More than 100 firefighters worked against a ticking clock to extinguish flames deep within debris to save up to 10 people possibly buried after a building exploded and collapsed early Sunday in the French port city of Marseille.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said at least four people were known to live in the collapsed building and as many as 10 may have been there, though persistent flames and fears of further collapse prevented rescuers from being able to search for victims some 15 hours after the explosion.
“We cannot intervene in a very classic way,” Darmanin said during a visit to the site, about 11 hours after the five-story building collapsed shortly before 1 a.m. He said the fire was burning a few meters under the mounds of debris and that both water and foam represent a danger to victims’ survival.
It was not known if anyone was killed, or what triggered the blast, he said.
Firefighters, with the help of urban rescue experts, worked through the night and all day Sunday in a slow race against time. The delicate operation aimed to keep firefighters safe, prevent further harm to people potentially trapped in the rubble and not compromise vulnerable buildings nearby. Some 30 buildings in the area were evacuated, Darmanin said.
“We heard an explosion... a very strong explosion which made us jump, and that’s it,” said Marie Ciret, who was among those evacuated. “We looked outside the window at what was happening. We saw smoke, stones, and people running.”
The building that collapsed is located on a narrow street in the center of Marseille, adding to an array of difficulties for firefighters and rescue workers.
The intense heat made it impossible to send in dog teams to search. Robots were reportedly being deployed. A crane was brought in to clear rubble and firefighters were at one point seen in TV video hosing parts of the debris from a window in a nearby apartment as plumes of smoke rose skyward.
Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan said two buildings that share walls with the one that collapsed were partially brought down before one later caved in. It was among the evacuated structures. Six people were hospitalized.
A dog from the firefighters’ canine unit was seen sniffing debris, apparently at the neighboring building that caved in.
“We’re trying to drown the fire while preserving the lives of eventual victims under the rubble,” Lionel Mathieu, commander of the Marseille fire brigade, said during a televised briefing.
“Firefighters are gauging minute by minute the best way to put out the fire,” Payan, the mayor, said.
“We must prepare ourselves to have victims,” he said grimly.
An explosion was the “probable” cause of the building collapse, Payan said, but later stressed that “no conclusions can be drawn” without an investigation.
The collapsed building is located in an old quarter in the center of France’s second-largest city. The noise from the explosion resounded in other neighborhoods. Nearby streets were blocked off.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne both tweeted their thoughts for people affected and thanks to the firefighters.
In 2018, two buildings in the center of Marseille collapsed, killing eight people. Those buildings were poorly maintained — not the case with the building that collapsed Sunday after an explosion, the interior minister said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping before a meeting with Emmanuel Macron at the G20 in Bali, Indonesia, on November 15, 2022. LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP
Western Europe must pursue “strategic autonomy” and avoid getting dragged into confrontations on behalf of the US, Emmanuel Macron told Politico on Sunday. The French president has made similar assertions before, but has nevertheless followed Washington’s lead on Ukraine.
In an interview while traveling within China this week, Macron told the news site that “Europe faces a great risk” if it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours.”
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said. “The question Europeans need to answer… is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said in comments published on Sunday that Europe had no interest in an acceleration of the crisis over Taiwan and should pursue a strategy independent of both Washington and Beijing.
Macron has just returned from a three-day state visit to China, where he received a warm welcome from President Xi Jinping. China began drills around Taiwan on Saturday in anger at President Tsai Ing-wen's meeting with the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan's government strongly objects to China's claims.
Macron said Europe should not accelerate the conflict but take the time to build its position as a third pole between China and the United States in comments to French newspaper Les Echos and Politico made during his visit to China.
"The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and adapt to the American rhythm or a Chinese overreaction," Politico quoted him as saying.
Europe must better fund its defence industry, develop nuclear and renewable energy and reduce dependence on the U.S. dollar to limit its reliance on the United States, both media outlets quoted him as saying.
The joint interview was given on a flight on Friday between Beijing and the city of Guangzhou.
