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France to ban smoking outdoors in most places: minister

France to ban smoking outdoors in most places: minister
France will ban smoking in all outdoor places that can be frequented by children, like beaches, parks and bus stops, the health and family minister said in an interview published on Thursday. (File)
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Updated 29 May 2025

France to ban smoking outdoors in most places: minister

France to ban smoking outdoors in most places: minister
  • The new ban, which will enter into force on July 1, will cover all spaces where children could be present
  • The ban will also extend to schools, to stop students smoking in front of them

PARIS: France will ban smoking in all outdoor places that can be accessed by children, including beaches, parks and bus stops, the health and family minister announced Thursday.

Famed as a country where smokers linger over cigarettes on cafe terraces or strolling down cobblestone streets, France has increasingly tightened restrictions on tobacco use in public spaces in recent years.

The new ban, which will enter into force on July 1, will cover all spaces where children could be present, including “beaches, parks, public gardens, outside of schools, bus stops and sports venues,” said the minister Catherine Vautrin.

“Tobacco must disappear where there are children,” Vautrin said in an interview published by the regional Ouest-France daily on its website.

The freedom to smoke “stops where children’s right to breathe clean air starts,” she said.

The ban will also extend to schools, to stop students smoking in front of them.

Offenders face a fine of up to 135 euros ($154), Vautrin said.

The ban will not extend to France’s iconic cafe terraces however, the minister said.

Electronic cigarettes, which have boomed in France in recent years, are also not covered.

France already forbids smoking in public spaces such as workplaces, airports and train stations, as well as playgrounds.

Anti-smoking groups had been fighting for a broader ban.

An estimated 35 percent of France’s population are smokers — higher than the averages for
Europe (25 percent) and the world (21 percent), according to the World Health Organization.

Around 75,000 people are estimated to die from tobacco-related complications each year in France.

According to a recent opinion survey, six out of 10 French people (62 percent) favor banning smoking in public places.

The government’s National Anti-Tobacco Programme for 2023 to 2027 proposed a smoking ban similar to the one announced by Vautrin, calling France to “rise to the challenge of a tobacco-free generation from 2032.”

But anti-tobacco organizations had voiced concern the authorities were dragging their feet on implementing the measures.

More than 1,500 cities and villages had already imposed their own bans on smoking in public spaces such as parks, beaches and ski slopes.

Vautrin said there were no plans to place additional taxes on cigarettes “at the moment,” citing the thriving black market that emerged after existing taxes were introduced in a bid to discourage smoking.


Mali’s government adopts bill granting junta leader 5 more years in power

Mali’s government adopts bill granting junta leader 5 more years in power
Updated 17 sec ago

Mali’s government adopts bill granting junta leader 5 more years in power

Mali’s government adopts bill granting junta leader 5 more years in power
  • The bill now awaits ratification by the National Transitional Council, the legislative body overseeing the transition

BAMAKO, Mali: Mali’s Council of Ministers on Wednesday adopted a controversial bill granting the head of the military junta an additional five years in power.
Gen. Assimi Goita has led the West African nation since orchestrating two coups in 2020 and 2021. The move follows the military regime’s dissolution of political parties in May.
According to the government’s cabinet statement, the bill will lead to the “revision of the Transition Charter, granting the Head of State a five-year renewable mandate starting in 2025.” It implements the recommendations of the national dialogue consultations organized by the military regime in April, which the political parties boycotted.
The bill now awaits ratification by the National Transitional Council, the legislative body overseeing the transition.
Earlier in May, Gen. Goita signed a decree dissolving political parties, a decision made against a backdrop of burgeoning opposition. It coincided with a surge in kidnappings of pro-democracy activists in the capital, Bamako, and just days after a demonstration by several hundred activists.
Mali, a landlocked nation in the semiarid region of Sahel, has been embroiled in political instability that swept across West and Central Africa over the last decade.
The nation has seen two military coups since 2020 as an insurgency by jihadi groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group worsened. The junta had promised a return to civilian rule by March 2024, but later postponed elections. No date has been set yet for the presidential election.


