Police officers escaped injury after an explosive device detonated in Wattlebridge, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.

The bombing appears to have been a highly sophisticated trap involving a telephone warning and a hoax device discovered close to where the actual bomb exploded in a follow-up operation.

Army bomb disposal officers, who were deployed to the area at the weekend, initially declared the item to be a hoax. But, according to multiple reports, another device exploded on the main A3 Cavan Road on the morning of August 19th.

This well-planned attempt at killing and maiming Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and army bomb disposal officers has caused deep worry and anxiety amongst the security establishment in Northern Ireland.

PSNI Deputy Chief Constable, Stephen Martin, said he is of the “firm belief” the attack was designed to “lure” PSNI and army personnel into the area “to murder them”. 

According to Martin, there have been five attempts to murder police officers this year and that the adverse security situation is becoming “more entrenched”.

The PSNI, and the broader security establishment in Northern Ireland, have lost no time in attributing the bombing to “dissident republicans”, which is often a reference to two groups, the Continuity IRA and the New IRA.

For their part, mainstream republicans in Sinn Fein have condemned the attack as “totally wrong”.

Sinn Fein MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Michelle Gildernew, said: “Those responsible for this incident have nothing to offer society and need to end these actions immediately”.

This latest bombing occurs against the backdrop of an intensifying political crisis in Northern Ireland.

Power sharing arrangements and devolved government collapsed in January 2017 in the wake of a flawed green-energy scheme.

Furthermore, the looming prospect of a no-deal Brexit, and by extension the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, has caused deep anxiety in the nationalist/republican community.

In late July, Sinn Fein President, Mary Lou McDonald, called for an Irish unification referendum in the event of a no-deal Brexit and the return of a hard border.

Source: Presstv

A customer shot a waiter dead at an eatery on the outskirts of Paris, apparently enraged at being made to wait for a sandwich, a source close to the investigation said Saturday.

The waiter’s colleagues called police after he was shot in the shoulder with a handgun in the Noisy-le-Grand suburb east of Paris on Friday night, the source said.

Attempts to revive the 28-year-old failed and he died at the scene.

The gunman, who a witness said lost his temper “as his sandwich wasn’t prepared quickly enough”, fled the scene.

Police told AFP a murder investigation has been opened.

With the shooter still on the run Saturday, shocked residents gathered outside the pizza and sandwich eatery.

“He was killed for a sandwich?” one asked in disbelief. 

It is sad,” said a 29-year-old woman. “It’s a quiet restaurant, without any problems. It just opened a few months ago.”

But others noted high crime levels in the area, notably drug-dealing and public drunkenness.

(Source: AFP)

There are growing signs that Irish nationalists are mobilizing in the north to meet the challenge from the new Tory administration in London led by Boris Johnson.

The upsurge of nationalist activity has even forced the BBC to take note, as demonstrated in a report by Emma Vardy showcasing the blatantly open takeover of the Creggan estate in Derry by nationalist groups.

The Creggan estate is a large housing quarter in Derry which, since the late 1960s, has been a bastion of opposition to British rule in Northern Ireland. 

Boris Johnson’s ascent to the premiership, coupled with a shift to the hard right by the Tory party, has touched off deep-seated anxiety in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

Johnson’s willingness, even determination some would say, to exit the European Union (EU) without a deal, is opposed by all key stakeholders in the island of Ireland, save the Unionist factions.

The danger for Britain is that Irish nationalists gain ground as a result of London’s chaotic approach to Brexit. 

The Financial Times highlighted these dangers in March when it warned that Northern Ireland “dissidents” might be able to “exploit” Brexit. 

What the British press describes as “dissidents” are in fact the new generation of militant Irish nationalists who are opposed to the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998, which brought the armed struggle in Northern Ireland to a close.

The term “dissident” is used to define these groups, notably the New IRA and the Continuity IRA, as marginal to the broader republican movement.

But just how marginal are these groups? In 2019 there has been a marked increase in militant activity. Most recently, on July 27, Irish nationalists attempted to attack police officers in an operation in Craigavon, County Armagh.

Irish nationalist activity has escalated to the point where the so-called dissident groups are now operating in plain sight. This was revealed in the BBC’s hard-hitting report on the Creggan estate.

The estate is dominated by nationalist murals and graffiti which make it clear that symbols of the British state, including the Police Service of Northern Ireland (the successor to the Royal Ulster Constabulary), are not welcome.

