#2
Site of a bad forest fire last year; probably contributed to the speed and severity of this flash flood. Beautiful area and place one of our favorite wines is made.
#5
An apartment resident local to me was drowned in his garage during a flash flood in my NE OH region in 2003. He went into the garage to move his car. Hardly any local person I have discussed this with even recalls the floods that evening.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] At least two people have died as a result of a series of earthquakes in Guatemala. This was reported on July 8 by the publication Prensa Libre.
"Two people died at the 47th kilometer of the highway from the city of Palin, department of Escuintla, towards Santa Maria de Jesus. A large rock fell on the car in which they were traveling," the publication specifies.
Two men, Teodoro Chil, 53, and Frederick Chil, 20, were killed. The victims were reportedly furniture sellers on their way to work.
According to the Guatemalan seismological service, the first tremor with a magnitude of 5.2 was recorded by experts at 15:11 local time near the city of Palin in the south of the country. The source was located at a depth of five kilometers. Then, more than 30 aftershocks occurred in different parts of the country, felt in the capital, Guatemala City, as well as in the departments of Escuintla and Sacatepequez.
The National Disaster Coordination Office (Conred) has issued an orange alert in Guatemala, with reports of collapsed buildings, landslides and traffic disruptions. Search and rescue operations have begun.
[AFRICANEWS] A wildfire spurred by hot summer winds reached La Belle France's second-largest city Tuesday, grounding all flights to and from Marseille, injuring at least nine people and forcing many residents to evacuate or barricade themselves indoors as smoke choked the Mediterranean air.
A big city hospital switched to generator power, train traffic was halted in most of the surrounding area, and some roads were closed and others tangled with logjams.
More than 1,000 firefighters were deployed to tackle the fire, which broke out near the town of Les Pennes-Mirabeau before racing toward Marseille. Some 720 hectares (acres) were hit by the blaze, the prefecture said.
Nine firefighters were maimed, according to the prefecture, or local administration. No dead have been reported.
The prefecture said in a statement Tuesday evening that ''the situation is under control,%u2033 though the fire has not yet been extinguished. It described the fire as ''particularly virulent.%u2033
It came on a cloudless, windy day after a lengthy heat wave around Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... left the area parched and at heightened risk for wildfires. Several have broken out in southern La Belle France in recent days.
Light gray smoke gave the sky over Marseille's old port a dusty aspect as water-dropping planes tried to extinguish the fire in the outskirts of the city, which has some 900,000 inhabitants.
Hundreds of homes were evacuated. The prefecture urged people in the affected areas to stay indoors and off the roads. With the fire approaching Marseille, the prefecture also advised residents in the north of the city to keep windows closed to prevent toxic smoke from entering their homes.
One distressed family watched the smoke over their neighborhood in the hills above the port city and showed AP how the roof of their neighbor's house had been damaged in the fire as they worried about their own.
Marseille airport announced that the runway had been closed at around midday. The prefecture said train traffic was halted, notably after a fire neared the tracks in L'Estaque, a picturesque neighborhood of Marseille.
As a safety measure, the city's Hospital Nord switched to generators ''due to micro power cuts.''
"The aim is to secure the imaging sector. We are not worried as we have a high level of autonomy,'' the University Hospitals of Marseille said, adding that because of the disrupted traffic it asked workers to remain at their posts until the next teams starts its shift.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
07/10/2025 00:00 ||
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Olesya Orlenko
[REGNUM] The sad news that came from France on July 7 about the death of the Republican Party deputy Olivier Marlex shocked both political circles and many famous people.
Colleagues, neighbors and fellow countrymen remember the deceased. They also discuss the motives for the act, trying to understand whether this is an isolated case or a manifestation of the alarming trends that have taken hold of French society.
Aliette Le Bihan, the mayor of the small town of Anet, about 80 km from Paris, was supposed to meet Marlex on the morning of July 7. From 2008 to 2017, he was mayor of the town and, even after failing to be re-elected, he continued to be active in its life.
The deputy did not show up for the meeting and stopped communicating, and at 2:00 p.m. he did not show up for the National Assembly session. Colleagues called the police, who had to break down the door of his home.
Once inside, law enforcement officers found Marleks's body hanging on a rope in one of the rooms on the second floor. After examining the scene and conducting a forensic examination, the police put forward the main version of what happened - suicide.
Olivier Marlex was the son of Alain Marlex, a minister during the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy. He first entered the National Assembly in 2012, running specifically in a department far from his father's electoral turf, so as not to owe his success to his father's authority.
In 2022, after the Republicans' failed parliamentary elections, Marlex Jr. was tasked with leading the party's parliamentary faction. Given the complete lack of discipline and internal strife, the task was not an easy one.
The MP has recently expressed regret on several occasions, considering the rivalry between Laurent Wauquiez, who replaced Marlex as head of the parliamentary group a year ago, and Bruno Retaillo, the elected leader of the Republicans and Minister of the Interior, to be destructive. In his opinion, only by uniting ranks will the party be able to ensure the election of its presidential candidate in 2027.
