France's Sephora planning to open shops in Iran next year. France's Sephora plans to open several shops in Iran starting next year, becoming one of the first major European specialist cosmetics retailers to directly invest in the country as it emerges from years of economic sanctions. Sephora, part of luxury industry leader LVMH, running around 2,000 outlets worldwide, is keen to build its presence in Iran where there is a huge appetite for cosmetics and especially make-up. With a population of nearly 80 million, Iran is…
Building collapse in China leaves at least 17 dead. Rescuers search among debris after a building collapsed in Wuyang county, A two-storey building has collapsed while workers were trying to prop up the second floor during renovations in central China, killing at least 17 construction workers and injuring 23, officials and reports said Saturday. The collapse happened on Friday afternoon in the Wuyang county town of Beiwudu in Henan province, the county government said on its website. Forty people were pulled from the debris by …
La révolution silencieuse des catholiques de France. Depuis la Manif pour tous, ils sont sortis des catacombes. Si les «catholiques d'ouverture» continuent d'être majoritaires, la minorité des «catholiques d'identité» est en train de prendre le dessus au sein de l'Eglise de France. En pointe du combat culturel, présents dans le débat intellectuel, à l'assaut du politique, visibles dans la cité et sur les réseaux sociaux, les nouveaux catholiques n'ont peur de rien.
Philippines market fire 'kills 15' Fifteen traders including six children have been killed in a fire at a public market in the Philippines, police say. About 13 others were injured in the blaze at a market in the southern city of Zamboanga. The fire began when sparks from low-hanging electric cables set fire to umbrellas and piles of used clothing, police said. The victims were reportedly traders who slept at their stalls ahead of the busy weekend market. The blaze was so strong that the authorities were forced to rely on assistance f…
Deadly blaze hits Bucharest nightclub Twenty-seven people - mostly teenagers and young people - have been killed after fire broke out at a nightclub in Bucharest, officials say. The blaze took hold at the Colectiv club on Friday night, causing a stampede for the exit. Emergency response chief Raed Arafat said 155 people were being treated in hospitals in the Romanian capital. The fire is believed to have been caused by fireworks that were let off inside the club. "The only information we have is that fireworks were used in …
US approval for drug that turns herpes virus against cancer. The herpes virus is turned against skin cancer by a new drug called Imlygic but the FDA has cautioned it is not proven to extend life. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind drug that uses the herpes virus to infiltrate deadly skin cancer tumours, reducing their size in some cases. The FDA is allowing the injectable drug Imlygic, made by Amgen Inc, to be used at first only on melanomas that cannot be removed surgically. The company said a …
US: la lutte antidrogue remplit les prisons. Plus de la moitié des détenus des prisons fédérales américaines ont été condamnés pour trafic de drogue, selon une étude publiée aujourd'hui qui confirme que les plus lourdes peines sont données aux dealers de crack, des Noirs en grande majorité. De 1998 à 2012, la population des prisons fédérales a augmenté de 84%, une hausse principalement alimentée par la répression du trafic de stupéfiants, précise cette étude réalisée par le Bureau des statistiques de la justice sur un échantillo…
Ben Carson heads into Republican debate as Iowa front-runner. The Republican candidates for president will gather Wednesday for their third debate amid fresh volatility in an already chaotic race, with retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson surging past billionaire Donald Trump in early Iowa voting and one-time front-runner Jeb Bush under pressure to prove he's still a viable candidate for the Republican nomination. The soft-spoken Carson has been a low-key presence in the first two Republican debates, but he is likely to get more att…
What Twitter must do to save itself. It's been another tough day for Twitter as its quarterly earnings report, once again, sends its stock price spiralling downwards . The social network is struggling on several fronts. In New York, Wall Street investors and analysts are perpetually unimpressed. And online, social media users are becoming increasingly uninterested as Twitter is dwarfed by Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp and others. Is there any hope of reversing the decline? Surely, for a platform that boasts world leaders, sports…
Who is Killing Pakistan's Shias? In a statement issued on October 23, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged the Pakistani government to bring to justice the perpetrators of recent terrorist attacks on Shia Muslims that killed over 40 people, including several children. The attacks took place in the provinces of Balochistan and Sindh for which a banned, yet proactive, Sunni extremist group, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), claimed responsibility. The Secretary General has reiterated that nothing justifies terrorism and call…
US ship passes disputed China islands. A US Navy ship has sailed close to artificial islands built by China in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, US defence officials have said. Guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen breached the 12-nautical mile zone China claims around Subi and Mischief reefs in the Spratly archipelago. The freedom of navigation operation represents a serious challenge to China's territorial claims. China said it was still verifying whether the operation had taken place. "If true, we advise the …
Chine: les USA envoient un navire de guerre. Les Etats-Unis prévoient d'envoyer demain un navire de guerre circuler à proximité d'îles artificielles construites par la Chine en mer de Chine méridionale, au nom du principe de la liberté de navigation, selon un responsable de la défense américain. Le navire américain lance-missiles, le USS Lassen, va s'approcher à moins de 12 milles des îles artificielles, selon cette source, au risque de provoquer la colère de Pékin. La Chine considère comme des eaux territoriales la zone de…
Sweden school attack: police investigate racist motive for double murder. Residents of Trollhättan hold a vigil outside Kronan school for the two people killed by an attacker on Thursday. Photograph: Julia Reinhart/Demotix/Corbis Swedish police are continuing to investigate an assault on a school that left three people, including the sword-wielding attacker, dead, as the country reacted with horror to the deadliest incidence of school violence for more than half a century. Local media named the man behind the killings as 21-year-old Ant…
Quebec native women's claims of abuse at hands of police shock politicians, activists. Politicians and First Nations activists in Quebec say they are shocked and are demanding a widespread investigation following allegations that provincial police abused and sexually assaulted aboriginal women in Val-d'Or. "I think we must all, not only deplore, but strongly condemn these acts if they are indeed corroborated by the investigation," said Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard. "There is no tolerance in our society …
US pilot killed in F-18 jet crash named. The US pilot who died when his F-18 Hornet jet crashed in a Cambridgeshire field has been named as Major Taj Sareen of the Marine Corps. The 34-year-old was killed when his jet came down on farmland at Redmere, near RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, on Wednesday. His squadron had just set off from RAF Lakenheath back to the US. The pilot, who lived in San Mateo County, California, became a Marine Corps pilot in 2005. 'Sombre mood' He graduated from the University of San Francisco (USF) …
China’s Communist Party Bans Cadres From Golf, Extra-Marital Sex and Eating Too Well. They must "champion simplicity and guard against extravagance," the rules state M embers of the Chinese Communist Party, the country’s supreme governing authority led by President Xi Jinping, received an updated set of rules to ensure “clean governance” earlier this month, including a new set of activities that might prompt sanctions against them. Among these are playing golf and consuming food and drink in a manner considered voracious, th…
Alien Engineering Around Strange Star? There's a new big dipper in the nighttime sky. No, it's not a cozy constellation, but a distant, non-descript star that behaves like a shipboard semaphore, beaming flashes of light into the cosmic darkness that seem random, but may not be. While the luminous output from everyday stars is relentlessly steady, this one occasionally dips its brightness as much as 20 percent, suggesting either that it is orbited by lumps of dust, rock or other opaque material, or - and hang onto your de…
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