Foreign News
Russian authorities say at least 60 killed in Moscow concert hall attack
The ISIL (ISIS) group has claimed responsibility for a brazen attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall that killed at least 60 people and injured more than 145.
At least five camouflage-clad gunmen with automatic weapons burst into the packed concert hall in the city’s western suburbs on Friday night as the audience was gathering to watch the veteran rock band Picnic, shooting into the crowd and setting off explosives that started a massive fire.
Russian investigators said more than 60 people had been killed. Health officials said about 145 people were injured, and about 60 of them were in critical condition.
ISIL, the hardline group that once sought control over Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack on its Telegram channel, saying the gunmen had escaped. It was not possible to independently verify the claim.
The concert hall, one of the most popular in Moscow, can hold some 6,200 people.
Alexei, a music producer, was about to settle into his seat ahead when he said he heard “several machineguns bursts” and “a lot of screams”.
“I realised right away that it was automatic gunfire and understood that most likely it’s the worst: a terrorist attack,” Alexei told the AFP news agency, declining to share his full name.
As people ran towards the emergency exits, “there was a terrible crush” with concertgoers climbing on one another’s heads to get out, he added.
Another witness, speaking to the Reuters news agency, also described the terror and panic inside the venue.
“A stampede began. Everyone ran to the escalator,” they said, declining to share their name. “Everyone was screaming; everyone was running.”
The attack, which left the concert hall in flames and its roof in a state of collapse, was one of the worst in Russia since the 2004 Beslan school siege in which more than 330 people, half of them children, were killed. The death toll appeared set to rise, according to unconfirmed reports.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Friday’s raid was a “huge tragedy.” President Vladimir Putin was being given continuous updates about the situation, according to his spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The prosecutor’s office said several men in combat fatigues had entered the concert hall, about 20km (12 miles) from the Kremlin and next to the Moscow ring road, and fired on those inside.
Repeated volleys of gunfire could be heard in videos posted by Russian media and on Telegram channels. One showed two men with rifles moving through the venue. Another showed a man in the auditorium saying the assailants had set it on fire, as repeated gunshots rang out in the background.
Others showed up to four attackers, armed with assault rifles and wearing caps, shooting screaming people at point-blank range.
Security guards at the concert hall were not armed, and Russian media said some could have been killed at the start of the attack.
The concert venue, one of the most popular in Moscow, was engulfed in flames (Aljazeera)
ISIL claimed responsibility in a statement posted by its Amaq news agency, saying its fighters had attacked on the outskirts of Moscow, “killing and wounding hundreds and causing great destruction to the place before they withdrew to their bases safely”. The statement gave no further detail.
Russia has reported several incidents involving ISIL this month, with authorities saying they killed six alleged members of the group in a shootout in Ingushetia in the restive Caucasus region, and the FSB saying on March 7 it foiled an attack by Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), an Afghan affiliate of ISIL, on a Moscow synagogue.
The United States has also warned of the heightened threat. Several hours after the FSB announcement, the US embassy in Moscow issued a warning that “extremists” had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow. On Friday night, a US official said Washington had intelligence confirming ISIL’s claim of responsibility for the attack on Crocus City Hall.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said what had happened was a “bloody terrorist attack”. Investigators from Russia’s Investigative Committee, which deals with major crimes, said they had “opened a criminal probe under article 205 of the criminal code [terrorist act]”.
There was condemnation of the attack from across the world.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his shock at the attack, which his spokesman said he “condemns in the strongest possible terms”, while the UN Security Council condemned what it called a “heinous and cowardly terrorist attack.”
French President Emmanuel Macron “strongly condemns the terrorist attack claimed by the Islamic State”, the Elysee Palace said.
“France expresses its solidarity with the victims, their loved ones and all the Russian people.”
Spain said it was “shocked” at events in Moscow, while Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned what she said was an “odious act of terrorism” and expressed her “full solidarity with the affected people and the victims’ families”.
Russian officials said security has been tightened at Moscow’s airports, railway stations and on the metro system. The mayor cancelled all mass gatherings, while theatres and museums in the area, home to more than 21 million people, were ordered shut for the weekend. Other Russian regions also tightened security.
Firefighters work near the burning Crocus City Hall concert venue. The fire was mostly extinguished by early on Saturday morning (Aljazeera)
The Kremlin did not immediately blame anyone for the attack, but some Russian lawmakers were quick to accuse Ukraine.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on the Telegram app that if those responsible for the attack turn out to be Ukrainian, “all of them must be found and ruthlessly destroyed as terrorists”.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied Ukraine’s involvement.
“Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods,” he posted on X. “Everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.”
Rosgvardia, Russia’s national guard, said it was searching for the perpetrators of the attack, and its units were helping evacuate concertgoers from the burning building.
Rescue services had evacuated about 100 people from the basement of the Crocus City Hall, but there are still people on the roof, Russian news agencies reported.
Media reports said firefighters were trying to contain the fire, as plumes of black smoke rose above the venue into the night sky. Helicopters were also deployed in an attempt to douse the flames that had engulfed the building.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, authorities said most of the fire had been put out. “There are still some pockets of fire, but the fire has been mostly eliminated. Rescuers were able to enter the auditorium,” Moscow Governor Andrey Vorobyov said on Telegram.
(Aljazeera)
This is surely the most dramatic comeback in US political history.
Four years after leaving the White House, Donald Trump is set to move back in, after millions of Americans voted to give him a second chance.
The election campaign was one for the history books: he survived two assassination attempts and his original opponent President Joe Biden dropped out just months before election day.
Although final votes are still being counted, the majority of Americans in key battleground states chose to vote for him, with many citing the economy and immigration as a chief concern.
His triumph comes after a spectacular fall. He refused to accept the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden, and his role in trying to overturn the election results to stay in office is still being scrutinised today.
He faces charges for allegedly inciting the violent attack on the US Capitol on the 6 January 2021. And he will also make history as the first sitting president to have been convicted of a felony, after being found guilty of falsifying business records.
It’s not hard to see why he is a deeply polarising figure.
Throughout the campaign, Trump used incendiary rhetoric – making crass jokes and threatening vengeance against his political enemies.
His message on the economy touched a chord
Few people have a middle ground when it comes to Trump. Most of the voters I spoke to during the course of this campaign said they wished he would “shut his potty mouth” – but they were able to look past it.
Instead, they focused on the question he asked at every rally. “Are you better off now than you were two years ago?”
So many people who voted for Donald Trump told me again and again that they felt the economy was much better when he was in office and they were sick of trying to make ends meet. Although much of the cause of inflation was due to outside forces such as the Covid-19 pandemic, they blamed the outgoing administration.
Voters were also deeply concerned about illegal immigration which had reached record levels under Biden. They usually didn’t express racist views or believe that migrants were eating people’s pets, as Trump and his supporters had claimed. They just wanted much stronger border enforcement.
‘America first’ for a second Trump term
“America first” was another one of Trump’s slogans that really seemed to strike a chord with voters. All over the country I heard people – on the left and right – complaining about billions of dollars being spent on supporting Ukraine when they thought that money would be much better spent at home.
In the end, they just couldn’t vote for Harris, who served as Biden’s vice-president for four years. They believed it would be more of the same, and they wanted change.
It is perhaps one of the ironies of this election that the candidate who most represented change was himself in power just four years ago. But there are several differences between then and now.
When he first came into power in 2016, he was a political outsider, and, at least for a while, he surrounded himself with veteran political advisers and staff who showed him the ropes and constrained his actions. Now he doesn’t seem that interested in playing by the rules of the game.
Many of these same advisers and staff have spoken out – calling him a “liar”, a “fascist” and “unfit”. They have cautioned that if he surrounds himself with loyalists, which he is expected to do, that there will be no one to restrain him from his more extreme ideas.
When he left office, he faced a litany of criminal charges related to his role in the Capitol riots, how he handled documents pertaining to national security, and hush money payments to a porn star.
But since the Supreme Court ruled that the president has total immunity from prosecution for official acts in office, it will be an uphill battle for any prosecutor to charge him during the next administration.
And as president, he could instruct his justice department to drop the federal charges against him relating to the 6 January riots so he doesn’t have to worry about a jail sentence. At the same time, he could pardon hundreds of people sentenced to prison for their part in the Capitol Riots.
In the end, voters were presented with two versions of America.
Donald Trump told them that their country was a failing nation that only he could Make Great Again.
Meanwhile, Harris cautioned that if Trump was elected, American democracy itself would face an existential threat. That remains to be seen. But what Trump said himself during the campaign has not exactly assuaged people’s fears.
He has heaped praise on authoritarian leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, whom he said were “at the top of their game, whether you like it or not”.
He has talked about trying to silence critics in the press. Just days before the election, he also made comments that implied he wouldn’t mind if members of the media were killed.
And he has continued to amplify conspiracy theories and unfounded claims of election fraud – even though the election ultimately led to his victory.
Now, voters will find how much of what he said during the campaign was just loose talk – “Trump being Trump”. And remember: it’s not just Americans who have to confront the reality of a second Trump term.
