Arson attacks paralyze French high-speed rail network hours before start of Olympics

Arson attacks paralyze French high-speed rail network hours before start of Olympics
The group told AFP and TGV traffic on the Atlantic, North and East routes will be very disrupted, a few hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. (AFP)
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Updated 28 July 2024
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Arson attacks paralyze French high-speed rail network hours before start of Olympics

Arson attacks paralyze French high-speed rail network hours before start of Olympics
  • French officials condemned the attacks as “criminal actions”
  • Two out of four trains carrying Olympic athletes to Paris on the western Atlantique high-speed line were stopped hours before the opening ceremony

PARIS: France’s high-speed rail network was hit Friday with widespread and “criminal” acts of vandalism including arson attacks, paralyzing travel to Paris from across the rest of France and Europe, and thwarting Olympic athletes from travel, only hours before the grand opening ceremony of the Games.
French officials condemned the attacks as “criminal actions,” though they said there was no sign of a direct link to the Games. Prosecutors in Paris opened a national investigation saying the crimes could carry sentences of 10 to 20 years.
“It’s a hell of a way to start the Olympics,” said Sarah Moseley, a 42-year-old traveler waiting at the Gare du Nord station in Paris as she learned that her train to London was delayed by the rail chaos.
As Paris authorities geared up for a spectacular parade on and along the Seine River, three fires were reported near the tracks on the high-speed lines of Atlantique, Nord and Est, causing disruptions that affected hundreds of thousands of travelers.
Among them were Olympic athletes themselves.
Two out of four trains carrying Olympic athletes to Paris on the western Atlantique high-speed line were stopped hours before the opening ceremony, affected by the coordinated sabotage on the tracks, an official from the French railway operator SNCF said Friday.
Also, two German athletes in showjumping who were on a train to Paris to take part in the opening ceremony but had to turn back in Belgium because of the closures, and will now miss the ceremony, German news agency dpa reported.
“There was no longer a chance of making it on time,” rider Philipp Weishaupt, who was traveling with teammate Christian Kukuk, told dpa.
There were no known reports of injuries from the attacks.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said France’s intelligence services have been mobilized to find the perpetrators of the “acts of sabotage” which he described as “prepared and coordinated.”
Attal said that the actions on the eve of the Olympics had “a clear objective: blocking the high-speed train network.”
He said the vandals strategically targeted the axes from the north, east and west toward Paris hours before the Olympics opening ceremony.
It was “a premeditated, calculated, coordinated attack” that indicates “a desire to seriously harm” the French people, the CEO of the national railway company SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, said.
“The places were especially chosen to have the most serious impact, since each fire cut off two lines,” Farandou said.
Farandou said railway maintenance workers managed to thwart a suspected sabotage attempt along tracks heading south-east of Paris.
Workers on the night shift spotted intruders and alerted police, Farandou said.
“These people left, of course, very quickly when they realized they were spotted. So, thank you to the railway workers,” Farandou said. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t do it everywhere.”
Farandou said repairs were being made as police conducted forensic examinations and searched for the perpetrators.
France’s Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said train traffic was beginning to resume in the afternoon, especially on the Atlantique line, which had been completely halted. “At Montparnasse station and Bordeaux station, which were the most affected, we should find one in three trains running this afternoon. Things are already improving,” he said.
The attack occurred against a backdrop of global tensions and heightened security measures as the city prepared for the 2024 Olympic Games. Many travelers were planning to converge on the capital for the opening ceremony, and many vacationers were also in transit.
Earlier this week, France’s interior minister said about 1,000 people suspected of possibly meddling for a foreign power have been blocked from attending the games.
Although he has repeatedly pointed to suspicions of Russia-backed interference, Gerald Darmanin added that such threats have also come from other countries that he did not name. Among those blocked were people suspected of Islamic radicalization or left- or right-wing political extremism, or who had significant criminal records, Darmanin said.
The coordinated train line attacks targeted remote locations far from the capital as 35,000 police officers are being deployed in Paris each day for the Olympics, with a peak of 45,000 for the opening ceremony.
French authorities have foiled several plots to disrupt the Olympics, including arresting a Russian man on suspicion of planning to destabilize the games.
Paris has been the target of deadly terror attacks in the past decade, and some French officials saw hosting the Olympic Games as a chance for the nation to heal from years of trauma.
The Paris police prefecture “concentrated its personnel in Parisian train stations” after the “massive attack” that paralyzed the TGV high-speed network, Laurent Nuñez, the Paris police chief, told France Info television.
Also Friday, the French airport of Basel-Mulhouse on the border with Germany and Switzerland was evacuated in the morning and shut down briefly “for safety reasons,” the airport said. It wasn’t clear whether there was a connection to the rail attacks.
The disruptions hit Paris’ Montparnasse station particularly hard.
In the station’s crowded hall, Maiwenn Labbé-Sorin said she spent hours stranded on a train before it doubled back to Paris.
“We stayed two hours without water, without toilets, without electricity,” she said. “Then we could go out on the track for a bit and then the train returned. Now I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”
Many passengers at the Gare du Nord, one of Europe’s busiest train stations, were looking for answers and solutions on Friday morning. All eyes were on the central message boards as most services to northern France, Belgium and the United Kingdom were delayed.
Germany’s national railway operator, Deutsche Bahn, said there also were short-notice cancelations and delays of trains between France and Germany.
“They should have more information for tourists, especially if it’s a malicious attack,” said Corey Grainger, a 37-year-old Australian sales manager on his way to London, as he rested on his two suitcases in the middle of the station.
Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera said authorities were working to “evaluate the impact on travelers, athletes, and ensure the transport of all delegations to the competition sites” for the Olympics. Speaking on BFM television, she added, “Playing against the Games is playing against France, against your own camp, against your country.”
The troubles came ahead of an opening ceremony planned for later Friday, in which 7,000 Olympic athletes are due to sail down the Seine past iconic Parisian monuments such as Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Louvre Museum, and the Musee d’Orsay.


