Âu

[ốc]

All frozen on the Eastern front:

Ukrainians are freezing to death
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ng-cold-russia

Since last mid-autumn, attacks on power and heating systems across eastern, central and southern Ukraine – including Kyiv, Odesa and Kharkiv – have forced daily electricity outages. Until December, power cuts followed a grim rhythm: four hours on, four hours off, all day and night. Twelve hours of light and warmth, 12 hours of darkness and cold.

According to Ukraine’s minister of economy, Oleksii Sobolev, the total damage to its energy infrastructure from these attacks over the past three months will cost an estimated $1bn to address. But no statistic can capture what it means to live in a city where winter has been deliberately turned into a tool of terror.

This is happening as temperatures in Kyiv fall to between –15C (5F) and –18C, dropping to –20C at night.

Ukrainians have begun calling this reality “kholodomor” – death by cold – an echo of Holodomor, the human-made famine Stalin used to crush Ukraine in the 1930s. Then, hunger was the weapon. Now, it is winter.

In Ukraine, winter is a weapon as deadly as the drones that buzz through the frozen night skies, seeking prey. And the world must finally call it what it is: a war crime.

Hell freezes over, is real.

[005]

US ICE agents going to Winter Olympics sparks anger in Italy
By Crispian Balmer and Alvise Armellini

ROME, Jan 27 (Reuters) - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel will help protect U.S. delegations at next month's Winter Olympics in Italy, causing a political uproar in the country.

ICE and Border Patrol agents have come under heavy criticism over their enforcement of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown after they shot and killed two U.S. citizens in separate incidents this month in Minnesota.

ICE's Homeland Security Investigations division will back up the U.S. State Department's Diplomatic Security Service at the February 6-22 Milano Cortina Olympics, the Department of Homeland Security said in a post on X.

The ICE agents' role will be "to vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organisations," the post added, noting "all security operations remain under Italian authority."
“Obviously, ICE does not conduct immigration enforcement operations in foreign countries," said DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.

HISTORY OF ICE DEPLOYMENTS

ICE has been present at major sports events in both the U.S. and abroad in the past, including previous Olympic Games, as part of international partnerships related to human trafficking and drug trafficking, said Jason Houser, who served as ICE chief of staff under former President Joe Biden.

Despite assurances that there is nothing unusual about the deployment, Italian politicians strongly criticised the presence of ICE agents in the country, highlighting how the image of the United States has been tarnished in recent months.

"It seems sheer idiocy to me," Maurizio Lupi, leader of a small centrist party in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's governing coalition, told la Repubblica daily.

Giuseppe Sala, the left-leaning mayor of Milan, one of the cities co-hosting the Olympics, called ICE "a militia that kills". Speaking to RTL 102.5 radio, Sala said: "It's clear that they're not welcome in Milan, there's no doubt about it."

The Rome government sought to defuse the protests. The interior ministry said in a statement that ICE personnel would only work in U.S. diplomatic offices such as the Milan consulate, and "not on the ground" enforcing order.

Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said he met with U.S. Ambassador Tilman Fertitta. Piantedosi said he would address parliament on February 4. The U.S. embassy in Italy declined to comment.

'IT'S NOT AS IF THE SS ARE ARRIVING', MINISTER SAYS

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani called for a measured response. "We're not talking about the (ICE people) who were out on the streets of Minneapolis... It's not as if the (Nazi) SS are arriving," he told reporters at a Holocaust memorial event.

A State Department spokesperson said that, as in past Olympics, multiple federal agencies would help with security, including ICE.

But Italia Viva, a centrist Italian opposition party led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, said agents affiliated with ICE did not represent Italian values and should be barred entry.
The hard-left USB trade union said it would hold an "ICE OUT" rally in central Milan on February 6, to coincide with the Olympic opening ceremony.

/+ src.: https://www.reuters.com/sports/us-ic...ms-2026-01-27/

[ốc]

Tình anh bán báo:

France’s last newspaper hawker gets award
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...li-akbar-paris

In a ceremony at the Élysée Palace, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, described Akbar as the “most French of the French” as he made him a knight of the National Order of Merit in recognition of his distinguished service to France.

“You are the accent of the sixth arrondissement, the voice of the French press on Sunday mornings. And every other day of the week, for that matter,” said Macron. “A warm voice that, every day for more than 50 years, has boomed across the terraces of Saint-Germain, making its way between restaurant tables.”

Born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Akbar said he stumbled across his calling after arriving in Paris in 1973. When visa issues stymied his first attempt to carve out a life in Europe, he was determined to find a job that would allow him to support his parents and seven siblings back home.

By day he sold newspapers to France’s powerbrokers, such as the former president François Mitterrand, and to Sciences Po students who would later join their ranks, such as Macron and the former prime minister Édouard Philippe. At night, in his early years, he slept rough under bridges and in squalid rooms as he scrambled to send as much money as he could to Pakistan.

Slowly and steadily, he built a life in Paris, getting married and raising five children, even as the newspaper industry began to wilt. While once it had been easy to sell as many as 200 newspapers a day, those days were a distant memory, Akbar said. “I sell about 20 copies of Le Monde in eight hours,” he said. “Everything is digital. People just don’t buy newspapers.”

Chapeau!

Nhất nghệ tinh nhất nhật vinh.
(Tục ngữ)

[005]

Tình anh bán báo:

Nhất nghệ tinh nhất nhật vinh.
(Tục ngữ)

Bây giờ không được gọi là anh bán báo nữa, mà là bán báo đại hiệp

[ốc]

Năm mươi năm trời đi bộ mỗi ngày tám tiếng, giang hồ phải kêu là Thần cước đại hiệp.

Bao nhiêu năm rồi còn mãi đi rao
Loanh quanh Paris không hề mỏi mệt
Trên hai tay mang đôi dòng thời sự
Mời khách mua coi nhật báo bên đường…
(Một cõi Paris)