A second five-year term for the 44-year-old centrist spared France and Europe from the seismic upheaval of a shift of power to firebrand populist Marine Le Pen, Mr Macron’s presidential election challenger who quickly conceded defeat but still appeared on course for her best-ever showing.

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City Mayor Christian Estrosi stated on Twitter that the knife attack had happened in or near the city’s Notre Dame church and that the French authorities had detained the attacker. A police source informed Reuters that a woman was decapitated.

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has strongly condemned the recent terrorist attacks in France, including today’s heinous attack in Nice inside a church.

In a tweet, the Prime Minister said, “I strongly condemn the recent terrorist attacks in France, including today’s heinous attack in Nice inside a church. Our deepest and heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and the people of France. India stands with France in the fight against terrorism.”

Meanwhile in another incident of stabbing in Saudi Arabia,  a Saudi man was arrested in Jeddah after attacking a guard with a “sharp tool” at the French consulate on Thursday, Reuters quoted Saudi state TV as saying.

The two attacks come while France is still reeling from the beheading earlier this month of French middle school teacher Samuel Paty in Paris by a man of Chechen origin.

A top UN official has strongly condemned the “barbaric attack” in a French church on Thursday, stressing that such heinous acts targeting civilians, including worshippers, are intolerable and “utterly unjustifiable”.

High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) Miguel Moratinos “strongly condemns the barbaric attack” that killed three people — two women and a man — at the Notre-Dame Basilica in the city of Nice on the southeast coast of France.

Moratinos “stresses that such heinous attacks targeting civilians, including worshippers, are intolerable and utterly unjustifiable whenever, wherever and by whomsoever committed,” a statement issued by the spokesperson for the High Representative said.

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Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan questioned France Emanual Macrons mental health, while Muslims in several countries are demanding a boycott of France.

Marking his second sharp criticism against Macron in two days, Erdogan said on Sunday that the French president had “lost his mind”, prompting France’s foreign minister to recall the country’s ambassador in Ankara.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan is also speaking the same language of Turkey, accusing the French President of spreading Islamophobia. He further said that Emmanuel Macron has no understanding of Islam. It also summoned French Ambassador Marc Barety on Monday to lodge a “strong protest” against the publication of caricatures on the Prophet and comments made by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Pakistan reiterated that freedom of expression should not be misused as means to attack or hurt public sentiments or religious beliefs and fan inter-religious hatred, hostility and confrontation. Amid the political barbs, neither Erdogan nor Imran Khan has publicly condemned the killing of the French teacher. The general secretariat of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was among several bodies and groups that have denounced the killing.

Although most countries in Europe are secular and leaders there are always proud of being secular. European leaders have been afraid of Islamophobia, as they feared if this word is added to their name then their political branding will get damaged.

The French debate on Islam was deepened after the beheading of a teacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad – previously published by a satirical magazine – in a class on freedom of expression. Muslims believe that any depiction of the Prophet is blasphemous.

On Friday, the cartoons were projected onto government buildings in France. Earlier this month, Macron described Islam as a religion “in crisis” worldwide and vowed to present a bill in December to strengthen a law that officially separated church and state in France.

Since Friday, social media has been awash with criticism of Macron in countries from west to east, including the UK, Kuwait, Qatar, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

People are pouring out their feelings under the English hashtags #BoycottFrenchProducts and #Islam and #NeverTheProphet in Arabic.

The social media campaign has led to several Arab trade associations to announce their boycotts of French products.

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“China is in the middle of a significant modernisation of its nuclear arsenal. It is developing a so-called nuclear triad for the first time, made up of new land- and sea-based missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft,” the report warned.

“India and Pakistan are slowly increasing the size and diversity of their nuclear forces, while North Korea continues to prioritise its military nuclear programme as a central element of its national security strategy,” it said.

In its 2019 report, SIPRI had said that China’s nuclear arsenal contained 290 warheads while India’s had 130-140. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal was calculated at 150-160, a number which remains the same in this year’s assessment.

According to the report, Russia tops the table with 6,375 warheads, followed by the US with 5,800, and the UK with 215 warheads. The figures have been updated till January 2020.

