LONDON: As three assailants sought to strike fear at the heart of the British capital on Saturday night, some Londoners showed incredible courage and fought back.
Taxi driver Chris was on London Bridge as the attackers smashed their van into pedestrians around 10:00pm (2100 GMT) before sprinting, armed with knives, toward nearby bars packed with revellers.
“I saw a young girl being stabbed in the chest,” he told LBC radio, recalling how the three “went randomly along Borough High Street stabbing people.”
“I said to the guy in my cab I was going to try to hit him, I was going to ram him. I turned around and tried, but he side-stepped me,” he added.
The attack took place a few minutes after the end of the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Juventus and many fans were watching the football on television in some of the trendy area’s bars.
Gerard Vowls, 47, was heading home after watching the football at the Ship Pub in Borough when he saw a woman being stabbed 10 to 15 times.
“She was going, ‘Help me, help me’ and I couldn’t do nothing,” he told the Guardian newspaper.
Distraught, he followed the attackers to Borough Market — a food market that dates back centuries and is housed in an elegant 19th century structure — and started throwing whatever he could find at them including chairs, glasses and bottles.
“I know it was a silly thing to do but I was trying to save people’s lives,” he said.
He said the attackers chased him after he managed to hit one of them in the back with a chair.
“I knew if I slipped over I’d be a dead man, I’d be killed there and then,” he added.
Seven people were killed and nearly 50 more were injured in the rampage.
The three attackers were shot dead by police outside the Wheatsheaf, a trendy pub on the edge of the market.
Just like the people of Manchester — struck by a suicide bombing which killed 22 people less than two weeks earlier — Londoners rallied together.
Many took to social media, opening up their homes to stranded people while taxi drivers ferried people out of the London Bridge area as quickly as possible.
Dozens of people were also seen sleeping on the floor in the reception area of the Ibis hotel in nearby Blackfriars.
“This is our city,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan said after condemning the “cowardly” attack.
Striking a defiant tone, Khan warned that the British capital “will never let these cowards win and we will never be cowed by terrorism.”
Londoners fight back against terror
Londoners fight back against terror
UK distances new spy chief from ‘Nazi’ grandfather
Blaise Metreweli will in the autumn become the first woman to lead MI6 in its 116-year-old history, the British government announced earlier this month.
The Daily Mail newspaper reported this week that her grandfather Constantine Dobrowolski defected from the Soviet Union’s Red Army to become a Nazi informant in the Chernigiv region of modern-day Ukraine.
The newspaper said German archives showed Dobrowolski was known as “the Butcher” or “Agent No 30” by Wehrmacht commanders.
“Blaise Metreweli neither knew nor met her paternal grandfather,” a Foreign Office spokesperson said in a statement.
“Blaise’s ancestry is characterised by conflict and division and, as is the case for many with eastern European heritage, only partially understood.
“It is precisely this complex heritage which has contributed to her commitment to prevent conflict and protect the British public from modern threats from today’s hostile states, as the next chief of MI6.”
The Daily Mail said Dobrowolski had a 50,000 ruble bounty placed on him by Soviet leaders, and was dubbed the “worst enemy of the Ukrainian people.”
He also sent letters to superiors saying he “personally” took part “in the extermination of the Jews,” the newspaper added.
The head of MI6 is the only publicly named member of the organization and reports directly to the foreign minister.
Metreweli, 47, will be the 18th head of MI6.
Like her predecessors she will be referred to as “C,” not “M” as the chief is called in the James Bond film franchise.
African Union says DR Congo-Rwanda deal ‘milestone’ toward peace
NAIROBI: The African Union said on Saturday a peace deal signed between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda was a “significant milestone” in bringing peace to the deeply troubled region.
For more than 30 years the eastern DRC has been riven by conflict, which has intensified in recent years with the advance of an armed militia backed by Rwanda.
A statement said AU Commission head Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, who witnessed the signing of the deal in Washington on Friday, “welcomed this significant milestone and commended all efforts aimed at advancing peace, stability, & reconciliation in the region.”
It said he “appreciated the constructive & supportive role played by the US & the State of Qatar in facilitating dialogue & consensus that led to this development.”
The agreement comes after the M23, an ethnic Tutsi rebel force supported by Rwanda, sprinted across the mineral-rich east of the DRC this year, seizing vast territory including the key city of Goma.
The deal does not explicitly address the gains of the M23 in the area torn by decades of on-off war but calls for Rwanda to end “defensive measures” it has taken.
Rwanda has denied offering the M23 military support but has demanded an end to another armed group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which was established by ethnic Hutus involved in the massacres of Tutsis in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The agreement calls for the “neutralization” of the FDLR.
13 soldiers killed in a suicide attack in northwest Pakistan: officials
- The suicide attack killed 13 soldiers and wounded 29, including civilians
PESHAWAR: A suicide attack killed 13 soldiers and wounded 29, including civilians, in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, local government officials and police officers told AFP.
