PARIS – The resurrection of Notre Dame – the treasured Gothic gem in the heart of Paris struck by a devastating fire in 2019 – has been a closely guarded secret. Few had seen the meticulous work of architects, artisans and master craftspeople who have carefully brought the cathedral back to life. Until now. On Friday, the world got the first glimpses of the revamped Unesco World Heritage Site as French President Emmanuel Macron carried out his final site visit ahead of its grand reopening on December 7 and 8. Many will remember watching in horror five years ago as bright orange flames engulfed the 860-year-old Gothic cathedral, its famed spire toppling from the Paris skyline.

At the time, Macron vowed the beloved building would be restored and set an ambitious deadline of five years. Fast forward 2,055 days, the seemingly impossible has been achieved and the 700 million euro (USD 737 million) restoration is complete. (CNN)

HONG KONG – Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun on Friday fulfilled a promise he made after spending USD 6.2 million on an artwork featuring a banana duct-taped to a wall — by eating the fruit. At one of Hong Kong’s priciest hotels, Sun chomped down on a banana in front of dozens of journalists and influencers after giving a speech hailing the work as “iconic” and drew parallels between conceptual art and cryptocurrency. “It’s much better than other bananas,” Sun said after getting his first taste.  “It’s really quite good.” Titled “Comedian”, the conceptual work created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan was sold at a Sotheby’s auction in New York last week, with Sun among seven bidders. Sun said he felt “disbelief” in the first 10 seconds after he won the bid, before realising “this could become something big”.

In the 10 seconds after that, he decided he would eat the banana. “Eating it at a press conference can also become a part of the artwork’s history,” he said Friday. The debut of the edible creation at the 2019 Art Basel show in Miami Beach sparked controversy and raised questions about whether it should be considered art — Cattelan’s stated aim. And Sun on Friday compared conceptual art like “Comedian” to NFT art and decentralised block chain technology. “Most of its objects and ideas exist as (intellectual property) and on the internet, as opposed to something physical,” he said. (Jamaicaobserver)

Photo: Chinese-born crypto founder Justin Sun eats a banana artwork composed of a fresh banana stuck to a wall with duct tape, in Hong Kong on November 29, 2024, after buying the provocative work of conceptual art by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan at a New York auction for USD 6.2 million. (Photo: AFP)

UNITED STATES – President Joe Biden on Thursday warned against damaging relations with Canada and Mexico, after Donald Trump threatened to slap tariffs on both US neighbours when he takes office in January. “I think it’s a counterproductive thing to do,” Biden told reporters when asked about his successor’s plan. “The last thing we need to do is begin to screw up those relationships. I think we got them in a good place,” he said during a visit to a fire department in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he is spending his last Thanksgiving holiday as president. Trump sent jitters through global markets on Monday when he announced on social media that one of his first presidential actions would be to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Mexico and Canada — which share a free trade pact with the United States — and add a 10 per cent tariff on China.

Pledging that tariffs would only be removed from the US neighbours when illegal immigration and drug trafficking stop, Trump reaffirmed his intent to use trade as a cudgel against allies and rivals alike. After expressing opposition to Trump’s threats in a letter, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke by phone with the Republican president-elect on Wednesday. Both leaders described the call positively, though there was disagreement in what had actually been discussed. Trump claimed that Sheinbaum had agreed to “stop migration through Mexico and into the United States, effectively closing our southern border”.

The Mexican president quickly pointed out that she had only explained Mexico’s current “comprehensive strategy” on migration. “Thanks to this, migrants and caravans are attended to before they reach the border,” she said on X. “We reiterate that Mexico’s position is not to close borders but to build bridges between government and peoples,” she added. (Jamaicaobserver)

Photo: US President Joe Biden speaks to reporters as he visits the Nantucket Fire Department in Nantucket, Massachusetts. (Photo: AFP)

SWEDEN –  Sweden has sent a formal request to China to cooperate with an investigation into suspected sabotage over the sudden disruption of two submarine internet cables in the Baltic Sea earlier this month, after tracking data linked a Chinese ship to the incidents. “Sweden has sent a formal request to China to cooperate with Swedish authorities in order to create clarity on what has happened,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told reporters on Thursday.

