Latest news with #JasonBurke
Belfast Telegraph
2 days ago
- Business
- Belfast Telegraph
How 'quiet street of private houses' became city's main retail road
Historian Jason Burke charts the development of the thoroughfare that is once again becoming vacant to vibrant In recent years, Belfast's Donegall Place has lost its claim to be the city's primary thoroughfare for shopping and retail. There were, of course, significant and well-founded reasons for the street's decline, not least the devastating fire at Bank Buildings which had a detrimental impact on footfall in the area, but also the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw several businesses vacate their retail units in this (once) highly sought-after location. However, in June 2025, statistics from Belfast Improvement District — Belfast One revealed that retail outlets on Donegall Place will soon be at full occupancy once again as a result of a 'retail boom' in Belfast city centre.
Belfast Telegraph
3 days ago
- Business
- Belfast Telegraph
Donegall Place: A small street with a big story to tell
Historian Jason Burke charts the development of the thoroughfare that is once again becoming vacant to vibrant In recent years, Belfast's Donegall Place has lost its claim to be the city's primary thoroughfare for shopping and retail. There were, of course, significant and well-founded reasons for the street's decline, not least the devastating fire at Bank Buildings which had a detrimental impact on footfall in the area, but also the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw several businesses vacate their retail units in this (once) highly sought-after location. However, in June 2025, statistics from Belfast Improvement District — Belfast One revealed that retail outlets on Donegall Place will soon be at full occupancy once again as a result of a 'retail boom' in Belfast city centre.
The Guardian
23-07-2025
- The Guardian
Concorde crash near Paris kills 113 – archive, 2000
By Jason Burke at Gonesse and David Hearst in Paris 26 July 2000 An Air France Concorde carrying tourists bound for a luxury cruise slammed into a hotel shortly after takeoff at Paris's main international airport yesterday, killing all 109 passengers and crew aboard and four people on the ground. It was the first time in almost 30 years of service that the supersonic Concorde had suffered a catastrophic failure of its British-built engines. An extraordinary photograph taken by a Hungarian plane spotter on holiday in Paris shows that the aircraft was belching flames even as it left the runway at Charles de Gaulle. Concordes get up to 250mph before lifting off, and there was speculation last night that although an engine had caught fire, the pilot was unable to abort takeoff because the runway was too short to stop. Three minutes after takeoff, with flames shooting hundreds of feet from two of its engines, the Concorde banked left and ploughed nose first into a hotel, demolishing the three-storey structure. The pilot apparently struggled to put the flaming aircraft down in open fields beyond Gonesse, a small industrial town just beyond the runway. It took up to 400 firefighters and police almost two hours to douse the flames from the blackened hulk of what was once the pride of the Air France fleet. Leon Francesque, 40, said he watched the plane come over the lorry he was driving and flip over. 'There was an explosion on the left side and then a second later on the right. After the second explosion the plane split in two.' Antonio Ferreira was tending his garden when he said the Concorde's engines suddenly fell silent. 'It was like an atomic bomb, a mushroom cloud in the sky,' he reading. By Nick Hopkins and Vikram Dodd 26 July 2000 The one hundred passengers on privately chartered Flight AF4590 had been promised the holiday of a lifetime in America and the Caribbean. And as they strapped in for take-off after a glass of champagne to welcome them on board on an overcast summer's afternoon, perhaps some considered there was no better way to start the trip than on the world's most elegant aircraft. Sign up to This is Europe The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environment after newsletter promotion Concorde's four Rolls-Royce Olympus engines roared like thunder and the plane, carrying 26,286 gallons of fuel, accelerated down the runway at Charles de Gaulle airport, racing to reach the 250mph needed to lift it from the ground. As ever, many witnesses who heard the distinctive growl turned to watch, but they saw something unique in the 30 years and 900,000 hours of Concorde's flights. The aircraft, which has the power to take it to 1,336mph, or twice the speed of sound, was struggling to gain height. The engines were screaming as the pilot demanded more thrust, but the plane was not climbing. Nathalie Wycisk, an office worker in a building that stands just beyond the airport runway, said the plane 'fell straight down'.Continue reading. By Jonathan Glancey 26 July 2000 The timing was uncanny. Yesterday, little more than 24 hours after news of cracks in Concorde's wings emerged, an Air France Concorde crashed shortly after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on