“A suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a military convoy. The blast killed 13 soldiers, injured 10 army personnel and 19 civilians,” said a local government official in North Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
“The explosion also caused the roofs of two houses to collapse, injuring six children,” a police officer posted in the district told AFP.
Heavy rain hits China’s flood-stricken Guizhou for second time in a week
- Authorities raised the city’s flood emergency response level to the highest level on Saturday
- The amount of rain that fell over 72 hours was double the city’s average for June
SHANGHAI: Heavy rain struck China’s southwestern Guizhou province again on Saturday, half-submerging the already flood-stricken riverside city of Rongjiang for a second time this week and prompting the evacuation of residents to higher ground.
Located at the confluence of three rivers and home to 300,000 residents, Rongjiang was inundated earlier this week by record downpours that left six dead and forced more than 80,000 people to flee their homes. The amount of rain that fell over 72 hours was double the city’s average for June.
In response to the new round of flooding, authorities raised the city’s flood emergency response level to the highest level on Saturday.
The benchmark hydrological station on one of the rivers estimated that the peak water level would hit 253.50 meters (832 ft) at around 5 p.m. (0900 GMT), exceeding the safety threshold by 2 meters, state broadcaster CCTV said.
Earlier this week, the peak water level reached 256.7 meters, the highest since 1954, the Guizhou provincial government said in a statement to Reuters on Friday, blaming “the extreme climate” for the flooding.
The floods in southwest China are set to hit local economies.
Rongjiang was removed from the national poverty list in 2020. It then saw an unexpected tourism boom after a local soccer league nicknamed “Village Super League” became a social media sensation, attracting thousands of fans and tourists. On Tuesday, the soccer pitch was up to seven meters under water.
China has battled with summer floods for millennia, but some scientists say climate change is resulting in heavier and more frequent rain. Massive flooding could set off unforeseen “black swan” events with dire consequences, such as dam collapses, Chinese officials say.
In southern China over the past two days, 13 major rivers in Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Hainan were hit by storms and had risen above their warning levels, CCTV reported, citing the Ministry of Water Resources on Saturday.
Sandal scandal: Prada credits new design’s Indian legacy amid furor
- A Prada spokesperson issued a statement acknowledging the sandal’s inspiration from India, adding the company has “always celebrated craftsmanship, heritage and design traditions"
NEW DELHI/MILAN: Luxury fashion powerhouse Prada has acknowledged the ancient Indian roots of its new sandal design after the debut of the open-toe footwear sparked a furor among Indian artisans and politicians thousands of miles from the catwalk in Italy.
Images from Prada’s fashion show in Milan last weekend showed models wearing leather sandals with a braided design that resembled handmade Kolhapuri slippers with designs dating back to the 12th century.
A wave of criticism in the media and from lawmakers followed over the Italian brand’s lack of public acknowledgement of the Indian sandal design, which is named after a city in the western state of Maharashtra.
Lorenzo Bertelli, son of Prada’s owners, responded to the sandal scandal in a letter to a trade group on Friday recognizing their Indian heritage.
“We acknowledge that the sandals... are inspired by traditional Indian handcrafted footwear, with a centuries-old heritage,” Bertelli, Prada’s head of corporate social responsibility, wrote in the letter to the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, seen by Reuters.
The sandals are at an early stage of design and it is not certain they will be commercialized, but Prada is open to a “dialogue for meaningful exchange with local Indian artisans” and will arrange follow-up meetings, he wrote.
A Prada spokesperson issued a statement acknowledging the sandal’s inspiration from India, adding the company has “always celebrated craftsmanship, heritage and design traditions.”
Prada products are beyond the reach of most Indians. Its men’s leather sandals retail for $844 and up, while the Kolhapuri slippers, sold in Indian shops and street markets, start at about $12.
India’s luxury market is small but growing fast, with rising numbers of rich people buying Louis Vuitton bags, Lamborghini cars, luxury homes and watches.
Conversely, Indian culture and crafts are increasingly finding their way into global brand designs. High-end jeweller Bulgari offers a $16,000 Mangalsutra necklace inspired by a chain traditionally worn by married women.
Bertelli’s homage to Indian design was sent in a response to a complaint from the head of the trade group that represents 3,000 Kolhapuri sandal artisans, as the online uproar gathered momentum.
“From the dusty lanes of Kolhapur to the glitzy runways of Milan... will the world finally give credit where it’s due?” India’s DNA News posted on X.
SambHajji Chhatrapati from the Kolhapur Royal family told Reuters by phone he was upset that craftsmen had not been acknowledged for the “history and heritage of 150 years.”
Kolhapur-based businessman Dileep More, however, said images of the Prada sandal were bringing cheer to some artisans as they show their traditional product going global.
“They are happy that someone is recognizing their work,” he said.