At least 49 people have died in flooding in South Africa with toll expected to rise, officials say

At least 49 people have died in flooding in South Africa with toll expected to rise, officials say
Updated 11 min 8 sec ago

At least 49 people have died in flooding in South Africa with toll expected to rise, officials say

At least 49 people have died in flooding in South Africa with toll expected to rise, officials say
  • The death toll included six high school students who were washed away when their school bus was caught in floodwaters

JOHANNESBURG: At least 49 people were confirmed dead Wednesday as floods devastated one of South Africa’s poorest provinces, and officials said the toll was expected to rise as more bodies are recovered in the search for missing people.
The floods hit the largely rural Eastern Cape province in the southeast of the country early Tuesday after an especially strong weather front brought heavy rains, gale force winds and also snow in some parts.
“As we speak here, other bodies are being discovered,” Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane told reporters at a briefing, adding that it was one of the worst weather-related disasters his province had experienced. “I have never seen something like this,” he said.
The death toll included six high school students who were washed away when their school bus was caught in floodwaters on Tuesday near a river close to the town of Mthatha, which was especially hard hit and at the center of the worst flooding. Four other students were among the missing, Mabuyane said.
Authorities found the school bus earlier Wednesday, but it was empty. Three of the students were rescued on Tuesday when they were found clinging to trees and crying out for help, the provincial government said.
A driver and another adult who were on the bus with the schoolchildren were among the dead.
Search and rescue operations would continue for a third day on Thursday, authorities said, though they didn’t give details on how many people might still be missing. They said they were working with families to find out who was still unaccounted for.
Disaster response teams have been activated in Eastern Cape province and the neighboring KwaZulu-Natal province after the torrential rain and snow hit parts of southern and eastern South Africa over the weekend. Mabuyane said there had also been reports of mudslides.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the National Disaster Management Center was also working with local authorities in the Eastern Cape, the province that took the brunt of the extreme cold front that weather forecasters had warned was on its way last week. There were unusually large snowfalls in parts of Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State province in South Africa’s interior.
Ramaphosa offered his condolences to the affected families in the Eastern Cape in a statement from his office and described the situation as “devastation.”
Power outages have affected hundreds of thousands of homes in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Eastern Cape provincial government officials said hundreds of families were left homeless and in temporary shelters in that province after their houses were washed away or broken apart, while at least 58 schools and 20 hospitals were damaged by the floods, which mostly affected Mthatha and the surrounding district.
Other houses were left submerged under water. Cars and debris that were carried away by the floods were left strewn in piles as the rain stopped and the water began to subside.
South Africa is vulnerable to strong weather fronts that blow in from the Indian and Southern Oceans. In 2022, more than 400 people died in flooding caused by prolonged heavy rains in the east coast city of Durban and surrounding areas.
Poor areas with informal housing are often the worst affected and where the majority of fatalities occur.

 


Northern Ireland hit by third night of violence but main flashpoint calmer

Northern Ireland hit by third night of violence but main flashpoint calmer
Updated 15 min 31 sec ago

Northern Ireland hit by third night of violence but main flashpoint calmer

Northern Ireland hit by third night of violence but main flashpoint calmer

BALLYMENA, Northern Ireland: Violence erupted in different parts of Northern Ireland for the third successive night on Wednesday, with masked youths starting a fire in a leisure center but unrest in the primary flashpoint of Ballymena was notably smaller in scale.
Hundreds of masked rioters attacked police and set homes and cars on fire in Ballymena, a town of 30,000 people located 45 kilometers (28 miles) from Belfast, on Tuesday night in what police condemned as “racist thuggery.”
The violence flared on Monday after two 14-year-old boys were arrested and appeared in court earlier that day, accused of a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in the town.
The charges were read via a Romanian interpreter to the boys, whose lawyer told the court that they denied the charge, the BBC reported. Police are investigating the damaging of properties on Monday and Tuesday in Ballymena, which has a relatively large migrant population, as racially-motivated hate crimes.
Two Filipino families told Reuters they fled their home in Ballymena on Tuesday night after fearing for their safety when their car was set on fire outside the house.
A few dozen masked youths threw some rocks, fireworks and petrol bombs at police after officers in riot gear and armored vans blocked roads in the town on Wednesday evening.
Police deployed water cannon against the crowd for the second successive night but the clashes were nothing like the previous night that left 17 officers injured and led to five arrests.
Much of the crowd had left the streets before midnight.
A small number of riot police were also in the town of Larne 30 kilometers west where masked youths smashed the windows of a leisure center before starting fires in the lobby, BBC footage showed.
Swimming classes were taking place when bricks were thrown through the windows and staff had to barricade themselves in before running out the back door, a local Alliance Party lawmaker, Danny Donnelly, told the BBC.
Northern Ireland’s Communities Minister Gordon Lyons had earlier posted on Facebook that a number of people had been temporarily moved to the leisure center following the disturbances in Ballymena, before then being moved out of Larne.
The comments drew sharp criticism from other political parties for identifying a location used to shelter families seeking refuge from anti-immigrant violence. Lyons condemned the attacks on the center.
Police said youths also set fires at a roundabout in the town of Newtownabbey, a flashpoint for sectarian violence that sporadically flares up in the British-run region 27 years after a peace deal largely ended three decades of bloodshed.
Debris was also set alight at a barricade in Coleraine, the Belfast Telegraph reported.
The British and Irish governments as well as local politicians have condemned the violence.


