© Twitter / @marxdorm
Two apartments were completely destroyed. According to firefighters, a woman has suffered burns on 20% of her body, but she is in stable condition. A man was also slightly injured.
Society's Child
Two apartments were completely destroyed. According to firefighters, a woman has suffered burns on 20% of her body, but she is in stable condition. A man was also slightly injured.
The blaze didn’t cause significant damage, but it did endanger a part of the worship site that’s over 2,000 years old.
A fire broke out at the roof of a structure known as Al Marwani prayer room in Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
The blaze didn't cause significant damage, but it did endanger a part of the worship site that's over 2,000 years old.
The Palestine News Agency cited a guard as saying Monday that "the fire broke out in the guard's room outside the roof of the Marwani Prayer Room, and the fire brigade of Jerusalem Islamic Waqf handled the matter successfully."
Analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said India's measures to improve the recovery of bad loans and a recapitalization plan equivalent to 1.1 percent of gross domestic product will lower costs for lenders.
"We estimate that credit costs -- how much banks set aside each year to deal with bad loans -- could fall from a peak of 230 basis points of banking system assets, or around 3.3 trillion rupees ($48 billion), in FY18 to 120 basis points, or 1.9 trillion rupees, in FY20," the analysts said in a note.
© REUTERS/Thomas Peter
The Huawei brand logo is seen above a store of the telecoms equipment maker in Beijing, China, March 7, 2019.
The Huawei brand logo is seen above a store of the telecoms equipment maker in Beijing, China, March 7, 2019.
The agency, which reports to the Belgian prime minister, had been tasked with analyzing the possible threat posed by Huawei, which supplies equipment to Belgian mobile operators Proximus, Orange Belgium and Telenet.
"Until now we have not found technical indications that point in the direction of a spying threat," a spokesman for the agency said on Monday. "We are not providing a final report on the matter, but are continuing to look into it."
Comment: The US persecution of Huawei is purely political and economic. And Trump's strong-arm tactics do not appear to be working.
See also:
- Huawei, Tech War and Geopolitics
- Why Washington wants to ban Huawei: US wants to spy and China won't cooperate
- Huawei exec trolls US, NSA at tech trade fair in Spain: "Ask Snowden"
- US has been using FISA warrant to spy on Huawei & keep evidence secret
- Trump sends cyber-security envoy to Germany to keep up the heat on Huawei
- How's that blockade working Trump? Not a single European country has banned Huawei
Comment: Notre Dame Cathedral being completely destroyed this Holy Week reminds us about a series of major fires during Easter three years ago...
© getty
The charred remains of the roof of the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St Sava, which went up in flames in Manhattan, NYC, on May 1st.
The charred remains of the roof of the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St Sava, which went up in flames in Manhattan, NYC, on May 1st.
The blazes in New York City, as well as Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, caused only minor injuries, according to multiple reports.
The New York City conflagration on Sunday at the Trinity Chapel Complex that was host to the Serbian Orthodox Church in Manhattan produced dramatic images of flames shooting through windows that filled social media.
FDNY investigators haven't given any indication yet what started the blaze, reports CBS New York. Only the church caretaker was injured when he rushed in to try and put the fire out, which began shortly after parishioners had wrapped up Easter celebrations at the cathedral.
170 #bomberos en un #incendio de 4 alarmas en la calle 25 esq. Broadway #Manhattan: pic.twitter.com/mFtHNcMqHG @FDNY
— Ciudad de Nueva York (@nycgob) May 2, 2016
@cnnbrk NYC Serbian Orthdox Cathedral of Saint Saba just burned down in front of me. #FDNY on the scene. pic.twitter.com/feSd8P9aOG
— steven puppo (@STEVE_FLASH) May 1, 2016
Comment: Curiously, the Valaam monastery in Russia also caught fire on Easter Sunday, 2016.
The British Daily Mail came up with a conspiracy theory: Catholics around the world conspired to torch these churches because they're upset at the Orthodox Church for blocking the canonization of a Croatian Cardinal suspected of collaborating with the Nazis.
