Four badly injured, two missing in Paris building blast

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Updated 21 June 2023
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Four badly injured, two missing in Paris building blast

  • Facade of building in 5th arrondissement collapsed, emergency services checking if anyone still inside
  • Paris police official said 29 people were injured, including four in critical condition, two missing

An explosion potentially caused by a gas leak ripped through a building in central Paris on Wednesday, injuring four people seriously and causing a wave of destruction in a historic district of the capital, officials said.
Rescue workers were in the evening still searching the rubble for two missing individuals who had not been accounted for, according to prosecutors.
Police said 29 people were injured, with four of them in a serious condition.
The blast was followed by a major fire which caused the building, housing a fashion school, to collapse. Images showed wreckage littering the area around the building, as the flames smoldered.
Some 70 fire trucks and 270 firefighters battled the blaze. Nine doctors were also at the scene.
The fire service had said there had been “an explosion” which had “caused the collapse of two buildings,” but police later said only one building had collapsed.
Several witnesses told AFP at the scene they had heard “a giant explosion.”
Windows as far as 400 meters (440 yards) away were shattered, AFP reporters said.
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo assembled a crisis unit and wrote on Twitter: “My thoughts go first and foremost to the victims and their loved ones.”
The “violent” fire which broke out after the explosion has now been “contained,” Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said at the scene, adding that “work is still taking place under the rubble” to find any more possible victims.
The firefighters “prevented the spread of the fire to two adjoining buildings which were seriously destabilized by the explosion” and “were evacuated,” Nunez added.
The blast was caused by a “gas explosion,” the district’s mayor said on Twitter, although this was not confirmed by other officials.
Florence Berthout, mayor of the 5th district in central Paris, said the main building affected is a private fashion school — called Paris American Academy — adjoining the former Val-de-Grace military hospital.
According to the mayor, the noise of the “quite enormous” explosion spread “in part of the district.”
An investigation into the causes of the blast was launched immediately, prosecutors said.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin had earlier asked on Twitter for people to stay away from the area to avoid hindering the massive deployment of firefighters and police.
He has now cut short a visit to the eastern city of Nancy to head to the scene.
AFP pictures taken at the site showed tall flames, and smoke billowing from the building, situated at Place Alphonse-Laveran, close to the Luxembourg Gardens.
The area is at the edge of the Latin Quarter, a top tourism area in the French capital.
“It was like in the movies,” said Anthony Halbert, who runs a butcher’s shop in the same street as the destroyed building.
“We heard a second explosion, less than two minutes after the first, and we watched the front of the building crumble,” he said.
Alexis, a 23-year-old student living across from the building, said he heard “a huge bang,” and then his windows were blown out.
“It was super scary, there was smoke, and debris, and leaves flying,” he said. “We didn’t know if it was a terrorist attack.”
Sarah Taheraly, who works at the nearby Institut Curie, a medical research center, said she felt her building tremble. “It was like a muffled sound,” she said.
Another witness, working at the nearby Catholic education secretariat SGEC, said: “There was a big noise. I fell off my chair during a meeting, and so did others.”
One of his colleagues had noticed a strong smell of gas in the street just before the explosion, said the man who declined to give his name.
However, officials said they did not have enough evidence to determine the cause of the blast with certainty.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told reporters that “we are obviously counting on the lightly injured people to provide the investigation with input so we can understand what happened.”
There have been several incidents of gas-related blasts in the French capital.
The explosion recalled a massive blast that rocked Paris in January 2019, when a suspected leak in a buried gas pipe destroyed a building on the Rue de Trevise in the ninth district, killing four people including two firefighters.
The shockwave blew out scores of nearby windows, and dozens of families were forced to evacuate their homes for months. Much of the street still remains off limits four years after the disaster.
Paris city hall has been charged with involuntary manslaughter over that blast, and legal wrangling over the exact cause continues.


