Currently the death toll rises as the Center of Paris is on lockdown. There have been attacks in at least three locations. a Paris Cambodian restaurant, an explosion in a bar that is near the Paris futbol stadium and at Bataclan Arts Centre concert hall. Other shootings have been reported but not confirmed at a Shopping Mall, another restaurant and the Louvre Museum. A hostage situation continues with reports of at least 60 hostages at the Bataclan Arts Centre.
Witnesses, according to the BBC described several gunman storming into the Bataclan Arts Centre firing their weapons into the air and shooting people on their way in.
As many as 60 people have been killed with countless injuries.
President Francois Hollande has closed the French borders, issued a state of emergency and is asking people in Paris to stay indoors.
The situation is still ongoing with numerous attacks being reported spreading out from the center of Paris.
Not all the details are known but several news agencies are reporting that there has been a shooting in a Paris restaurant, an explosion in a bar that is near the Paris futbol stadium, and another shooting near the Bataclan arts centre, a concert hall, with reports of hostages taken there.
At least 18 people have been killed, French police have told AFP news agency.
Reports say French President Francois Hollande was watching the match at paris futbol stadium and has been moved to safety.
According to CBS News, BFM television reported that several were dead in the restaurant shootout, where at least one man was seen opening fire with machine gun. Two police officials confirmed the shooting to the Associated Press.
Not long after, several news agencies including BBC News, NBC News, and CBS News reported that an explosion took place in a bar near France’s futbol stadium where they are currently hosting a game against Germany. An Associated Press that was in the stadium stated that there were two explosion noises, but French police have only confirmed one.
BBC News states that the shootout is still ongoing.
According to the French government, Egypt agreed to buy two Mistral-class helicopter carriers that was originally going to be sold to Russia.
The contract between Russia and France was signed in 2011, but was suspended when violent unrest broke out in eastern Ukraine last year. After the suspension of the contract, France refunded $1 billion to Russia. The original contract was to be the biggest arms sale in history between a NATO country and Russia.
These new vessels will add powerful capabilities in Egypt’s fight against Islamist threats across Egypt’s western border in Libya and along the Sinai Peninsula. The deal was closed Tuesday after talks between French President Francois Hollande and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Egypt is expected to take possession of the ships in March of next year, officials said. In the meantime, Egypt will be sending 400 soldiers to France to learn how to man the new warships.
“France will assure delivery of these boats while losing nothing, and by doing so protecting Egypt,” Hollande said.
This isn’t the first arms deal between the two countries. Egypt has also bought 24 advanced Rafale fighter jets from France earlier this year.
Hungarian officials are rushing military troops to their border to try and stop a massive wave of migrants attempting to escape the violence of the Middle East and Asia.
Hungarian officials said that a record 2,533 migrants were arrested attempting to enter the country on Tuesday. Most of them were from Syria, Pakistan or Afghanistan.
Officials are calling the situation the worst migrant crisis since the second World War and Hungary is attempting to quickly build a 110 mile border fence with razor wire to stop the illegal immigration.
“Hungary’s government and national security cabinet … has discussed the question of how the army could be used to help protect Hungary’s border and the EU’s border,” government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told reporters.
The move by Hungary is coming under criticism from Germany and France. The German and French governments are working to put together a comprehensive plan for all nations across Europe to accept migrants, but Hungary’s actions are countering the proposed actions.
Other nations are also overwhelmed. Greece, which is in the midst of financial crisis unlike any other in the nation’s history, has been burdened with 50,000 migrants in just the month of July.
As a wave of Syrian refugees attempting to escape the violence of the Middle East drew closer to the Hungarian border, Germany announced they would be welcoming in anyone escaping the civil war.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the situation the biggest migration crisis since World War II.
The announcement comes as some smaller nations have declared states of emergency because of the mass wave of people fleeing ISIS and the Syrian war. Macedonia first tried to use their military to keep out the migrants and when they were overrunning chartered trains to take the migrants directly to Germany or France.
German and French officials are working together to create a joint plan for all of Europe to deal with migrants from war torn areas. The outline will provide expedited asylum for those refugees as well as returning to home countries those who are not arriving from an area of conflict.
“There are moments in European history when we face exceptional circumstances, and these are exceptional circumstances that will last,” Hollande said alongside Merkel before they met for talks in Berlin. “So rather than wait and then cope on a day-to-day basis, we must get organized and strengthen our policies.”
Germany announced they expect to absorb 800,000 migrants this year, after only receiving 44,417 in the first six months of the year.
Officials are dealing with a wave of anti-immigrant violence. A shelter for migrants in the German town of Heidenau was attacked three consecutive nights despite police guarding the facility.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced Wednesday a piece of a wing found on a remote French island was part of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370.
“It is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you, an international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion is indeed from MH370,” Prime Minister Najib Razak said at a brief press conference. “We now have physical evidence that … Flight MH370 tragically ended in the Southern Indian Ocean.”
The flaperon from a Boeing 777 was found on a beach at the town of Saint Andre on Reunion Island. The island is a French territory.