Activists from “Saoradh” (Liberation) campaign openly on the streets, even though they refuse to answer questions from the BBC reporter, Vardy.

Saoradh is widely believed to be the political wing of the New IRA.

The open political activity by Saoradh casts doubt on the British media’s attempt to dismiss the new generation of Irish nationalists as mere “dissidents”.  

Source: Presstv 

An Eritrean man accused of killing an eight-year-old boy by pushing him under a train in Germany had been on the run from Swiss police after a violent incident last week, authorities said Tuesday.

The married father-of-three, identified by German media only as 40-year-old Habte A., had also undergone psychiatric treatment this year, said police in the Swiss canton of Zurich where he lived.

Last Thursday, he had flown into a rage and threatened a neighbour with a knife and locked her up, and also trapped his wife and their children, aged one, three and four, in their flat before running away.

Spiegel Online reported that the asylum seeker who had lived in Switzerland for 13 years had worked in tram maintenance for the Zurich Transport Authority since early last year.

German federal police chief Dieter Romann said it appeared the suspect had not been listed as wanted in European police databases and had been able to cross borders freely.

German prosecutors laid murder and attempted murder charges against the man over the attack Monday that left eye-witnesses in need of trauma counselling and shocked the nation.

He allegedly also pushed the boy’s mother onto the tracks at Frankfurt’s main station, and tried but failed to do the same to a 78-year-old woman.

“While the mother could roll off after the fall and move herself onto a narrow footpath between two tracks, her child was caught by the arriving train and died, on the spot, of his injuries,” said a statement by Frankfurt prosecutors.

– Psychiatric examination –

The man ran down a platform and across tracks but was followed by passers-by including an off-duty officer, and overpowered by police two blocks from the station.

The suspect did not previously know the victims and showed no signs of alcohol or drug use, prosecutors spokeswoman Nadja Niesen said.

“The crime suggests a psychiatric disorder,” she told a press conference, adding that an examination would ascertain the level of his criminal culpability.

The horrific crime has dominated newspaper front-pages and TV news bulletins, and led politicians to call for heightened security, more camera surveillance and tighter border controls.

Citizens have laid flower wreaths, candles and stuffed toys at the site of the killing and a memorial service was scheduled at the station in the evening.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer cut short his summer holiday to meet the heads of major security agencies in Berlin.

Niesen said the man in custody had not yet spoken about a motive.

If formally charged, tried and then found guilty, he would face a likely term of life in prison, she said.

In a similar case earlier this month, a 34-year-old mother died after being pushed in front of a train, allegedly by a Serbian man.

Germany’s far-right has seized on both killings to once more criticise would it regards as the flawed immigration policies of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government

Source: AFP

For the 37th consecutive Saturday the anti-government Yellow Vests marched nationwide. They continue to be the only social movement in recent memory which has not gone on Christmas or now summer vacation.

The Yellow Vests’ determination to finally win some concessions and major democratic changes has caused them to endure 8 months of brutal repression, mass arrests, thousands of prison sentences, 900 serious injuries at the hands of cops and bans on protesting in urban centers and rural roundabouts.

After 8 months no one can say what is the popularity rating of the Yellow Vests, because the nation’s polling agencies have completely censored the subject. Four months ago was the last public poll, which gave the Yellow Vests a 50% approval rating.

The demonstrations in Paris continue to only be openly covered by Iranian and Russian media. For all of 2019 French media has been too scared to openly do their job at the Yellow Vest demonstrations, even when they are accompanied by bodyguards. Yellow Vests say their media coverage is one sided, and over the past two months shockingly non-existent.

Despite the government repression, the police violence, the lack of media objectivity and the lack of proper polls, nothing indicates that the Yellow Vests are going to stop marching. While August is expected to be relatively quiet, most analysts say that the Yellow Vests will be leading massive anti-government marches this fall.

Source: Presstv

France on Saturday detained 21 African migrants who surged into the Pantheon in Paris to push their claims for regularised status, police said.

The 21 will be held pending investigation into potentially “violating legislation on foreigners,” the local prefecture said.

One demonstrator was also detained on a charge of violent behaviour against a police officer and was due to face a magistrate Sunday, the Paris prosecutor said.

