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France has declared a national state of emergency and has closed its borders after at least 40 people were killed in multiple shootings in Paris.
At least 15 people were killed near the Bataclan arts centre, where up to 60 people are being held hostage. Explosions and gunfire are reported.
Three people were killed in an attack near the Stade de France, with some reports suggesting a suicide blast.
Paris authorities have urged people to stay indoors.
Military personnel are being deployed across Paris.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/13/455943961/violence-reported-in-paris
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/13/world/paris-shooting/index.html
Update #1 [BBC updates]:
Scores of people have been killed in multiple gun and bomb attacks in Paris
At least 100 people are reported to have died inside the Bataclan concert hall in central Paris
Others died in attacks near the Stade de France, where France were playing Germany, and at restaurants
France has declared a national state of emergency and has closed its borders
Paris residents have been asked to stay indoors and military personnel are being deployed across the city
[...] Reuters. quoting an un-named official at Paris City Hall, says the current death toll in Paris is around 140.
According to the Paris prosecutor, of the four assailants who died during the sidge at the Bataclan, three committed suicide by detonating explosive vests. The prosecutor has warned that some of their accomplices may "still be on the loose".
[...] Here is what French president François Hollande told reporters outside the Bataclan concert hall just now: "To all those who have seen these awful things, I want to say we are going to lead a war which will be pitiless. Because when terrorists are capable of committing such atrocities they must be certain that they are facing a determined France, a united France, a France that is together and does not let itself be moved, even if today we express infinite sorrow."
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:43AM
The longer you keep dreaming, the rougher the wake-up call will be. Over 100 people died today. All of these deaths could have been avoided if the borders had been closed. It's pretty difficult to kill someone when you can't even get into the same country as them.
>inb4 "but if the borders were closed the poor wefyewjees would have died instead!!"
Boo hoo.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:06AM
People that conspire to kill more than 100 people would definitely not cross a border if they weren't supposed to, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:53AM
Not if those borders were protected by armed forces. Dead men cross no borders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:57AM
And people willing to strap bombs to themselves would be too worried to take the risk.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:17AM
And people willing to strap bombs to themselves would be too worried to take the risk.
It's not very important what terrorists were or were not worried about if they are killed at the effectively guarded border. The point is that today a terrorist does not need to work hard to get into EU. In terms that are familiar to SN people, Europe switched off their firewall and allowed all kinds of packets through. Some (many?) of those packets are legitimate; but others are not. Voices are heard even today to reduce the security even further, as doing the opposite could be seen as undemocratic. Well, it's their country... and it's their democratic right to commit suicide as nations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:24AM
Some (many?) of those packets are legitimate; but others are not.
I thought that was a solved problem? [wikipedia.org]
Maybe we should just ask every immigrant if they're a terrorist or not.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:40AM
Maybe we should just ask every immigrant if they're a terrorist or not.
The USA does that even today. The primary purpose of that question is to have a simple legal path to removal of a terrorist, without spending years in courts.
Don't know, though, if the politically correct, liberal Europe has forced itself to ask such a personal question. Reportedly, the immigrants are dissolving within the EU as soon as they get inside. It would be pretty hard to match the person that crossed the border to the person who committed this or that; not that it would be of high importance after the fact.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:47AM
Closing the borders WOULD NOT WORK.
First, consider just how large the border is. Even if you literally said "nobody can come into the EU from anywhere else", that's a massive border. How will you patrol it? Including the maritime borders, and the airspace? Sneaking twenty people into a building is easy, how are you going to protect a border like that? Remember, it doesn't take that many people to launch a terrorist attack.
Second, consider all the countries you would "want" to allow people from. Americans, Canadians, obviously they're not all terrorists, right, so some of those will need to be let in. Gotta let some Chinese in, obviously, to keep the trade running. We'll probably need to let some Russians in, too. But wait - Russia has massive, poorly-secured borders. What's to stop a terrorist from sneaking into there, building a new identity, then moving into Europe?
Third, consider who is already inside. Let's go ahead and (hypothetically) go full Nazi and ship every person of Arab ethnicity out. Hell, anyone brown. It's not like white people can ever be terrorists, right? No, I have no idea who Anders Breivik was, why do you ask? The IRA? Is that a beer?
