12 killed, 79 injured in horrific London tower fire

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Smoke billows from Grenfell tower, which was severly damaged by a serious fire. (Reuters)
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People look at smoke billowing from Grenfell tower. (Reuters)
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A youth looks at smoke billowing Grenfell tower after a massive fire there the night before. (Reuters)
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Smoke billows from Grenfell Tower after a fire engulfed the block the previous night. (AFP)
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Updated 15 June 2017
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12 killed, 79 injured in horrific London tower fire

LONDON: At least 12 people were killed and a further 18 are in critical care following a massive fire that ravaged a high-rise apartment building in west London early Wednesday, with the death toll expected to rise further, police said.

A total of 79 people were treated at six hospitals, with firefighters still at the scene of the blaze — at Grenfell Tower near Notting Hill in north Kensington — late on Wednesday afternoon.

The inferno, which started at approximately 1 a.m. London time, saw flames leap up the side of the 24-story building, as firefighters battled the blaze, and a plume of smoke could be seen for several miles.

Residents were seen throwing small children from high windows to people on the ground, in a desperate bid to save them from the fire that swept through the London residential block. 

One baby thrown from the 24-story building in west London was safely caught, according to witnesses of Wednesday morning’s lethal fire. 

The cause of the fire was not immediately known, although one witness reportedly said that a fridge had “exploded.” Other residents stated the fire appeared to have begun in an apartment on a lower floor and spread upwards quickly.

People at the scene spoke of being unable to reach friends and family who had been inside. Others said they could see people inside using flashlights and mobile phones to try to signal for help from higher floors.

In an admission Wednesday afternoon that is sure to be part of a future investigation, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organization, which runs the council’s homes, stated that it was “aware that concerns have been raised historically by residents” with regard to fire safety at Grenfell Tower.

Local residents told Arab News that no fire alarm sounded as the blaze broke out, and that once alerted to the situation they were told to stay inside their apartments. Fire crews struggled to access Grenfell Tower, compounding the already lethal situation.

Papia, a local resident, said that she lost communication with two friends who live in the block. She said that the elderly couple were trapped in the building and had called their children to “ask for forgiveness” and have not been heard from since.

“My friend was advised to go into the bathroom and put some wet towels over her face and over her family, then afterwards they lost all communication. They were on the 17th floor,” Papia, who did not give her family name, told Arab News. 

“The fire rapidly took over, they didn’t have a chance… they had no chance. They were told to stay in the bathroom, in their flat, so that’s what they did.”

One local resident at the scene told Arab News that access to the building was a problem, making the fire-rescue efforts more difficult.

“The fire engine couldn’t get to the building. It’s always been like that... It’s crazy,” said Chris, who did not give his last name.

Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton called the blaze an “unprecedented incident” unlike anything she had seen in her 29-year career as a firefighter.

Nassima Boutrig, who lives opposite the building, said she was awakened by sirens and smoke so thick that it filled her home as well.

“We saw the people screaming,” she said. “A lot of people said ‘Help, help, help.’ The fire brigade could only help downstairs. It was fire up, up, up. They couldn’t stop the fire.”

Boutrig said her friend’s brother, wife and children lived in the building and that her friend was waiting to find out if they were OK.

Others searched for information at makeshift centers set up at churches and recreation centers. At St. Clement’s Church, where evacuees from neighboring buildings gathered, Hadra Hassad was trying to find one of her closest friends, who lived on the 21st floor. Hassad said she believed one of her friend’s daughters is in the hospital, but didn’t know which one.

Ambulances and fire trucks filled the streets around the building, which is located in a diverse, working class area of London. People who live nearby were evacuated, some carrying pets in their arms as they left. Volunteers handed out bottled water.

Helicopters hovered overhead and smoke hung over the scene. Exhausted firefighters sprawled on the pavement just inside the police cordon, drinking water from plastic bottles.

The London Fire Brigade said 45 fire engines and 200 firefighters were called to the scene. Assistant Fire Commissioner Dan Daly said it was a large and very serious incident.

“Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus are working extremely hard in very difficult conditions to tackle this fire,” he said in a post on the brigade’s Facebook page.

 

George Clarke told Radio 5 Live that he was covered in ash even though he was 100 meters from the scene.

He said he saw people waving flashlights from the top levels of the building and saw rescuers “doing an incredible job” trying to get people out.

