Author: Ansell Bergeron

Eurostar has said trains on its Paris-London service will have “preventative measures” in place amid bedbug outbreaks in the French capital. French social media users have posted videos of bugs found on the Paris train network in recent weeks. Transport for London said it is not aware of any outbreaks on its network. Dr Will Hentley, an expert on bedbugs, said the situation in France is unlikely to have any major impact in the UK. The blood-sucking insects have also been spotted in Parisian cinemas, hospitals and in private homes, with French authorities warning that the issue must be tackled…

The 2023 MTV Europe Music Awards have been cancelled in France, with the “volatility of world events” and the Israel-Hamas war given as reasons. The annual ceremony, which celebrates music and artists from across the globe, was due to be held at the Paris Nord Villepinte exhibition centre, on 5 November, but will now be rescheduled for November 2024. In a statement, the film and TV production company Paramount said: “Given the volatility of world events, we have decided not to move forward with the 2023 MTV EMAs out of an abundance of caution for the thousands of employees, crew members, artists, fans, and…

France will deploy sniffer dogs to inspect trains and the Paris Métro for bedbugs after dozens of reports of infestations, the transport minister has said, but stressed there was no evidence of an outbreak. It comes amid reports that the bloodsucking insects are spreading across France, with videos purporting to show the insects on the Paris transport system, high-speed trains and at Charles de Gaulle airport. Fumigation companies have reported increasing demand to tackle infestations. Bedbugs, which had largely disappeared from daily life by the 1950s, have made a resurgence in recent decades as countries urbanise and international travel booms. We want to speak to…

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has proposed widening the international coalition against Islamic State to fight the Palestinian militant group Hamas as he made a visit to Israel. Macron emphasised that France and Israel shared terrorism as their “common enemy” as he spoke alongside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. “France is ready for the international coalition against Daesh in which we are taking part in operations in Iraq and Syria to also fight against Hamas,” he told reporters, referring to IS. Israel is not a member of the anti-IS coalition and Macron’s proposal to widen the coalition’s objectives to include Hamas…

Claude Ruiz Picasso, the younger son of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, has died in Switzerland aged 76, his lawyer announced on Thursday. Claude’s lawyer, Jean-Jacques Neuer, did not give the cause of death. Claude was a photographer and film director, who also managed his father’s estate from 1989 until July this year, when he handed over responsibility to his younger sister, Paloma. Claude worked as an assistant to famed photographer Richard Avedon for almost a year, and worked as a photojournalist for Time Life, Vogue and the US magazine Saturday Review. In 2011 he was awarded France’s highest honour, the Legion…

The Russian military has set up a pontoon ferry near the destroyed Genichesk bridge and is using it for their own purposes. Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, head of the press office of the Kherson OVA, said this on the air of the telethon. According to him, the Russians in Genichesk do not let civilian transport through the pontoon crossing, but force the cars to go through the surviving part of the bridge, where they pass it on schedule, which is why a long line of cars formed there. Before that, we reported that new Russian units were arriving in Melitopol and Genichesk . The…

Kazakhstanis have become much less likely to purchase foreign currency. NUR.KZ journalists learned how much the country’s foreign exchange market sank compared to previous periods. Wishing to keep their savings, Kazakhstanis resort to various financial instruments. Some, for example, prefer to keep money on deposits in banks. According to analysts, this method turned out to be one of the most effective. Others, for this purpose, acquire foreign currency, which in some cases may be more stable than the tenge. However, there has been a noticeable decline in the foreign exchange market. According to the National Bank of the Republic of…

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday contradicted a remark by his prime minister that the far-right party of Marine Le Pen were the heirs of Nazi-era collaborators, saying they had to be defeated on policy issues, not with such moral arguments. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who according to French media reports has an increasingly strained relationship with Macron, had said that the far-right National Rally (RN) were the “heirs of (Philippe) Petain”. Petain was the head of the Vichy French regime that collaborated with the Nazis in World War II. The far right has in recent years emerged as the main opposition to Macron. Le Pen has…

France on Tuesday expressed its opposition to any action that would increase the tension in the South China Sea. The Embassy of France in the Philippines issued the statement days after the near-collision of a Chinese coast guard vessel and a Philippine coast guard patrol boat off the Spratly Islands. “France is following the recent events in the South China Sea with the utmost attention. It recalls its commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,” the embassy said. “Respect for international law, in particular freedom of navigation, is one of France’s priorities for action. We…

The Taliban said Friday that their decision to bar local women from working for the United Nations was an “internal social matter of Afghanistan” that all countries should respect.The statement came a day after the 15-member U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a resolution condemning the ban and demanding Taliban leaders swiftly end their restrictions on Afghan women’s access to education and work.The resolution, co-sponsored by more than 90 countries, expressed “deep concern at the increasing erosion of respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms” of Afghan women and girls by the Taliban.”While taking note of the condemnation of the…