Olivier Marlex had a good relationship with the previous Prime Minister Michel Barnier, whom he considered a worthy candidate to become the next head of state.
Thanks to his connections, Marlex was able to secure positions for his party comrades in the new government, although the modest percentages won by the Republicans in the early elections of 2024 left little hope of such a position. For example, he facilitated the appointment of Bruno Retaillo as Minister of the Interior, who retained his post under the next Prime Minister, François Bayrou.
But Marlex harshly criticized President Emmanuel Macron.
Initially, for his disdainful attitude towards the French, which he expressed in 2017 with the phrase that there are “successful people, and there are nobodies.” And then, for the political decisions of the head of state.
In particular, for the fact that Macron, as Minister of Economy, allowed the Americans from General Electric to buy the energy sector of the French company Alstom. The result was the failure of the foreign company to comply with the terms of the purchase related to the development of employment and the economy in the region and the state.
In 2019, Marlex headed a parliamentary commission on the case. And in 2021, he published a book, "Liquidators," in which he condemned the state for its indifference to France's industrial development.
During the development of the pension reform, he warned against the American investment company BlackRock playing a decisive role in its implementation. Although he ultimately instructed his party to support the law.
Olivier Marlex has always demonstrated his commitment to republican values.
When the newly elected parliament was torn apart by contradictions, quarrels and disputes in July 2024, he came to the meeting with a book by the historian Jean-Clément Martin, The Great Fear of July 1789, inviting everyone to recall the events of the Revolution, which clearly show what a period of instability threatens the country with.
Representatives of all political camps regret Marlex's death.
Macron also commented on the sad event, calling him "an experienced politician who defended his ideas with conviction." Marine Le Pen expressed words of support for the family and colleagues of the deceased, despite the fact that Marlex was a staunch opponent of the rapprochement of the "Republicans" with her "National Rally."
Opponents on the political left also paid tribute to him. The head of the French Communist Party, Fabien Roussel, said: "I will always remember how he advocated for the support of industry and nuclear energy. Both were important to me. I shared his views on both subjects."
And according to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of France Insoumise, Marlex "was an honest and respected opponent. His commitment to the sovereignty of France made a sincere dialogue with him possible."
According to colleagues and neighbors who met with the deputy the day before the tragic events, he was not depressed and did not show signs of psychological problems. The police are studying his computer, communication devices and papers to identify the reasons that pushed him to commit suicide.
Of course, there are no results of the investigation yet, but it can already be said that in general in France the level of anxiety and dissatisfaction of people is growing in the context of aggravated economic and social problems. And with additional personal difficulties, the consequences for some are becoming catastrophic.
The tendency to commit suicide is so pronounced that the French Ministry of Economy's Directorate General of Public Finance has even launched an internal investigation into the 12 suicides of employees that have shaken the department since January of this year. Some of them were committed in the workplace.
[AFRICANEWS] A complaint has been filed in Brussels against nine family members of Felix Tshisekedi, the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to La Libre on Tuesday.
The accused, who are Belgian nationals, face allegations of stealing from mines located in the provinces of Lualaba and Upper Katanga in the southern part of the country.
Those named in the complaint include Tshisekedi's sister-in-law, sons, brothers, cousins, and even the first lady of the country.
They are referred to in the complaint as "accomplices to acts of corruption and other criminal activities."
The complaint was presented to federal prosecutor Ann Fransen by lawyers Bernard and Brieuc Maingain on behalf of several NGOs from Katanga and four former directors of G camines, the Congolese state-owned mining company.
The lawyers clarify that the nine individuals mentioned are not the only ones they accuse of theft.
However, this complaint is focused solely on those with Belgian nationality who can be prosecuted in our legal system.
"Further charges may soon be filed in other countries where the looters of our resources are from," one of the prosecutors remarked.
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Posted by: Fred ||
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[FoxNews] China's space program took a major stride this past week as two of its satellites seemingly docked together in what could have been the country's first high-altitude attempt at refueling a satellite while in orbit.
The Shijian-21 and Shijian-25 satellites appeared to dock with one another last week more than 20,000 miles above the planet in geosynchronous orbit, in which a satellite's orbital period matches the pace of the Earth's rotation, according to news outlet Ars Technica.
While Chinese officials have not recently released any updates about the two satellites, civilian satellite trackers showed Shijian-21 and Shijian-25 moving closer together before becoming indistinguishable from one another, Ars Technica reported.
These two satellites docking in geosynchronous orbit could indicate that China has the potential to disable another country's satellite in space, Ars Technica reported.
However, the U.S. Space Force has similarly been interested in orbital refueling as military satellites often have limited fuel supplies. The military branch is slated to perform its first-ever refueling of a U.S. military asset in orbit as early as next summer.
American officials may have taken note of the apparent docking by China last week, as two of the Space Force's inspector satellites appeared to move closer to Shijian-21 and Shijian-25 following the maneuver, Ars Technica reported.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