Kristersson also said that Sweden has asked for the Chinese ship to return to Swedish waters in order to aid its investigation. The vessel is currently anchored in international waters in the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden.

The two cables – one named Arelion, which links Finland and Germany, and the other named C-Lion 1 connecting Sweden to Lithuania – were severed within 24 hours of each other on November 17 and 18.

The incidents came just weeks after the United States warned that Moscow was likely to target critical undersea infrastructure. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at the time that “no one believes that the cables were accidentally damaged.”

The Swedish Prosecution Authority said last Tuesday that the country’s National Unit against International and Organized Crime had opened a preliminary investigation into suspected sabotage over the cut cables. Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation also said it had launched an investigation. (CNN)

Photo: The Chinese bulk carrier ship Yi Peng 3, in the Kattegat strait near Denmark, on November 20, 2024. (Reuters)

BRASILIA  –  Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has expressed hope that United States President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January will help bolster his own political comeback, amid accusations that he took part in a failed coup in the South American nation. The Wall Street Journal reported late last Thursday that Bolsonaro is banking on Trump pressuring Brazil with sanctions to delay enforcing a court ruling that bars him from office until 2030 for baselessly attacking the country’s voting system before the 2022 elections he lost.

“Trump is back, and it’s a sign we’ll be back, too,” Bolsonaro said in an interview with the US newspaper. Bolsonaro’s remarks come just days after Brazilian police released a report implicating the former president in an alleged criminal organisation designed to overturn the 2022 election that he lost to his left-wing rival, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro “planned, acted and was directly and effectively aware of the actions of the criminal organisation aiming to launch a coup d’etat and eliminate the democratic rule of law”, the report said.

The former army captain, who served as president from 2019 to 2022, has denied any wrongdoing and claimed to be the victim of a politically motivated witch-hunt. Despite the coup accusations and other investigations against him, Trump’s electoral victory earlier this month in the US has injected new energy into Brazil’s far-right and stirred hopes that Bolsonaro can mirror his return to power. Bolsonaro often expressed admiration for Trump during the Republican’s first term in office from 2017 to 2021, and he was widely dubbed “Trump of the Tropics” during his own presidency.

Similarly to Trump, who continues to say the 2020 election he lost to President Joe Biden was stolen from him, Bolsonaro spent months in the run-up to the 2022 vote in Brazil falsely claiming that the country’s voting system was vulnerable to widespread fraud. Shortly after his left-wing challenger Lula took office in January 2023, thousands of Bolsonaro’s supporters who were angered over the election results stormed the presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court in the capital, Brasilia. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro in Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach. (Getty Images)

SYRIA – Rebel forces in Syria say they have entered Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, in the biggest offensive against the government in years. Video posted on a channel affiliated with the rebels appears to show their fighters in vehicles inside the city. The footage has been geolocated by the BBC to a suburb in Western Aleppo. A UK-based group says fighters set off two car bombs before advancing into neighbourhoods on Friday. Government forces meanwhile say they have regained positions in a number of towns in Aleppo and Idlib provinces, following an offensive launched by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions on Wednesday.

A statement posted on the rebel-affiliated channel on Friday said: “Our forces have begun entering the city of Aleppo”. Earlier, the monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which uses a network of sources on the ground in Syria, reported that Syrian and Russian planes carried out 23 air strikes on the Aleppo region on Friday. The SOHR said 255 people, mostly combatants, had been killed in the fighting, the deadliest between rebels and pro-government forces in Syria for years. It said opposition forces had taken control of more than 50 towns and villages since Wednesday. (BBC)

Photo: Rebels have been advancing on the city of Aleppo.

JAMAICA – Jamaica is to seek to build deeper ties with The Philippines with talks to be had on a Memorandum of Understanding on collaborating on tourism. Tourism Minister Edmond Bartlett says the collaboration will focus on key tourism outcomes such as human capital development, training and certification in customer service excellence, craft development, resilience and sustainability and community tourism. “The importance of human capital development is a key pillar of the potential agreement, especially given the Philippines’ remarkable success in training over 170,000 tourism workers annually,” Bartlett told The Gleaner. He was speaking against the background of being recognised on Wednesday by the Gusi Peace Prize Foundation as one of its 2024 awardees. The accolade celebrates Bartlett’s visionary leadership and ground-breaking contributions to the global tourism industry. (Jamaica Gleaner)

Photo: Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett (left), and Secretary of Tourism for the Philippines, Christina Garcia-Frasco, shared lens time after he received his global Gusi Peace Prize.

