At least seven people had been dead in the Paris fire that occurred in a blaze at a residential building in western Paris on Monday night. Several people are reported to be injured during the accident. The fire broke out in an eight-storied building in the city’s fashionable 16th district.
The firefighters have evacuated the block on Erlanger Street at 3:30 a.m. local time. The seventh and eighth floors were still on fire as of Tuesday morning, when about 200 firefighters were on the scene, the news agency reported, citing the fire service.
Some of the people had scattered on to the nearby roofs to escape from the fire and smoke. About 200 firefighters were positioned at the accident area in order to escape the people trapped at the roofs. The surrounded buildings, which are close to the Eiffel Tower were also evacuated.
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Two skiers from the UK and France feared dead after being hit by an avalanche in Italian Alps. The risk of avalanches in the area was high. Two people each from the UK and France were reported missing on Sunday afternoon. Three dead bodies were found by the searchers. The search for the forth skier is in progress.
According to reports, an alarm has been raised by their friends around noon when the pair failed to arrive at a meeting point. The Italian newspapers said that the skiers were on their last day of holiday.
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Venezuela’s oil economy has almost died due to the US sanction. Now, it relies almost solely on its gold trade for its sustenance. The United Arab Empire, Russia and Turkey are the biggest importers of the Venezuelan gold. Of these three, Turkey’s trade with the socialist Latin American is the one which worries the European Union and the United States the most. It is alleged that the gold reaches Turkey from Venezuela ostensibly for the purpose of refinement is shipped to Iran. The US is of the belief that the network of the Venezuela-Turkey-Iran gold trade is what enables the embattled Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, who is on an ultimatum, to keep the loyalty of his country’s soldiers intact. The west now knows that the best way to topple the aggressive Venezuelan socialist is to cut off his revenue channels. The EU and US’ latest combined attempt to force Turkey to stop its engagements with Venezuela, particularly its gold trade, is regarded as the part of that strategy. The US has reportedly served an ultimatum to Turkey to cease its gold trade with Venezuela.
If Russia and the others does not increase their gold and oil import with Venezuela, Mr Maduro will be toppled as soon as the EU and the US find success in forcing Turkey to withdraw its backup –by all possibility that would not take more than few weeks.
It is not clear from where Iran has come to the picture. There is evidence that Turkey has brought in several tonnes of gold from Venezuela in the name of refinement and none of the imported has been returned. But, there is nothing to assume that what has been imported by Turkey has been exported to Iran. The possibility that Iran has been purposefully brought into the narrative to increase the strength of those against the Venezuelan trade cannot be ruled out blindly.
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The Cardiff City footballer Emiliano Sala was found missing and feared dead in a plane missing issue. The plane carried Sala and the Pilot, David Ibbotson on board. The debris from the plane has been discovered in the English Channel.
The plane, Piper Malibu N264DB was lost on 21 January on its way from Nantes, France, to Cardiff. David Mearns, who led a privately-funded search for the aircraft, said that it was located off Guernsey. “All I will say, is that there is a substantial amount of wreckage on the seabed.” said David. He is a marine explorer who has been working alongside the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).
A search boat located the debris on the seabed of the English Channel at 9:00 am on Sunday, in a search led by David. The Guernsey Police stopped looking for Sala and Ibbotson three days after the incident had reported, with officials saying the chance of them being alive was extremely unlikely.
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Hours after the United States suspended its commitment towards the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty –created during the Cold War era to mark an end to the disastrous nuclear race between the Soviet Union and the West, Russia has walked out of the treaty, widely opening an dangerous opportunity for the re-emergence of another nuclear race –probably as much disturbing as the one the liberal world’s architects managed to put to rest through the treaty several decades ago.
The treaty was originally signed in the year 1987 by Soviet Union Supremo Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan.
Actually, the withdrawal of the US from the Cold War-era treaty was due to a popular assumption that the treaty was meant to serve the interest of the then Soviet Union, not the United States.
Recently, the US found that Russia several times purposefully violated the treaty. At the time of the declaration of its withdrawal, the United States cited what they found to justify its action.
It is clear that Russia is very much worried about the move. The present action of Russia is just retaliatory in nature. From Russia President Vladimir Putin’s statement, it is evident that Russia is ready to relook the policy any time.
Will Russia get a chance to relook depends on how serious the US consider Moscow’s action. If the White House feels that Moscow’s retaliatory action is less worrisome, it will not react in the way Putin expects the US President Donald Trump will.
In reality, Russia’s walkout is less important from the point of view of a US which cares more about its interest and less about the interest of the liberal world, particularly the interest of its heartland (i.e Western Europe).
