The European Union is to double the budget allocated to a multi-national force in West Africa’s Sahel region as part of a declared mission to crack down on militancy and human trafficking there.

Europe fears that growing instability in the Sahel region of Africa — an arid land mass lying to the immediate south of the Sahara Desert and stretching east-west across the breadth of the African continent — could worsen the already high levels of human trafficking toward Europe and create a springboard for militant attacks on the West.

“There is a direct European interest in restoring stability to the region,” a senior EU diplomat said as quoted by media reports published on Friday. “There is a general awareness now that the future of the European Union is also the future of Africa.”

The deaths of two French soldiers in Mali this week and four US soldiersin Niger in October last year, where most Americans did not know the United States had forces, has highlighted the security threat in the vast scrublands spanning from Mauritania to Chad.

To address the mounting security threats, Brussels and Washington have devised a two-sided strategy, including military and development aid in Africa.

The West created the G5 Sahel force — made up of troops from Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania — to counter militancy in the region. The Western-backed force is to receive more than 400 million euros (494 million dollars) to be able to meet its declared objectives.

The new budget is almost double the 250 million euros it has now.

France, which has more than 4,000 troops in the region, has been frustrated that it is the only EU member with combat troops on the ground, although others have contributed trainers.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that the military approach alone would not be effective and called for greater efforts to relieve the roots of the conflict, namely poverty, poor governance, and climate hazards.

“When you add more weapons, you add more suffering,” Patrick Youssef, the deputy head of the ICRC’s operations for Africa, told Reuters. “That needs to be accompanied with real measures to alleviate the suffering that is the main reason why this war was created.”

A “large” gas leak in London’ West End has shut down the Charing Cross station and prompted the police to evacuate hundreds of people from a hotel and a nightclub, rail operators and the fire brigade say.

“Around 1,450 people have been evacuated from a nearby hotel and a nightclub,” the London Fire Brigade said, adding that firefighters were assisting police at a ruptured gas main in Craven Street off Strand, WC2.

The fire brigade said it received a call at 0200 GMT, and that two fire engines and two fire rescue units and around 20 firefighters were at the scene.

Fire crews using detection equipment have identified high levels of natural gas in the atmosphere, it said.

Emergency services are dealing with the incident and a cordon and road closures are also in place, Britain’s Network Rail said in a statement.

Some services may be delayed or cancelled as a result, it said, adding that the station would be reopened as soon as it gets clearance from emergency services.

Rail services are expected to resume by noon, Southeastern railway said on its website.

Transport for London tweeted that “A4 Strand / Northumberland St – Rd is closed” between Trafalgar Square and Bedford Street.

(Source: Reuters)

Axe-wielding robbers stole jewelry on Wednesday possibly worth more than $5 million from a store in the famed Ritz Paris hotel, police said.

Five thieves carried out the heist at the luxury hotel in late afternoon. Three were arrested while two others got away. There were no injuries.

“The loss is very high and remains to be assessed,” one police source said. Another put the figure at 4.5 million euros ($5.38 million), but said that a bag had been recovered possibly containing some of the loot.

The hotel first opened in 1898 and was the first Paris hotel to boast electricity on all floors and bathrooms that were inside rooms.

Armed heists targeting jewelry stores are not uncommon in the ultra-chic avenues near Place Vendome in central Paris where the Ritz is located.

Place Vendome, with its opulent window displays of jewelers and high-end watchmakers, has been the scene of several audacious daytime raids.

Security had been boosted in the area, which also houses France’s Justice Ministry, in 2014 after several daring armed raids on Place Vendome in which jewels worth between 420,000 and two million euros were seized.

The landmark Paris Ritz hotel re-opened its palatial doors to guests in 2016 after nearly four years of renovations and a major fire.

The hotel founded by Swiss entrepreneur Cesar Ritz in 1898 is storied as the lodging of choice of Marcel Proust, Charlie Chaplin, Coco Chanel and Ernest Hemingway, who has a small bar named after him.

In more recent history however, the Ritz has become known as the place where Britain’s Princess Diana spent her last hours before a car accident in a tunnel in the French capital while being pursued by paparazzi.

(Source: Agencies)

Winter storm Eleanor swept into France, Belgium and the Netherlands on Wednesday after tearing through England and Northern Ireland, cutting power to tens of thousands of people and forcing airports and train services to halt operations.

A skier was killed by a falling tree at Morillon in the French Alps while 15 others have been injured by the storm across the country, four of them seriously, civil defense spokesman Michael Bernier told AFP.

Another person was hurt by a falling tree in the southern Dutch village of Heesch.

Heavy winds led the airports in Strasbourg and Basel-Mulhouse on France’s border with Germany and Switzerland to close before they were reopened shortly after midday.

At Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, 60 percent of departures were delayed Wednesday morning, as were a third of arrivals, while a handful of flights had to be rerouted before the winds eased back a bit.

The winds were also wreaking havoc with train services in several French regions.

About 200,000 homes across northern France were without electricity, while “particularly intense” flooding was expected on the Atlantic coasts.

The Eiffel Tower, which attracts six million visitors a year, was closed until at least Wednesday afternoon, while worries about falling tree branches prompted Paris officials to close all city parks for the day.

Eleanor barreled into continental Europe after whipping across England, Northern Ireland and Ireland, with the Thames Barrier, one of the largest movable flood barriers in the world, closed as a precautionary measure to protect London from swelling tides.

Gusts of 160 kilometers per hour (100 mph) were recorded at Great Dun Fell in Westmorland, northwest England, while overturned vehicles and trees caused closures of major motorways.

In Ireland, power supply company ESB said electricity had been restored to 123,000 customers, while 27,000 remained without power.

Belgium and parts of Spain were also put on “orange” alert, the third of four warning levels, with officials urging people to exercise caution when venturing out.

Although the winds eased toward midday, rescue workers in Brussels were kept busy with about 70 calls across the city, mainly after trees were knocked down, and several parks were closed.

In the Netherlands, 252 of about 1,200 flights were cancelled at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, a key European hub, as weather alerts were issued for several regions.

Several main roads and train lines were also closed as officials rushed to prepare flooding defenses.

Flights were also disrupted at Frankfurt’s airport in Germany, where the storm has been baptized Burglind, and at Zurich airport, as Swiss officials urged hikers to avoid forest walks.

RTS television reported that about 14,000 homes were without power in several Swiss cantons.

Eleanor is the fourth major storm to hit Europe since December.

The storm is now heading for the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, where meteorologists are warning of violent gusts that could reach 200 kilometers per hour.

Austria is also in its path, where the avalanche risk was expected to be raised to four on a scale of five in several areas Wednesday afternoon.

(Source: AFP)

Catalan separatists won a crucial snap poll Thursday, plunging their region into further uncertainty after a failed independence bid rattled Europe and triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

With turnout at a record high and 99.6 percent of the ballots counted, the election handed a mandate back to the region’s ousted separatist leaders, even after they campaigned from exile and behind bars.

In a clear indicator of the huge gulf over independence afflicting Catalan society, anti-secessionist centrist party Ciudadanos was meanwhile on course to win the biggest individual result with 37 of the 135 seats in the regional parliament.

“It’s a strange feeling. We won the majority of seats, but we lost in votes. As such both sides will be able to claim victory,” 26-year-old doctor and separatist supporter Fran Robles told AFP after the results were announced.

“It’s a good reflection of the reality that Catalonia is politically divided,” he added. But unless the three pro-independence lists fail to clinch a deal to work together in the coming months, they will rule Catalonia with 70 of the 135 seats in parliament — two less than their previous tally of 72.

For Catalans on both sides of the divide the day had been a moment of truth, following weeks of upheaval and protests unseen since democracy was reinstated following the death in 1975 of dictator Francisco Franco.

“This is a result which no one can dispute,” deposed leader Carles Puigdemont said from self-imposed exile in Belgium, as he celebrated the separatists’ win.

“The Spanish state was defeated. (Spanish Prime Minister Mariano) Rajoy and his allies lost,” he told reporters.

Upset for Rajoy

The Spanish government called the election after it took the unprecedented step of stripping Catalonia of its treasured autonomy in the aftermath of an independence declaration on October 27 that rattled a Europe already shaken by Brexit.

At stake was the economy of a region that has seen its tourism sector suffer and more than 3,100 companies — including the largest banks, utilities and insurers — move their legal headquarters out of Catalonia since the referendum.

The declaration came weeks after a banned independence referendum on October 1, which saw a police crackdown that sent shockwaves around the world.

Rajoy and his conservative cabinet tried to nip the independence movement in the bud, sacking the regional government and dissolving its parliament.

In a further obstacle for the separatist cause, the judiciary pressed charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of funds against the secessionist leaders.

Puigdemont, who had fled to Belgium where he tried to rally international support for the separatist cause, has not since returned to Spain, where he faces arrest. His Together for Catalonia list nonetheless secured the best result of the three separatist groupings — in a major upset for Rajoy’s government.

“Puigdemont president!” chanted Puigdemont’s campaign manager Elsa Artadi at a rally celebrating the result.

“The result we have obtained is heroic, we have won, Mr Rajoy,” Together for Catalonia candidate Eduard Pujol said.

What still remains unclear, however, is whether Puigdemont will be renamed president, and if so, whether he will return from Belgium and how he might govern.

(Source: AFP)

At least two people have been killed and several others injured in two stabbing attacks in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht, police say.