SWEDEN – An unidentified drone flew over the Russian embassy in Stockholm early on Friday, dropping paint on the grounds of the diplomatic compound, Swedish police said. No arrests have been made and no suspects identified, a police spokesperson added. “We insist that all incidents against the Russian embassy be thoroughly and impartially investigated and that the perpetrators be found and brought to justice,” Russia’s embassy in Sweden said in a statement. Investigators will look at whether the incident was in any way linked to a reported case of vandalism at Sweden’s embassy in Moscow on Thursday, according to the police spokesperson.

Following the Moscow incident, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard urged Russia to ensure the protection of Sweden’s diplomatic mission and its staff. A Swedish foreign ministry spokesperson said Sweden’s embassy in Moscow was in contact with Russian authorities over Friday’s incident in the Swedish capital.

“It is serious when a country’s embassy is subject to vandalism,” Stenergard said in an emailed statement on the incident in Stockholm.  “Swedish authorities are responsible for the embassy’s security and the police have initiated a preliminary investigation.” (The Jerusalem Post)

Photo: Sweden expels five Russian diplomats, ministry says. (Photo: Reuters)

BEIJING – The militaries of China and Russia conducted a joint strategic air patrol over the Sea of Japan on Friday, according to China’s Ministry of National Defense.

The patrol, the ninth of its kind, was carried out as part of the two militaries’ annual cooperation plan, the ministry said in a statement. (Xinhua)

Photo: The militaries of China and Russia conducted a joint strategic air patrol over the Sea of Japan on Friday, according to China’s Ministry of National Defense. (Sun Liren/Xinhua)

STILFONTEIN  –  South Africa’s police minister has pledged to rescue all the people still trapped in an abandoned goldmine in the northwestern town of Stilfontein “as soon as possible”. In an interview with Al Jazeera on Friday, Senzo Mchunu said the exact number of people underground is still not known. The authorities have been stationed for weeks outside the abandoned pit in Stilfontein, about 150km (100 miles) southwest of Johannesburg, intermittently blocking locals from sending down food and water to try to force the miners out.

The operation has triggered outrage with some fearing that the men could be starving or even dying underground. Police had earlier indicated that up to 4,000 miners may be trapped. On Thursday, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said they believe that number was exaggerated and gave an estimate of 350 to 400 miners. Describing the conditions in the shaft, which the police have sought to check through camera surveillance, Mchunu said six to seven people who are at the top of the shaft are “commanding the whole thing”. “The food and water that trickle down would be under the control of those people. … They command everything there, and people below are kept against their will,” he said.

Three teenagers who recently emerged, one 19 and two aged 16, told Al Jazeera about the mistreatment they faced. “The men who hire us sometimes don’t give us food. But we see them eating every day. If you complain, they beat you up,” said one of the three who comes from Mozambique. The three said they were not rescued by the government but came out because they were allowed to. It is unclear how long the miners have been underground because they are reported to often stay there for months, depending on supplies of basic necessities like food and water from the outside. The police’s “Vala Umgodi”, or “Close the Hole”, operation has cut off miners’ supplies to force them to return to the surface and be arrested.

This week, 14 people, including a teenage boy, who emerged unassisted were arrested. President Cyril Ramaphosa defended the police for blocking supplies in a bid to force the miners out. “So far, more than 1,000 miners have surfaced and been arrested,” Ramaphosa said last week, calling the site in Stilfontein “a crime scene”. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: Mineworkers are being rescued from the goldmine. (AFP)

LONDON – MPs have backed proposals to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales in a historic vote which paves the way for a change in the law. Under draft legislation being considered by Parliament, terminally ill adults expected to die within six months could seek help to end their own life. In the first Commons vote on the issue in nearly a decade, MPs supported the bill by 330 to 275, a majority of 55. The bill will now face many more months of debate and scrutiny by MPs and peers, who could choose to amend it, with the approval of both Houses of Parliament required before it becomes law.

