Connect with us

Latest News

Restored Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris unveiled after 2019 fire

Published

on

Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris has offered the world a peek of its restored interior, five years after it was ravaged by a fire.

French President Emmanuel Macron inspected the renovation work on Friday, and live images of the landmark’s stained-glass windows, creamy stonework, timber-framed roof and soaring ceilings were broadcast live on television a week before its official reopening on December 7.

After the 2019 fire, which reduced much of the 12th-century Gothic masterpiece to charred debris and toppled the spire, Macron set the ambitious goal to rebuild it within five years and make it “even more beautiful” than before.

The ensuing 700-million-euro ($739m) restoration project was funded by donations from 150 countries and carried out by about 2,000 people participating in the painstaking work, including architects, scaffolders, roofers, bell makers, masons and organ builders.

The 19th-century Gothic spire has since been resurrected with an exact copy of the original.

Notre-Dame, which welcomed 12 million visitors in 2017, expects to receive an even higher figure of “14 to 15 million” after the reopening, according to church authorities.

French ministers had floated the idea of charging tourists an entrance fee to the site, but the Catholic Church said it was important to maintain the principle of free admission.

Unseen to visitors is a discreet system of pipes ready to release millions of water droplets in case of any future fires.

France Notre Dame
French President Emmanuel Macron visited the restored interior of the cathedral [Aljazeera]

World leaders are expected to join next week’s reopening, but the guest list has yet to be revealed.

“Even more beautiful than before, in the renewed radiance of the blonde stones and the colour of the chapels,” Macron said in a statement.

The “building site of the century” was a “challenge that many considered insane”, the president said of one of the French capital’s most visited and beloved monuments.

To the surprise of many, Pope Francis announced in September that he would not be attending the reopening.

In recent years, the French Catholic church has been rocked by sexual abuse allegations against clerics, including the monk known as Abbe Pierre, a household name for his aid to the destitute.

“We are very eager to welcome the whole world under the roof of our cathedral,” Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich said in a message on the cathedral’s website, expressing the church’s gratitude to all those who helped save it.

“On the night of April 15, hundreds of thousands of people committed themselves to what then seemed an impossible bet: to restore the cathedral and give it back its splendour within the unprecedented deadline of five years.”

More than five years on, the investigation into what caused the fire is ongoing with initial findings backing an accidental cause such as a short circuit, a welder’s torch or a cigarette.

Notre Dame fire
Notre-Dame Cathedral burns on April 15, 2019 [Aljazeera][Aljazeera]


Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest News

Trump hopes to reach phase two of Gaza ceasefire ‘very quickly’

Published

on

By

Donald Trump said he hoped to reach phase two of the Gaza peace plan “very quickly”, as he warned Hamas would have “hell to pay” if it did not disarm quickly.

The US president, whose 20-point peace plan requires the militant group to disarm, made the comments as he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida for talks on Monday.

During a press conference with Netanyahu after their meeting, Trump said Israel had “lived up to the plan 100%”, despite continuing attacks by its military in Gaza.

The US president also said his country could support another major strike on Iran were it to resume rebuilding its ballistic missile or nuclear weapons programmes.

Asked how quickly Hamas and Israel should move to phase two of the peace plan, Trump said: “As quickly as we can. But there has to be disarmament.”

Speaking about Hamas, he said: “If they don’t disarm as, as they agreed to do, they agreed to it, and then there will be hell to pay for them.

“They have to disarm in a fairly short period of time”.

Trump also said reconstruction in Gaza could “begin pretty soon”.

The Gaza peace plan came into effect in October. Under the second phase, a technocratic government would be established in the devastated territory, Hamas would disarm and Israeli troops would withdraw. The reconstruction of Gaza would then begin.

But critics have suggested Netanyahu could seek to delay the process of the plan and instead push for Hamas to disarm before Israeli troops withdraw.

The Israeli prime minister has been accused of not wanting to engage seriously with the issue of a political future for Palestinians.

Hamas officials have said a full disarmament should take place alongside progress towards an independent Palestinian state.

Asked if he was concerned Israel was not moving quickly enough to phase two of the plan, Trump said it had “lived up to the plan”.

“I’m not concerned about anything that Israel’s doing, I’m concerned about what other people are doing or maybe aren’t doing,” he added.