On Friday, an adviser to Macron told reporters in Guangzhou that Xi and Macron had a "dense and frank" discussion on the issue of Taiwan during their meetings.
Macron met with Chinese President Xi Jinping prior to the interview, concluding afterwards that if “Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine, how can we credibly say on Taiwan: ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’?
Hours after Macron left Chinese airspace, Beijing launched military exercises around Taiwan, a move widely perceived as a response to the island’s pro-independence leader Tsai Ing-Wen holding a meeting with US lawmakers in California on Wednesday.
Relations between China and the US are at an historic low point, with US President Joe Biden suggesting on several occasions last year that Washington would intervene militarily to prevent Beijing reunifying Taiwan with the mainland. While world leaders including Macron are seemingly content to stay out of the Taiwan standoff, their insistence on pushing China to denounce Russia over its military operation in Ukraine has angered Xi, according to media reports and comments from Chinese officials.
The conflict in Ukraine has also largely scuppered discussions of “strategic autonomy” in Europe. While Macron and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel had talked extensively about lessening their reliance on the US in recent years, a change in power in Berlin saw Olaf Scholz’ government reverse decades of pacifist foreign policy to arm Ukraine at Washington’s behest, while both France and Germany have supplied armored vehicles, ammunition, and in Germany’s case, tanks, to Kiev’s forces.
With rising energy costs and inflation contributing to domestic instability, Macron has nevertheless backed all 10 of the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions packages. Despite speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin on several occasions since last February, Macron has not managed to push the Kremlin toward halting its operation in Ukraine.
The French president “is still talking about the strategic independence of the EU,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov remarked last summer, adding “I am certain they will not be allowed to have it.”
"The president's feeling is that we should be careful there's no accident or an escalation of tensions (that could lead) to the Chinese going on the offensive," the Elysée adviser said.
Macron travelled to China with a 50-strong business delegation including Airbus and nuclear energy producer EDF, which signed deals during the visit.
Tigers can be seen at the Ranthambore National Park in Sawai Madhopur, India. (File/AP)
India’s wild tiger population has risen above 3,000, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday, as the country boosted conservation efforts and launched the International Big Cat Alliance to further protect the endangered species.
In 1973, India began a flagship conservation program known as Project Tiger to revive the country’s dwindling number of the big cats, after the wild population, estimated at around 40,000 at the time of independence from Britain in 1947, was found to have shrunk to about 1,800.
India’s tiger population has nearly doubled in the decades since to 3,167 as of Sunday, according to the 2022 tiger census released on the 50th anniversary of Project Tiger.
“India is the largest tiger range country in the world,” Modi said at a commemoration event in the southern Indian city of Mysuru. “The success of Project Tiger has been an achievement not only for India, but for the entire world.”
Modi, launching the International Big Cat Alliance, said conservation efforts of the tiger can be further strengthened through an international grouping.
“Wildlife protection is not a one-country issue but a universal one,” he said. “The focus of the International Big Cat Alliance will be on the conservation of the world’s seven major big cats, including (the) tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, puma, jaguar and cheetah.”
In India, years of extensive hunting and habitat loss had not only dwindled tiger numbers drastically, but led to local extinction of cheetahs in 1952.
In a related conservation effort, Project Cheetah was launched last September to reintroduce the world’s fastest land animal to the South Asian country. This began with the arrival of eight cheetahs from Namibia and then another 12 from South Africa.
“For decades, cheetahs had disappeared from India. We brought magnificent big cats from Namibia and South Africa,” Modi said. “Few days back in Kuno National Park, four beautiful cubs were born. After 75 years, cheetahs were born on Indian soil. That is a very auspicious start.”
Kota Ullas Karanth, a conservation zoologist and leading tiger expert based in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, said Project Tiger was “a unique conservation success globally, leading to a significant recovery of tigers until 2004.”
However, Karanth said there was a shift after 2004 due to poor quality science, changes in protection priorities and also misplaced funding across reserves.