MPs were given a free vote, meaning they could make a decision based on their own conscience rather than having to follow a party line. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his Conservative predecessor Rishi Sunak voted in favour, while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch voted against. The PM, who previously supported a change in the law in 2015, did not speak in the debate or reveal how he planned to vote in advance, saying he did not want to influence the decisions of MPs.

The government has taken a neutral stance on the bill and at the end of the debate Justice Minister Alex Davies-Jones confirmed if Parliament backed a change to the law the government would “ensure that any bill is effective and that its provisions can be enforced”. Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who put forward the bill, said she was “a bit overwhelmed” following the vote and it meant “a huge amount” to be able to tell campaigners the bill had passed its first parliamentary hurdle. (BBC)

Photo: The bill was put forward by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

BEIRUT  –  The Israeli military has warned Lebanese citizens not to return to 60 villages in the south of the country, three days into a ceasefire after more than a year of fighting with the Shia armed group Hezbollah. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) published a map showing a swathe of territory several miles deep, which it said residents must not return to. Anyone who did, it said, would be putting themselves in danger. More than a million Lebanese have been displaced by the fighting, mostly from the south. Tens of thousands of Israelis have also been displaced.

The truce came into effect last Wednesday morning, though officials in Israel and Lebanon have accused each other of already breaching it. Last Thursday, the IDF said its forces fired artillery and carried out air strikes against targets in southern Lebanon. It added that it had fired at suspects after spotting activity at a Hezbollah weapons facility, and vehicles arriving in several areas, which it said breached the ceasefire. Lebanon accused Israel of violating the agreement “multiple times” and said it was monitoring the situation. A multinational monitoring group which includes representatives from the US, France, and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) was set up as part of the ceasefire to oversee compliance with its terms. In his first interview since the ceasefire was declared, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had instructed the IDF to wage “an intensive war” should Hezbollah commit a “massive violation” of the ceasefire. The ceasefire “can be short”, he said in the interview with Israel’s Channel 14.

Under the terms of the agreement, which was brokered by the US and France, Israeli forces will withdraw from south Lebanon as the Lebanese army deploys there simultaneously with no other armed groups allowed to operate in the area. This is meant to happen within 60 days from the start of the ceasefire. The zone which the IDF said residents should not yet return to stretches from Mansouri on the coast to Shebaa in the east. Last Wednesday, the Lebanese army warned residents not to return to areas where Israeli forces were before they had withdrawn. Israel invaded southern Lebanon at the start of last month after the IDF intensified military action against Hezbollah. Hezbollah began the current conflict with Israel by firing rockets in and around northern Israel on 8 October 2023, a day after Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza which killed about 1,200 people. (BBC)

Photo: Thousands of people are reported to have begun returning to their homes in Lebanon. (Reuters)

JAMAICA – Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith, is leading Jamaica’s delegation to the 59th Meeting of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) in Georgetown, Guyana. The two-day meeting which commenced Wednesday will bring together trade ministers and other officials from across the Caribbean to discuss key regional trade and economic issues such as the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME), the free movement of community nationals and matters affecting the regional trade in goods including requests for suspension of the Common External Tariff (CET) on specific products.

Matters relating to renewable energy, the work of the Caricom Competition Commission and the status of the Community Intellectual Property Framework are also top of the agenda for Jamaica.

“I look forward to participating in this meeting of the council as we seek to promote an increase in exports by Jamaican companies including through regional trade.  Prior to going to Guyana, the ministry convened a meeting with stakeholders from the private sector in Jamaica and we anticipate addressing their concerns over the coming days, together with some core issues affecting the wider regional private sector,” Johnson Smith said.

At the 58th meeting of COTED held in May 2024, Johnson Smith paid particular attention to matters affecting regional trade in sugar and cement, developments concerning tariff adjustments to condensed milk, the supply of frozen concentrated orange juice and refined petroleum products, among others.   Several of these matters will again be on the agenda.

Matters on the external trade agenda that the ministers will focus on at the 59th session include multilateral developments within the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as well as the Caricom-Colombia concluding negotiations for additional preferential market access within the scope of the 1994 Caricom-Colombia Trade, Economic and Technical Co-operation Agreement. (Jamaicaobserver)

Photo: Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith (Photo: JIS)