India opposes COP29 finance deal after it is adopted

India opposes COP29 finance deal after it is adopted
Updated 15 sec ago
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India opposes COP29 finance deal after it is adopted

India opposes COP29 finance deal after it is adopted

BAKU: India strongly objected to a climate finance deal agreed at the United Nations COP29 summit on Sunday, but their objection was raised after the deal was formally adopted by consensus.
“I regret to say that this document is nothing more than an optical illusion. This, in our opinion, will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face. Therefore, we oppose the adoption of this document,” Indian delegation representative Chandni Raina told the closing plenary session of the summit.

 

 


UN climate chief says ‘no time for victory laps’ after COP29 deal

UN climate chief says ‘no time for victory laps’ after COP29 deal
Updated 10 min 52 sec ago
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UN climate chief says ‘no time for victory laps’ after COP29 deal

UN climate chief says ‘no time for victory laps’ after COP29 deal

BAKU, Azerbaijan: UN climate chief Simon Stiell on Sunday said it was “no time for victory laps” after nations at COP29 in Azerbaijan agreed a bitterly negotiated finance deal.
“No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of work still to do. So this is no time for victory laps,” Stiell said in a statement.


Mass rape trial sparks demonstrations across France

Mass rape trial sparks demonstrations across France
Updated 24 min 39 sec ago
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Mass rape trial sparks demonstrations across France

Mass rape trial sparks demonstrations across France
  • Police sources said 35,000 people had turned out across the country, while organizers put the figure at 100,000

PARIS: Tens of thousands demonstrated in major French cities Saturday against violence targeting women, as campaigners push for the country to learn from a mass rape trial that has shocked the public.
The prosecution in the southern city Avignon is in its final stages for 51 men, including one who drugged his wife over the course of a decade and dozens of others charged with accepting his invitations to abuse her at their home.
Out on the street, “the more of us there are, the more visible we are, this is everyone’s business, not just women,” said Peggy Plou, an elected official from the Indre-et-Loire region in western France who had made the trip to Paris.
Thousands of people marched in the capital alone, mostly women but including some children and men. Police put the turnout there at 12,500, while organizers said 80,000.
Police sources said 35,000 people had turned out across the country, while organizers put the figure at 100,000.
Hundreds also turned out in other major cities including Marseille in the south, Lille in the northeast and Rennes in the northwest. Local officials in Bordeaux, in the southwest, put the turnout there at 1,600.
Many demonstrators carried signs with variations on the slogan “Shame must switch sides,” popularised by the plaintiff in the Avignon trial, Gisele Pelicot.
She has become a feminist hero for choosing public hearings in her case rather than a trial behind closed doors, despite their painful content.