US immigration officers intensify arrests in courthouse hallways on a fast track to deportation

US immigration officers intensify arrests in courthouse hallways on a fast track to deportation
Updated 12 June 2025

US immigration officers intensify arrests in courthouse hallways on a fast track to deportation

US immigration officers intensify arrests in courthouse hallways on a fast track to deportation
  • The large-scale arrests that began in May have unleashed fear among asylum-seekers and immigrants accustomed to remaining free while judges grind through a backlog of 3.6 million cases

SEATTLE: A transgender woman who says she was raped by Mexican cartel members told an immigration judge in Oregon that she wanted her asylum case to continue. A Venezuelan man bluntly told a judge in Seattle, “They will kill me if I go back to my country.” A man and his cousin said they feared for their lives should they return to Haiti.
Many asylum-seekers, like these three, dutifully appeared at routine hearings before being arrested outside courtrooms last week, a practice that has jolted immigration courts across the country as the White House works toward its promise of mass deportations.
The large-scale arrests that began in May have unleashed fear among asylum-seekers and immigrants accustomed to remaining free while judges grind through a backlog of 3.6 million cases, typically taking years to reach a decision. Now they must consider whether to show up and possibly be detained and deported, or skip their hearings and forfeit their bids to remain in the country.
The playbook has become familiar. A judge will grant a government lawyer’s request to dismiss deportation proceedings. Moments later, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers — often masked — arrest the person in the hallway and put them on a fast track to deportation, called “expedited removal.”
President Donald Trump sharply expanded fast-track authority in January, allowing immigration officers to deport someone without first seeing a judge. Although fast-track deportations can be put on hold by filing a new asylum claim, people can be swiftly removed if they fail an initial screening.
‘People are more likely to give up’
The transgender woman from Mexico, identified in court filings as O-J-M, was arrested outside the courtroom after a judge granted the government’s request to dismiss her case.
She said in a court filing that she crossed the border in September 2023, two years after being raped by cartel members because of her gender, and had regularly checked in at ICE offices, as instructed.
O-J-M was taken to an ICE facility in Portland before being sent to a detention center in Tacoma, Washington, where attorney Kathleen Pritchard said in court filings she was unable to schedule a nonrecorded legal phone call for days.
“It’s an attempt to disappear people,” said Jordan Cunnings, one of O-J-M’s attorneys and legal director of the nonprofit Innovation Law Lab. “If you’re subject to this horrible disappearance suddenly, and you can’t get in touch with your attorney, you’re away from friends and family, you’re away from your community support network, that’s when people are more likely to give up and not be able to fight their cases.”
O-J-M was eligible for fast-track deportation because she was in the United States less than two years, but that was put on hold when she expressed fear of returning to Mexico, according to a declaration filed with the court by ICE deportation officer Chatham McCutcheon. She will remain in the United States at least until her initial screening interview for asylum, which had not been scheduled at the time of the court filing, the officer said.
The administration is “manipulating the court system in bad faith to then initiate expedited removal proceedings,” said Isa Peña, director of strategy for the Innovation Law Lab.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not respond to questions about the number of cases dismissed since last month and the number of arrests made at or near immigration courts. It said in a statement that most people who entered the US illegally within the past two years are subject to expedited removals.
“If they have a valid credible fear claim, they will continue in immigration proceedings, but if no valid claim is found, aliens will be subject to a swift deportation,” the statement said.
The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs the immigration courts, declined to comment.