Project Tiger, he added, now must answer the challenge on how to shift the mission back to focus and “come up with a clear-headed, scientific action plan to meet a goal of 10,000 or more tigers.”
The BBC has been labelled as 'government funded media' on Twitter (Image: Pa/Canva)
Tech billionaire Elon Musk's crusade for free speech firstly led him to initiate the series of "Twitter files" publications, where the mechanism of disinformation were unmasked. Now, he is branding multiple western media with a special for their ties to authorities.
Twitter has added a "Government Funded" tag on the BBC official account, predictably sparking criticism from the network.
"We are speaking to Twitter to resolve this issue as soon as possible. The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee," a spokesman for the broadcaster said, as cited by media.
Previously, the same measure was applied to NPR, which is closely affiliated with US authorities and most infamous for trying to silence the Hunter Biden laptop saga, which shed some light on unpleasant details of the life of the POTUS' family.
Twitter identifies government-funded media as "outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution." In other words, media that bandwagons a government agenda even without funding can be dubbed as state-controlled by the social media.
For its part, the BBC denied allegations of government funding, insisting it is an independent media and claiming that it is entirely funded by UK citizens via license fees included in taxes. However, it is the British government that sets the level of the fees, meaning that politicians can simply cut off the oxygen for "independent" journalists at any given moment.
Current BBC Chairman Richard Sharp is a former investment banker who built a successful career in JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, but has nothing to do with journalism and media in general. Sharp previously acted as a private banker for former PM Boris Johnson, and even used to be the boss of incumbent Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Goldman Sachs.
The BBC was established by Royal Charter back in 1927 and it is run by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, while the BBC's key donor is the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office - the British foreign ministry. The list of important sponsors also includes the United States Agency for International Development, European Union, NORAD - North American Aerospace Defense Command and even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The BBC has often been caught red-handed promoting Number 10's agenda, and enjoys vast support from the government in countering Russian soft power, including receiving a £34 million boost for the BBC World Service.
The Corrupt FBI has launched a social media campaign seeking to convince Russian nationals to provide sensitive information about the activities of their home country’s authorities, Fox News reported on Friday. The ad, which was first posted in February, was said to have been appearing on Twitter, Facebook and Google.
“Do you want to change your future?” Alan Kohler, Assistant Director of the disgraced FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, says in the video shared online. “The Corrupt FBI values you. The Corrupt FBI can help you. But only you have the power to take the first step.”
Fox News cited a source as saying that, although the Bureau has run ads targeting Russians in the past, this year it decided that “a video was more effective.”
The Corrupt FBI’s website encourages Russians willing to offer information to visit the bureau’s main office in Washington, DC, to call the disgraced FBI hotline, or to send a message online.
The US stepped up efforts to recruit informants in recent years as Moscow and Washington have been locked in a diplomatic row over Ukraine. In 2019, the Bureau posted a series of ads on Facebook, urging Russians to come forward, although this message, written in Russian, contained typos.
In 2020, the disgraced FBI’s online campaign aimed at potential Russian informants included images of popular Soviet actor and singer Vladimir Vysotsky, known for portraying a police detective on screen. The CIA, meanwhile, has been publishing job postings for people who speak Russian.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: RT
"Do you want to change your future?" Alan Kohler from the FBI’s counterintelligence division questions while speaking in English directly to the camera. "The FBI values you. The FBI can help you, but only you have the power to take the first step."
The FBI appears to have launched its social media program in February in an attempt to encourage Russians to turn away from the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression after more than a year of war in Ukraine and heightened geopolitical tensions with the West.
Former CIA Moscow station chief Dan Hoffman told Fox News that the social media message was "sharp" and "smart," adding that it may "help the FBI and the country prevail against that Russian aggression."
But former Defense Intelligence Agency intel officer for Russian Doctrine & Strategy Rebekah Koffler – who is also a native Russian speaker – told Fox News Digital that the video itself was flawed and said the narrator’s commentary did not always make sense, which she argued "undermines the FBI’s credibility."