With no evidence provided, this rather sounds like someone was 'blowing smoke'. There could, however, be more to this cluster of events than symbolic connection...
The Saint-Sulpice church in Paris 'inexplicably' catches fire, 17 March 2019
Now and then, a fire breaks out in a house of prayer.
Roman Catholic churches have increasingly come under attack in France, a country so long identified with Christianity that it used to be called "the eldest daughter of the church."
A recent fire at St. Sulpice, the second-largest church in Paris, has shed light on a trend that has become commonplace in many smaller towns.
"Who has heard of the sacking of the monastery of Saint Jean des Balmes in Aveyron? Of those teenagers who urinated into the holy water font of the church at Villeneuve de Berg in Ardèche?" the Paris daily Le Figaro asked last week in an article highlighting some of the lesser-known profanations around the country this month.
Incidents such as these get a brief mention in the press, complete with quotes from Catholics shocked at the sight of scattered hosts or beheaded statues, and sometimes a short video clip on national television.
Comment: Not to put too fine a point on it, but - and this is aside from the question of a deliberate campaign to destroy Christian sites - maybe God/the Universe/Objective Reality is nudging France (and whoever can still see and hear) back from the precipice of fully embracing nihilistic postmodernist 'values'?
© AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh
The new ambassadors of Israel with props
The new ambassadors of Israel with props
A former captain of the Israeli special forces set up an initiative to train tens of thousands of released Israeli soldiers to act as 'ambassadors' during travels abroad, teaching the veterans how to talk about Israel with non-Israelis, The Times of Israel reported Sunday.
"We understood that Israel has a 'hasbara' problem and that the people dealing with it the most are recently released soldiers and they have an opportunity to positively influence how Israel is perceived," captain Eyal Biram said in an interview, using the Israel-specific term for Tel Aviv's efforts to spread positive propaganda.
"More than 400,000 [Israelis] between the ages of 20 and 24 travel abroad each year. Basically, a group that is mostly made up of recently released soldiers. [...] Each of them is basically an informal Israeli ambassador, for good and for bad," he added.
Biram, together with partners Jonathan Svorai and Barak Deri, approached the IDF with their 'Israel-is' project. According to the creators, Israel-is is a non-political course that teaches soldiers how to converse by avoiding the pursuit of a particular political viewpoint.
Trade union Verdi said workers at warehouses in Rheinberg, Werne, Bad Hersfeld and Koblenz had stopped work, with the strike set to last until Thursday in some centers, and others potentially joining over the Easter holiday period.
An Amazon spokeswoman said the company saw very limited participation in the strike across Germany, adding there was no operational impact so customer deliveries would not be delayed.
Verdi has organized frequent strikes at Amazon in Germany since 2013 to press demands for the retailer to raise pay for warehouse workers in accordance with collective bargaining agreements in Germany's mail order and retail industry.
Comment: For more on Amazon's 'fairness and responsibility', see:
- Amazon continues to leave employees suffering after workplace injuries
- Slave labor: Amazon workers in UK treated like 'animals' in exhausting working conditions
- Intolerable working conditions at Amazon's newest warehouse
Comment: French president Macron was due to address the nation this evening (8pm CET) via TV with conclusions from 4 months of a 'Great Debate', his government's answer to the 'yellow vest' uprising. His speech has been postponed by the shocking news that France's iconic 850-year-old Catholic Cathedral has been completely destroyed by fire...
© Agence France-Presse / Francois Guillot
Flames and smoke are seen billowing from the roof at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on April 15, 2019. A fire broke out at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris, potentially involving renovation works being carried out at the site, the fire service said.
Flames and smoke are seen billowing from the roof at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on April 15, 2019. A fire broke out at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris, potentially involving renovation works being carried out at the site, the fire service said.
Social media users near the scene of the fire engulfing Notre-Dame de Paris have posted horrifying footage of the fire.