The police said in a statement that two stabbing attacks had been carried out on Thursday night a few hundred meters away from each other in a residential neighborhood in northern Maastricht, a city close to the Netherlands’ borders with Belgium and Germany.

In the first incident, a man was stabbed to death during a fight and a suspect fled the scene. Ten minutes later, another attack occurred, in which a woman was fatally stabbed and two men were injured. Another wounded person was later found at a local mosque and transferred to hospital, police explained.

One suspect was detained on suspicion of involvement in the incidents, police said, adding that, “Research has shown that there is no reason to assume that these incidents have a terrorist motive.”

Police added that they “are still investigating these incidents in the neighborhood.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who was at a European Union summit in the Belgian capital of Brussels, also said the attacks were not terrorism-related.

Source: Presstv

Forty-one people were injured, three seriously, in a train crash near the German city of Dusseldorf, the local fire department said on Tuesday.

A passenger train of the regional provider National Express drove into a freight train from DB Cargo about 1830 GMT in the town of Meerbusch.

A local firebrigade spokesman said the crash caused one of the carriages of the freight train to derail completely dragging the overhead wiring onto the ground with it.

Emergency services had to wait for emergency train staff to deactivate the wiring before attending to the passengers.

French President Emmanuel Macron has strongly condemned the “horrific and shameful” violence against women in the country, introducing a package of measures aimed at curbing the phenomenon.

“Our entire society is sick with sexism,” Macron said in a speech marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in the capital Paris on Saturday.

“France must no longer be one of those countries where women are afraid,” he added.

The French president called for a “pact of gender equality” as he outlined plans to combat sexual harassment and violence.

He said educating schoolchildren and improving police support for rape and assault victims must serve as major guidelines.

The proposals also include criminalizing street harassment and extending the statute of limitation for the rape of minors to 30 years from 20 years.

Macron, who won the presidential election in May, had made gender equality one of the main themes of his five-year term in office.

French activists welcomed the measures as being in the right direction, but called for adequate funding for their effective implementation.

Statistics show that over 80,000 adult women face rape or attempted rape in France every year while only 10 percent file a complaint.

The European country has often debated sexual harassment over the past decade following scandals involving French politicians.

Six years ago, former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn was forced to resign as head of the International Monetary Fund due to a sex scandal.

Culled from Presstv

German police say a man with a knife has lightly wounded four people in Munich. Officers are looking for the assailant.

Munich police called on people in the Rosenheimer Platz area, located close to the German city’s downtown, to stay inside after the incident on Saturday morning.

The perpetrator fled the scene. Police said the motive for the attack was not immediately clear. None of the injuries were considered life-threatening.

German police special forces have detained a suspect in the knife attack in the southern city of Munich, Bild newspaper said on it website.

The daily did not give a source for its report. Police are expected to hold a news conference in the Bavarian capital around 1000 GMT.

(Source: Agencies)

Three people have been killed in Portugal as the country is hit by a record number of forest fires, and three more have died in Spain where blazes sparked by arsonists have been fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Ophelia.

In total, some 440 fires were burning across Portugal Sunday, which is “the worst day since the beginning of the year,” according to a spokeswoman for the national civil protection agency, Patricia Gaspar.

In addition to the three dead, some 25 people had been injured, she said, with thousands of firefighters deployed and three motorways, including one linking Lisbon and Porto, closed.

This year has also seen Portugal’s worst ever fire in June near Pedrogao Grande in the center of the country, which killed 64 people and injured 250.

The recent fires have been caused by “higher than average temperatures for the season and the cumulative effect of drought, which has been felt since the start of the year,” Gaspar said.

In Spain, authorities were blaming arson for some 17 fires which have caused three deaths.

“They are absolutely intentional fires, premeditated, caused by people who know what they are doing,” the head of the regional government, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, said.

Fifteen separate wildfires which posed a risk to built-up areas were raging across the region of Galicia, he said.

The flames were being fanned by wind gusts of up to 90 kilometers (55 miles) per hour as Hurricane Ophelia moved north off the coast of Spain towards Ireland, he told private broadcaster La Sexta.

Feijoo said “thousands” of firefighters, soldiers and locals were battling the blazes.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is from Galicia, expressed his condolences to the victims in a Twitter message.

Five wildfires were raging near Vigo, Galicia’s biggest city, forcing the evacuation of a shopping mall and a PSA Peugeot Citroen factory on the outskirts of the city.

The flames had reached O Castro, a large hilltop park in the heart of Vigo with sweeping views of the city’s estuary, Spanish public television station TVE reported.

The national weather office is forecasting rain and cooler temperatures in Galicia beginning early on Monday which officials hope will help put out the flames.

Meteorologists say Ophelia is the most powerful hurricane recorded so far east in the Atlantic and the first since 1939 to travel so far north.

(Source: AFP)