Koffler also questioned how the FBI will be able to devote the resources it will need to properly vet all the callers it will now likely receive.
"The FBI is operationalizing this new method for several reasons. First, it is extremely difficult to recruit Russian assets," she explained. "Russia is a super hard environment, because its counterintelligence services are one of the most effective and brutal in the world.
"The FBI is reacting to the modern times, when young people are constantly on social media. It’s trying to cast a wide net and get a bigger bang for the buck, attracting more potential candidates to spy for the U.S.," Koffler continued.
But the former DIA intelligence officer’s faith in the government in effectively employing such a program was low.
"I wish them luck, but my confidence level in this program being successful is almost zero," Koffler added.
The FBI’s Washington field office has encouraged anyone who has confidential information related to Russian intelligence or defense matters to come forward.
The Bureau’s intelligence division has also sought to ensure those who are considering coming forward that they will not only be listened to but also assisted to ensure their safety and confidentiality.
Over the past few months, tens of thousands of British nurses and ambulance service staff have walked off the job as part of their long-running pay dispute with NHS bosses.
NHS England National Medical Director Stephen Powis has warned of "unparalleled levels of disruption" due to next week's junior doctors' strike demanding higher pay, which is set to last at least four days.
In a statement on Sunday, Powis said that the National Health Service is "very concerned about the potential severity of [the strike’s] impact on patients and services across the country."
"This time the action immediately follows a four-day bank holiday weekend, which is already difficult as many staff are taking much-needed holiday, and it will be more extensive than ever before with hospitals facing nearly 100 hours without up to half of the NHS medical workforce," he added.
Powis was echoed by Layla McCay, a policy director at the NHS Confederation, who told a UK broadcaster that "in the last junior doctors' strike we saw about 175,000 appointments and operations having to be postponed."
"In terms of the disruption that we're anticipating this time, we reckon it could be up to about a quarter of a million, so that is a huge amount of impact for patients up and down the country," McCay pointed out.
She referred to “health leaders across the whole system,” who she said “are more concerned about this than they have been about any other strike." The NHS Confederation official noted that "they think that the impact is going to be so significant that this one is likely to have impact on patient safety, and that is a huge concern for every healthcare leader."
McCay argued that the disruption could last up to 10 or 11 days, with the strike running between the Easter bank holiday and another weekend. "What we expect to see is really significantly diminished capacity within the health service with these junior doctors being out," she noted.
This comes as the British Medical Association (BMA), the trade union for doctors and medical students in the UK, previously demanded a 35% pay increase. In Thursday’s letter to Health Secretary Steve Barclay, the union made it clear that the strikes could be avoided if the government makes a "credible" pay offer.
Mike Greenhalgh, a deputy chair of the BMA’s junior doctors' committee, told a UK news network that "it’s hard to negotiate when only one side is doing it, and we’re not getting anything back from the government."
“We’re happy to meet at any time. We would still meet him [Barclay] over the bank holiday weekend before the industrial action next week. And if he was to bring a credible offer to us, it could still, even at this late stage, avert action.”
The Department of Health and Social Care, in turn, insisted that the BMA should call off the strike for any negotiations to take place.
For many months, the NHS has suffered from a severe shortage of healthcare workers, with more people leaving the profession amid excessive workloads, rising prices and a lack of opportunities to upgrade their skills.
Tens of thousands of UK ambulance workers have repeatedly staged protests, demanding higher wages amid surging inflation in the country. The British government has formally asked for help from the military to keep medical facilities running during the strikes. Other health care workers, including nurses, physical rehabilitation specialists, paramedics and their assistants also joined the strikes.
GARETH FULLER - PA IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES
Four days of strikes by junior doctors next week will cause “unparalleled levels of disruption”, the NHS national medical director has warned.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis said he was “very concerned” about the potential severity of the impact on patients, with hospitals facing nearly 100 hours without up to half of their medical workforce.