“A law about consent must be put in place very quickly. Just because someone doesn’t say something, doesn’t mean that they agree” to sexual contact, said Marie-Claire Abiker, 78, a retired nurse who marched in Paris.
France’s legal definition of rape calls it “any act of sexual penetration... by violence, constraint, threats or surprise” but includes no language about consent — a key demand of women’s rights groups especially since the MeToo movement launched in the late 2010s.
“In 2018, there were basically only women (demonstrating). Today there are, let’s say, 30 percent men. That’s really great news,” said Amy Bah, a member of the NousToutes (All of us women) feminist group protesting in Lille.
“I feel like this is my business too, we each have our role to play, especially men,” said Arnaud Garcette, 38, at the Marseille demonstration in the city’s historic port with his two children.
“We’re at the source of the problem, and at the source of the solutions too,” he added.
The demonstrations, called by more than 400 campaign groups, come two days before the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Monday.
Equality Minister Salima Saa has promised “concrete and effective” measures to coincide with the global day.
According to a report in Sunday’s Tribune Dimanche weekly, Prime Minister Michel Barnier will announce measures including increased training for police officers and more support for victims of domestic violence who leave their home.
The campaigners who organized Saturday’s protests are calling for more far-reaching measures, including a dedicated 2.6 billion-euro ($2.7 billion) budget and a stronger legal framework to tackle the problem.
During his first term as French president, Emmanuel Macron vowed to prioritize the cause of equality between men and women and to work to eliminate violence against women.
 

 


US reels from rain, snow as second round of bad weather approaches for Thanksgiving week

US reels from rain, snow as second round of bad weather approaches for Thanksgiving week
Updated 28 min 50 sec ago
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US reels from rain, snow as second round of bad weather approaches for Thanksgiving week

US reels from rain, snow as second round of bad weather approaches for Thanksgiving week
  • A winter storm warning in California’s Sierra Nevada on Saturday was in effect through Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service’s Sacramento office, with heavy snow expected at higher elevations and wind gusts potentially reaching 55 mph (88 kph

WINDSOR, California: The US was reeling from snow and rain on Saturday with a second round of bad weather threatening to disrupt holiday travel ahead of Thanksgiving. A person was found dead in a vehicle submerged in floodwaters in California, which braced for more precipitation while still grappling with flooding and small landslides from a previous storm. And thousands in the Pacific Northwest remained without power after multiple days in the dark.
A winter storm warning in California’s Sierra Nevada on Saturday was in effect through Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service’s Sacramento office, with heavy snow expected at higher elevations and wind gusts potentially reaching 55 mph (88 kph). Total snowfall of roughly 4 feet (1.2 meters) was forecast, with the heaviest accumulations coming Monday and Tuesday.
Forecasters said the Midwest and Great Lakes regions will see rain and snow Monday, and the East Coast will be the most impacted on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
A low pressure system will bring rain to the Southeast early Thursday before heading to the Northeast, where areas from Boston to New York could see rain and strong winds. Parts of northern New Hampshire, northern Maine and the Adirondacks could get snow. If the system tracks further inland, the forecast would call for less snow for the mountains and more rain.
Deadly ‘bomb cyclone’ on West Coast

