LONDON: Residents swept up broken bricks, shattered glass and burnt plastic on Wednesday after far-right protesters clashed with police outside a mosque in a northwest England town where three girls were fatally stabbed.
A violent crowd of several hundred hurled bricks and bottles at riot police and set garbage bins and vehicles on fire in Southport, hours after a peaceful vigil for the girls, aged 6, 7 and 9, who were killed during a Taylor Swift-themed summer holiday dance and yoga class. The ambulance service said it treated 39 police officers for injuries, 27 of whom were taken to hospitals.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the “thuggery” and said the protesters “hijacked” the community’s grief.
Norman Wallis, chief executive of the Southport Pleasureland amusement park, was one of dozens of people who turned up with brushes and shovels to clear the debris.
“It’s horrendous what those hooligans have done last night,” he said. “It was like a war scene. People from out of town just causing absolute mayhem.”
“But none of those people were the people of Southport,” he added. “The people of Southport are the ones here today cleaning the mess up.”
The protesters, who police said were supporters of the far-right English Defense League, were fueled by anger and false online rumors about the 17-year-old suspect arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
The suspect remained in custody on Wednesday and a magistrate gave detectives more time to question him before he is either charged with a crime or released without charge, police said. Police can hold a suspect for up to two days but can apply for an extension up to four days.
Police said a name of the suspect circulating on social media — spread by far-right activists and accounts of murky origin purporting to be news organizations — was incorrect and that he was born in Britain, contrary to online claims he was an asylum-seeker. The names of suspects under the age of 18 are usually not made public in Britain.
Patrick Hurley, the local lawmaker, said the violence by “beered-up thugs” was the result of “propaganda and lies” spread on social media.
“This misinformation doesn’t just exist on people’s Internet browsers and on people’s phones. It has real world impact,” he said.
The rampage in Southport, a seaside town near Liverpool, is the latest shocking attack in a country where a recent rise in knife crime has stoked anxieties and led to calls for the government to do more to clamp down on bladed weapons, which are by far the most commonly used instruments in UK homicides.
About two dozen children, mostly girls, were attending a Taylor Swift-themed summer vacation workshop on Monday when a teen armed with a knife entered the studio and began a vicious attack, police said. Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6, died from their injuries. Ten other people were injured, among whom five children and two adults are in critical condition.
Swift wrote on Instagram that she was still taking in “the horror” of the event.
“These were just little kids at a dance class,” she wrote on Instagram. “I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.”
Witnesses described hearing screams and seeing children covered in blood in the mayhem outside the Hart Space, a community center that hosts everything from pregnancy workshops to women’s boot camps.
Joel Verite, a window cleaner riding in a van on his lunch break, said his colleague slammed on the brakes and reversed to where a woman was hanging on the side of a car covered in blood.
“She just screamed at me: ‘He’s killing kids over there. He’s killing kids over there,’” Verite told Sky News.
“It was like a scene you’d see on a disaster film,” he said. “I can’t explain to you how horrific it is what I saw.”
Britain’s worst attack on children occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot 16 kindergartners and their teacher dead in a school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland. The UK subsequently banned the private ownership of almost all handguns.
Mass shootings and killings with firearms are exceptionally rare in Britain, where knives were used in about 40 percent of homicides in the year to March 2023.
UK leader accuses far right of hijacking town’s grief after killing of 3 children sparks violence
https://arab.news/ndjsd
UK leader accuses far right of hijacking town’s grief after killing of 3 children sparks violence
- Police said a name of the suspect circulating on social media was incorrect and that he was born in Britain, contrary to online claims he was an asylum-seeker
- “This misinformation doesn’t just exist on people’s Internet browsers and on people’s phones. It has real world impact,” lawmaker says
Ethiopia PM issues warning over sovereignty
- Ethiopia is currently a major contributor to ATMIS, which is helping Somali forces in the fight against the Al-Shabab jihadist group
NAIROBI: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed warned Sunday that his country would “humiliate” any nation that threatens its sovereignty, as tensions spiral in the volatile Horn of Africa.
Africa’s second most populous nation is locked in a dispute with neighboring Somalia over a maritime deal it signed with the breakaway region of Somaliland. Relations with Egypt are also fraught over Ethiopia’s mega-dam on the Blue Nile.
“We will not be touched! However, we will humiliate anyone who dares to threaten us in order to dissuade them,” Abiy said at a Sovereignty Day ceremony in the capital Addis Ababa.
“We won’t negotiate with anyone on Ethiopia’s sovereignty and dignity,” he was quoted as saying by the official Ethiopian News Agency.
Ethiopia last month accused unnamed actors of seeking to “destabilize the region” after Egypt sent military equipment to Somalia following the signing of a military cooperation pact between Cairo and Mogadishu.
Egypt has also offered to deploy troops to Somalia under a new African Union-led mission that will replace the current peacekeeping force known as ATMIS next year.