The wing part had been taken to the DGA TA aeronautical testing site in Toulouse, France for analysis by aviation experts from around the world. The wing arrived at the facility on Saturday and officials there say the investigators will conduct a microscopic investigation to see if they can determine why the plane went down.
The discovery confirms that the missing plane went down in the Indian Ocean 17 months ago with 239 passengers and crew aboard.
Australian officials who have been conducting an underwater search for plane debris say they will not alter their search parameters despite the confirmation of the wing part belonging to the missing craft. They stated that heavier portions of the plane such as the engines would have sunk to the ocean floor and not drifted as the lighter wing part had done.
“The burden and uncertainty faced by the families during this time has been unspeakable,” Prime Minister Najib said. “It is my hope that this confirmation, however tragic and painful, will at least bring certainty to the families and loved ones of the 239 people onboard MH370.”
“I promise you this,” he continued, “Malaysia will always remember and honor those who were lost onboard MH370.”
French authorities are confirming that an explosion at a petrochemical plant in southern France was the result of intentional actions.
The two tanks that exploded and burned were located about 1,600 feet apart which raised suspicions of French investigators. An electronic device “that could start a fire” was found in the ashes of the fire.
“The simultaneous explosion of the tanks, which are spaced about 500 metres (yards) from each other, is not the result of a technical accident. The thesis of criminal intent is clearly being considered,” a source close to french authorities told Reuters.
Prosecutors in Aix, France told a reporter for the BBC that the items were so badly damaged that they would need to be closely examined for any information.
The explosion comes a week after explosives and detonators were stolen from a military installation in Miramas, just 12 miles away from the explosion site. Investigators would not say there was a connection to Islamist militants but they were “keeping an open mind at this stage.”
The explosions took place on Bastille Day, the day France celebrates the storming of the Bastille at the end of the French revolution.
A heat wave has been baking Europe over the last week setting record high temperatures from Spain to England.
Meteorologists across the continent were reporting temperatures well over 100 degrees fahrenheit including southern France where the daytime highs are expected to top 105 degrees through the rest of the week.
“We have a lot of heat-wave days ahead of us,” MeteoFrance forecaster Francois Gourand told the Associated Press.
Heat in France was causing problems for the power grid, as 120,000 homes in the town of Vannes were left without power on Wednesday.
An all time high temperature for the UK in July was recorded on the first day of the month as London’s Heathrow Airport reported a high of 98.6 degrees.
The heat wave is striking the country at the start of the Wimbledon tennis championships and officials say it’s officially the hottest players have had to compete in the tournament’s history since it began in 1877. The heat was so intense a ball boy collapsed from the heat and had to be taken out on a stretcher.
While the heat bothered some residents, others took it in stride.
“I’m loving it. I can’t complain,” university student Maggie Cloud told the AP. “We pay so much money to go abroad to holidays, and now we have the weather here. It’s cheaper.”
In the wake of three terrorist attacks timed to celebrate Ramadan, an Israeli official is giving a simple messages to Jews in France.
Come home.
“I call on the Jews of France – come home! Anti-Semitism is rising, terror is increasing,” said Immigration and Absorption Minister Ze’ev Elkin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.
“We are prepared to receive with open arms the Jews of France,” Elkin wrote in a post on Facebook.
The message comes on the heels of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying they were engaged in a battle against “dark forces.”
“The brutal murders in France, Tunisia and Kuwait again underscore that the enlightened world is struggling against dark forces. The fight against the murderous terrorism of extremist Islam requires unity, the beginning of which is the unequivocal condemnation of the murderers and those who support them,” Netanyahu said in a statement released to the media.
Immigration to Israel from France is already at an all-time high. In 2014, for the first time since Israel became a state, France topped the list of countries of permanent immigrants. That year, 7,000 made the move. Officials estimate that 10,000 could move by the end of 2015.
Netanyahu has called for Jews to “come home” in the past following French attacks. At the funeral of four French Jews killed in a Paris kosher grocery store, Netanyahu said “More than ever, today. Israel is the Jewish homeland,” and the more Jews there are here, “the stronger we will be in our homeland.”
Three Islamic terror attacks were carried out almost simultaneously today after call for “Ramadan calamity.”
In Lyon, France, a terrorist named Yassin Salih rammed a car through the gate of an American-owned chemical factory. He attempted to blow up the complex but failed. He then decapitated the manager of the complex and posted his head on a fence by the factory. Salih also posted Islamist flags to the fence.
Salih, which French officials confirmed they had under surveillance as a possible terrorist sympathizer, was wounded in the explosion and taken into custody. His wife and one other accomplice have also been taken into custody.
French President Francois Hollande confirmed it was an Islamist terror attack.
In Tunisia, at least two terrorists stormed a beach popular with tourists and gunned down 27 people. An attack on a Shiite mosque in Kuwait has left at least 25 dead. Hundreds were wounded in both attacks.
On Tuesday, the spokesman for the terrorist group ISIS issued a call for “calamity” for “infidels, crusaders, Shiites and apostates”.
“Be keen to conquer in this holy month and to become exposed to martyrdom,” Abu Mohamed al-Adnani said.