Month: July 2023

MILAN (TIP): A fire at a retirement home in the early hours of July 7 in Milan killed six people, firefighters said, with “numerous” residents hospitalised. “Six people killed, numerous (others) suffering from smoke inhalation hospitalised. Dozens of people saved by firefighters who immediately evacuated the building,” the fire brigade said on Twitter.
An AFP photographer saw the bodies of two of the victims being removed from the three-storey building which was reportedly housing 167 people when the fire started.
The cause of the blaze was not yet known, the fire brigade said.
Over 10 ambulances, various fire trucks and a silver mortuary van could be seen outside the building in the south of the Italian city.
Some eighty people were rushed to hospital, two of whom were fighting for their lives, Milan’s fire chief Nicola Micele said. Some 14 others were in serious condition, Italian media said.
Five of the victims were women aged between 69 and 87 years old, while the sixth was a 73-year-old man, the reports said. Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said the fire “started in one room housing two female residents”, both of whom were killed by the flames.
“It did not spread, not even to the neighbouring rooms, but the smoke is just as deadly and the four other victims died of smoke inhalation”.
It was a member of staff who sounded the alarm at 1:20 am (2320 GMT Thursday), he said. Fire chief Micele told Rai news that staff raised the alarm after spotting the smoke.
“Four teams of firefighters were immediately dispatched. They found themselves faced with very low visibility in a corridor inside one part of the building and flames in one room”.
“They focused on putting out the flames, then evacuating the guests.
“It was a particularly complicated evacuation both because of the smoke and because some of the guests were not able to walk”. The residents had to be evacuated “by being carried out, almost one and at a time,” mayor Sala said.
The council was working to quickly re-house people in other suitable retirement homes.
The privately-run “Casa per Coniugi” caters to people who are not self-sufficient but do not need hospital care. (AFP)

FRANCE (TIP): Dozens of marches against police violence in France have been announced for July 8 after authorities banned a memorial rally, fearful of reigniting the recent unrest that engulfed the country.
Seven years after Adama Traore, a young black man, died in police custody, his sister planned to lead a commemorative march north of Paris in Persan and Beaumont-sur-Oise.
Authorities banned the event, however, citing a shortage of police to ensure public safety, a decision that was upheld Friday by the local administrative court.
Based on the “context of the riots that followed the death of 17-year-old Nahel” on June 27, the judges found the “extremely recent nature does not allow us to presume that any risk of disturbing public order has disappeared,” the court said in a statement on Friday.
In a video posted on Twitter, Assa Traore, Adama’s older sister, confirmed that following the court order “there will be no march in Beaumont-sur-Oise”.
“The government has decided to add fuel to the fire” and “not to respect the death of my little brother,” she said in the video.
Instead of the planned event, she said she would attend a rally on Saturday afternoon in central Paris’ Place de la Republique to tell “the whole world that our dead have the right to exist, even in death”.
Saturday’s “march for justice” is one of around 30 demonstrations against police violence planned across France this weekend, according to an online map.
Similar events in Lille, Marseille, Nantes and Strasbourg are also listed.
Grief and anger
Several trade unions, political parties and associations had called on supporters to join the memorial march for Traore this year as France reels from allegations of institutionalised racism in its police ranks following the police shooting of teenager Nahel M.
Traore, who was 24 years old, died shortly after his arrest in 2016, sparking several nights of unrest that played out similarly to the week-long rioting that erupted across the country in the wake of the point-blank shooting of Nahel M. during a traffic stop.
The teenager’s death last month rekindled long-standing accusations of systemic racism among security forces, and a UN committee has called on France to ban racial profiling.
But far-right parties have linked the most intense and widespread riots seen in the country since 2005 to mass migration, and have demanded curbs on new arrivals.
Campaign groups say Saturday’s “citizens marches” will be an opportunity for people to express their “grief and anger” at discriminatory police policies, especially in working-class neighbourhoods.
They are urging reforms to the police, including policing tactics and the force’s weaponry.
Government spokesman Olivier Veran criticised the organisations for convening demonstrations “in major cities that have not yet recovered from the rampages”.
Since June 27, more than 3,700 people have been taken into police custody in connection to the protests, including at least 1,160 minors, according to official figures. (AFP)