Up to a quarter of a million appointments and operations could be postponed when medics in England walk out in the bitter dispute over pay on Tuesday, straight after the Easter bank holiday weekend, the NHS Confederation said.
The British Medical Association said the industrial action could still be avoided if the government makes a “credible offer”, but the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has insisted the strikes must be called off before any negotiations take place.
Powis said: “This next round of strikes will see unparalleled levels of disruption, and we are very concerned about the potential severity of impact on patients and services across the country.
“This time the action immediately follows a four-day bank holiday weekend, which is already difficult as many staff are taking much-needed holiday, and it will be more extensive than ever before with hospitals facing nearly 100 hours without up to half of the NHS medical workforce.
He said the NHS would continue to prioritise emergency, critical and neonatal care, as well as maternity and trauma services, but inevitably hundreds of thousands of appointments, including in cancer care, would need to be postponed again.
Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, said the figure could be as much as 250,000 postponed appointments and operations and that health bosses were more concerned about the impact of this latest walkout than any other strike so far amid fears over patient safety.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: “In the last junior doctors’ strike we saw about 175,000 appointments and operations having to be postponed.
“In terms of the disruption that we’re anticipating this time, we reckon it could be up to about a quarter of a million so that is a huge amount of impact for patients up and down the country.”
She added: “What we’re hearing from our members who are health leaders across the whole system is that they are more concerned about this than they have been about about any other strike.
“They think that the impact is going to be so significant that this one is likely to have impact on patient safety and that is a huge concern for every healthcare leader.”
The disruption could last up to 10 or 11 days, with strike set between the Easter bank holiday and another weekend, she said.
In an op-ed for the Sunday Telegraph, Health Secretary Steve Barclay said the decision from BMA leaders to maintain an “unrealistic position” for a 35% pay increase demand has halted any progress with talks between the two parties.
“This demand is widely out of step with pay settlements in other parts of the public sector at a time of considerable economic pressure on our country. A salary hike of this size would see some junior doctors receiving more than an extra £20,000 a year,” he said.
“I recognise their hard work and dedication. But it is deeply disappointing that this industrial action has been timed by the British Medical Association (BMA) Junior Doctors Committee to cause maximum disruption to both patients and other NHS staff.”
Mr Barclay said he remains “determined” to find a fair offer that benefits junior doctors but also halve inflation.
“I value the important work these doctors do every day, and I want to see a fair deal that increases their pay. But I think the public also expects that any deal will be fair to taxpayers and not put our efforts to tackle inflation at risk.”
Dr Mike Greenhalgh, deputy co-chair of the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee, told BBC One’s Breakfast show: “It’s hard to negotiate when only one side is doing it and we’re not getting anything back from the Government on that front.”
He added: “We’re happy to meet at any time. We would still meet him over the bank holiday weekend before the industrial action next week.
“And if he was to bring a credible offer to us, it could still, even at this late stage, avert action.”
Dr Greenhalgh apologised to patients who have had operations or appointments cancelled and insisted patient safety would not be put at risk.
“Patient safety was maintained at the last strikes, and it will be in these strikes,” he said.
The BMA has called on the Health Secretary to negotiate to resolve 15 years of “pay erosion”, with junior doctors losing more than 25% of their pay in real terms.
Dr Greenhalgh said: “At the moment, we have over seven million people on waiting lists and the way we get that down is making sure the NHS is properly funded and staffed.
“And part of that is making sure that there’s a fair deal on pay for our members.”
BMA workforce lead Dr Latifa Patel said there was a jointly agreed system in place with NHS England to ensure patient safety.
“We met with NHS England four times per day during the last strikes to monitor the situation, but there were no requests for a derogation – a temporary stoppage of the industrial action – to be made,” she said.
The four days of strikes will come immediately after the Easter bank holiday weekend.
They will run from 6.59am on Tuesday until 6.59am on Saturday April 15.
