World News
Thailand: mourning after the killing in a crib, the king expected on site
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Sylvie Claire / October 7, 2022
Incomprehensible”: inconsolable, the families mourned Friday their disappeared, the day after the massacre which left 37 dead, mainly children of a nursery, in a rural province of northern Thailand where King Maha Vajiralongkorn goes in the evening.
King Rama X, considered a quasi-divinity in the country, is expected to visit a hospital in Nong Bua Lamphu to help the injured, shortly after Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha.
Silence enveloped the area around the crèche where one of the worst killings in the kingdom took place, interrupted at times by the sobbing of families and the waving of officials in white suits and black armbands.
A red carpet was rolled out in the morning to allow them to mourn and lay flowers. It was then withdrawn, not without having provoked angry reactions from Internet users in Thailand, in front of this inappropriate ceremony on a crime scene.
Near the entrance, where white roses remind us of the tragedy, a grieving mother clutches the blanket of her missing child, and holds in her hand her half-filled bottle of milk.
Some of the children were only 2 years old, like little Kamram, whose mother Panita, 19, is inconsolable. “It’s incomprehensible” she breathes, her 11-month-old daughter in her arms.
“I was very shocked and scared. I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t think it would be my two grandsons,” says Buarai Tanontong, clinging to her daughter’s shoulder.
I still can’t accept what happened. Assailant, what is your heart made of?” wrote Seksan Srirach, the husband of a teacher, pregnant with their child, killed at the crèche, in a Facebook post.
Police officers were also interviewing the bereaved family and witnesses near the crèche.
A former policeman armed with a 9mm pistol and a long knife killed 37 people on Thursday, including 24 children — 21 boys and three girls — according to a new police count, in a deadly rampage that began at a day care center in Na Klang district around 12:30 p.m.
He then drove off, and tried to run down passers-by, until he reached his home, “not far” from the nursery, according to the police.
He then killed his wife and their son, before killing himself, in the early afternoon, before 3:00 pm, about two hours after the beginning of the killing.
During the night, the small white and purple coffins were transported to the morgue of a hospital in Udon Thani, in the neighboring province.
After this “horrible” massacre, Prayut Chan-O-Cha ordered an investigation and asked the police chief “to speed up the investigations ».
Initial evidence paints a picture of an assailant, 34, plagued by drug addiction problems that cost him his job with the police last June.
“He was expected to go on trial Friday over his drug problem,” Damrongsak Kittiprapat, the national police chief, said Thursday.
Everyone knew the shooter. He was a nice guy but later we all knew he was on meth,” said Kamjad Pra-intr, a resident who came to support the families.
This is not the first time Thailand has been plagued by a mass shooting of this magnitude. In February 2020, a shooting perpetrated by an army officer killed 29 people, including in a shopping mall in Nakhon Ratchasima (east).
The gunman, a 31-year-old chief warrant officer, was shot dead by the police after his 17-hour killing spree. He had acted after an argument with a superior.
The Na Klang tragedy is a reminder of the extent of the kingdom’s drug problems, where wholesale and retail prices have fallen to historically low levels due to abundant supply, according to data released in 2021 by the UN.
The rural province of Nong Bua Lamphu is located near the “golden triangle” on the borders of Burma and Laos, which has been considered the focal point of drug production in the region for decades.
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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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