World News
Ten people killed in an explosion at a gas station in Ireland
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Sylvie Claire / October 7, 2022
Ten people, including two teenagers and a girl, were killed in a gas station explosion in a village in northwestern Ireland, Irish police said Saturday.
The explosion occurred on Friday shortly before 3:20 p.m. in the village of Creeslough. “It killed ten people,” a police official said at a press conference. They are four men, three women, two teenagers (a boy and a girl) and a girl, of elementary school age, he detailed.
“No other victims are expected,” added the official. There is no information on missing persons.
The information we have at the moment points to a tragic accident,” he said, seeming to rule out the possibility of a voluntary act. But the police are keeping an “open mind”.
An aerial photograph taken after the blast shows the gas station building destroyed. Two two-story residential buildings behind it collapsed.
Emergency services, accompanied by sniffer dogs to search for victims, worked throughout the night. Rubble was still being collected on Saturday.
Irish police, fire, ambulance and coastguard services were on site. They were supported by the Northern Ireland Air Ambulance Service and a team of specialists from the British province on Saturday.
Letterkenny University Hospital, located 24 kilometers from the gas station, was placed on emergency standby.
In a statement, Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin said his “thoughts and prayers today are with those who lost their lives and those who were injured in this devastating explosion.
Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue, who is an elected member of the Irish parliament from the area hit by the blast, compared the scenes of devastation to those of the Northern Irish conflict in the second half of the 20th century.
“The scenes of the event are reminiscent of the images of the +Troubles+ years ago, in terms of the damage and debris. »
For three decades, the Northern Ireland conflict pitted nationalists, mainly Catholics, in favour of the reunification of the island of Ireland, against loyalists, mainly Protestants, who were attached to keeping the province under the British crown. The conflict resulted in approximately 3,500 deaths.
The village of Creeslough, which is about 50 km from the border with Northern Ireland, has a population of about 400.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who died, those who were injured and the entire community of Creeslough,” tweeted the company Applegreen, which owns the gas station hit by the explosion.
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Sylvie Claire / July 21, 2024
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on the phone on Friday, with the former US president claiming to have promised the Ukrainian president to “end the war” between Ukraine and Russia should he return to the White House. “As your next president of the United States, I will bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives,” said the Republican presidential candidate.
Donald Trump frequently claims that he would be able to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine very quickly on his return to power, but never provides details of how he would achieve this. Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the phone call, during which he congratulated the billionaire on his official nomination the previous day as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.
Donald Trump’s frequent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as his criticism of other Nato countries, is causing concern among Ukraine’s Western allies. In February, he threatened that, if he returned to the White House, he would no longer guarantee the protection of Atlantic Alliance countries against Russia if they did not pay their share, even claiming that he would “encourage” Moscow to attack them. The former American president also used his power over the Republicans to block a $61 billion military aid package for Kiev for months in Congress, which was finally adopted at the end of April.
In his posting on X on Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky said he had “agreed with President Trump to discuss, in a face-to-face meeting, the steps to be taken towards a just and lasting peace” in Ukraine.
World News
Former Ukrainian far-right MP murdered in Lviv: “All leads are being investigated, including Russia”
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Steph Deschamps / July 21, 2024
In a message on Telegram, the Ukrainian National Police said she had succumbed to her injuries in hospital after being the target of an assassination attempt.
“I always say that no place is safe in Ukraine,” lamented Lviv mayor Andriï Sadovy, denouncing a ‘heinous murder’ and offering his condolences to the victim’s relatives.
According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office, the attack took place on Friday evening, at around 7.30pm, when an unidentified individual fired at Irina Farion, seriously wounding her in the head. “All surveillance cameras are being checked, witnesses are being interviewed and several districts (of Lviv) are being examined. All leads are being investigated, including the one leading to Russia”, reacted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on X on Saturday.
Interior Minister Igor Klimenko told a briefing in Lviv on Friday evening that the suspected killer could have been lurking around Irina Farion’s home for several days.
According to him, investigators are currently focusing on the possibility of a murder motivated by a “personal grudge” linked to the victim’s activities, but are not ruling out a “commissioned assassination” either.
The 60-year-old language teacher and linguist was a member of parliament for the nationalist Svoboda party between 2012 and 2014.
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Sylvie Claire / July 18, 2024
At least six people died in a shopping mall fire on Wednesday in Zigong, southwest China, and thirty others were rescued, China’s state broadcaster CCTV said. “Rescue teams are continuing their search,” the media outlet added.
Images broadcast by the channel and others shared on social networks show thick black smoke rising from a building overlooking a shopping street in this city 1,600 kilometers from the capital Beijing, in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
The fire broke out in the early evening in a shopping mall at the foot of a 14-storey building, CCTV reported.
“At 8:20 pm, the fire was extinguished and 17 people were rescued. Others are still trapped, and rescue operations are continuing”, said the station in an initial report on the situation.
Fires and other fatal accidents are frequent in China, due to the sometimes lax application of safety standards. In January, at least 39 people perished in a store fire in central China. According to the authorities, the fire started in the basement of a store when workers “broke the rules” during construction work. At the time, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for lessons to be learned from the disaster to prevent further tragedies. The same month, a fire in a residential building claimed at least 15 lives.
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