British medics say Gaza is ‘televised genocide’ and ‘unlike anything’ seen in war zones

Updated 3 sec ago
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British medics say Gaza is ‘televised genocide’ and ‘unlike anything’ seen in war zones

  • Medical volunteers have been working tirelessly despite limited supplies, and have witnessed “very obvious ... malnourishment in the community”
  • Dr. Tom Potokar says he lost 11 kg during his recent trip to Gaza, despite bringing food with him, while his Palestinian medical colleagues appeared increasingly fatalistic

LONDON: British healthcare workers volunteering to treat patients in the Gaza Strip report witnessing harrowing injuries, including severe burns and shrapnel wounds as well as cases of extreme starvation due to Israeli attacks and restrictions on aid.

Sam Sears, a 44-year-old paramedic, told the British tabloid Metro that the range of injuries he has seen at a humanitarian medical tent facility in Al-Mawasi, on the southern coast of Gaza, includes blast injuries, shrapnel wounds, gunshot wounds and polytrauma.

He is volunteering with the UK-Med charity as part of a team responding to starvation in Gaza, following the emergence of distressing images of malnourished Palestinians, including some infants, which have prompted widespread condemnation, including from the UK government.

“It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before,” Sears said.

“Especially like nothing I’ve seen in the UK, and I have worked in other areas like Sierra Leone for Ebola and Ukraine in the war, but this here is completely different. It’s like times ten here.

“We are struggling for food here at the moment, let alone (Palestinian) staff that are working with us who have had to manage this for the last 20 months.”

He said that medical volunteers have been working tirelessly despite limited supplies, including fuel, and it was “very obvious (that) we have got malnourishment in the community.”

“We can buy certain things from the market but it’s very scarce, it’s also costing quadruple or more than what it normally would. A kilogram of sugar at the minute is costing $130, so it’s just extortionate,” he said.

The UK-Med charity operates two field hospitals in Gaza, treating 500 people daily, and includes an operating theater for lifesaving surgical procedures.

“The ceasefire is needed, not just a pause but a permanent end to the hostilities,” Sears said. “The people in Gaza have suffered immensely, they have got nowhere to call home ... They are hungry, malnourished, the conflict needs to stop really.”

“The healthcare and aid needs to come in for the 2.1 million people who it’s needed for here,” he added.

Dr. Tom Potokar, a veteran British plastic surgeon who has volunteered in various Palestinian hospitals and has visited Gaza 16 times since 2018, said that the healthcare system is overwhelmed with severe burn victims from Israel’s military actions.

Dr. Potokar told the Telegraph newspaper that he had been operating on 10 to 12 patients suffering burns from blasts each day, with three-quarters of those cases being women or children. “That’s taking the top-10 priority, but there’s still plenty more behind that that needed operating,” he said.

He volunteered nearly two years ago during the initial six weeks after Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip in late 2023. He is the founder of the medical charity Interburns, established in 2006, which addresses the lack of burns expertise in poorer nations and war zones. When he arrived for the first time in Gaza in 2018, he discovered that there were only two fully qualified plastic surgeons, one of whom was partially retired.

His most recent visit, with the Ideals international aid charity, was in May and June, during which he witnessed terrible injuries from explosions.

“I saw many cases of bilateral or triple limb amputations, huge open wounds on the back, on the chest, with the lung exposed. Really horrendous blast injuries from shrapnel, and as I say, a lot of them combined with burns as well,” he said.

The most devastating cases involved children, with some cases sustaining about 90 percent burns.

“There’s nothing you can do. Even if there was not a conflict there, in that country, in that scenario, a 90 percent burn (case) when it’s almost all full thickness is not going to survive,” he said.

“But then you are talking about a nine-year-old and some end-of-life dignity, and unfortunately they don’t die in a couple of hours, it takes four or five days, so you see this patient every four or five days, knowing full well that there’s absolutely nothing you can do.”

Dr. Potokar described treating patients who are “skin and bone” due to Israeli aid restrictions leading to mass starvation in Gaza.

“Wounds are just stagnating because they are just not getting food.”

He said that he lost 11 kg during his recent trip, despite bringing food with him. His Palestinian medical colleagues appeared increasingly fatalistic, he said, as more than 100 human rights organizations warned this week that some staff members have become too weak to continue their work due to food shortages.

Dr. Potokar described Gaza as the “world’s first televised genocide” and said that there was a lack of response to end the war in the coastal enclave.

