NICE, France: A knife-wielding attacker shouting "Allahu Akbar" beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a suspected terrorist attack at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday (Oct 29), police and officials said.
Nice's mayor, Christian Estrosi, who described the attack as terrorism, said on Twitter that it had happened in or near the city's Notre-Dame church and that police had detained the attacker.
Estrosi said the attacker had shouted the phrase "Allahu Akbar", or "God is greatest", and kept shouting it even after he had been detained.
One of the people killed inside the church was believed to be the church warden, Estrosi said.
"The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained, he is on his way to hospital, he is alive," Estrosi told reporters.
"Enough is enough," Estrosi said. "It's time now for France to exonerate itself from the laws of peace in order to definitively wipe out Islamo-fascism from our territory."
Police officers secure the area after a reported knife attack at Notre-Dame church in Nice, France, on Oct 29, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Eric Gaillard)
Police said three people were confirmed to have died in the attack and several were injured.
A police source said a woman was decapitated. French politician Marine Le Pen also spoke of a decapitation having occurred in the attack.
Estrosi said the victims had been killed in a "horrible way".
"The methods match, without doubt, those used against the brave teacher in Conflans Sainte Honorine, Samuel Paty," he said, referring to a French teacher beheaded earlier this month in an attack in a suburb of Paris.
A security officer secures the area after a reported knife attack near Notre-Dame church in Nice, France, on Oct 29, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Eric Gaillard)
Giving a toll that differed from figures from the police and French media, Estrosi said he could confirm that two people had died.
He said a third person, a woman who was gravely injured, had tried to escape from inside the church and had fled into a bar opposite the building.
The French anti-terrorist prosecutor's department said it had been asked to investigate the attack.
Reuters journalists at the scene said police armed with automatic weapons had put up a security cordon around the church, which is on Nice's Avenue Jean Medecin, the city's main shopping thoroughfare.
Ambulances and fire service vehicles were also at the scene.
The attack comes while France is still reeling from the beheading of middle school teacher Paty by a man of Chechen origin.
The attacker had said he wanted to punish Paty for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a civics lesson.
It was not immediately clear what the motive was for the Nice attack, or if there was any connection to the cartoons, which Muslims consider to be blasphemous.
Since Paty's killing, French officials - backed by many ordinary citizens - have re-asserted the right to display the cartoons, and the images have been widely displayed at marches in solidarity with the killed teacher.
That has prompted an outpouring of anger in parts of the Muslim world, with some governments accusing French leader Emmanuel Macron of pursuing an anti-Islam agenda.
NICE, France: A knife-wielding attacker shouting "Allahu Akbar" beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a suspected terrorist attack at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday (Oct 29), police and officials said.
Nice's mayor, Christian Estrosi, who described the attack as terrorism, said on Twitter that it had happened in or near the city's Notre-Dame church and that police had detained the attacker.
Estrosi said the attacker had shouted the phrase "Allahu Akbar", or "God is greatest", and kept shouting it even after he had been detained.
One of the people killed inside the church was believed to be the church warden, Estrosi said.
"The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained, he is on his way to hospital, he is alive," Estrosi told reporters.
"Enough is enough," Estrosi said. "It's time now for France to exonerate itself from the laws of peace in order to definitively wipe out Islamo-fascism from our territory."
Police officers secure the area after a reported knife attack at Notre-Dame church in Nice, France, on Oct 29, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Eric Gaillard)
Police said three people were confirmed to have died in the attack and several were injured.
A police source said a woman was decapitated. French politician Marine Le Pen also spoke of a decapitation having occurred in the attack.
Estrosi said the victims had been killed in a "horrible way".
"The methods match, without doubt, those used against the brave teacher in Conflans Sainte Honorine, Samuel Paty," he said, referring to a French teacher beheaded earlier this month in an attack in a suburb of Paris.
A security officer secures the area after a reported knife attack near Notre-Dame church in Nice, France, on Oct 29, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Eric Gaillard)
Giving a toll that differed from figures from the police and French media, Estrosi said he could confirm that two people had died.
He said a third person, a woman who was gravely injured, had tried to escape from inside the church and had fled into a bar opposite the building.
The French anti-terrorist prosecutor's department said it had been asked to investigate the attack.
Reuters journalists at the scene said police armed with automatic weapons had put up a security cordon around the church, which is on Nice's Avenue Jean Medecin, the city's main shopping thoroughfare.
Ambulances and fire service vehicles were also at the scene.
The attack comes while France is still reeling from the beheading of middle school teacher Paty by a man of Chechen origin.
The attacker had said he wanted to punish Paty for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a civics lesson.
It was not immediately clear what the motive was for the Nice attack, or if there was any connection to the cartoons, which Muslims consider to be blasphemous.