A small crowd gathered outside the police commissariat in Paris’ fifth district where the migrants were detained. Some brandished placards urging the authorities to “free the gilets noirs (black vests)” and “police racists,” according to an AFP photographer.

The “Black Vests” is a Paris-based migrant association that takes its name from the “yellow vest” anti-government protest movement.

French authorities had arrested 37 people on Friday after around 700 undocumented migrants stormed the Pantheon, the final resting place of France’s greatest non-military luminaries including the writers Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Emile Zola.

In a statement Friday, the Black Vest protesters said they wanted “papers and housing for everyone”, describing themselves as “the undocumented, the voiceless and the faceless of the French Republic”.

They also demanded a meeting with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

After the migrants were Friday brought out of the Pantheon Philippe tweeted the need to respect “the rule of law which means respect for the rules that apply to the right to remain, respect for public monuments and for the memory they represent”.

The “Black Vests” are known for staging headline-grabbing protests in support of the undocumented.

In June, they briefly occupied the headquarters of the Paris-based catering and property Elior Group and in May its activists occupied a terminal at the city’s Charles De Gaulle airport against “Air France’s collaboration” in the deportation of undocumented migrants.

(AFP)

Swiss police fired water cannon, tear gas and stun grenades at Cameroonian protesters outside UN headquarters in Geneva Saturday as the crowd surged towards a luxury hotel hosting Cameroon’s president.

About 250 demonstrators demanding an end to President Paul Biya’s rule squared off with dozens of police, many in riot gear, backed up by armoured vehicles.

The standoff turned violent when the crowd, many draped in Cameroon flags, started making its way towards Biya’s hotel, about 500 metres (1,600 feet) from a square outside the UN where they had gathered.

An AFP reporter witnessed police beating and kicking a protester on the ground.

Biya, 86, “has run his dictatorship for nearly half a century,” said rally co-organiser Robert Wanto, a Cameroonian national who has lived in exile for three decades.

“We are here to demand that Cameroon be allowed to enter the modern democratic era,” he told AFP outside of the UN’s European headquarters ahead of the protest.

Several hours before the rally started, about 30 protestors set up a stage with banners and graphic pictures of dead bodies apparently mangled by torture, with the message: “The people say no to Paul Biya”.

Cameroon’s embassy in Bern warned earlier this week that Cameroonian nationals living in various European countries were planning a “violent” protest against Biya on Saturday.

Geneva police told AFP it was expecting a “large” demonstration. Authorisation was granted but limited to the square outside the UN.

• ‘Ultimatum’ –

They were not granted permission to march to the five-star Intercontinental Hotel where Biya is believed to have been staying since Sunday.

But Wanto told AFP the demonstrators had given Biya an “ultimatum” to leave and if he remained at the hotel when the protest began, “we will march there”.

He pointed out that Biya had made it a habit to stay at the pricy Intercontinental during long visits to Switzerland, where he reportedly comes for medical treatment.

“He thinks it is OK to come here and spend billions of our money when our country is economically sick,” Wanto said.

Early Saturday, dozens of suit-clad men believed to be part of the president’s security detail stood around the hotel.

Several police vans were also parked outside the hotel and groups of officers had been stationed at regular intervals between the tall glass building and the UN square.

Over the past week, there have already been several scuffles with small numbers of demonstrators outside the hotel and even inside the lobby.

An attack on a Swiss journalist covering the events by men believed to be Biya’s security staff sparked a diplomatic incident, prompting the Swiss government to summon Cameroon’s ambassador in Bern on Thursday.

“The dictator must be senile to want to transport the violence he unleashes on his country on a daily basis to the soil of a democratic country,” Wanto said.

Cameroon, a former French colony, has faced a succession of crises and is wracked by a deadly conflict between separatists and government forces in its English-speaking west.

Opposition leaders have faced mass arrests, and rights groups claim detainees are tortured and many disappear.

AFP

Europe was bracing itself for a sweltering Saturday as the heat wave continued across the continent.

The Meteo-France weather service lifted its red warning but forecast a “very hot day” across a large central band of the country with the mercury expected to rise to 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) in some parts.

With France, Spain, Italy and parts of central Europe hard hit by the record-breaking temperatures, officials pleaded with people to take precautions.

France’s new record temperature of 45.9 degrees C (114.6 degrees F) was registered on Friday in Gallargues-le-Montueux, a village in the southern department of Gard near Montpellier, breaking successive records set earlier in the day, Meteo-France told AFP.