A Sputnik France stream of the situation showed the fire continuing to burn out of control as of 7:45 pm local time.
Comment: France's Macron canceled his planned address to the nation due to 'terrible fire' at Notre Dame cathedral:
Macron was set to hold a large press conference at the Elysee Palace on Monday. The president was expected to unveil a set of measures for the country in response to the Yellow Vest protests, which have been rocking the country for the past few months.Could there be anything more symbolic than the burning down of one of France's oldest icons?
The said measures are believed to be based on the results of the "great national debate," held by the government in an attempt to funnel protest from the streets into a discussion instead. "We have decided to transform anger into solutions," Macron wrote on Twitter, announcing the press conference. "For months, we listened. Tomorrow, I will answer."
The grand unveiling of the government's measures, however, was marred by the massive fire at the iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, which caught fire shortly before the president's address. Citing the "terrible fire," Macron scrapped the event.
Macron is expected to arrive at the scene shortly, according to Elysee officials. Meanwhile, the cathedral's spire and roof have partially collapsed.
UPDATES 20:45 CET
The spire and entire roof have collapsed. Everything but the stone shell has probably been lost forever.
It's the worst damage to the cathedral in all its 9 centuries. It was partially destroyed by fire (deliberately) during the 1789 revolution, though not this badly. Still, it took about 100 years to restore it...
Comments on French social media indicate that people - besides being distraught about this - are highly suspicious of foul play.
12 French churches were vandalized in one week in mid-March. And that's not including the fire at ANOTHER iconic church in Paris - the Saint-Sulpice - just one month ago. Back in February, another four churches in France were vandalized, including the Notre Dame Church in Dijon. The whole thing has a 'systematic' flavor...
Who will be blamed? Russians? Muslims?
UPDATE 21:15 CET
The fire has spread to the stone towers. From an AP reporter on the scene:
The mammoth fire that destroyed the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral has spread to one of the church's landmark rectangular towers.This thing is in the MIDDLE of the RIVER SEINE. There should be dozens of streams of water from fire engines and tugboats aimed at the inferno...
An Associated Press reporter at the scene of Monday's fire in Paris watched the flames blazing behind an oblong stained-glass window in the tower.
Paris police say fighters are inside the cathedral working to put the flames out while others work from the exterior. Red smoke is pouring out of the cathedral.
A Notre Dame spokesman said earlier that the church's entire wooden interior was in flames.
UPDATE 22:00 CET
'Blame Muslims' is definitely in the cards: 3 days ago, a man named Ines Madani, an Islamist activist, was sentenced for plotting a terror attack at Notre Dame Cathedral in 2016.
Now French fire services are reporting that they are "not sure" if the Notre Dame fire can be stopped...
UPDATE 23:00 CET
The fire is dying down. The Interior Ministry reports that the stone structure of the cathedral (including the towers) remains standing. Notre Dame can yet be rebuilt...
UPDATE 16/4/9:
Firemen have finally entered the main area of the church
© Yoan Valat/EPA
Firefighters enter the Notre Dame cathedral as flames are burning the roof in Paris, France.
Firefighters enter the Notre Dame cathedral as flames are burning the roof in Paris, France.
© Yoan Valat/EPA
Interior Notre Dame Cathedral
Interior Notre Dame Cathedral
© Getty Images
The suspect, aged 18, was arrested after she told Spanish police he forced her into his cabin on board the MSC Divina as it sailed through the Mediterranean on Thursday.
He was brought before a court in Valencia but the judge ruled that no further action could be taken, according to regional newspaper Levante-EMV.
As a result of a change to the law in 2009, international crimes can only be prosecuted if they involve victims or suspects living in Spain. The alleged attacker is believed to live in Italy and the ship is registered in Panama.
The judge suggested that authorities in Britain, Italy or Panama take up the case.
Comment: The courtyard or the roof? A courtyard on the roof?
This small fire wouldn't be newsworthy, but for its extraordinary timing...