Tim Downie, who lives not far away, told Britain’s Press Association that he feared the building could collapse. He said he heard sirens, helicopters and shouting and then saw the building engulfed in flames.

“It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. I just hope they have got everyone out,” he said. “People have been bringing water, clothes, anything they’ve got to help, out to the cordon.”

People in the area were on Wednesday morning seen wearing face masks in the area due to the acrid smoke.

Emergency centers were set up, with people dropping off food, water, clothes and blankets. 

— With input from AP

Iran FM arrives in Kabul in first visit after Taliban’s takeover

Updated 3 sec ago
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Iran FM arrives in Kabul in first visit after Taliban’s takeover

  • One-day visit is part of an effort to bolster relations between the two countries and ‘pursue mutual interests’
  • Discussions will revolve around border security, strengthening political ties and expanding economic relations
KABUL: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Kabul Sunday on the highest-level visit by an Iranian official to the Afghan capital since the Taliban’s takeover in 2021.
The one-day visit is part of an effort to bolster relations between the two countries and “pursue mutual interests,” according to foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei.
Upon his arrival, Araghchi met with his Afghani counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi, and he is scheduled to sit down later with the deputy prime minister for economic affairs, Abdul Ghani Baradar, state TV reported.
Discussions will revolve around border security, strengthening political ties and expanding economic relations, it added.
Tensions between Iran and Afghanistan have intensified in recent years over water rights and the construction of dams on the Helmand and Harirud rivers.
Iran shares more than 900 kilometers (560 miles) of border with Afghanistan, and the Islamic republic hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world, mostly Afghans who fled their country over two decades of war.
The flow of Afghan immigrants has increased since the Taliban took over in August 2021 after US forces withdrew.
In September, local media in Iran announced the building of a wall along more than 10 kilometers of the eastern border with Afghanistan, the main entry point for immigrants.
Officials said at the time that additional methods to fortify the border including barbed wire and water-filled ditches to counter the “smuggling of fuel and goods, especially drugs,” and to prevent “illegal immigration.”
In December, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said “over six million Afghans have sought refuge in Iran.”
Iran has had an active diplomatic presence in Afghanistan for many years, but it has yet to officially recognize the Taliban government since the takeover.
Several Iranian delegations have visited Afghanistan over the years, including a parliamentary delegation in August 2023 to discuss water rights.

US has not stopped military aid to Ukraine, Zelensky says

Updated 26 January 2025
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US has not stopped military aid to Ukraine, Zelensky says

  • Trump had previously said Ukraine's President Zelensky should have made a deal with Putin to avoid the conflict
  • But he recently threatened to impose stiff tariffs and sanctions on Russia if an agreement isn’t reached to end the fighting in Ukraine

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday the US has not stopped military aid to Ukraine after newly sworn in US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he would pause foreign aid grants for 90 days.
Zelensky did not clarify whether humanitarian aid had been paused. Ukraine relies on the US for 40 percent of its military needs. “I am focused on military aid; it has not been stopped, thank God,” he said at a press conference with Moldovan President Maia Sandu.
The two leaders met in Kyiv on Saturday to discuss the energy needs of Moldova’s Russian-occupied Transnistria region, which saw its natural gas supplies halted on Jan. 1 due to Ukraine’s decision to stop Russian gas transit. Ukraine has said it can offer coal to the Transnistrian authorities to make up for the shortfall.
The future of US aid to Ukraine remains uncertain as President Donald Trump begins his second term in office. The American leader has repeatedly said he wouldn’t have allowed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to start if he had been in office, although he was president as fighting grew in the east of the country between Kyiv’s forces and separatists aligned with Moscow, ahead of Putin sending in tens of thousands of troops in 2022.
On Thursday, Trump told Fox News that Zelensky should have made a deal with Putin to avoid the conflict. A day earlier, Trump also threatened to impose stiff tariffs and sanctions on Russia if an agreement isn’t reached to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Speaking in Kyiv on Saturday, Zelensky said he had enjoyed “good meetings and conversations with President Trump” and that he believed the US leader would succeed in his desire to end the war.
“This can only be done with Ukraine, and otherwise it simply will not work because Russia does not want to end the war, and Ukraine does,” Zelensky said.
Grinding eastern offensive
With Trump stressing the need to quickly broker a peace deal, both Moscow and Kyiv are seeking battlefield successes to strengthen their negotiating positions ahead of any prospective talks.