This is the same area where the previous high of 44.1 degrees Celsius was set in August 2003. Records began at the turn of the 20th century.

The weather service said the new high was comparable to August temperatures in California’s Death Valley.

Earlier Friday, the mercury rose above 44 degrees C in the southeastern French town of Carpentras. The town was deserted, with cafe owners contemplating empty terraces which would normally be packed.

“We have never seen this!” one exclaimed.

The new record makes France just the seventh European country to have recorded a plus 45-degree temperature, along with Bulgaria, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece and North Macedonia, Meteo France said.

‘Avoidable deaths’

Two deaths linked to the heat wave were reported in Spain.

A Spanish teenager felt dizzy while helping harvest wheat in the southern Andalusia region, took a dip in a swimming pool, and collapsed in convulsions.

He was rushed to hospital in the town of Cordoba where he died, the regional government said.

A 93-year-old man collapsed and died on the street in the northern Spanish city of Valladolid, police said, giving heatstroke as the cause of death.

Heat-related deaths have also been reported in Italy, France and Germany, mainly among the elderly.

France remains haunted by the memory of the devastating heat wave of August 2003 which exposed the shortcomings of emergency services at the height of the summer holidays.

That year, nearly 15,000 people are estimated to have died because of the heat, many of them elderly people at home.

“I want to appeal to the sense of responsibility of citizens — there are avoidable deaths in every heat wave,” said French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

Scientists warn that global warming linked to human fossil fuel use could make such scorchers more frequent.

Germany’s national weather service said the country experienced temperatures more than four degrees higher in June than the average, on one measure.

Fire hydrants uncapped

French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn warned people tempted to plunge into cold water, both young and old, to do so only in designated public bathing areas, adding that four people have drowned since the beginning of the week.

On Thursday, Buzyn lamented that despite a barrage of public health warnings on radio, TV and on public transport, some parents were still leaving their children in hot cars and joggers were out exercising in the midday heat.

A six-year-old Syrian child was seriously injured north of Paris Thursday after being catapulted into the air by water gushing from an open fire hydrant and then crashing to the ground.

The incident occurred in the multi-ethnic Saint-Denis neighborhood, where “uncapping” hydrants has long been used as a way to cool off.

In the Italian city of Milan, a 72-year-old homeless man was found dead at the main train station Thursday after falling ill in the heat wave.

A day earlier, four people died in Germany in bathing accidents.

Spanish inferno

In Spain, firefighters managed to halt the progression of a forest fire that broke out Wednesday in the northeastern Catalonia region and had burned more than 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres).

Catalonia’s forest service said the fire likely began when an “improperly managed” pile of manure at a chicken farm spontaneously combusted in the extreme heat.

Hundreds of firefighters backed by troops and aerial water bombers were hampered by roasting 44-degree temperatures and very low humidity.

Spain’s north-east was on red heat wave alert denoting “extreme risk”.

The stifling temperatures have caused air quality to nosedive in some European cities, prompting local authorities to take anti-pollution measures.

In Paris, Lyon and Marseille, authorities have banned the most polluting cars from the roads in recent days.

(Source: AFP)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday suffered another episode of uncontrolled trembling, a week after a similar incident that sparked questions about her health.

The latest lapse came hours before Merkel was due to board a plane for the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan.

The German leader began to tremble as she stood next to President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was giving a speech at a ceremony to formally appoint a new justice minister.

The shaking went on for two minutes, according to a DPA photographer who was present at the event.

Merkel folded her arms visibly in a bid to stop the trembling.

She only finally brought it under control once she was able to take a few steps.

She was offered a glass of water but turned it down.

Her previous bout of shaking last Tuesday had been blamed on dehydration on a hot summer’s day.

Despite the latest incident, a German government spokesman said Merkel would not be cancelling any appointments on Thursday and Friday.

“The chancellor is well,” he said, adding that she will be flying as planned to Osaka for the G20 summit.

Merkel, frequently called the European Union’s most influential leader and the most powerful woman in the world, turns 65 next month.

She has said she will leave politics at the end of her term, in 2021.

There were brief concerns about her health in 2014 when she was taken ill during a television interview. The broadcast was briefly interrupted when she experienced a drop in blood pressure.

Her spokesman Steffen Seibert explained at the time the leader did not feel well for a moment, then ate and drank something and continued the interview.

AFP