Author: France 24

British-American author Salman Rushdie recounts the 2022 stabbing at a public event that left him blind in one eye in “Knife”, his first memoir since the near-fatal attack, which hits English language bookstores on Tuesday. The French edition, “Le Couteau”, will be released Thursday.  The Indian-born author, a naturalised US citizen based in New York, has faced death threats since his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” was declared blasphemous by Iran’s supreme leader, making Salman Rushdie a global symbol of free speech.But after years remaining unscathed, a knife-wielding assailant jumped on stage at an arts gathering in rural New York…

Israel and Iran have been on a collision course throughout Israel’s six-month war against Hamas militants in Gaza. While Iran has considered Israel a sworn enemy since the 1979 revolution, Teheran had refrained from attacking Israel head-on until now with both countries opting instead to confront each other through third parties. Source link

Australian police on Tuesday said a brutal live-streamed knife attack at a church service in Sydney was a religiously motivated “terrorist” act, as they urged calm from the angered local community. Issued on: 16/04/2024 – 03:23 3 min Two people were stabbed when a 16-year-old suspect rushed the dais at an Assyrian church in western Sydney late Monday, slashing wildly at the bishop who was giving a sermon.The teen was immediately subdued by outraged congregants and taken into police custody.The alleged perpetrator was “known to police” but was not on any terror watchlists, senior officers said.”After consideration of all the…

US House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday that his Republican-controlled chamber would vote this week on separate aid bills for Ukraine and Israel, after stalling for months over pressure from his party’s right-wing. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates on the situation in the Middle East. Source link

The sacred flame for the Paris 2024 Olympics is to be lit Tuesday in ancient Olympia, birthplace of the ancient Games, for an epic torch relay stretching from the Acropolis to the South Pacific. Issued on: 16/04/2024 – 05:01 2 min Hundreds of dignitaries and spectators are expected to attend the ritual in the small Peloponnese town in southwestern Greece where the Olympics were born in 776 BCE, and where the ceremony is held every two years for the summer and winter Olympics.For the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic imposed toned-down events for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and 2022…

Rumours of a reopened Israeli checkpoint on the coastal road from the besieged territory’s south to Gaza City send thousands of Palestinians heading north on Sunday, despite Israel denying it was open. Reports from local witnesses say soldiers have opened fire on people seeking to cross aged between 14 and 50. Source link

The world is currently experiencing its second major coral bleaching event in 10 years, with reef systems from Australia to Florida teetering on the brink of disaster following months of record-breaking ocean heat, a US agency announced Monday. Issued on: 15/04/2024 – 17:45Modified: 15/04/2024 – 19:25 3 min The consequences of coral bleaching are far-reaching, affecting not only the health of oceans but also the livelihoods of people, food security, and local economies.Severe or prolonged heat stress leads to corals dying off, but there is hope for recovery if temperatures drop and other stressors such as overfishing and pollution are…

The feared reprisal had been almost two weeks in the making. But when Iran finally pushed the button on its retaliatory attack against Israel late on Saturday, it appeared to amount to little more than a drawn-out light show, resulting only in minor damage to some remote Israeli military infrastructure and the injury of a seven-year-old girl from a Bedouin community. Analysts say the Iranian operation was designed to fail from the start and had been carefully choreographed to avoid triggering an all-out regional war. At least for now. Source link

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged allies on Monday to show the same “unity” toward Ukraine as Israel, which said it repelled an Iranian attack over the weekend with Western support. Issued on: 15/04/2024 – 21:37 1 min Ukraine has in recent months grown increasingly frustrated at delays in Western aid, including air defences it says are urgently needed to repel deadly Russian attacks.In a post on Telegram, Zelensky thanked allies who had responded to Ukraine’s call for more air defences but said “the intensity of Russian attacks requires greater unity.””By defending Israel, the free world has demonstrated that such unity…

Did it finish with Saturday night or will it spiral further out of control? Already, Iran’s first-ever direct attack against Israel has sent the whole region into uncharted territory. We’ll ask about the measure of its response to Israel’s targeting of Tehran’s embassy compound in Syria. Whether the proportionality shows Iran’s strength or weakness and whether Israel’s prime minister will heed the call of G-Seven allies to leave it there and to move towards an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Source link