The storm on the West Coast arrived in the Pacific Northwest earlier this week, killing two people and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands, mostly in the Seattle area, before its strong winds moved through Northern California. The system roared ashore on the West Coast on Tuesday as a ” bomb cyclone,” which occurs when a cyclone intensifies rapidly. It unleashed fierce winds that toppled trees onto roads, vehicles and homes.
Santa Rosa, California, saw its wettest three-day period on record with about 12.5 inches (32 centimeters) of rain falling by Friday evening, according to the National Weather Service in the Bay Area. On Saturday vineyards in Windsor, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) to the north, were flooded.
To the west, rescue crews in Guerneville recovered a body inside a vehicle bobbing in floodwaters around 11:30 a.m. Saturday, according to Rob Dillion, a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy and spokesperson. The deceased was presumed to be a victim of the storm, but an autopsy had not yet been conducted.
Dominick Conti, a 19-year-old volunteer firefighter, and a friend drove around the Santa Rosa area Friday helping people whose vehicles were swamped. With his 2006 Dodge Ram pickup truck and a set of ropes, they were able to rescue the driver of a sedan that stalled out in water, a truck stuck in a giant mudhole and a farmer stranded on a dirt road.
Tens of thousands remain without power in Seattle area
Some 80,000 people in the Seattle area were still without electricity after this season’s strongest atmospheric river — a long plume of moisture that forms over an ocean and flows over land. Crews worked to clear streets of downed lines, branches and other debris, while cities opened warming centers so people heading into their fourth day without power could get warm food and plug in their cellphones and other devices.
The power came back in the afternoon at Katie Skipper’s home in North Bend, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of the city in the foothills of the Cascades, after being out since Tuesday. It was tiring to take cold showers, rely on a wood stove for warmth and use a generator to keep the refrigerator cold, Skipper said, but those inconveniences paled in comparison to the damage other people suffered, such as from fallen trees.
“That’s really sad and scary,” she said.
Northeast gets much-needed precipitation
Another storm brought rain to New York and New Jersey, where rare wildfires have raged in recent weeks, and heavy snow to northeastern Pennsylvania. Parts of West Virginia were under a blizzard warning through Saturday morning, with up to 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow and high winds making travel treacherous.
Despite the mess, the precipitation was expected to help ease drought conditions after an exceptionally dry fall.
“It’s not going to be a drought buster, but it’s definitely going to help when all this melts,” said Bryan Greenblatt, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Binghamton, New York.
Heavy snow fell in northeastern Pennsylvania, including the Pocono Mountains. Higher elevations reported up to 17 inches (43 centimeters), with lesser accumulations in valley cities like Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Less than 80,000 customers in 10 counties lost power, and the state transportation department imposed speed restrictions on some highways.
Parts of West Virginia also experienced their first significant snowfall of the season Friday and overnight Saturday, with up to 10 inches (25.4 centimeters) in the higher elevations of the Allegheny Mountains. Some areas were under a blizzard warning.
The precipitation helped put a dent in the state’s worst drought in at least two decades. It also was a boost for West Virginia ski resorts preparing to open their slopes in the weeks ahead.

 


After Trump’s Project 2025 denials, he is tapping its authors and influencers for key roles

After Trump’s Project 2025 denials, he is tapping its authors and influencers for key roles
Updated 23 min 51 sec ago
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After Trump’s Project 2025 denials, he is tapping its authors and influencers for key roles

After Trump’s Project 2025 denials, he is tapping its authors and influencers for key roles
  • As the blueprint for a hard-right turn in America became a liability during the 2024 campaign, Trump denied knowing anything about the “ridiculous and abysmal” plans written in part by his first-term aides and allies
  • Now he is stocking his new administration with key players in effort he temporarily shunned, notably Russell Vought as budget head, Tom Homan as “border czar;” and Stephen Miller as deputy chief of policy

WASHINGTON: As a former and potentially future president, Donald Trump hailed what would become Project 2025 as a road map for “exactly what our movement will do” with another crack at the White House.
As the blueprint for a hard-right turn in America became a liability during the 2024 campaign, Trump pulled an about-face. He denied knowing anything about the “ridiculous and abysmal” plans written in part by his first-term aides and allies.
Now, after being elected the 47th president on Nov. 5, Trump is stocking his second administration with key players in the detailed effort he temporarily shunned. Most notably, Trump has tapped Russell Vought for an encore as director of the Office of Management and Budget; Tom Homan, his former immigration chief, as “border czar;” and immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller as deputy chief of policy.
Those moves have accelerated criticisms from Democrats who warn that Trump’s election hands government reins to movement conservatives who spent years envisioning how to concentrate power in the West Wing and impose a starkly rightward shift across the US government and society.
Trump and his aides maintain that he won a mandate to overhaul Washington. But they maintain the specifics are his alone.
“President Trump never had anything to do with Project 2025,” said Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt in a statement. “All of President Trumps’ Cabinet nominees and appointments are whole-heartedly committed to President Trump’s agenda, not the agenda of outside groups.”

A copy of Project 2025, Trump's blue print for reforming the government, is shown during the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (AP/File)