Opinion

This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

For the past year, Russian forces have been waging an intense campaign to punch holes in Ukraine’s defenses in the Donetsk region and weaken Kyiv’s grip on the eastern parts of the country. The sustained and costly offensive has compelled Kyiv to give up a series of towns, villages and hamlets.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Friday that Russian troops had fought their way into the center of the strategically important eastern of Velyka Novosilka, although it was not possible to independently confirm the claim.
Elsewhere, three civilians were killed Saturday in shelling in the Russian-occupied area of Ukraine’s Kherson region, Moscow-installed Gov. Vladimir Saldo said.
He urged the residents of Oleshky, which sits close to the frontline in southern Ukraine, to stay in their homes or in bomb shelters.
Russia also attacked Ukraine with two missiles and 61 Shahed drones overnight Saturday. Ukrainian air defenses shot down both missiles and 46 drones, a statement from the air force said. Another 15 drones failed to reach targets due to Ukrainian countermeasures.
The downed drones caused damage in the Kyiv, Cherkasy and Khmelnytskyi regions, with Ukrainian emergency services saying that five people had to be from a 9-story apartment block in the Ukrainian capital.
Russia also struck Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region with drones causing casualties and damage, local authorities said Saturday.
Drones targeted the city’s Shevchenkivskyi, Kyivskyi and Kholodnohirskyi districts, said Mayor Ihor Terekhov.
Russia used a Molniya drone – an inexpensive weapon that has been developed and recently deployed by Russia – in the Shevchenkivskyi district, sparking a fire. The attacks disrupted the city’s water and electricity supplies, the mayor said.
Terekhov said the number of victims was still being determined, while Kharkiv’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said three people, two women and a man, were injured in the strikes.
 


US teacher put on leave after allegedly calling Palestinian child an extremist

Updated 26 January 2025
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US teacher put on leave after allegedly calling Palestinian child an extremist

  • “I do not negotiate with terrorists,” the teacher reportedly remarked when a Palestinian American student asked for a seat change
  • Recent incidents involving Palestinian American children include an attempt to drown a 3-year-old girl in Texas and the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old boy in Illinois

WASHINGTON: A public teacher in Pennsylvania was put on leave after allegedly calling a Palestinian American middle school student an extremist, the school district and a Muslim advocacy group said.

Why It’s Important
Human rights advocates say there has been a rise in anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian and antisemitic hate in the US since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following an Oct. 7, 2023, attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Key Quotes
The Central Dauphin School District said on Saturday it had learned about the allegations that the teacher made the derogatory comment last week in an after-school program.
“The teacher involved in the alleged incident is on administrative leave pending our investigation,” the district said in a statement, adding it had no tolerance for racist speech.
The Council on American Islamic Relations said the allegation was that the teacher had remarked, “I do not negotiate with terrorists,” when the Palestinian American student asked for a seat change.
The district and CAIR did not name the teacher or the student. CAIR said it was in touch with the child’s parents.

Context
Recent US incidents involving children include the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Palestinian American girl in Texas and the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy in Illinois.
Other incidents include the stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York, a violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters in California and the shooting of three Palestinian American students in Vermont.
Incidents raising alarm over antisemitism include threats of violence against Jews at Cornell University that led to a conviction and sentencing, an unsuccessful plot to attack a New York City Jewish center and physical assaults against a Jewish man in Michigan, a rabbi in Maryland and two Jewish students at a Chicago university.
 


Rubio threatens bounties on Taliban leaders over detained Americans

Updated 26 January 2025
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Rubio threatens bounties on Taliban leaders over detained Americans

  • The new top US diplomat issued the harsh warning via social media, days after the Afghan Taliban government and the US swapped prisoners in one of the final acts of former president Joe Biden