“We are putting plasters on a haemorrhaging aneurysm. The problem is the political initiative, the total lack of global, moral, ethical insight into this and desire to stop it,” he said.


Man accused of attempting to assassinate Trump can represent himself at trial, judge says

Updated 52 min 54 sec ago
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Man accused of attempting to assassinate Trump can represent himself at trial, judge says

  • Judge Aileen Cannon signed off on Ryan Routh’s request but said court-appointed attorneys need to remain as standby counsel
  • Routh said during the hearing that his attorneys were diligent, but they didn’t listen to him and were afraid of him

FLORIDA: A man charged with trying to assassinate President Donald Trump last year in South Florida can represent himself during his trial, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

US District Judge Aileen Cannon signed off on Ryan Routh’s request but said court-appointed attorneys need to remain as standby counsel. Earlier in the week, the federal public defenders had asked to be taken off the case, saying Routh had refused repeated attempts to meet with them.

Routh said during the hearing that his attorneys were diligent, but they didn’t listen to him and were afraid of him.

“How are they supposed to represent me and say I’m not a dangerous person when they don’t believe that?” Routh said.

Routh, 59, is scheduled to stand trial in September, a year after prosecutors say a US Secret Service agent thwarted his attempt to shoot Trump as he played golf. Routh has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer and several firearm violations.

Reiterating her message from a July 10 hearing, Cannon told Routh that she doesn’t intend to delay the Sept. 8 start date of his trial, even if she lets him represent himself. She also once again told Routh that she believes it’s a bad idea for Routh to represent himself.

Routh, who said he completed two years of college after earning his GED certificate, told Cannon that he understands the potential challenges and would be ready for trial.

Cannon said Thursday that she decided to hold the second hearing after receiving a June 29 letter from Routh that did not arrive at the courthouse until after that hearing. In that letter, Routh said he and his attorneys were “a million miles apart” and that they were refusing to answer his questions. He also wrote that he could be used in a prisoner exchange with Iran, China, North Korea or Russia.

“I could die being of some use and save all this court mess, but no one acts; perhaps you have the power to trade me away,” Routh wrote.

Cannon told Routh that she believed the federal public defenders assigned to Routh’s case were excellent attorneys.

“I find no basis to believe that there has been ineffective assistance of counsel,” Cannon said.

The judge also reminded Routh that she will not be able to assist Routh or provide legal advice during the trial.

Cannon also briefly addressed Routh’s suggestion of a prisoner exchange, saying, “I have no power or any opinion of anything you’ve written there.”

On Wednesday, the federal public defender’s office filed a motion for termination of appointment of counsel, saying “the attorney-client relationship is irreconcilably broken.” Attorneys said Routh has refused six attempts to meet with their team, including a scheduled in-person meeting Tuesday morning at the federal detention center in Miami.

“It is clear that Mr. Routh wishes to represent himself, and he is within his Constitutional rights to make such a demand,” the motion said.

Cannon denied their motion on Thursday, explaining that their office was in the best position to prevent delays to the trial.

The US Supreme Court has held that criminal defendants have a right to represent themselves in court proceedings, as long as they can show a judge they are competent to waive their right to be defended by an attorney.

Prosecutors have said Routh methodically plotted to kill Trump for weeks before aiming a rifle through the shrubbery as Trump played golf on Sept. 15 at his West Palm Beach country club. A Secret Service agent spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Officials said Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and flee without firing a shot.

Law enforcement obtained help from a witness who prosecutors said informed officers that he saw a person fleeing. The witness was then flown in a police helicopter to a nearby interstate where Routh was arrested, and the witnesses confirmed it was the person he had seen, prosecutors have said.

Routh will have his first chance to represent himself on Friday during a scheduled hearing on whether certain evidence and testimony can be used at trial. His former attorneys are expected to be present as standby counsel.

In addition to the federal charges, Routh also has pleaded not guilty to state charges of terrorism and attempted murder.


Hulk Hogan, icon in professional wrestling, dies at age 71

Updated 24 July 2025
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Hulk Hogan, icon in professional wrestling, dies at age 71

  • Hogan, whose real name was Terry Bollea, passed away at Florida hospital after suffering cardiac arrest
  • His public persona transcended the ring, making him a household name and WWE Hall of Famer 2005

CLEARWATER: Hulk Hogan, the mustachioed, headscarf-wearing icon in the world of professional wrestling, has died at the age of 71, Florida police and WWE said Thursday.