Since Paty's killing, French officials - backed by many ordinary citizens - have re-asserted the right to display the cartoons, and the images have been widely displayed at marches in solidarity with the killed teacher.
That has prompted an outpouring of anger in parts of the Muslim world, with some governments accusing French leader Emmanuel Macron of pursuing an anti-Islam agenda.
SINGAPORE - Tourists and all other travellers from China and the state of Victoria in Australia will be able to enter Singapore without an extended quarantine period from next Friday (Nov 6), with the Republic opening its borders to these two places.
They will have to take a Covid-19 PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test upon arrival. If they test negative, they can go about their business without serving a stay-home notice.
The same applies to Singapore citizens, permanent residents and long-term pass holders returning from these two areas.
Singapore had earlier announced similar unilateral measures for all forms of travel from Brunei, New Zealand, Vietnam and all other parts of Australia except Victoria, which until recently had been battling more cases than the rest of the country.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said on Thursday (Oct 29) that mainland China and Victoria had been added to the list as they have comprehensive public health surveillance systems and had successfully controlled the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
"The risk of importation from these places is low," said CAAS.
Travellers from the two places will be able to apply for an air travel pass to enter Singapore from noon on Friday for entry from Nov 6.
Applicants must have remained in China or Australia in the last 14 consecutive days before entry into Singapore. Outbound travel is still restricted in both countries.
As at noon on Thursday, CAAS had approved 1,375 applications to travel into Singapore from Brunei, New Zealand, Vietnam and Australia, excluding Victoria.
None of the travellers who have come to Singapore has tested positive for Covid-19 upon arrival, CAAS said.
It added that it will update the local travel advisory to allow travel to China and all of Australia, although this is expected to have limited impact, with inbound travel restrictions still in place in both countries.
China has been one of Changi Airport’s major markets, with 7.3 million passenger movements last year attributed to it. This makes up 10.7 per cent of Changi’s total traffic last year.
Indonesia was Changi’s top market, with 8.3 million passenger movements attributed to the country.
There are currently only 10 flights weekly to seven cities in China. This is in contrast to December last year, when there were 373 weekly flights to 36 cities in China.
BERIN/PARIS (REUTERS) - French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel ordered their countries back into lockdown on Wednesday (Oct 29), as a massive second wave of coronavirus infections threatened to overwhelm Europe before the winter.
World stock markets went into a dive in response to the news that Europe’s biggest economies were imposing nationwide restrictions almost as severe as the ones that drove the global economy this year into its deepest recession in generations.
"The virus is circulating at a speed that not even the most pessimistic forecasts had anticipated," Mr Macron said in a televised address. "Like all our neighbours, we are submerged by the sudden acceleration of the virus."
"We are all in the same position: overrun by a second wave which we know will be harder, more deadly than the first," he said. "I have decided that we need to return to the lockdown which stopped the virus."
Under the new French measures which come into force on Friday, people will be required to stay in their homes except to buy essential goods, seek medical attention, or exercise for up to one hour a day.
They will be permitted to go to work if their employer deems it impossible for them to do the job from home. Schools will stay open.
As in the darkest days of spring, anyone leaving their home in France will now have to carry a document justifying being outside, which can be checked by police.
Schools will stay open, and shops will be allowed to operate with strict limits on access.
"We need to take action now," Mrs Merkel said. "Our health system can still cope with this challenge today, but at this speed of infections it will reach the limits of its capacity within weeks."
Her finance minister Olaf Scholz posted on Twitter: "November will be a month of truth. The increasing numbers of infections are forcing us to take tough countermeasures in order to break the second wave."
France has surged above 36,000 new cases a day.
Germany, which was less hard-hit than its European neighbours early this year, has seen an exponential rise in cases.
President Donald Trump has played down the virus and shows no sign of cancelling public rallies where his supporters often refuse to wear masks or keep a safe distance.
European stock markets closed at their lowest levels since late May on Wednesday. In the United States, the S&P 500 was down 3 per cent.
In an effort to blunt the economic impact, Germany will set aside up to 10 billion euros (S$16 billion) to partly reimburse companies for lost sales.
Italy has set aside more than 5 billion euros.
If we wait it will be too late
While leaders have been desperate to avoid the crippling cost of lockdowns, the new restrictions reflect alarm at the galloping pace of the pandemic from Spain, France and Germany to Russia, Poland and Bulgaria.
"If we wait until the intensive care units are full, it will be too late," said German Health Minister Jens Spahn, whose country already has taken in patients from its neighbour the Netherlands, where hospitals have reached their limits.
A city official attaches an information poster on the wearing of face masks and social distancing measures as well as the ban of alcoholic beverages during certain hours, in the city of Nuremberg, southern Germany, on Oct 28, 2020. PHOTO: AFP
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said on Wednesday that hospital beds were at 90 per cent of capacity in 16 regions of the country, while officials have warned that even well-equipped health systems like those in France and Switzerland could reach breaking point within days.
