Day: June 11, 2023

A man suspected of stabbing six people in a playground in the French Alpine town of Annecy has been shifted to a special cell in a bid to avoid a risk of suicide, local media reported.

According to the BFMTV, the cell, being monitored by a camera, does not have any object that could be used to commit suicide.

On Saturday, the regional prosecutor said Abdelmasih H. has been charged with ‘attempted murder.’?

It is stated that the suspect has not testified yet and kept his silence.

On Thursday, four children and two adults were injured in a knife attack on a playground in Annecy.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said that the assailant is a Syrian refugee who has been living in Sweden for 10 years, and also sought asylum in France, in vain, where he is a homeless individual.

Borne further said the suspect has no police records.

She also noted that there are no apparent terrorist motives in the attack.

The injured included a 22-month-old child, two 2-year-old toddlers, and a 3-year-old toddler. Two of the children were tourists – a Dutch and a British.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Russia claimed Saturday that a woman was killed in a strike on a temporary accommodation facility for evacuees from flooded areas in the Kherson region.

The strike was carried out with UK Storm Shadow missiles, Interim Governor Vladimir Saldo said on Telegram.

He added that the Positive Hotel was destroyed as a result of the strikes.

Separately, the local representatives of the Russian Emergency Ministry said two missiles were shot down by defense systems. The two fell on the Arabat Spit near the temporary accommodation facility for evacuees.

The Governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on Telegram that Ukraine’s armed forces fired more than 200 shells at the region, with most hitting the Shebekino district on the border.

The strikes were carried out in residential and industrial areas. In total, four people received shrapnel wounds, he said.

Gladkov said four drones attacked an infrastructure object but they were disabled.

And the Governor of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said air defense systems shot down two ballistic missiles of the Grom-2 rocket system.

“There were no casualties as a result of the attack. I ask everyone to remain calm and trust only verified sources of information,” he wrote on Telegram.

Source: Anadolu Agency

A new bill set to remove “irregular” migrants who entered Britain “breaches a number of the UK’s international human rights obligations and risks breaching others,” according to a joint parliamentary committee report.

The report released on Sunday by the Joint Committee on Human Rights said Home Secretary Suella Braverman “herself has been unable to certify that the Bill is compatible with Convention rights,” referring to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), adopted by the Council of Europe in 1950.

“We therefore urge the Government to consider our conclusions and recommendations in order to address the human rights incompatibilities within this Bill,” the group of lawmakers and peers said in the report, suggesting as many as 40 amendments to the new legislation, dubbed the Illegal Migration Bill.

The report said the UK government is “rightly concerned about the loss of life in the Channel,” but the bill “would deny the vast majority of refugees access to the UK’s asylum system,” adding that in many cases, there were no means to enter Britain via safe and legal routes.

It also argued that the bill would permit the unlimited detention of migrants, including of pregnant women and children who are “normally subject to special protections,” and it renders them “liable to removal from the UK, either to their country of origin or to a ‘safe third state’ with which they may have no connection, without any individualised assessments of risk being undertaken.”

“It also restricts their access to the courts and their ability to remain in the UK while they challenge removal on human rights grounds.”

The committee said they were “particularly concerned by the Bill’s implications for children, who are affected by every aspect” of it.

The UK government has a “clear legal responsibility to protect the best interests of children” under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), it added.

“The Home Office has stated that the provisions in the Bill relating to children are intended to deter children from making dangerous journeys to the UK and dissuade adults from inciting them to make such journeys.

“However, it is clear that such aims cannot negate or override the UK’s duty to protect the rights of all children in the UK.”

The government introduced the Illegal Migration Bill to the House of Commons in March, saying it would deter “illegal” entry, while preventing people smuggling and further deaths in the Channel.

The bill, if passed, will allow the Home Office to ignore interim measures issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and introduce a yearly entry cap for settlement via safe and legal routes. It will also allow the government to remove anyone who arrives in the country in “illegal” forms to be sent to “safe” third countries, such as Rwanda, until their asylum applications are processed.

The controversial bill, which is currently in the House of Lords, has been under fire by human rights groups and refugee support organizations.

Source: Anadolu Agency

China has established a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019, according to a report Saturday that cited the White House amid allegations that Beijing is expanding efforts to gather intelligence about the US.

The Wall Street Journal reported the White House emphasized that the Biden administration has implemented measures to counter China’s security presence expansion on a global scale.

The newspaper initially reported Thursday that authorities in Cuba have agreed to allow China to establish a secretive spy base that Beijing plans to use to surveil the US.

The Pentagon denied claims that China reached such an agreement with Cuba to establish a base in the island nation.

China’s plan to establish an electronic intelligence facility in Cuba, as reported in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing “US officials familiar with classified intelligence,” was “not accurate,” Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder told reporters.

But the statement Saturday by the White House said the Biden administration was briefed on China’s endeavors to enhance its military and intelligence presence, which includes the one in Cuba.

The White House reportedly said China “will keep trying to enhance its presence in Cuba, and we will keep working to disrupt it,” as reported by the Journal.

“We think the (People’s Republic of China) PRC isn’t quite where they had hoped to be,” it said.

The listening station would allow China to carry out electronic eavesdropping on the US just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the state of Florida.

The base would let China gather communications throughout the southeastern US where several sensitive military bases are located, and monitor shipping traffic.

The Journal’s report comes amid increasingly strained ties between Washington and Beijing with US officials sounding the alarm that China poses the pre-eminent threat to Washington’s standing worldwide.

Officials from both countries have been working to mend relations after the discovery and subsequent downing of what the Biden administration said was a clandestine Chinese spy balloon above the continental US.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Cyprus Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, Petros Xenophontos, is travelling to Stockholm, Sweden, to participate in an informal meeting of the Council of agriculture and fisheries Ministers of EU.

The informal meeting is to take place between June 11 and 13.

According to the Ministry, the informal ministerial meeting will address the contribution of EU agriculture and forestry to food, feed, fiber and energy security, for the green transition as part of the EU’s effort to make the Europe a climate neutral continent by 2050.

Source: Cyprus News Agency