In that sense, the possibility of Russia being used as a trump card to bring the economically powerful Western Europe to its knees cannot be ruled out.
Will these developments encourage Germany and France to go ahead with their European army plan is the biggest question come out of these sensitive developments.
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The supporters of Venezuela’s opposition will be conducting rallies across the country, supporting the self proclaimed president Juan Guaido and showing their protest against Nicolas Maduro.
“We must all take to the streets of Venezuela and the world with a clear goal: to accompany the ultimatum given by members of the European Union,” said Juan Guaido. Washington has recognized Guaido as the legitimate president and the mobilizations are meant to keep up the pressure. Guido’s supporters hopes to encourage similar moves by other European countries. “We are going to stage the biggest march in the history of Venezuela and our continent,” said Guaido.
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The three major western powers, such as Germany, the UK and France, have established a new payment channel to evade the United States’ economic sanction on the Middle Eastern country of Iran.
The new payment channel, the Instrument for Supporting Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), shares no links with the US-linked payment channels the west presently uses widely.
It is this detachment from the popular payment channels that helps the new channel evade the sanction imposed by the US on Iran.
Iran is one of the most important trading partners of the three major European powers. The countries see the Shia-dominated nation not only as a source of cheap oil but also as a potential market for their goods and services.
It was the US’ belief that Iran involved in the destabilisation of some of its prime allies in the region such as Israel and Saudi Arabia that promoted the world’s most powerful country to impose an economic sanction against the Arab country.
The three important western countries were not in the favour of the sanction. It even urged the US to withdraw the sanction.
The latest move is capable to provoke the US. The US’ present regime is already unhappy with the European powers’ attitude against its long standing demand that the European countries should step up their defence spending to pay justice to their financial obligation to the NATO force.
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“I am happy… to write on your dear land a new page in the relations between religions, confirming that we are brothers although different,” says Pope Francis regarding his upcoming UAE Visit. Pope will be visiting UAE from February 3rd to 5th, to attend an International Interfaith Meeting on ‘Human Fraternity’. According to reports, Pope described the UAE as a “country that is striving to be a model for co-existence, human fraternity, and meeting of faiths and civilisations”.
” True wealth lies not just in material possibilities. The real wealth of a nation is the individuals who hear the sound of their future.” – Pope Francis
Pope Francis becomes the first pope to visit the Arabian peninsula. He thanked Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces for inviting him to the UAE. He also extended his gratitude to the UAE authorities for their excellent cooperation, great hospitality and brotherly welcome.
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Two Paris police officers, have been sent to jail for seven years for gang-raping a Canadian tourist women (39), at a renowned Paris police headquarters in 2014.
Nicolas Redouane (49), and Antoine Quirin (40) are jailed for seven years by a Paris court, three years after the case was put for another trial. The case has got wide media coverage in France and has been debating sexual assault and the Me Too movement.
The victim, is the daughter of a Canadian ex-detective. She said that she was raped by three, in which the third person could not be identified. Medical examinations were carried out for the case, and it showed that she was drunk during the rape. The police officers had always argued about the victim’s statements at the court.
One of the lawyers for the officers claimed that the DNA traces are not able to prove the rape. But a guard on duty told the trial that he had seen the lady afterwards in tears, saying that she had been raped by several officers. Paris prosecutor and Ms Spanton took the case, which was initially thrown out, for re appeal. The two officers will have to pay the victim €20,000 (£17,500; $22,900) in damages.
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The National Assembly of France has cleared a controversial law that bans the wearing of masks at protests. It is perceived as an attempt to reduce violent incidents during street protests. For the last few weeks, France has been witnessing violent street protests. In these protests, the masked protesters have participated in large numbers. It is observed that the majority of those engaged in the unlawful act of public property destruction during these protests have been those covered their faces with masks.
Meanwhile, in the assembly, the manner the French security officials have handled the violence protests organised by the yellow-vest has also invited serious criticism. Recently, a protester has lost one of his eyes when a French official’s attempt to disperse that protester went wrong.
The yellow-vest movement, which originally started as a protest against the issue of fuel price hike, has now transformed into a class struggle between the elite establishment and the rest which is totally detached from the establishment class.
By now, the establishment has understood that the movement cannot be handled in the manner it usually handles a public unrest.
The new developments indicate that the National Assembly is not sure how to handle this situation. A considerable number of lawmakers are neither willing to endorse the government to carry on freely with its cursing mission, not interested to encourage the protesters to destabilise the system.
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