MONTPELLIER: Police are searching for an armed man after finding a dead woman in a retirement home where 60 monks are living in southwestern France, sources close to the matter said on Friday.

According to one source, a caretaker contacted the police after escaping from the home in Montferrier-sur-Lez about 10 kilometers north of Montpellier.

On entering the building, police found the body of an elderly woman who had been stabbed several times, the source said.

"Nothing at this stage would indicate that this would be a terrorist act," another source said.

France is on heightened alert and has been under a state of emergency since a wave attacks last year.

HAIFA: Wildfires tore across central and northern Israel on Thursday, forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee the city of Haifa, as leaders blamed arsonists for some of the blazes and branded them 'terrorists'.

Television pictures showed a wall of flames raging through central neighborhoods of Israel's third largest city. Firefighters dowsed a petrol station with water as the blaze edged closer. The fires have been burning in multiple locations for the past three days but intensified on Thursday, fueled by unseasonably dry weather and strong easterly winds. 

 

"Every fire that was caused by arson, or incitement to arson, is terrorism by all accounts. And we will treat it as such," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters gathered in Haifa. "Whoever tries to burn parts of Israel will be punished for it severely."

Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan referred to "arson terrorism" and said there had been a small number of arrests, providing no other details.

"It's likely that where it was arson, it goes in the direction of nationalistic," Police Chief Roni Alsheich told reporters, without going into further detail.

With fires burning in the forests west of Jerusalem, around Haifa, on central and northern hilltops and in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the government sought assistance from neighboring countries to tackle the conflagration.

Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Turkey and Russia offered help, with several aircraft already joining efforts to quell the blaze, dropping fire-retardant material to try to douse the heaviest fires and stem their spread.

Netanyahu said he had asked for a "Super Tanker" fire fighting aircraft to be sent from the United States.

The Palestinian Authority had offered assistance as well, he said.

A thick haze of smoke hung over Haifa, which rises up from the Mediterranean Sea overlooking a large port. Schools and universities were evacuated, and two nearby prisons transferred inmates to other jails, a prisons service spokesman said. Patients were moved out of a geriatric hospital.

WORRYING FORECAST

A lack of rain combined with very dry air and strong easterly winds have spread the fires this week across the center and north of the country, as well as parts of the West Bank. Hundreds of homes have been damaged or destroyed but no deaths or serious injuries have been reported.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the leader of the Jewish Home party which supports settlements in the West Bank where Palestinians seek statehood, said on Twitter that arsonists were disloyal to Israel, hinting that those who set the fires could not be Jewish.

"Only those to whom the country does not belong are capable of burning it," he said in a tweet in Hebrew.

Haifa's mayor said he feared for the city and called on residents with water sprinklers to turn them on to help keep the flames at bay. Those leaving their homes were urged to go to sports stadiums and other safer locations.

Highway 443, which links Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as it cuts through a southern flank of the West Bank, was temporarily closed to morning rush-hour traffic as flames reached the city of Modi'in, about half way between the two conurbations.

BEIJING (AFP) - At least 67 people were killed when part of a power station under construction in China collapsed Thursday, state media reported, the latest industrial accident in a country with a dismal safety record. A cooling tower platform plunged to the ground in the early hours, trapping an unknown number of people beneath it, the official Xinhua news agency said.

State broadcaster CCTV put the toll at 67, with local reports saying one person was still missing and two others injured. Pictures of the scene in Fengcheng, in the central province of Jiangxi, showed a grey mass of concrete slabs, steel girders and twisted metal splayed in a heap on the ground inside a large round structure.

Hard-hatted rescue workers in neon jumpsuits carried bodies out from the site on stretchers wrapped in orange sheeting. A total of 32 fire engines and 212 military personnel had been deployed to the scene, the Jiangxi provincial fire department said on a verified social media account.

The construction of two 1,000-megawatt coal-fired power units at the Ganneng Fengcheng power station began last July and was expected to be completed by early 2018, the local Yichun city government said on a verified social media account last year.

The expansion was budgeted to cost a total of 7.67 billion yuan (now $1.1 billion), it added.

The main investor for a previous expansion project at the plant suspended trading in its shares on the Shenzhen stock exchange Thursday afternoon, stating that "significant events" that could not be disclosed could impact its share price.

Its shares had fallen 3.41 percent by midday.

Industrial accidents are common in China, where safety standards are often laxly enforced.

In August a pipeline explosion at a coal-fired power plant in the neighbouring province of Hubei killed 21.