a charter flight to New York. Engine failure, structural failure or sabotage, it does not matter. Lives have been lost. For the Anglo-French Concorde fleet and those who have maintained, flown and believed in this beautiful and gloriously redundant aircraft, it must seem like the end of a flawed 40-year dream. Concorde has enjoyed a perfect safety record for 24 years in service and has been involved in no major scares since its tyres blew out during a bad landing on its British maiden flight in March 1969. Last night British Airways was at pains to stress that the supersonic aircraft that roar across the Atlantic as fast as the fastest jet fighters are safe. Brave words and doubtless true, yet Concorde, for all its noisy and gas-guzzling magnificence, has been marginalised as never before. It is not just the French plane's fatal fall from grace; yesterday the Dubai-based Emirates airline pledged £1bn for the purchase of the first five Airbus 3XX double-deckers. Seating up to 656 passengers, these planes promise to be easy on fuel, easy on the eardrums and, above all, easy on passengers' credit cards. They look, though, like barrage balloons compared to the sylph-like Concorde. Concorde has been a glorious anachronism since it first flew in commercial service. The dream of supersonic international flight was already all but over: the Boeing 747 jumbo jet took off shortly before Concorde, bringing cheap fares, if no increase in speed, over the previous generation of 707s, DC8s and reading.
The Guardian
17-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Israel launches major new Gaza offensive – Middle East crisis live
Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature Jason Burke Gaza's civil defence agency said strikes on Friday killed 108 people, mostly women and children, and some officials in the Palestinian territory put the number killed by Israeli attacks in recent days as high as 250 or 300. At least 48 bodies were taken to the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza, and 16 to Nasser hospital after strikes on the outskirts of the central town of Deir al-Balah and the southern city of Khan Younis, health officials said. In Jabaliya, a neighbourhood in the north of Gaza that has seen heavy bombardment for weeks, women sat weeping beside 10 bodies draped in white sheets that were lined up on the ground amid rubble. Umm Mohammed al-Tatari, 57, said she had been awoken by a pre-dawn attack on northern Gaza. 'We were asleep when suddenly everything exploded around us … everyone started running … there was blood everywhere, body parts and corpses,' she said. Israel's military said its air force had struck more than 150 'terror' targets across Gaza. Hamas still holds 57 of about 250 hostages seized in its October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Share Jason Burke Israel has announced a major new offensive in Gaza after launching a wave of airstrikes on the territory that killed more than 100 people, in what it said was a fresh effort to force Hamas to release hostages. In a statement late on Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had 'launched extensive attacks and mobilized forces to seize strategic areas in the Gaza Strip, as part of the opening moves of Operation Gideon's Chariots and the expansion of the campaign in Gaza, to achieve all the goals of the war in Gaza'. Israel has called up tens of thousands of reservists for the new offensive, in which troops will hold on to seized territory and which will lead to a significant displacement of the population, Benjamin Netanyahu has said. Israeli ministers have spoken of 'conquering' Gaza. The announcement came as Donald Trump finished a visit to the region that included stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but not Israel. Earlier on Friday, Donald Trump acknowledged that people are starving in Gaza and claimed the US would have the situation in the territory 'taken care of'. The US president told reporters in Abu Dhabi: 'We're looking at Gaza. And we're going to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving.' You can read Jason's full report here: Share
Belfast Telegraph
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Belfast Telegraph
Singing, dancing and City Hall lit up: How Belfast celebrated the end of World War II
Historian Jason Burke charts how the city celebrated the end of the Second World War In his autobiography set in the depressive context of growing up in Belfast during the 1920s and 1930s, poet and writer Robert Greacen invited us to imagine 'a sunny morning in Campbell's during the Second World War'. He was referring to Campbell's Coffee House on the top floor of 8 Donegall Square North which was a venue for cultural gatherings from the 1930s to the 1950s. Here, literary aspirants such as John Boyd and Sam Hanna Bell would congregate; Denis Ireland could often be found there recounting stories and yarns in his unique way. Greacen, however, opted to leave Belfast in 1942 as a result of the war which, by that point had seen the city 'gashed by the Nazi bombers' as he put it. 'After the war, perhaps, change may come… but will the war ever end?' Greacen pondered.