Ethiopia is currently a major contributor to ATMIS, which is helping Somali forces in the fight against the Al-Shabab jihadist group.
But Mogadishu is furious over a deal signed in January between Ethiopia and Somaliland that gives Addis Ababa long-sought after access to the sea, saying it was an attack on its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Under the pact, Somaliland agreed to lease 20 kilometers (12 miles) of its coast for 50 years to Ethiopia, which wants to set up a naval base and a commercial port on the coast.
In return, Somaliland has said Ethiopia would give it formal recognition, although this has never been confirmed by Addis Ababa.
Turkiye has been mediating indirect talks between Ethiopia and Somalia to try to resolve the dispute, but they have made no significant breakthrough.
Somaliland, a former British protectorate of 4.5 million people, declared independence in 1993 but the move is rejected by Mogadishu and not recognized by the international community.
Cairo and Addis Ababa have been at loggerheads for years, trading incendiary words over Ethiopia’s massive hydroelectric dam project, which Egypt says threatens its fragile water security.
NATO members Romania, Latvia report Russian drones breach airspace
- Romanian lawmakers plan to consider legislation at their current session on enabling Romania to shoot down drones invading the country’s airspace in peacetime
BUCHAREST: Romania and Latvia, both NATO members and supporters of Ukraine in its 2 1/2-year-old war with Russia, on Sunday were investigating instances of Russian drones that crashed after breaching their airspace, authorities in both countries said.
The incidents prompted officials to call for measures to act jointly to counter Russia air incursions.
NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana denounced the incidents as “irresponsible and potentially dangerous,” while saying there was no indication of a deliberate attack on Alliance member-states.
The Romanian defense ministry said the “radar supervision system identified and tracked the path of a drone which entered national airspace and then exited toward Ukraine.”
Romania scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to monitor the incursion. Residents of the southeastern Romanian counties of Tulcea and Constanta were warned to take cover.
“From existing data, the possibility of an impact zone on national territory was identified, in an uninhabited area near the village of Periprava,” the ministry added.
Ministry personnel were searching the area of impact.
In Latvia, which borders both Russia and its close ally Belarus, President Edgars Rinkevics posted on social media platform X that his government sought a common NATO response.
“The number of such incidents is increasing along the Eastern flank of NATO and we must address them collectively,” Rinkevics wrote.
The LETA news agency quoted the defense ministry as saying initial investigation showed that the drone had entered Latvian airspace from Belarus and crashed near the city of Rezekne.
Leonids Kalnins, Commander of Latvia’s Joint Headquarters, said experts believed the drone “did not have a specific purpose to fly into Latvia.”
Defense Minister Andris Spruds, quoted by LETA, said the incident was “confirmation that we need to continue the work we have started to strengthen Latvia’s eastern border, including the development of air defense capabilities and electronic warfare capabilities...”
Ukraine’s newly-appointed Foreign Minister, Andrii Sybiha, wrote on X that the two cases were “a stark reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions extend beyond Ukraine” and called for maximum support from Ukraine’s allies.
Romania shares a 650-km (400-mile) border with Ukraine and has had Russian drone fragments stray into its territory repeatedly over the past year. Romanian territory lies a few hundred meters from Ukrainian Danube River ports, frequent Russian targets.
“There weren’t serious issues on the ground,” Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu told reporters on Sunday after consulting with the defense minister.
“(Attacks) will continue. That is it, we have a war on the border.”
Romanian lawmakers plan to consider legislation at their current session on enabling Romania to shoot down drones invading the country’s airspace in peacetime.
Six bodies found off Sicily coast, likely victims of recent migrant shipwreck, media say
- The survivors told rescuers they had set off from Libya on Sept. 1 and that 21 of the 28 people on board, including three children, had fallen into the sea in rough weather
MILAN: Italy’s coast guard recovered six bodies off the coast of Sicily, believed to be some of the 21 missing from a migrant shipwreck earlier this month, Italian media reported on Sunday.
The Italian coast guard said on Wednesday that seven people, all male Syrian nationals, were picked up from a semi-sunken boat southwest of the island of Lampedusa after a shipwreck.
The survivors told rescuers they had set off from Libya on Sept. 1 and that 21 of the 28 people on board, including three children, had fallen into the sea in rough weather.
Italian news agency AGI reported that rescuers believe the six bodies are some of the 21 missing from the shipwreck, based on the coordinates of where they were found.
The central Mediterranean is among the world’s deadliest migration routes. According to the UN migration agency (IOM), more than 2,500 migrants died or went missing attempting the crossing last year, and 1,116 since the beginning of the year.
The latest figures from the Italian interior ministry recorded that just over 43,000 migrants had reached Italy so far in 2024, well down from previous years.
From Dubai to LA, ube is the purple gateway to Filipino cuisine
- Ube is a main component of many celebratory dishes, delicacies in the Philippines
- As Filipino cooks abroad feature the tuber in their menus, they become popular internationally
MANILA: For the uninitiated, the experience of ube begins with its vividly purple hue. That is often how the tuber native to the Philippines catches the attention of foodies around the globe, as Filipino cooks turn them into the stars of a variety of snacks and desserts, from traditional rice cakes to ice creams and pastries.