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday threatened bounties on the heads of Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders, sharply escalating the tone as he said more Americans may be detained in the country than previously thought.
The threat comes days after the Afghan Taliban government and the United States swapped prisoners in one of the final acts of former president Joe Biden.
The new top US diplomat issued the harsh warning via social media, in a rhetorical style strikingly similar to his boss, President Donald Trump.
“Just hearing the Taliban is holding more American hostages than has been reported,” Rubio wrote on X.
“If this is true, we will have to immediately place a VERY BIG bounty on their top leaders, maybe even bigger than the one we had on bin Laden,” he said, referring to the Al-Qaeda leader killed by US forces in 2011.
Rubio did not describe who the other Americans may be, but there have long been accounts of missing Americans whose cases were not formally taken up by the US government as wrongful detentions.
In the deal with the Biden administration, the Taliban freed the best-known American detained in Afghanistan, Ryan Corbett, who had been living with his family in the country and was seized in August 2022.
Also freed was William McKenty, an American about whom little information has been released.
The United States in turn freed Khan Mohammed, who was serving a life sentence in a California prison.
Mohammed was convicted of trafficking heroin and opium into the United States and was accused of seeking rockets to kill US troops in Afghanistan.
The United States offered a bounty of $25 million for information leading to the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden shortly after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, with Congress later authorizing the secretary of state to offer up to $50 million.
No one is believed to have collected the bounty for bin Laden, who was killed in a US raid in Pakistan.

Trump is known for brandishing threats in his speeches and on social media. But he is also a critic of US military interventions overseas and in his second inaugural address Monday said he aspired to be a “peacemaker.”
In his first term, the Trump administration broke a then-taboo and negotiated directly with the Taliban — with Trump even proposing a summit with the then-insurgents at the Camp David presidential retreat — as he brokered a deal to pull US troops and end America’s longest war.
Biden carried out the agreement, with the Western-backed government swiftly collapsing and the Taliban retaking power in August 2021 just after US troops left.
The scenes of chaos in Kabul brought strong criticism of Biden, especially when 13 American troops and scores of Afghans died in a suicide bombing at the city’s airport.
The Biden administration had low-level contacts with Taliban government representatives but made little headway.
Some members of Trump’s Republican Party criticized even the limited US engagements with the Taliban government and especially the humanitarian assistance authorized by the Biden administration, which insisted the money was for urgent needs in the impoverished country and never routed through the Taliban.
Rubio on Friday froze nearly all US aid around the world.
No country has officially recognized the Taliban government, which has imposed severe restrictions on women and girls under its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam.
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor on Thursday said he was seeking arrest warrants for senior Taliban leaders over the persecution of women.
 


China tells Trump’s top diplomat to behave himself in veiled warning

Updated 26 January 2025
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China tells Trump’s top diplomat to behave himself in veiled warning

  • A China Foreign Ministry statement said FM Wang Yi issued the veiled warning in a phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio
  • Rubio, a long-time vocal critic of China, earlier expressed “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan and in the South China Sea”

BEIJING: China’s veteran foreign minister has issued a veiled warning to America’s new secretary of state: Behave yourself.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi conveyed the message in a phone call Friday, their first conversation since Marco Rubio’s confirmation as President Donald Trump’s top diplomat four days earlier.
“I hope you will act accordingly,” Wang told Rubio, according to a Foreign Ministry statement, employing a Chinese phrase typically used by a teacher or a boss warning a student or employee to behave and be responsible for their actions.
The short phrase seemed aimed at Rubio’s vocal criticism of China and its human rights record when he was a US senator, which prompted the Chinese government to put sanctions on him twice in 2020.
It can be translated in various ways — in the past, the Foreign Ministry has used “make the right choice” and “be very prudent about what they say or do” rather than “act accordingly.”
The vagueness allows the phrase to express an expectation and deliver a veiled warning, while also maintaining the courtesy necessary for further diplomatic engagement, said Zichen Wang, a research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, a Chinese think tank.
“What could appear to be confusing is thus an intended effect originating from Chinese traditional wisdom and classic practice of speech,” said Wang, who is currently in a mid-career master’s program at Princeton University.
Rubio, during his confirmation hearing, cited the importance of referring to the original Chinese to understand the words of China’s leader Xi Jinping.
“Don’t read the English translation that they put out because the English translation is never right,” he said.
A US statement on the phone call didn’t mention the phrase. It said Rubio told Wang that the Trump administration would advance US interests in its relationship with China and expressed “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan and in the South China Sea.”
Wang was foreign minister in 2020 when China slapped sanctions on Rubio in July and August, first in response to US sanctions on Chinese officials for a crackdown on the Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang region and then over what it regarded as outside interference in Hong Kong.
The sanctions include a ban on travel to China, and while the Chinese government has indicated it will engage with Rubio as secretary of state, it has not explicitly said whether it would allow him to visit the country for talks.