Hopes that new treatments might curb the spread were dented when the head of Britain’s vaccine procurement task force said that a fully effective vaccine may never be developed and that early versions were likely to be imperfect.
The latest figures from the World Health Organisation on Tuesday showed Europe reported 1.3 million new cases in the past seven days, nearly half the 2.9 million reported worldwide, with over 11,700 deaths, a 37 per cent jump over the previous week.
So far, more than 42 million cases and more than 1.1 million deaths have been recorded worldwide from the virus, which was first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of last year.
Governments across Europe have been under fire for a lack of coordination and for failing to use a lull in cases over the summer to bolster defences, leaving hospitals unprepared.
Since the weekend, police and protesters have clashed repeatedly in Italian cities from Naples to Turin.
Restaurant owners and business groups have been critical.
"At 6pm public transport is often crowded. You take the risk because you have to get to work. You wear a mask, you take hand gel with you," Mr Elio Venafro said after getting off a bus in central Rome on Wednesday. "It’s the new normal."
WILMINGTON, North Carolina: Democrat Joe Biden reiterated on Wednesday (Oct 28) he will tackle the COVID-19 pandemic from Day 1 if elected president but warned there is no magic "switch" to end the pandemic, as Donald Trump insisted he will still win easily and dismissed his opponent as a Covid alarmist.
Less than a week before decision day, Biden cast his presidential ballot in his home state of Delaware and met with health experts, as he fine-tuned his pandemic response plan, seeking to reassure voters that he would use science to fight the contagion.
"Even if I win it's going to take a lot of hard work to end this pandemic," the former vice president said in Wilmington.
"I'm not running on a false promise of being able to end this pandemic by flipping a switch," he added. "But what I can promise you is this: We'll start on Day 1 by doing the right thing. We'll let science guide our decisions."
Biden, 77, continues to campaign cautiously ahead of next Tuesday, holding low-key events with small, socially distanced crowds that look nothing like the traditional scene in the closing days of a White House race.
On Saturday, Biden is to get some star power when he is joined on the stump in Michigan by Barack Obama, whom he served as vice president. It will be their first joint in-person appearance of the 2020 race, though Obama has been delivering strategically timed broadsides at Trump throughout.
STATE BY STATE
Trump is finishing his campaign in an extreme test of endurance, with final pitches to voters both in swing states and also states that he won in 2016 yet now has to defend.
After rallying supporters in three states Tuesday, Trump, 74, overnighted in a fourth - Nevada - then flew to Arizona for two more rallies.
In all, Trump plans to visit 10 states in the last week of the campaign and will host 11 rallies in the final 48 hours, a campaign official said.
"It's going to be a great, great red wave," Trump boomed in Arizona, referring to the Republican colour.
"We love you! We love you!" the enthusiastic crowd chanted back. At another rally, in Goodyear, Arizona, Trump predicted he would repeat his 2016 upset, saying "we're going to have an even bigger surprise in six days".
US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally on Oct 28, 2020 in Bullhead City, Arizona. (Photo: Isaac Brekken/Getty Images/AFP)
More than 75 million people have cast early in-person and mail ballots, according to data compiled by the US Elections Project at the University of Florida. That is a record-setting pace and more than 53 per cent of the total 2016 turnout.
On Tuesday, Biden visited Georgia, traditionally Republican territory, and he has said he would travel to Florida, Wisconsin and Michigan in the race's closing days.
All are states that Trump won in 2016 but which are up for grabs this year.
Trump has repeatedly stressed that the US is "rounding the turn" on the pandemic, but figures do not bear that out: More than 227,000 Americans have died and daily case averages have risen.
On Wednesday, Trump kept up his scorn for Biden's focus on health safety, saying that the Democrat would destroy the country through more lockdowns.
"'Sleepy Joe' wants to keep everyone locked down forever," he said, referring to his challenger.
"If I weren’t president, if you had Sleepy Joe as your president, it would have taken you four years to have a vaccine. You would have never had a vaccine," Trump said.
A number of drugmakers are competing to bring a coronavirus vaccine to market, but one is not expected to be ready before next week's election.
But Trump's own chief infectious disease specialist, Anthony Fauci, warned Wednesday that even if a Covid-19 vaccine is released this year, it will take to "the end of 2021 and perhaps even into the next year" to reach "some semblances of normality."
Biden blasted the president, calling his administration's response to the pandemic "an insult to every single person suffering from COVID-19 and every family who's lost a loved one."
With American and European COVID-19 cases rising and no agreement yet on a new US pandemic rescue package in Congress, the Dow Jones on Wednesday sank 3.4 per cent.
The White House said meanwhile that it was closely following the situation in Philadelphia, where a second straight night of unrest and looting has set the city on edge following the fatal police shooting of a Black man, the latest to spark anger in the United States.