The nuclear arsenals of the other nuclear-armed states are considerably smaller but all these states are either developing or deploying new weapon systems or have announced their intention to do so, the report said.

“The nine nuclear-armed states – the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – together possessed an estimated 13,400 nuclear weapons at the start of 2020. This marked a decrease from the 13,865 nuclear weapons that SIPRI estimated these states possessed at the beginning of 2019,” the report said.

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With space to store oil scarce, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for May delivery ended trading at -$37.63 a barrel ahead of Tuesday’s close for futures contracts — when traders who buy and sell the commodity for profit would have had to take physical possession of it.

“It’s a contract for something that nobody wants to buy,” said Matt Smith of ClipperData.

The remarkable decline comes as the petroleum industry emerges as one of the corners of the global economy made most vulnerable by government shutdowns to limit the spread of coronavirus.

The commodity has been further weakened by a battle for market share that raged much of the spring between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

A deal announced last week between OPEC and its peers to cut production by about 10 million barrels per-day from May appears not to have been enough, while the closely-monitored storage capacity at Cushing, Oklahoma was almost full as of Monday morning.

“It’s a dump at all cost as no one… wants delivery of oil, with Cushing storage facilities filling by the minute,” AxiCorp’s Stephen Innes said.

“It hasn’t taken long for the market to recognize that the OPEC+ deal will not, in its present form, be enough to balance oil markets.”

Still, Smith noted that Monday’s negative price only affects oil deliveries due Tuesday.

US oil futures for delivery in May also fell sharply, by 18 percent, but finished at $20.43 per barrel.

The European benchmark contract, London Brent North Sea oil for June delivery, ended down nine percent at $25.57 per barrel.

“This moment is of course historical and could not better illustrate the price-utopia that the market has been in since March, when the full scale of the oversupply problem started to become evident but the market remained oblivious,” said Rystad Energy’s Oil Markets Analyst Louise Dickson.

“Since then traders have sent prices up and down on speculation, hopes, tweets and wishful thinking. But now reality is sinking in.”

The cratering of the oil market prompted more selling on Wall Street, where all three indices were decisively negative in the final hour of trading.

Most European markets ended the day higher as governments start to consider how and when to ease the lockdowns that have crippled the global economy.

Italy, Spain, France and Britain reported drops in daily death tolls and slowing infection rates, while Germany began allowing some shops to reopen and Norway restarted nurseries

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There are a total of 35,713 confirmed cases in the country, with more than 4,000 having successfully recovered.

Lombardy, the worst-hit region, recorded 319 deaths in one day.

Italy is the world’s worst affected country after China, where the virus originated last year. At least 8,758 people have died, most in China.

The vast majority of the more than 200,000 confirmed cases – 80% – have occurred in Europe and the Western Pacific region, which includes much of Asia, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

Many countries have taken drastic measures, including social distancing and cancelling major events to help slow transmission and reduce pressure on the health systems.

“But to suppress and control epidemics, countries must isolate, test, treat and trace,” the WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said.

Italy has been on lockdown for almost two weeks as authorities try to halt the progress of the virus.

People have been asked to stay indoors – but the number of deaths has continued to spiral.

The coronavirus pandemic, which has infected over 2.1 lakh people around the world and killed more 8,000, is causing fear worldwide as more countries initiate partial or full lockdowns to combat its spread. The disease, which spreads through the droplets of an infected person, can stay on various surfaces for a long time. Thus, its reccomended to not touch objects and keep one’s hand away from the face, as well. .

The 2020 edition of Sydney Film Festival stands cancelled amid the spread of coronavirus. The movie gala, which was scheduled to be held from June 3 to June 14, has been called off for the first time ever, reported Deadline.

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“All existing visas, except diplomatic, official, UN/international organizations, employment, project visas, stand suspended till 15th April 2020,” it said in the statement.

The order will come into effect from 1200 GMT on March 13.

The decision was taken at the meeting of group of ministers held here under the chairmanship of Health Minister Harsh Vardhan.

“All existing visas, except diplomatic, official, UN/International organisations, employment and project visas stand suspended till 15th April 2020. This will come into effect from 1200 GMT on 13th March 2020 at the port of departure,” the statement said.

Visa-free travel facility granted to OCI card holders is also kept in abeyance till April 15.