Here is a look at what some of Trump’s choices portend for his second presidency.
As budget chief, Vought envisions a sweeping, powerful perch
The Office of Management and Budget director, a role Vought held under Trump previously and requires Senate confirmation, prepares a president’s proposed budget and is generally responsible for implementing the administration’s agenda across agencies.
The job is influential but Vought made clear as author of a Project 2025 chapter on presidential authority that he wants the post to wield more direct power.
“The Director must view his job as the best, most comprehensive approximation of the President’s mind,” Vought wrote. The OMB, he wrote, “is a President’s air-traffic control system” and should be “involved in all aspects of the White House policy process,” becoming “powerful enough to override implementing agencies’ bureaucracies.”
Trump did not go into such details when naming Vought but implicitly endorsed aggressive action. Vought, the president-elect said, “knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State” — Trump’s catch-all for federal bureaucracy — and would help “restore fiscal sanity.”
In June, speaking on former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Vought relished the potential tension: “We’re not going to save our country without a little confrontation.”
Vought could help Musk and Trump remake government’s role and scope
The strategy of further concentrating federal authority in the presidency permeates Project 2025’s and Trump’s campaign proposals. Vought’s vision is especially striking when paired with Trump’s proposals to dramatically expand the president’s control over federal workers and government purse strings — ideas intertwined with the president-elect tapping mega-billionaire Elon Musk and venture capitalist Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a “Department of Government Efficiency.”
Trump in his first term sought to remake the federal civil service by reclassifying tens of thousands of federal civil service workers — who have job protection through changes in administration — as political appointees, making them easier to fire and replace with loyalists. Currently, only about 4,000 of the federal government’s roughly 2 million workers are political appointees. President Joe Biden rescinded Trump’s changes. Trump can now reinstate them.
Meanwhile, Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s sweeping “efficiency” mandates from Trump could turn on an old, defunct constitutional theory that the president — not Congress — is the real gatekeeper of federal spending. In his “Agenda 47,” Trump endorsed so-called “impoundment,” which holds that when lawmakers pass appropriations bills, they simply set a spending ceiling, but not a floor. The president, the theory holds, can simply decide not to spend money on anything he deems unnecessary.
Vought did not venture into impoundment in his Project 2025 chapter. But, he wrote, “The President should use every possible tool to propose and impose fiscal discipline on the federal government. Anything short of that would constitute abject failure.”
Trump’s choice immediately sparked backlash.
“Russ Vought is a far-right ideologue who has tried to break the law to give President Trump unilateral authority he does not possess to override the spending decisions of Congress (and) who has and will again fight to give Trump the ability to summarily fire tens of thousands of civil servants,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a Democrat and outgoing Senate Appropriations chairwoman.
Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, leading Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said Vought wants to “dismantle the expert federal workforce” to the detriment of Americans who depend on everything from veterans’ health care to Social Security benefits.
“Pain itself is the agenda,” they said.
Homan and Miller reflect Trump’s and Project 2025’s immigration overlap
Trump’s protests about Project 2025 always glossed over overlaps in the two agendas. Both want to reimpose Trump-era immigration limits. Project 2025 includes a litany of detailed proposals for various US immigration statutes, executive branch rules and agreements with other countries — reducing the number of refugees, work visa recipients and asylum seekers, for example.
Miller is one of Trump’s longest-serving advisers and architect of his immigration ideas, including his promise of the largest deportation force in US history. As deputy policy chief, which is not subject to Senate confirmation, Miller would remain in Trump’s West Wing inner circle.
“America is for Americans and Americans only,” Miller said at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Oct. 27.
“America First Legal,” Miller’s organization founded as an ideological counter to the American Civil Liberties Union, was listed as an advisory group to Project 2025 until Miller asked that the name be removed because of negative attention.
Homan, a Project 2025 named contributor, was an acting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement director during Trump’s first presidency, playing a key role in what became known as Trump’s “family separation policy.”
Previewing Trump 2.0 earlier this year, Homan said: “No one’s off the table. If you’re here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.”
Project 2025 contributors slated for CIA and Federal Communications chiefs
John Ratcliffe, Trump’s pick to lead the CIA, was previously one of Trump’s directors of national intelligence. He is a Project 2025 contributor. The document’s chapter on US intelligence was written by Dustin Carmack, Ratcliffe’s chief of staff in the first Trump administration.
Reflecting Ratcliffe’s and Trump’s approach, Carmack declared the intelligence establishment too cautious. Ratcliffe, like the chapter attributed to Carmack, is hawkish toward China. Throughout the Project 2025 document, Beijing is framed as a US adversary that cannot be trusted.
Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, wrote Project 2025’s FCC chapter and is now Trump’s pick to chair the panel. Carr wrote that the FCC chairman “is empowered with significant authority that is not shared” with other FCC members. He called for the FCC to address “threats to individual liberty posed by corporations that are abusing dominant positions in the market,” specifically “Big Tech and its attempts to drive diverse political viewpoints from the digital town square.”
He called for more stringent transparency rules for social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube and “empower consumers to choose their own content filters and fact checkers, if any.”
Carr and Ratcliffe would require Senate confirmation for their posts.