Earlier this summer more than 130 people were taken to hospital after chemicals leaked from a plant in eastern China.

In April a chemical fire burned for 16 hours in the coastal province of Jiangsu after an explosion at a facility storing chemicals and fuel, requiring 400 firefighters to quell the flames.

Last December, the collapse of a gypsum mine in the eastern province of Shandong left one person dead and 13 others unaccounted for, with four miners only rescued after being trapped underground for 36 days.

A total of 19 people had been found responsible for the incident, Xinhua said Thursday, with three managers arrested and 16 other local officials "punished". The agency did not give further details.

The owner of the collapsed mine committed suicide by drowning himself at the scene soon after the collapse, Xinhua said.

He will not be subject to criminal liabilities, it cited investigators as saying.

PALM BEACH, United States (AFP) - Donald Trump began to broaden the base of his future cabinet Wednesday, nominating two conservative women including a critic, after his earlier picks rewarded campaign loyalists.

Trump’s nomination of South Carolina’s 44-year-old governor, Nikki Haley, as US ambassador to the United Nations will be seen as a sign he is ready to forgive some foes to raise a bigger tent. But his choice of wealthy activist Betsy DeVos, a champion of alternatives to local government schools, as education secretary, was another victory for social conservatives.

Trump’s one-time presidential rival, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, appeared to be next in line for the nod -- reportedly as housing secretary -- after he posted on social media that an announcement was imminent.

Trump’s choice of Haley for the UN was announced amid reports that Trump is considering another vocal critic -- former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney -- for the key post of secretary of state. And it followed a cordial chat between Trump and The New York Times, a newspaper he considers hostile, in which he softened his stance on climate change, torture and prosecuting his defeated rival Hillary Clinton.

The 70-year-old property tycoon also told the Times that he is "seriously, seriously considering" appointing widely respected retired Marine general James Mattis as his defense secretary.

The UN ambassador post is of cabinet rank and if Haley -- a staunch conservative with no foreign policy experience -- is confirmed by the Senate she will become a powerful figure in world diplomacy, despite previously clashing with Trump.

As one of two women tapped so far for Trump’s cabinet, the daughter of Indian immigrants also injects a measure of diversity in a group that until now consisted solely of men.

Murdered churchgoers

Last year, after a white supremacist murdered nine black churchgoers in South Carolina, Haley supported a decision by legislators to remove the Confederate flag from the state house.

The decision drew protests from racist groups. This year, while campaigning for Trump’s primary rival Marco Rubio, Haley called Trump out for his failure to repudiate the Ku Klux Klan.

"I will not stop until we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the KKK. That is not a part of our party. That is not who we are," she declared.

Trump, true to form, responded with one of his trademark Twitter insults, declaring: "The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!"

Trump’s choice last week of the self-described "economic nationalist" Steve Bannon, head of the right-wing news platform Breitbart, as his chief strategist delighted white supremacists.

But on Tuesday, after video emerged of fans of the so-called alt-right making straight-armed salutes and chanting "Hail Trump," the president-elect disavowed the movement.

Campaign rhetoric

As he works with his advisers in his luxury Mar-a-Lago golf resort outside Palm Beach, all eyes will be on the appointments he makes for a sign of the direction his administration will take.

When it comes to security threats and global issues, the president-elect has reportedly received just two classified intelligence briefings since winning the presidency, far less than his immediate predecessors, according to the Washington Post newspaper.

The Republican’s limited engagement with his team of intelligence analysts has some officials questioning the real estate mogul’s commitment to national security or international affairs, arenas in which he has no significant experience.

When Trump’s November 8 election victory still seemed an unlikely prospect, many Republicans and conservative policy experts condemned his anti-Muslim rhetoric, his affinity for Russia or his isolationist and protectionist positions.

Many of these figures are now moderating their tone and looking for work, whether they are lured by the prospect of a powerful job or are keen to serve US interests as a moderating influence inside a Trump administration.

The former Iraq and Afghan war commander, retired general David Petraeus -- who resigned as head of the CIA after he was caught sharing classified data with his mistress -- made his pitch on Wednesday.

"If you’re asked, you’ve got to serve, put aside any reservations based on campaign rhetoric, and figure out what’s best for the country," he told BBC Radio.

In May, Petraeus described hardline rhetoric like Trump’s threat to ban all Muslims from traveling to the United States as "toxic" and "corrosive to our vital national security interests."