The rest of the world will now discover what “America First” really means. From the global economic consequences of 20% tariffs that he has proposed on US imports to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East that he has vowed to end – regardless of which side wins.
Donald Trump did not manage to implement all of his plans in his first term. Now with a second mandate and significantly less encumbered, America, and the world, will see what he can really do.
[BBC]
A leading Slovak mountain climber has died while descending a 7,234m (23,730ft) peak in Nepal, after completing the rare feat of scaling the mountain’s perilous eastern face.
Ondrej Huserka fell into a crevasse on Thursday, after he and his climbing partner ascended the Langtang Lirung mountain in the Himalayas – the 99th-highest peak in the world. The 34-year-old mountaineer had previously climbed in the Alps, Patagonia and the Pamir Mountains.
His Czech climbing partner Marek Holecek said the pair were returning to base after becoming the first mountaineers to ascend Langtang Lirung via a “terrifying” eastern route.
While rappelling a mountain wall, Mr Huserka’s rope snapped and he fell into an ice crevasse, his partner said in an emotional Facebook update posted after he returned alone.
He then “hit an angled surface after an 8m drop, then continued down a labyrinth into the depths of the glacier”.
In the Facebook post, Mr Holecek recalled hearing his partner’s cries for help and desperately trying to save him. “I rappelled down to him and stayed with him for four hours until his light faded,” Mr Holecek said.
After freeing him from the ice, Mr Holecek realised his partner was paralysed. “His star was fading as he lay in my arms,” he said.
The Slovak climbers’ association, SHS James, said adverse weather in Nepal had prevented rescue action.
“Following a phone call with Marek Holecek and his status published yesterday, and given the weather conditions under Langtang Lirung, the family and friends will have to cope with the fact that Ondrej is not with us any more,” it said in a social media post.
The Langtang Lirung mountain sits alongside other peaks in the Nepalese Himalayas and is a popular trekking destination.
Judith Swift, a climber who visited Langtang in the spring of this this year, said it was described to her by a local Nepalese Sherpa as “the killer mountain”. “Not many people have summited it and many, including now sadly Ondrej Huserka, have died climbing it,” she told the BBC.
Mr Huserka joined the Slovak national alpinism team in 2011 and won the SHS James best ascent of the year award six times, according to his personal website. His decade-long mountaineering career took him around the world.
He completed the first ascent of the “Summer Bouquet” on Alexander Block Peak in Kyrgyzstan, and repeated a “legendary route” on the Cerro Torre’s south-east ridge in South America, his website says.
Paying tribute to the late climber, SHS James said Mr Huserka was a “top alpinist” and “world-class”.
The Slovak Spectator said he was “one of the best Slovak mountaineers”.
[BBC]
Boeing workers have voted to accept the aviation giant’s latest pay offer, ending a damaging seven-week-long walkout.
Under the new contract, they will get a 38% pay rise over the next four years.
Striking workers can start returning to their jobs as early as Wednesday, or as late as 12 November, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) union says.
The walkout by around 30,000 Boeing workers started on 13 September, leading to a dramatic slowdown at the plane maker’s factories and deepening a crisis at the company.
IAM said 59% of striking workers voted in favour of the new deal, which also includes a one-off $12,000 (£9,300) bonus, as well as changes to workers’ retirement plans.
“Through this victory and the strike that made it possible, IAM members have taken a stand for respect and fair wages in the workplace,” union leader Jon Holden said.
The union had previously called for a 40% pay increase and workers had rejected two previous offers from the company.
“While the past few months have been difficult for all of us, we are all part of the same team,” said Boeing’s chief executive Kelly Ortberg.
“There is much work ahead to return to the excellence that made Boeing an iconic company.”
In a sign of how seriously the White House took the strike at one of the country’s most important companies, acting US Labor Secretary Julie Su flew to Seattle last month to help with negotiations.
Boeing has been trying to shore up its finances and end the strike, which has now cost it nearly $10bn, according to consulting firm Anderson Economic Group.
In October, its commercial aircraft business reported operating losses of $4bn for the three months to the end of September.
Last week, the firm launched a share sale to raise more than $20bn.
It came after warnings that a prolonged strike could lead to downgrades of Boeing’s credit rating, which would make it more expensive for it to borrow money.
Last month, the firm said it would lay off around 17,000 workers, with the first redundancy notices expected to be issued in mid-November.
The latest crisis at Boeing erupted in January with a dramatic mid-air blowout of a piece of one of its passenger planes.
Its space business also suffered a reputational hit after its Starliner vessel was forced to return to Earth without carrying astronauts.
[BBC]
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