ICE has used increasingly aggressive tactics in Los Angeles and elsewhere while under orders from Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, to increase immigration arrests to at least 3,000 a day.
Tension in the hallways
In Seattle, a Venezuelan man sat in a small waiting room, surrounded by others clutching yellow folders while a half-dozen masked, plainclothes ICE officers lined the halls.
Protesters held signs in Spanish, including one that read, “Keep faith that love and justice will prevail in your favor,” and peppered officers with insults, saying their actions were immoral.
Judge Kenneth Sogabe granted the government’s request to dismiss the Venezuelan man’s deportation case, despite his objections that he and his wife faced death threats back home.
“I want my case to be analyzed and heard. I do not agree with my case being dismissed,” the man said through an interpreter.
Sogabe, a former Defense Department attorney who became a judge in 2021, told the man that Department of Homeland Security lawyers could dismiss a case it brought but he could appeal within 30 days. He could also file an asylum claim.
“When I leave, no immigration officer can detain me, arrest me?” the man asked.
“I can’t answer that,” the judge replied. “I do not have any connection with the enforcement arm.”
The man stepped out of the courtroom and was swarmed by officers who handcuffed him and walked him to the elevators.
Later that morning, a Haitian man was led away in tears after his case was dismissed. For reasons that were not immediately clear, the government didn’t drop its case against the man’s cousin, who was released with a new hearing date.
The pair entered the United States together last year using an online, Biden-era appointment system called CBP One. Trump ended CBP One and revoked two-year temporary status for those who used it.
Alex Baron, a lawyer for the pair, said the arrests were a scare tactic.
“Word gets out and other people just don’t come or don’t apply for asylum or don’t show up to court. And when they don’t show up, they get automatic removal orders,” he said.
At least seven others were arrested outside the Seattle courtrooms that day. In most cases, they didn’t speak English or have money to hire a lawyer.
A judge resists
In Atlanta, Judge Andrew Hewitt challenged an ICE lawyer who moved to dismiss removal cases against several South and Central Americans last week so the government could put them on a fast track to deportation.
Hewitt, a former ICE attorney who was appointed a judge in 2023, was visibly frustrated. He conceded to a Honduran man that the government’s reasoning “seems a bit circular and potentially inefficient” because he could show he’s afraid to return to his country and be put right back in immigration court proceedings.
The Honduran man hadn’t filed an asylum claim and Hewitt eventually signed what he called a “grossly untimely motion” to dismiss the case, advising the man of his right to appeal.
He denied a government request to dismiss the case of a Venezuelan woman who had filed an asylum application and scheduled a hearing for January 2027.
Hewitt refused to dismiss the case of a young Ecuadorian woman, telling the government lawyer to put the request in writing for consideration at an August hearing. Immigration officers waited near the building’s exit with handcuffs and took her into custody.


Putin says special attention should be paid to nuclear triad in Russia’s new arms program

Putin says special attention should be paid to nuclear triad in Russia’s new arms program
Updated 12 June 2025

Putin says special attention should be paid to nuclear triad in Russia’s new arms program

Putin says special attention should be paid to nuclear triad in Russia’s new arms program
  • “Undoubtedly, special attention should be paid to the nuclear triad, which has been and will remain the guarantee of Russia’s sovereignty,” Putin says

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that special attention in the country’s new arms program should be paid to the nuclear triad — land-based, sea-based and aircraft-launched weapons.
Putin’s remarks, broadcast on state television, were made at a meeting of senior officials devoted to the country’s arms industry.
“Undoubtedly, special attention should be paid to the nuclear triad, which has been and will remain the guarantee of Russia’s sovereignty and plays a key role in upholding the balance of forces in the world,” Putin said.
A total of 95 percent of weapons in Russia’s strategic nuclear forces, he said, were fully up-to-date.
“This is a good indicator and, in essence, the highest among all the world’s nuclear powers,” he told the gathering.