Here is some international news in brief.
Posted at 8:45 a.m.
The Mayotte archipelago was placed on cyclone alert on Saturday before the passage of Tears off the south of this French territory in the Indian Ocean. Dominique Pelicot’s daughter believes her father deserves to “die in prison” after drugging his wife to rape her and deliver her to dozens of strangers in France.
Mayotte again on cyclone alert
Less than a month after the devastating cyclone Desire on Mayotte, the archipelago was once again placed on orange cyclone alert on Saturday, in anticipation of the passage of Tears south of this French territory in the Indian Ocean.
The orange level immediately implies “the cessation of barge traffic”, the name given to local ferries, the Mayotte prefecture said on X, warning against “a significant deterioration in weather conditions” from Saturday evening. This vigilance is now accompanied by a call for vigilance in anticipation of heavy rain, indicates the latest Météo-France bulletin.
“We must seriously prepare for the possibility of the cyclone passing as closely as possible and the red alert being triggered,” warned the 101 prefecturee French department, which has 320,000 inhabitants.
Prefect François-Xavier Bieuville specified that the cyclone should, according to forecasts, pass within 110 km of the southern coasts of the archipelago. “We even have systems that tell us 75 km. So we have something that will affect Mayotte very closely,” he underlined during a press conference in Mamoudzou on Saturday morning. “We will probably be on red alert this evening,” he warned.
In its latest bulletin, Météo-France forecasts “a significant rainy and windy deterioration” at the time of the passage of Tears near the archipelago, citing “very heavy rains which could cause flooding”.
Agence France-Presse
Dominique Pelicot should “die in prison”, says his daughter
Caroline Darian, Gisèle Pelicot’s daughter, told the BBC that her father deserved to “die in prison” after he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drugging his wife to rape her and hand her over to dozens of strangers in the south of France.
“He should die in prison, he is a dangerous man,” she said during this interview which will be broadcast Monday evening on BBC Two, the first since the end of the historic Mazan trial in Avignon on December 19, 2024. .
Caroline Darian, 46, reiterated her belief that she too had been a victim of her father, after seeing photos of her unconscious, lying on a bed in underwear she did not recognize. “I am convinced that I was drugged to be raped […] but I have no proof. [Dominique Pelicot] always denied it, but he gave different versions each time,” she regretted.
During the Mazan trial, which had an impact around the world, 51 men were found guilty and sentenced for having raped Gisèle Pelicot, who had become a feminist heroine for having notably refused to go behind closed doors.
According to Caroline Darian, the latter had difficulty accepting the idea that her ex-husband could also have assaulted her daughter: “For a mother, it’s difficult to integrate all of that in one go.”
Agence France-Presse
COVID-19: China mutedly highlights the 5the anniversary of first death
The fifth anniversary of the first known death linked to the COVID-19 virus went unnoticed in China on Saturday, with no official commemoration in a country where the pandemic remains a taboo subject.
-On January 11, 2020, health authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan announced that a 61-year-old man had died from complications of pneumonia caused by a previously unknown virus.
The revelation came after authorities reported dozens of infections over several weeks with the pathogen later called SARS-CoV-2 and believed to be the cause of the COVID-19 illness.
It then unleashed a global pandemic that, to date, has killed more than seven million people and profoundly changed lifestyles around the world, including in China.
On Saturday, Beijing’s tightly controlled state media did not make an official commemoration. The ruling Communist Party has locked down public debate and avoided any consideration of draconian restrictions since radically abandoning them at the end of 2022.
Agence France-Presse
Malala Yousafzai “moved and happy” to be back in Pakistan
Pakistani activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai said Saturday she was “moved and happy” to be back in her country to participate in a summit on girls’ education.
“I am really honored, moved and happy to be back in Pakistan,” she told AFP in Islamabad, where a two-day summit bringing together representatives from around forty countries is to be held.
Malala Yousafzai, attacked in 2012 by Pakistani Taliban on a school bus in the remote Swat Valley, near the border with Afghanistan, has returned to her country only rarely since her evacuation to the United Kingdom, where she now lives.
She became a global spokesperson for girls’ education, and the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, which she was awarded in 2014, at the age of 17.
The girls’ education summit is to be inaugurated on Saturday by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and will bring together ministers and ambassadors from 44 countries, as well as representatives from the United Nations and the World Bank.
Agence France-Presse
First death of a migrant in the Channel in 2025
A young Syrian migrant died during an attempt to cross the Channel during the night from Friday to Saturday, the “first death at sea in 2025” between France and England, according to French authorities.
Before dawn, French law enforcement officers noted the departure from Sangatte, near Calais (North), of a “small boat” type boat with around sixty migrants on board,” reported the prosecutor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Guirec Le Bras, interviewed by AFP.
“A few minutes later, the group disembarked from the boat soaked […]. On the floor of the boat, a man in his twenties of Syrian nationality was discovered in cardio-respiratory arrest. […]probably crushed by other migrants”, for its part underlined the prefecture.
The victim was aged 19, and his death was pronounced at 5:24 a.m., said the Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor. Forensic investigations must be carried out to “determine exactly the causes of death”, he added.
In 2024, 36,816 candidates for exile managed to reach England on small boats, or 25% more than in 2023, according to the British Interior Ministry.
Agence France-Presse
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