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Machete attacker shot at Louvre in Paris

[email protected] (Agencies)
February 3, 2017

Paris, Feb 3: A machete-wielding man who yelled "Allahu Akbar" was shot and injured as he attacked security forces at the Louvre museum in Paris today, police said.

Louvre

One soldier was injured in the assault by the knifeman who was shot five times and is alive despite his serious injuries.

Two backpacks he was carrying did not contain explosives, city police chief Michel Cadot said.

Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve called the attack "terrorist in nature" after the incident which led streets around the world-famous museum to be sealed off.

The shooting comes with France on its highest state of alert with thousands of troops patrolling the capital following a string of attacks in the last few years.

Soldiers in uniform carrying automatic rifles are regularly seen walking in the area around the Louvre, which is one of the main tourist attractions in Paris, drawing millions of visitors every year.

The huge former royal palace in the heart of the city is home to the Mona Lisa and other renowned works of art but also a shopping complex and numerous exhibition spaces.

"The people who were in the museum -- there were about 250 of them -- were held at a distance and confined in secure areas of the Louvre," Cadot said.

"We will start taking them out in small groups."

France has suffered a string of attacks in recent years, beginning in January 2015 when jihadist gunmen killed journalists at the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper in Paris.

Another attacker went on to kill shoppers in a Jewish supermarket, with a total of 17 people dead in three days of bloodshed.

Ten months later, gunmen and suicide bombers from the Islamic State jihadist group attacked bars, restaurants, a concert hall and the national stadium in Paris on November 13, 2015, killing 130 people.

And last July, a Tunisian extremist rammed a lorry through crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice on France's south coast, crushing 86 people to death.

In November, French police broke up an alleged jihadist terror ring which was thought to be planning to attack Paris.

The Louvre was already suffering from a fall in visitor numbers after the series of attacks in France.

Over the last two years, numbers are down about two million, casting doubt on its claim to be the most visited museum in the world.

Last year, there was a 15-per cent slump in visitors compared to 2015, to around 7.3 million.

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News Network
May 2,2020
Seoul, May 2: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made his first public appearance since speculation about his health began last month, cutting the ribbon at the opening of a fertilizer factory, KCNA reported Saturday.
 
Kim attended the event on Friday in Sunchon, near the capital Pyongyang, after nearly three weeks of swirling rumours that the leader of the nuclear-armed nation was seriously ill or possibly dead.
 
The North Korean leader had not made a public appearance since presiding over a Workers' Party politburo meeting on April 11, and the following day state media reported that he had inspected fighter jets.
 
At Friday's event, "all the participants broke into thunderous cheers of 'hurrah!'" when Kim appeared, the Korean Central news agency reported.
 
He inspected the facility and was "briefed about the production processes," the report said.
 
Kim "said with deep emotion" that his grandfather Kim Il Sung and father Kim Jong Il "would be greatly pleased if they heard the news that the modern phosphatic fertilizer factory has been built," it added.
 
Also in attendance were other senior officials, including his sister and close adviser, Kim Yo Jong. Photos from the ceremony were not immediately released.
 
Conjecture over Kim's health had grown since his conspicuous no-show at April 15 celebrations for the birthday of his grandfather, the North's founder -- the most important day in the country's political calendar.
 
His absence unleashed a series of unconfirmed reports over his condition, triggering global fears over the North's nuclear arsenal -- and who would succeed Kim were he unable to lead.
 
A top security advisor to South Korea's President Moon Jae-in said less than a week ago that Kim was "alive and well," downplaying rumors that he was ill or incapacitated.
 
The advisor, Moon Chung-in, told CNN that Kim had been staying in Wonsan -- a resort town in the east of North Korea -- since April 13, adding: "No suspicious movements have so far been detected."
 
South Korea Reports Kim Jong Un Is 'Alive and Well' Amid Rumours of His Death
 
South Korea has told CNN that the rumours of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's death are untrue.
 
Rumours of ill health
 
Daily NK, an online media outlet run mostly by North Korean defectors, reported that Kim was undergoing treatment after a cardiovascular procedure last month.
 
Citing an unidentified source inside the country, it said Kim -- who is in his mid-30s -- had needed urgent treatment due to heavy smoking, obesity and fatigue.
 
Soon afterwards, CNN reported that Washington was "monitoring intelligence" that Kim was in "grave danger" after undergoing surgery, quoting an anonymous US official.
 
US President Donald Trump appeared to confirm that Kim was alive earlier this week.
 
On Friday, Trump refused to comment on Kim's reported re-emergence.
 
Previous absences from the public eye on Kim's part have prompted speculation about his health.
 
The North is extremely secretive, and doubly so about its leadership.
 
Kim's father and predecessor had been dead for two days before anyone outside the innermost circles of North Korean leadership was any the wiser.
 
In 2014, Kim Jong Un dropped out of sight for nearly six weeks before reappearing with a cane.
 
Days later, the South's spy agency said he had undergone surgery to remove a cyst from his ankle.

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News Network
April 9,2020

Paris, Apr 9: More than 1.5 million cases of the novel coronavirus have been registered worldwide, according to a tally compiled by AFP at 0530 GMT Thursday from official sources.

Of the 1,502,478 infections, 87,320 people have died across 192 countries and territories since the epidemic first emerged in China late last year.

The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections. Many countries are only testing the most serious cases.

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News Network
May 20,2020

May 20: The novel coronavirus is behaving differently in patients in northeast China who have contracted it recently compared with early cases, indicating it is changing as it spreads, a prominent doctor said.

China, which has largely brought the virus under control, has found new clusters of infections in the northeastern border provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang in recent weeks, raising concern about a second wave.

Qiu Haibo, an expert in critical care medicine who is part of a National Health Commission expert group, said the incubation period of the virus in patients in the northeast was longer than that of patients in Wuhan, the central city, where the virus emerged late last year.

COVID-19 Pandemic Tracker: 15 countries with the highest number of coronavirus cases, deaths

"This causes a problem, as they don't have any symptoms. So when they gather with their families they don't care about this issue and we see family cluster infections," Qiu told state broadcaster CCTV in a programme broadcast late on Tuesday.

Patients in the northeastern clusters were also carrying the virus for longer than earlier cases in Wuhan, and they were taking longer to recover, as defined by a negative nucleic acid test, he said.

Patients in the northeast also rarely exhibited fever and tended to suffer damage to the lungs rather than across multiple organs, he said.

He said the virus found in the northeastern clusters was probably imported from abroad, which could account for the differences.

He did not say where he though they might have come from but both Jilin and Heilongjiang border Russia.

China reported five new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, down from six a day earlier.

Four of the new cases were local transmissions and one was imported by a traveller coming from abroad, the commission said in a statement, compared with three imported cases reported the previous day.

China's total number of coronavirus infections stands at 82,965, while the death toll 4,634. 

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