165 bodies at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area earlier this month.

According to Mohammed Al Mighayyer, they are still examining the remaining 227 bodies to determine their identities.

“We found three mass graves, the first in front of the morgue, the second behind the morgue, and the third north of the dialysis building,” he added.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said any suggestion that it had buried Palestinian bodies in mass graves was false, and that a grave at the Nasser complex was dug by Palestinians in Gaza some months ago.

The Gaza Civil Defense acknowledged that around 100 bodies were buried in graves at the Nasser hospital before the IDF operation there.

CNN reports that people had buried the bodies of family members who had been killed on the grounds of the hospital as a temporary measure in January but when they returned after the Israeli military withdrew on April 7, they discovered the bodies had been dug up and then placed in at least one collective grave, not all in the initial spots they were buried in.

The Palestinian Civil Defense also showed graphic images on a TV screen at the news conference showing several almost unrecognizable bodies at the complex and bodies of decomposed children.

Al Mighayyer said the Civil Defense “witnessed the presence of children’s bodies in the mass graves at the Nasser Medical Complex, which proves crimes of genocide.” While the group says it is still examining the bodies, they suspect at least 20 civilians were buried alive in the complex, but it did not explain how it knows this, or offer proof.

Al Mighayyer also claimed there had been cases of executions of patients who had been receiving treatment at the hospital. He said several bodies were found with gunshot wounds to their heads and injuries to their bodies.

Al Mighayyer said at the news conference that the Palestinian Gaza Civil Defense in Gaza “discovered torture marks on [some] bodies.” CNN cannot independently verify these claims.

“Israeli forces buried several bodies in plastic bags at a depth of three meters, which made them decompose quickly.”

“The occupation deliberately concealed evidence of its crimes in the Nasser Complex by changing the plastic shrouds more than once,” he claimed. Video recorded by CNN shows bodies wrapped in three different coloured shrouds: white, black and blue.

Amnesty International has also called for an investigation into the mass graves at the two Gaza hospitals.

I’m response, the Israeli Defense Forces, IDF said:“During the IDF’s operation in the area of Nasser Hospital, in accordance with the effort to locate hostages and missing persons, corpses buried by Palestinians in the area of Nasser Hospital were examined. The examination was conducted in a careful manner and exclusively in places where intelligence indicated the possible presence of hostages.”

The IDF continued: “At the end of February, IDF forces conducted a precise and targeted operation against the terrorist organization Hamas in the Nasser Hospital area. During the operation, about 200 terrorists who were in the hospital were apprehended, medicines intended for Israeli hostages were found undelivered and unused, and a great deal of ammunition was confiscated. The activity was done in a targeted manner and without harming the hospital, the patients and the medical staff.”

Headline

Watch Of Richest Titanic Passenger Sells For £1.17m

Published

22 hours ago

April 27, 2024

Editor

A gold watch found on the body of the richest passenger on the Titanic was auctioned in England for £1.17 million ($1.46 million) on Saturday.

It was a record sum for an object linked to the notorious 1912 shipping disaster, said auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son.

A US buyer won the bidding war, smashing the auctioneer’s pre-sale estimate of between £100,000 and £150,000.

The watch, engraved with the initials JJA, belonged to the US business magnate John Jacob Astor.

Astor was 47 when he died as the Titanic sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912. He was reputed to be one of the richest men in the world at the time.

He died after having helped his wife, Madeleine, on board one of the lifeboats. She survived the disaster.

Astor’s body was found a week after the disaster, with the watch among his personal belongings.

“The watch itself was completely restored after being returned to Colonel Astor’s family and worn by his son,” said a statement from the auction house.

Headline

Popular Iraqi TikToker Umm Fahad Gunned Down Outside Baghdad Home

Published

22 hours ago

April 27, 2024

Editor

Popular Iraqi social media star Ghufran Sawadi, better known as Umm Fahad, was shot dead outside her home in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, on Friday night.

According to CNN, a Baghdad police source disclosed that the attack occurred in the Zayouna area east of Baghdad.

The source added that the tragic incident was captured on video by a surveillance camera and shared on social media.

The video showed a gunman riding a motorcycle shooting and killing Sawadi on the spot. A Baghdad police source confirmed the authenticity of the video to CNN.

The country’s Interior Minister announced on Friday that it was “forming a specialized work team to find out the circumstances of the killing of a woman known on social media by unknown assailants.”

Sawadi was popular on TikTok, where she shared videos of herself dancing to pop music in form-fitting clothes. In the past, these videos were deemed inappropriate by Iraq’s judiciary.

Sawadi was sentenced to six months in prison for “the crime of producing and publishing several films and videos containing obscene and indecent language, violating public decency and morals,” an Iraqi judiciary statement said.

Other Iraqi social media personalities have previously been targeted in deadly attacks.

Most recently, another popular Iraqi TikTok personality, Noor Alsaffar, known as Noor BM, was shot dead in Baghdad in September 2023, an Iraqi security source told CNN at the time.

Alsaffar, who had over 370,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok, posted short videos about fashion, hair, and makeup, also often dancing to music.

Following news of the shooting, many posted comments lamenting Alsaffar’s death, though others applauded it, celebrating the man who fired the shot.

Alsaffar’s killing came as Iraq cracked down on LGBTQ expression and moved to criminalize it in law.