In Clearwater, Florida, authorities responded to a call Thursday morning about a cardiac arrest. Hogan was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said in a statement on Facebook.

Hogan, whose real name was Terry Bollea, was perhaps the biggest star in WWE’s long history. He was the main draw for the first WrestleMania in 1985 and was a fixture for years, facing everyone from Andre The Giant and Randy Savage to The Rock and even company chairman Vince McMahon.

He won at least six WWE championships and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005.

Hogan was also a celebrity outside the wrestling world, appearing in numerous movies and television shows, including a reality show about his life on VH1, “Hogan Knows Best.”

Hogan’s public persona has transcended the ring, making him a household name. He appeared in numerous movies — including the third “Rocky” film, where he took on the title character, played by Sylvester Stallone. Hogan also had a reality show about his life on VH1, called “Hogan Knows Best” in the early 2000s.

The attention on the intimate details of Hogan’s personal life has not always been welcomed by the superstar. A Florida jury sided with Hogan in 2016, awarding him $115 million in a lawsuit against Gawker Media for posting a video of him having sex with his former best friend’s wife.

Hogan contended the 2012 post violated his privacy. The lawsuit forced Gawker to shutter and was closely watched by First Amendment experts and media lawyers alike.

WWE posted a note on X saying it was saddened to learn the WWE Hall of Famer had passed away.

“One of pop culture’s most recognizable figures, Hogan helped WWE achieve global recognition in the 1980s. WWE extends its condolences to Hogan’s family, friends, and fans,” it said.


Ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn launches new UK political party

Jeremy Corbyn attends a protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, in London, Britain. (File/Reuters)
Updated 24 July 2025
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Ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn launches new UK political party

  • In announcement, Corbyn and Sultana called for a “mass redistribution of wealth and power,” said they would “keep demanding an end to all arms sales to Israel”

LONDON: Former leftist Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn announced Thursday he was forming a new political party alongside another ex-member of Britain’s ruling party, as the UK’s political landscape continues to splinter.
Corbyn, who lost two elections as Labour leader in 2017 and 2019, and fellow independent MP Zarah Sultana referred to the new left-wing outfit as “Your Party,” but later said its name still had to be decided.
“It’s time for a new kind of political party. One that is rooted in our communities, trade unions and social movements,” they said in a joint statement.
In their announcement, they called for a “mass redistribution of wealth and power” and said they would “keep demanding an end to all arms sales to Israel.”
They also committed to a “free and independent Palestine.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has pulled Labour to the center since succeeding Corbyn as leader, faces growing calls within his party to recognize a Palestinian state.
Corbyn, 76, stepped down as Labour leader after overseeing its worst result in decades, when it was trounced in the 2019 general election by the Conservatives, then led by Boris Johnson.
Labour under Starmer suspended him in 2020 after he refused to fully accept the findings of a rights watchdog’s probe into claims that anti-Semitism had become rampant within Labour’s ranks under his leadership.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission ruled the party had broken equality law when Corbyn was in charge.
Corbyn said anti-Semitism had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons.”
Last year Corbyn announced he would stand as an independent in the July 2024 general election after Labour failed to put him forward as a candidate.
He was expelled from the party but still went on to win comfortably his Islington North seat in London, which he has represented for more than 40 years.
Sultana, an MP since 2019, was suspended by Labour last year after she and several other members of parliament voted to scrap a controversial cap on child benefits.

