Six Americans, one Czech and one French citizen killed and only survivor in critical state
A helicopter carrying members of a multinational peacekeeping force has crashed near Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, killing six Americans, a Czech and a French citizen.
The US-led Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) said in a statement that all but one of the nine people onboard were killed when the aircraft went down “during a routine operation”.
Continue reading...Helga Wauters imprisoned for three years and banned from practising after death of Xynthia Hawke
An alcoholic anaesthetist who botched an emergency caesarean operation leaving a young British mother dead has been sentenced to three years in prison and banned from practising medicine.
Helga Wauters, 51, was found guilty of manslaughter after pushing a breathing tube into 28-year-old Xynthia Hawke’s oesophagus instead of her windpipe. Even after Hawke cried out in pain, vomited, turned blue and went into cardiac arrest, the anaesthetist, who admitted she had an alcohol problem and had been drinking since early morning on the day of the operation, failed to react.
Continue reading...Didier Raoult stands accused of touting drug as a coronavirus treatment without evidence
A French professor who touts the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment – without evidence, scientists say – will appear before a disciplinary panel charged with ethics breaches, an order of doctors has said.
Marseille-based Didier Raoult stands accused by his peers of spreading false information about the benefits of the drug. His promotion of hydroxychloroquine was taken up by the US and Brazilian presidents, Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, who trumpeted its unproven benefits in a way critics say put people’s lives at risk.
Continue reading...France condemns ‘cowardly attack’ at Jeddah ceremony for foreign diplomatic staff
Several people have been wounded in an explosion in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah during a ceremony to commemorate the end of the first world war attended by staff from foreign diplomatic missions, officials have said.
“The embassies involved condemn this cowardly attack, which is wholly unjustified,” the French foreign ministry said. “They call on the Saudi authorities to shed as much light as they can on this attack, and to identify and hunt down the perpetrators.”
Continue reading...Portugal imposes state of emergency; global cases pass 50m; infections in Germany ‘levelling off’
Hungary and Portugal have become the latest countries in Europe to impose tough new restrictions to stem the second wave of the coronavirus, as the first signs of light at the end of the tunnel emerged in France, Germany and Belgium.
As the US pharmaceuticals company Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, said their experimental Covid-19 vaccine appeared safe and more than 90% effective, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, announced a partial lockdown.
Continue reading...Journalists call for removal of clause that would ban footage disseminated ‘with intent to harm’ officers
A proposed bill in France that would make it illegal to disseminate photographs or videos identifying police and gendarmes “with intent to harm” is a danger to press freedom, critics have warned.
The measure comes amid growing concern about allegations of police violence in the country. It is outlined in draft global security legislation to be presented to the Assemblée Nationale next week.
Continue reading...Tiny capsule discovered in Ingersheim appears to have been sent by a soldier during the first world war
A couple out for a walk in eastern France have discovered a tiny capsule containing a message despatched by a Prussian soldier over a century ago using a carrier pigeon.
The message from an infantry soldier based at Ingersheim, written in German in a barely legible hand, detailed military manoeuvres apparently during the first world war and was addressed to a superior officer, said Dominique Jardy, curator of the Linge Museum at Orbey in eastern France.
Continue reading...US close to 10m cases, with India second on 8.5m cases, followed by Brazil and Russia
The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has passed 50 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which showed that the US, India and Brazil have the highest figures.
A total of 50,052,204 infections had been reported around the world by Sunday evening.
Continue reading...Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping stay silent while Iran waits to see how US will compensate for Trump sanctions
Most world leaders rushed to congratulate Joe Biden on his election, but Russia and China, two likely losers from the defeat of Donald Trump, remained silent, perhaps waiting for the outgoing president to concede defeat.
The president of the Maldives, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, is thought to be the first to have congratulated Biden, tweeting his welcome within 24 minutes of the US networks declaring Biden victorious. By contrast, Vladimir Putin, accused of collusion in Trump’s 2016 victory, and Xi Jinping kept their counsel.
Continue reading...Economic fallout of pandemic makes prospect of third world war ‘a risk’; Covid-related deaths in France exceeds 40,000 for the first time; number of cases in Germany increases by 16,017
Lovely reporting from my colleague Lorenzo Tondo in Roccafiorita in Sicily:
When the mayor of Roccafiorita received a phone call in October informing him that an employee in his office had tested positive for Covid-19, his heart sank.
When the phone rang, it was like lightning on a sunny day. With this second wave on its way, for a second I thought that we might actually be wiped off the map.
Related: 'Wiped off the map': tiny Italian villages cower from Covid threat
As Joe Biden announced he would name his own coronavirus taskforce on Monday, the US recorded its fourth consecutive record daily total of new Covid cases, close to 130,000.
“That plan will be built on a bedrock of science,” Biden said, promising to “spare no effort or commitment to turn this pandemic around.”
We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation. All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.