And let's not even get started on how you'd need to block all communications, too... might have someone convert over the Internet...
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:05AM
It's a valid question. But what is the answer?
I can comment that USSR maintained a heavily fortified border around most of the country for what, 80 years? Perhaps there are people still alive who can become advisers on such matters. Technicalities can always be taken care of. This will close access to those who have no valid travel documents, and who had not been properly vetted. This will not stop a dedicated, well prepared terrorist with perfectly made documents. But this will stop thousands who cannot afford the passports and who will never be given visas. In other words, this will stop the soldiers. Guess who did the carnage in Paris? Not the lone mastermind; it was done by his disposable soldiers. The mastermind may be in another country already.
Arrivals that go through proper border crossings (airports) are not a concern as much. They all have passports with visas, and they are not carrying anything dangerous in their backpacks. But if you have an open border... here is your channel of delivery of 10,000 AKMs from Libyan depots direct into the EU. If ten or fifteen suiciders did what they did last night, what can ten thousand do? ISIS has fourty thousand, they are currently fighting for Syrian sands - but they can be moved from there on a moment's notice if need be; Syria is hardly a rich prize.
(Score: 3, Funny) by gman003 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:43AM
Arrivals that go through proper border crossings (airports) are not a concern as much. They all have passports with visas, and they are not carrying anything dangerous in their backpacks.
I can't believe it, it's finally happened. Everyone kept warning you not to, but you did.
You actually forgot 9/11.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:28AM
Damn it. I blow my last mod point before seeing this one.
This is /thread, folks. Mod to +∞, hit the fucking nail on the fucking head.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:29AM
You actually forgot 9/11.
No. There was no defense against 9/11 at that time. There is a bit more today. Arrival of those Saudis into the USA was entirely legitimate, and nothing could have been done at that point to stop them. Even their activities on learning to fly were not illegal.
In their case, preventing them from coming would have caused more harm in form of self-isolation than it would have done good. The terrorists would simply wade across the river from Mexico. There is absolutely nothing that one can - or should - do to stop a young student or engineer if he is not known to be bad. The only advantage of restricting access to border crossings is in fact that it requires people with cleaner biography to get a visa. Those Saudis were not bums found in a back yard of a mosque. They were the best. There is always shortage of those. Among the 40,000 soldiers of ISIS in Syria you may find maybe a few who are of the same background and can be cleared to come to the USA.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:20PM
"There was no defense against 9/11 at that time."
I strongly disagree. There were defenses, and we CHOSE not to defend ourselves.
"Even their activities on learning to fly were not illegal."
An activity need not be illegal to raise red flags. And, red flags were waved at the FBI, among other agencies tasked to track terrorists.
Worst of all, the United States had received intelligence that terrorists were thinking about flying airplanes into buildings. The "chatter" was out there, and we ignored it.
Bottom line, we were asleep at the wheel, and the Saudis took advantage of us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:57AM
as doing the opposite could be seen as undemocratic
Obligatory trading freedom for security quote. I'd be glad if a small number of deaths is not enough to scare an entire population into giving up their liberty.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:10AM
I'd be glad if a small number of deaths is not enough to scare an entire population into giving up their liberty.
Usually sacrifices are acceptable if a certain group trades losses within the group for some freedoms that are afforded to the members of the group. Note, however, that in the case of refugees (if those are in any way involved,) citizens of the EU are trading deaths among themselves for freedom of other people to freely come into Europe. Would you like to be killed, so that person A can be free to migrate into country B - where you have no relation to A or B?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:29AM
If the people vote and decide to close their borders, then that is up to them. If they oppose their government doing this without their say, then I hope they succeed.
~200 deaths is not something to ignore but there are over 66,000,000 people in France and the rights of all those people may be worth more than a couple hundred deaths.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:33AM
~200 deaths is not something to ignore but there are over 66,000,000 people in France and the rights of all those people may be worth more than a couple hundred deaths.
I am still uncertain how the rights of French citizens can be impacted by closing the borders to unvetted foreigners. I know of one right - the right for life - that would even improve.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:12PM
It's pretty obvious what the government's response to this will be, and don't pretend that it isn't. They will use this as an excuse to ramp up mass surveillance and destroy people's liberties even more.