[BBC]

Continue Reading

Latest News

Bangladesh’s first female prime minister Khaleda Zia dies aged 80

Published

on

By

An earlier picture of Khaleda Zia from 2016 [BBC]

Bangladesh’s first female prime minister Khaleda Zia has died at the age of 80 after suffering from a prolonged illness.

“Our favourite leader is no longer with us. She left us at 6am this morning,” Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) announced on Facebook.

Physicians had said on Monday night that Zia’s condition was “extremely critical”. She was put on life support, but it was not possible to provide multiple treatments at the same time given her age and overall poor health, they said.

Zia became Bangladesh’s first female head of government in 1991 after leading the BNP to victory in the country’s first democratic election in 20 years.

Zia returned to the post of prime minister in 2001, stepping down in October 2006 ahead of a general election.

Her political career had been marred by corruption allegations and a long-standing political rivalry with Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted from premiership last year.

Zia, who was the wife of Bangladesh’s late president Ziaur Rahman, was jailed for five years in 2018 for corruption.

[BBC]

Continue Reading

Latest News

Ukraine denies drone attack on Putin’s residence

Published

on

By

President Volodymyr Zelensky has denied allegations by Russia that Ukraine launched a drone attack on one of President Vladimir Putin’s residences, and accused Moscow of trying to derail peace talks.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed Kyiv had launched an attack overnight using 91 long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on Putin’s state residence in Russia’s northwestern Novgorod region.

Russia said it would now review its position in peace negotiations. It is not yet clear where Putin was at the time of the alleged attack.

Zelensky dismissed the claim as “typical Russian lies”, intended to give the Kremlin an excuse to continue attacks on Ukraine.

He said that Russia had previously targeted government buildings in Kyiv.

Zelensky added on X: “It is critical that the world doesn’t stay silent now. We cannot allow Russia to undermine the work on achieving a lasting peace.”

In a statement shared on Telegram on Monday, Lavrov said all of the 91 drones he claimed were launched at Putin’s residence were intercepted and destroyed by Russian air defence systems.

He added that there were no reports of casualties or damage as a result of the attack.

“Given the final degeneration of the criminal Kyiv regime, which has switched to a policy of state terrorism, Russia’s negotiating position will be revised,” he said.

But he added that Russia did not intend to exit the negotiating process with the US, Russian news agency Tass reported.

The claim by Moscow comes after talks between the US and Ukraine in Florida on Sunday, where Presidents Trump and Zelensky discussed a revised peace plan to end the war.

Following the meeting, Zelensky told Fox News on Monday that there was a “possibility to finish this war” in 2026.

But he said Ukraine could not win the war without US support.

“My feelings of President Trump’s sanctions and economical steps, shows that he’s ready for very strong steps,” Zelensky said. “In this situation, the United States can move the situation to peace quicker.”

The Ukrainian president told Fox News there was no indication that Putin wanted peace and that he did not trust Putin.

“I don’t trust Putin and he doesn’t want success for Ukraine,” Zelensky added.

Zelensky said the US had offered Ukraine security guarantees for 15 years, and Trump said an agreement on this point was “close to 95%” done.

Ukraine’s leader described territorial issues and the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as the last unresolved matters, and there was little sign of progress on the future of Ukraine’s contested Donbas region – which Russia wants to seize in full.

Moscow currently controls about 75% of the Donetsk region, and some 99% of the neighbouring Luhansk. The two regions are known collectively as Donbas.

Russia has previously rejected key parts of the plan under discussion.

Map showing which areas of Ukraine are under Russian military control or limited Russian control

The White House said on Monday that President Trump had “concluded a positive call” with Putin, following the US-Ukraine talks.

Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin foreign policy aide, told reporters on Monday that during the call, Putin had pointed out the alleged attack on his residence happened “almost straight after what the US had considered to be a successful round of talks”.

Ushakov said: “The US president was shocked by this information, he was angry and said he couldn’t believe such mad actions. It was stated that this will no doubt affect the US approach to working with Zelensky”.

During a later press conference, Trump initially appeared to say he did not know about the alleged incident, but later told reporters that he was told about it by Putin and was “very angry” about it.

Asked if the US had seen any evidence supporting Russia’s claim, he responded: “Well we’ll find out. You’re saying maybe the attack didn’t take place – that’s possible too, I guess. But President Putin told me this morning it did”.

[BBC]
Continue Reading

Trending