Related: US posts fourth consecutive daily Covid record as Joe Biden prepares taskforce
Continue reading...The 47-year-old woman has been admitted to hospital with shock after discovering the loss of bags, watches and furs
Thieves have taken worth hundreds of thousands of euros of high-end goods from the Paris home of a Saudi princess, a source close to the case has said.
The 47-year-old princess, who had not set foot in the apartment since August, discovered on returning that bags, watches, jewellery and furs worth some €600,000 (£540,000) were missing.
Continue reading...The president must demonstrate that the secular state – with a subtle dose of multiculturalism – works for them
As a dual citizen of France and Canada, I never cease to be amazed by the depth of misunderstanding there is about French attitudes to religion. France’s shortcomings in its management of diversity are obvious – as are everyone else’s – but it is important to recognise some basic facts before pronouncing on them.
The first is that the principle of laïcité in France – the country’s particular brand of secularism – is more than posturing: it is a lived, sociological fact.
Continue reading...English-language bookshop asks customers for support as France enters new lockdown
Continue reading...Move comes amid backlash over president’s views on secularism and freedom of expression
France is looking at appointing a special envoy to explain Emmanuel Macron’s thinking on secularism and freedom of expression in a bid to quell the anti-French backlash growing in some Muslim countries, officials have said.
The growth in anti-French sentiment also has the potential to deepen the already entrenched conflict between Macron and Turkey over Libya and oil exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.
Continue reading...Arrest of Félicien Kabuga in Paris has energised search for others accused of playing role in 1994 genocide
No one paid much attention to the stooped old man who lived in the third-floor apartment of the comfortable but unexceptional block in Asnières-sur-Seine, a suburb on the outskirts of Paris. He shuffled off for his daily walks, and muttered inaudibly to those who greeted him.
Then one morning in late May, 84-year-old Félicien Kabuga’s neighbours woke up to the startling news that they had been living next to an alleged mass killer.
Continue reading...The country should be rich, but millions live in dire poverty. France must stop supporting the president and his electoral ploys
On 6 December, Africa’s oldest serving leader, Paul Biya, and his ruling party, Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC), will be declared the winner of the country’s first ever regional elections.
That much is clear, and is expected inside and outside of the west African country – Biya has misruled with an iron fist for nearly 40 years. But the question we should be asking, but as yet have not, is what this means for Cameroon’s 25 million people. In my view the answer is more poverty, more violence, more corruption and more suffering. This should compel us all to act.
Continue reading...The drowning of a family of five in the Channel and a fire on a ship off the coast of Senegal should prompt action – ‘thoughts and prayers’ are not enough
“We don’t see migration as a problem at all: we see people dying at sea as a problem and the existence of the mafias as a problem.” Such was the view expressed last week by Hana Jalloul, secretary of state for migration in Spain. Days earlier, more than 140 people had died off the coast of Senegal, after their ship caught fire and capsized, in the deadliest shipwreck recorded this year. Ms Jalloul spoke of efforts to support the regional government of the Canary Islands, which is struggling to cope with the number of arrivals, and stressed her determination to combat organised crime. She also pointed to migrants’ crucial role in Spanish life, including as care workers during the pandemic.
British politicians could profit from studying her example in the aftermath of the drowning of a family of four Kurdish Iranians in the Channel. (A fifth member of the same family, aged 15 months, is missing and presumed dead.) Reports of the deaths of Rasul Iran Nezhad, Shiva Mohammad Panahi and their children drew forth platitudes from the home secretary, Priti Patel, about “thoughts and prayers”. But nothing said by her or Boris Johnson did anything to dispel the impression that their attitude to people trying to reach the UK to seek asylum is chiefly antagonistic. While Ms Patel repeated her opposition to “callous criminals exploiting vulnerable people”, there was no serious attempt to sympathise with the migrants’ desperation – or acknowledge that their reliance on smugglers is a matter not of accident but of political choice.
Continue reading...Total of six people taken in for questioning over knife attack at basilica that killed three
French police investigating the terrorist attack in Nice have arrested three more men, bringing the number of people taken in for questioning to six.
A 29-year-old Tunisian man was arrested on Saturday in Grasse, and two other men aged 63 and 25 were later taken in for questioning from the same address. They join two men aged 33 and 35 picked up on Saturday and a 47-year-old who has been held since Thursday.
Continue reading...Police seal off area and make an arrest after Greek Orthodox cleric is seriously hurt in Lyon shotgun attack
French police were hunting a gunman who shot and seriously injured a Greek Orthodox priest in the city of Lyon yesterday afternoon.
The latest attack came two days after a terrorist killed three people at a church in Nice and two weeks after the beheading of a high school teacher.
Continue reading...Greek Orthodox priest was left with life-threatening injuries
Police have arrested a suspect after a gunman shot and seriously injured a Greek Orthodox priest in the French city of Lyon, local media have reported.
The priest, named by French media as Nikolaos Kakavelakis, was shot at twice and seriously injured in the stomach at about 4pm local time on Saturday as he was closing the church in the city’s seventh arrondissement, police said.
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