From Dubai to LA, ube has featured as a novelty in Filipino-owned restaurants and shops. In the UAE’s commercial capital, visitors can find ube at Kooya Filipino Eatery, which has it in the form of a latte and milkshake, as well as a topping on halo-halo, the Philippines’ beloved shaved ice dessert.
Even in LA, Filipino-American Chef Andre Guerrero has ube milkshake on his menu at The Oinkster, which many credited as one of the first establishments to bring the purple yam into mainstream culinary consciousness in the US.
“We’re so … proud of it, and we should be; when we invite our new communities to try these brightly colored foods from our strange homeland, we’re attaching it to a good memory,” Manila-based food writer Michiko Manalang told Arab News.
For centuries, ube has been part of the Filipino table as a main component of celebratory dishes and special-occasion treats.
Often confused with the taro root, it is an indigenous staple of the Philippines that has a mellow, sweet and earthy flavor, as well as a striking hue. The root vegetable often used in desserts also conveys certain parts of Philippine culture.
Ube halaya, a rich purple jam made from boiled and mashed ube and thickened with coconut milk or condensed milk and butter, is an example. Typically served cold, the festive delicacy is believed to be more modern than widely perceived, as it would require some refrigeration.
“If someone can serve genuine ube halaya, it’s a subtle sign that they’re well-to-do,” Manalang said.
“Ube lends itself well to a lot of themes of Filipino cooking and culture. We’re a colorful bunch and we like our sweets, our rich textures,” she added. “Ube is good and fun on its own, but if I’m being honest, it’s our pride in it and our willingness to share that might be giving it and other Filipino foods that edge."
In the Philippines, local businesses have recently gotten more creative with ube on their menus, as seen in homegrown favorite Lola Nena’s ramp-up of its traditional doughnut offerings with an ube and cheese variant in May, to one of Manila’s new restaurants, TMBrew + Bistro, introducing Ube & Stracciatella Mozzarella in their menu.
Throughout the years, well-loved Filipino pastries have used ube in them, including the sweet, brioche-like pastry known as ensaymada and the dense, mooncake-like pastry of Chinese origin called hopia, said food and lifestyle writer Diane Go.
“When you think of something purple, automatically ube comes to mind, since it is a rare color in food and hard to attain the same vividness that it provides,” she said.
Ube’s eye-catching qualities have made ube a preferred gift item for travelers and migrant workers and offered an introduction to Filipino cooking, Go added.
“People, after all, eat with their eyes, which is why visual appeal is just as important. That’s why ube is usually the pasalubong (souvenir) of choice for foreigners and OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers), and the first entryway into local cuisine.”
Ube is “considered to be a unique and important dessert item in the Philippines,” said Raymond Macapagal, an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines’ Center for International Studies.
“It can be appreciated on its own or used to give an attractive purple color to other desserts … Ube is almost exclusively used as a dessert in Philippine cuisine. However, there are more recent recipes that have tried to incorporate it into savory (dishes).”
Though ube has been gaining more ground internationally, Macapagal is optimistic that purple yam will retain its Filipino roots.
“Despite other Southeast Asian countries like Thailand having ube or purple yam products, it seems as if ube has been very well-associated with Filipino cuisine,” he said. “So as long as ube is featured in Filipino-themed meals here and abroad, ube will retain its distinct Filipino-ness.”
French largely satisfied with Macron’s choice of PM: Poll
PARIS: The French are largely satisfied with the appointment of the center-right Michel Barnier as prime minister, but believe he will not last long in his new post, a poll said on Sunday.
According to the Ifop poll for the Journal du Dimanche, 52 percent of people polled said they were satisfied with the appointment of 73-year-old Barnier, a former foreign minister who acted as the European Union’s Brexit negotiator, as head of government.
By comparison, 53 percent of respondents approved the nomination of Barnier’s predecessor, Gabriel Attal, when he was appointed prime minister in early January, becoming France’s youngest-ever prime minister at 34.
The poll was released after more than 100,000 left-wing demonstrators rallied across France on Saturday to protest against the nomination of Barnier as prime minister and denounce President Emmanuel Macron’s “power grab.”
Barnier’s appointment marks a potential turning point following two months of political chaos in the wake of snap elections called by Macron that left no group close to an overall majority in the National Assembly lower house of parliament.
According to the Ifop poll, a majority of respondents see Barnier, the oldest prime minister in the history of modern France, as competent (62 percent), open to dialogue (61 percent) and likeable (60 percent).
However, the left has vowed to topple Barnier with a no-confidence motion, and 74 percent of respondents polled believe he would not last long in the post, according to the survey. Ifop polled 950 adults online on Sept. 5-6. The margin of error was up to 3.1 points.