LVIV (TIP): Russia fired cruise missiles July 6 at a western Ukraine city far from the front line of the war, killing at least six people in an apartment building in what officials said was the heaviest attack on civilian areas of Lviv since the Kremlin’s forces invaded the country last year. Emergency crews with search dogs went through the rubble of the building after the nighttime attack destroyed the roof and the top two floors. At least 36 people were injured, according to authorities.
The youngest of the people who died was 21 years old and the oldest was a woman of 95, Lviv province governor Maksym Kozytskyi said. “This woman survived the Second World War, but unfortunately she didn’t survive” Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kozytskyi said.
Debris and wrecked parked cars lined the street outside the building, which overlooks a small neighborhood park with swings and other playground equipment.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said the body of a woman was pulled from the rubble late Thursday, bringing the death toll to six. Kozytskyi said seven survivors were rescued from wreckage and a total of 14 people hospitalized. Sadovyi said around 60 apartments and 50 cars in the area of the strike were damaged. He announced two days of official mourning.
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink described the attack as “vicious.”
“Russia’s repeated attacks on civilians are absolutely horrifying,” she tweeted.
Ukraine’s air force reported it intercepted seven of the 10 Kalibr cruise missiles that Russia fired from the Black Sea toward the Lviv region and its namesake city — more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) away — around 1 a.m. Thursday.
The Kremlin’s forces have repeatedly hit civilian areas during the war, though Russian officials say they choose only targets of military value.
Lviv is near the western border with Poland and is more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) from Kyiv and 700 kilometers (425 miles) from the frontline southern Ukraine region of Kherson; Kyiv’s counteroffensive to dislodge Russian forces in southern and eastern Ukraine is in its early stages.
Sadovyi, the mayor, addressed residents in a video message, saying the attack was the largest on Lviv’s civilian infrastructure since the beginning of last year’s invasion.
Lviv resident Ganna Fedorenko suffered injuries to her face, where an adhesive plaster on her cheek had turned red with blood. She held her hands crossed on her chest as she reacted to the attack.
“Russians are hitting us. That’s how they love us. I’m sorry for those people who were killed. They were young. So sorry for them,” she said. “This is terrible. They hit civilians.”
The Ministry of Internal Affairs said 64 people had to leave their homes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised “a response to the enemy. A tangible one.”
He went later Thursday on an official trip to Bulgaria at the invitation of its new pro-Western government, with talks about weapon supplies and Ukraine’s NATO membership on the agenda.
(AFP)

BEIJING (tip): China’s People’s Liberation Army sent 13 aircraft and 6 vessels into airspace and waters around Taiwan over the past 24 hours as of early on July 8, overlapping with United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit to Beijing aimed at mending strained relations. Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it is monitoring the situation from the air and sea, and land-based missile systems were prepared to respond. It said four Chinese aircraft — two SU-30 fighters, one BZK-005 reconnaissance plane and one Y-8 anti-submarine warfare plane — crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait that serves as a de-facto border between the sides, and had entered Taiwan’s southwestern air defense identification zone.
China claims Taiwan as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary and sends air and naval missions on virtually a daily basis in an attempt to wear down the island’s defense capabilities and intimidate its 23 million people, who thus far seem largely unfazed by such moves. U.S. support for the self-governing island republic that split from mainland China amid civil war in 1949 remains a major irritant in relations with Beijing.
Shortly before Yellen’s arrival, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater on Thursday. Its area of operations directly faces the island across the Taiwan Strait.
Addressing commanders at the Jiangsu province headquarters, Xi “stressed efforts to … break new ground for theater command development and war preparedness,” state media reported.
He called for “enhancing the planning of war and combat … and stepping up training under real combat conditions to raise the forces’ capabilities to fight and win,” the reports said.
The PLA, the world’s largest standing armed force, serves as the military wing of the Communist Party and is overseen by a committee headed by Xi.
Beijing also objects vigorously to United States military support for Taiwan, and lashed out Wednesday at an upcoming $440 million sale of cannon shells and other equipment, accusing the U.S. of turning Taiwan into a powder keg.
Yellen is not expected to meet with Xi during her visit. (ap)