This week a Trump aide was photographed carrying notes on a border security plan into Trump Tower. The first three points were legible in the picture, and pointed to stringent vetting for Muslim visa applicants.

Trump and his family will stay at Mar-a-Lago through Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday and the weekend. More meetings will be held on Monday with transition officials, his press office said.

Meanwhile, erstwhile Democratic candidate Clinton -- who lost to Trump by carrying a minority of the electoral college which decides the election outcome -- saw her national lead in the popular vote tally pass two million votes.

HILLA (AFP) - A suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State group killed at least 80 people, mainly Shiite pilgrims, south of Baghdad Thursday, as Iraqi forces battle to retake Mosul from the jihadists. The huge truck bomb blast ripped through a petrol station where buses packed with faithful returning from the Arbaeen commemoration in Karbala were parked, officials said.

However, the protest was called off on security personnel’s assurance.Kismat Baig was shot 12 times by unidentified gunmen in Lahore on Thursday morning after which she was immediately shifted to Services Hospital where she succumbed to injuries. The actress was travelling with her driver and assistant who also sustained severe wounds.Moreover, Kismat Baig’s funeral prayer would be offered today. 

JERUSALEM (AFP) - A controversial Israeli bill to quiet the Muslim call to prayer is to go forward after it was amended so as not to affect the Jewish Shabbat siren, the speaker’s office said Wednesday. Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, had blocked the draft law in its original form for fear it would also force the toning down of the sirens that announce the start of the Jewish day of rest at sundown each Friday.

But he lifted his objections after it was amended to apply only between 11 pm and 7 am, limiting its scope to the first of the five daily Muslim calls to prayer just before dawn. The bill will "probably" now be put to a preliminary vote in parliament "next week," a spokesman for speaker Yuli Edelstein told AFP.

It will then require three further parliamentary votes before it becomes law but it has already sparked outrage around the Arab and wider Muslim world. Even Israeli government watchdogs have baulked at the proposed legislation, describing it as a threat to religious freedom and an unnecessary provocation.

Arab Israeli lawmaker Ahmed Tibi has vowed to appeal to the High Court of Justice if the Shabbat siren is excluded from the scope of the bill on the grounds that it discriminates between Jewish and Muslim citizens. The law would apply to mosques in annexed Arab east Jerusalem as well as Israel, although the supersensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound -- Islam’s third holiest site -- will be exempted.

"No changes will be made on the Temple Mount," an Israeli official told AFP, using the Jewish term for the mosque compound, which is also Judaism’s holiest site. The bill’s sponsor, Motti Yogev, of the far-right Jewish Home party, says the legislation is necessary to avoid daily disturbance to the lives of hundreds of thousands of non-Muslim Israelis.

He also charges that some muezzins -- the lay officials charged with calling the faithful to prayer -- abuse their function to incite hatred of Israel. His party is key member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition. 

WELLINGTON (AFP) - Caroline Wozniacki and Ana Ivanovic will compete at the Auckland Classic in January, organisers said Wednesday, hailing "the strongest field ever" at the Australian Open warm-up tournament. With Serena and Venus Williams  participation previously announced, tournament director Karl Budge said there would now be four former world number ones lining up in New Zealand.

ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) - Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz on Wednesday chaired Federal Cabinet meeting in Islamabad and discussed a 16-point agenda pertaining to issues of national importance. Sources told that the decisions of Economic Coordination Committee were also accepted.

The meeting also gave approval for signing of memorandum of understanding between Pakistan and South Africa on defence industrial cooperation and MoU between Pakistan and Malaysian anti-corruption commission for strengthening cooperation in preventing and combating corruption.

According to ISPR, the bus came under attack in Dhudnial area of Azad Kashmir’s Neelam Valley.

India is continuing with its unprovoked firing on all sectors along the Line of Control.

Earlier today, the Indian forces resorted to firing and shelling on Shah Kot, Jura, Buttal, Kairla, Bagh, Tatta Pani, Neelum Vally and Keran sectors. Pakistani troops are effectively responding to the Indian firing. Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria s

 Earlier on Tuesday, the Director General (SA & SAARC), Dr. Mohammad Faisal, summoned the Indian Deputy High Commissioner, J.P. Singh and strongly condemned the unprovoked ceasefire violations on 21 November 2016, by the Indian occupation Forces on the LoC (Jandrot, Nikial, Karela and Baroh sectors), resulting in martyrdom of 4 innocent civilians and injuries to 10 others.