Any foreign national who intends to travel to India for compelling reason may contact the nearest Indian Mission, the release said, adding that all incoming travellers, including Indian nationals, arriving from or having visited China, Italy, Iran, Republic of Korea, France, Spain and Germany after February 15 will be quarantined for a minimum period of 14 days.

Over 1,18,000 positive cases have been reported globally across 114 countries.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on March 11 said that according to its assessment, COVID-19 “can be characterised as a pandemic.”

“WHO has been assessing this outbreak round-the-clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction,” it said.

“Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

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• This will come into effect from 1200 GMT on 13th March 2020 at the port of departure.

• Visa free travel facility granted to OCI card holders is kept in abeyance till April 15th 2020.

• This will come into effect from 1200 GMT on 13th March 2020 at the port of departure.

• Any foreign national who intends to travel to India for compelling reason may contact the nearest Indian Mission.

• All incoming travelers, including Indians, arriving from or having visited China, Italy, Iran, Republic of Korea, France, Spain & Germany after 15th Feb, 2020 shall be quarantined for a minimum period of 14 days.

• The above will come into effect from 1200 GMT on 13th March 2020 at the port of departure.

• Incoming travelers, including Indian nationals, are advised to avoid non-essential travel and are informed that they can be quarantined for a minimum of 14 days on their arrival in India.

• Indian nationals are strongly advised to avoid all non-essential travel abroad. On their return, they can be subjected to quarantine for a minimum of 14 days.

• International traffic through land borders will be restricted to Designated check posts with robust screening facilities.

• These will be notified separately by M/o Home Affairs.

• Provision for testing primarily for students / compassionate cases in Italy Italy to be made and collection for samples to be organized accordingly.

• Those tested negative will be allowed to travel and will be quarantined on arrival in India for 14 days.

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While there were no new deaths confirmed outside Hubei, the national tally of verified infections rose by 769, about half of them in Hubei, the National Health Commission said. It said 461 of those infected were in a serious condition.

China has sealed off Hubei in the country’s centre, an unprecedented operation affecting tens of millions of people which is intended to slow the transmission of the respiratory virus.

The end of the Lunar New Year holiday, China’s busiest travel season, was pushed back to Sunday from Friday to “effectively reduce mass gatherings” and “block the spread of the epidemic,” a Cabinet statement said. Schools will also postpone reopening until further notice, it added.

Cases have been confirmed in the semi-autonomous territories of Macau and Hong Kong, where the government is turning holiday camps into quarantine centres. South Korea confirmed its fourth case on Monday.

Scattered cases have also been confirmed in Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, the United States, Vietnam, Singapore Malaysia, Nepal, France, Canada and Australia. The US has confirmed cases in Washington state, Chicago, southern California and Arizona.

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“We have undertaken significant economic reforms to improve the ease of doing business and opening up the economy for investments. Our Government under the leadership of our Prime Minister Modi has opened up defence sector manufacturing to a large extent under the ‘Make in India’ initiative”, he said. 

Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh underlined the significance of implementation of a single Goods and Services Tax across India, the biggest tax reform since its independence. “We have recently reduced our corporate tax much. For ‘Make in India’ in Defence if there is need for further tax rationalisation, it may be considered suitably”, Shri Singh said. 

Raksha Mantri applauded the French companies for regularly participating in DefExpos organised in India with great energy and enthusiasm. He extended a special invitation to French firms to take part in DefExpo, which will be held in Lucknow from February 05 to 08, 2020. “Lucknow happens to be a city of rich culture and heritage and the French people are known to be highly appreciative of great cultures. Lucknow is the capital of Uttar Pradesh which is also a land of new opportunities”, he added. 

Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh highlighted India’s substantial need of Aero engines both in civil and military domains. He requested French OEMs to consider exploring development of an Aero engine complex on government -to- government basis saying French companies could leverage from advantages in India such as low wages and availability of technical personnel. 

India’s Ambassador to France Shri Vinay Kwatra gave the welcome address. Additional Secretary, Ministry of Defence Shri Barun Mitra also gave a presentation on DefExpo 2020. Dr Ajay Kumar, Defence Secretary also addressed the CEOs.

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