While it remains to be seen whether the new movement will take off, its formation appears to confirm a trend in British politics toward a multi-party system.
British politics has long been dominated by Labour and the Conservatives, but three other parties are challenging that order.
The center-left Liberal Democrats won 72 seats in the 650-seat parliament in July 2024, while Nigel Farage’s anti-immigrant Reform UK party won about 14 percent of the vote.
It picked up five seats, an unprecedented breakthrough for a hard-right party in Britain.
Farage’s Euroskeptics swept dozens of council and mayoral seats in local elections in May and are leading national opinion polls, although the next general election is not expected until 2029.
While Reform are picking up support on the right, Labour is also losing votes to the Greens on the left.
Starmer, a former chief state prosecutor who is seen as too right-wing for some left-wingers in his party, recently suspended four lawmakers who rebelled over his attempts at reforming welfare.
They currently sit as independents and Westminster watchers will be keeping a close eye on whether they are tempted to join Corbyn’s new party.
“I do think there is space for a left-wing populist party in the UK with a charismatic leader that could pose an enormous threat to Labour and the other parties, but it’s going to take a lot to convince me that Jeremy Corbyn can be it,” Chris Hopkins, political research director at polling firm Savanta, told AFP.


Filipino film opposed by Beijing draws global attention to disputed South China Sea

Updated 24 July 2025
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Filipino film opposed by Beijing draws global attention to disputed South China Sea

  • ‘Food Delivery’ was pulled from Philippine premiere in March but will debut on Sunday
  • Chinese consulate tried to block it from a New Zealand festival where it won an award

MANILA: Pulled from screens days before its premiere, a Philippine documentary about the daily struggles of Filipino fishermen and coast guards is now winning big abroad, turning the spotlight onto the disputed South China Sea and Manila’s tensions with Beijing. 

“Food Delivery: Fresh from the West Philippine Sea,” by Filipino filmmaker Baby Ruth Villarama, was initially set for a Philippine premiere in March. However, it was dropped from the lineup of the PureGold CinePanalo Film Festival in Manila with organizers citing “external factors.”

The film’s title refers to the Philippine part of the South China Sea lying within the country’s exclusive economic zone, an area central to a long-running dispute over the strategic waterway between Manila and Beijing. 

Seeking to highlight the “human” side of tensions beyond geopolitical framing, it centers on the story of Filipino fishermen “who risk their lives every day” and the quiet efforts of Philippine coast guard personnel to keep them safe despite limited resources, Villarama told Arab News. 

“They see it as their duty, their lifeblood, and their birthright. What struck us most was not anger or fear, but a deep sense of quiet dignity. These are men who wake before sunrise, not minding what dangers await them, yet they sail because they must feed their families and uphold traditions passed down for generations,” she said. 

“They don’t use the word ‘patriotism,’ but they live it. For them, the West Philippine Sea isn’t an idea. It’s home. It’s where they survive, dream, and stand their ground. Their courage is unassuming, but it is fierce.”

The documentary went on to have its world premiere at the Doc Edge Festival in New Zealand, where it won the Tides of Change prize earlier this month.

“International recognition gave the film credibility, but it was really the solidarity of communities here and abroad that could make the screening possible on the 27th (of July),” Villarama said.  “We’re just hoping for the best.”

Before the film made its international debut in New Zealand, it faced pressure from the Chinese Consulate-General in Auckland, which lodged a formal protest to festival organizers and requested the film’s scheduled screenings were canceled. 

Despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling in favor of the Philippines’ claims China continues to assert its historical claims to the waters, through which an estimated $5.3 trillion worth of commercial goods transit annually.

In a letter to organizers later posted online, the Chinese consulate said the film was “rife with disinformation and false propaganda, serving as a political tool for Philippines to pursue illegitimate claims in the South China Sea.”

But for its creators, the film was always about the Filipino audience.

“We made ‘Food Delivery’ to hold up a mirror to the truth — not to divide, but to help us see more clearly what is happening in our own waters. Because no matter where we stand on politics or personal beliefs, one thing is certain: The West Philippine Sea is part of our story. It is part of who we are,” Chuck Gutierrez, co-founder of documentary producer Voyage Studios, told Arab News.

“The truth is, we did not make this film to antagonize anyone. Our goal was simple — to show the day-to-day reality faced by Filipinos at the West Philippine Sea. What we captured came from firsthand experiences, not secondhand narratives. These are voices that have long been unheard.” 

Winning the award in New Zealand was a “deeply affirming moment” for Gutierrez and his team. 

“It means that telling the truth, especially when it is inconvenient or uncomfortable, is still worth fighting for,” he said. “Despite the forces that tried to silence the story we were telling, the truth found its voice and resonated with an international audience.”