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.
Arson attacks paralyze French high-speed rail network hours before start of Olympics
https://arab.news/8mj7a
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
13 killed, dozens injured in ICoast road accident
“The collision between the bus and the tanker set off a fire of terrifying intensity,” leaving “13 bodies charred” by the flames, Police Secours wrote
ABIDJAN: Thirteen people have been killed and 45 injured in a road accident in northern Ivory Coast, after a tanker truck crashed into a bus, rescuers and local media said Saturday.
A bus carrying passengers and a petrol-filled truck on the opposite lane collided on Friday where the road’s width had been narrowed by a freight truck parked without indicators, said Police Secours, a platform monitoring deadly accidents in the country.
The vehicles crashed around 2300 GMT on the highway between Bouake and Korhogo, two large cities in northern Ivory Coast.
“The collision between the bus and the tanker set off a fire of terrifying intensity,” leaving “13 bodies charred” by the flames, Police Secours wrote.
The Ivorian Press Agency (AIP) confirmed the toll which included 19 injured children rushed to hospitals in the nearby cities of Katiola and Niakara.
Deadly accidents are frequent in the Ivory Coast due to many roads and cars in poor condition and reckless driving.
The country in 2023 introduced a point-based driver’s license granting each driver a total of 12 points that can be gradually taken away depending on the violation.
Ivorian authorities have also set up cameras on the country’s main roads to fine offenders.
Between 1,000 and 1,500 people are killed every year in road accidents in the Ivory Coast, according to the transport ministry.
‘Gaza is America’s war and we can stop it the blink of an eye,’ US presidential candidate Jill Stein tells Arab News
- Green Party candidate says the billions of dollars in military aid given to Israel should be used to address American needs
- Asked whether a third party could undercut the main candidates, Stein says Democrats and Republicans ‘don’t own those votes’
CHICAGO: Dr. Jill Stein, the US Green Party’s candidate for November’s presidential election, says Americans are losing “much needed benefits” due to tax money allegedly being redirected to fund Israel’s war in Gaza.
Speaking to The Ray Hanania Radio Show during an episode broadcast on Thursday, Stein accused the mainstream media and the Democrats of trying to block her candidacy to artificially strengthen the candidacy of Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris.
She also said the US bore responsibility for the violence in Gaza, fueled by the perceived pro-Israel bias in the media and by politicians who received millions in campaign donations from pro-Israel political action committees to support the war.
“In the current case, the US is providing 80 percent of the weapons that are being used to murder women, children, and innocent civilians. We’re also providing money, military support and diplomatic cover and intelligence. So the US has total autonomy here,” she said.
“This is our war. It is really a misnomer in many ways to call this Israel’s war. This is the US’ war. We are in charge of this war and we can stop this war with the blink of an eye,” she added, urging voters not to get talked into “endorsing genocide.”
“There is no more critical of an issue than what’s going on right now in Gaza because this is really normalizing the torture and murder of children on an industrial scale. The destruction of international law and human rights.
“As Gaza goes, eventually we’re all gonna go. If we allow human rights to be systematically torn down and international law, the way it’s being done here, eventually that’s gonna rebound to us because the US has been the dominant power for the last several decades but we are no longer the dominant power economically and militarily.”
Stein said every vote for her candidacy and the Green Party could help bring an end not only to Israel’s war in Gaza but also to other conflicts around the world.
“What’s going on is terrible for the US and it’s terrible for Israel. We are hypocrites. We’re supposedly defending democracy, yet we are throwing candidates off the ballot here in our own country,” she said, referring to recent efforts by the Democratic Party in Montana, Nevada and Wisconsin to remove the Green Party from the ballot over alleged procedural issues.
“We’re also mobilizing Israel’s neighbors against Israel. In the countries that have had peace treaties, some of Israel’s most staunch partners, including Egypt and especially Jordan where there are huge rallies and demonstrations against Israel demanding the end of the peace treaty.”
Stein, who is Jewish American, has openly stated she supported Israel, Palestine, and the two-state solution, but has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, calling it “a fascist government” that was engaged in genocide.
She urged voters not to believe the one-sided picture often presented by politicians and the media, insisting that criticism of Israeli policies was “not antisemitism” but legitimate political discourse that must take place to make the US stronger.
“In the long-term interest of everyone in the region, the US and the Netanyahu government need to come into compliance with international law and specifically the rulings of the International Court of Justice,” she said.
“Which means an end to the genocide immediately and then a withdrawal to 1967 borders, which is what this agreement calls for. Withdrawal, an end to the occupation and an end to the ethnic cleansing, which has been going on for a very long time,” she said, referring to the civilian death toll of more than 40,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
“To criticize Israel should not be conflated with antisemitism. Zionism and Judaism are very different things. Zionism is a political ideology. It is not the Jewish religion. There are many strong proponents of the Jewish religion who are fierce opponents of Zionism.”
Instead of financing Israel’s military campaigns, Stein said the next US president should “fund solutions” to improve the lives of Americans by addressing affordable healthcare, creating more jobs, improving education for children and strengthening social security for seniors and retirees.
Both the Democrats and Republicans were instead sending US tax money to Israel while depriving public services of the funding they need, she said.
“Half of the Congressional budget is being spent on the endless war machine,” she said, referring to legislation providing $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, which includes $3.8 billion from a bill in March and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriations act in April.
Although this is in no way half of the Congressional budget, which is worth $6.8 trillion, Stein said the outlay nonetheless meant “we are not meeting the emergencies that we have on healthcare, housing, education and the environment.”
“So this is a disaster for every American, and it’s really important that we not be talked into drinking the Kool-Aid,” she said, using a term that means having a cult-like faith in a dangerous idea because of wrongly perceived rewards.
Stein, who ran for the presidency in 2012 and 2016, said she was again putting her name on the ballot because she was concerned about the problems that Americans were facing, which she believes neither of the two main parties are addressing.
Americans “need a new political option that is in the public interest,” she said, insisting the Green Party offered a greater focus on American needs than either the Republicans or the Democrats.
On the same episode of The Ray Hanania Radio Show, in an interview recorded a couple of days earlier, former Chicago Congressman Bill Lipinski — who represented one of the largest concentrations of Arab and Muslim voters in the US — said American voters should not take the role of third-party candidates like Stein for granted.
Although it is extremely difficult for a third-party candidate to break the two-party system and win a presidential election, Lipinski said they could have a disproportionate impact on the outcome, particularly in swing states where every vote counted.
Given today’s polarized, emotion-driven politics, Lipinski said the US election system should be changed to better accommodate third-party candidates.
“At times I would like to see a third party. There are other times when I think (it is better having just) two parties. In another time in another place, two parties were sufficient. Today, I don’t believe that’s the case,” he said.
“Today I would really like to see a third party because, unfortunately, the Republicans are controlled to a great extent nowadays by their extreme right wing, the Democrats by their extreme left wing. That’s not good for the parties. Nor is it good for the country.”
The Green Party has run candidates in several presidential elections, often making a significant impact on the final outcome. Ralph Nader, the party’s candidate in the 2000 poll, drew votes away from Democratic Vice President Al Gore, contributing to his loss to Republican George W. Bush.
When Stein ran as the Green Party candidate in 2016, she drew significant support away from Democrat Hillary Clinton, who lost to Republican Donald Trump.
To those who might argue that a vote for the Green Party means splitting the progressive vote, making it easier for the Republicans to succeed, Stein insisted that neither the Democrats or Republicans “own those votes.”
“They don’t belong to parties. They belong to people.”
You can listen to the full interview with US presidential candidate Jill Stein and former US Congressman Bill Lipinski online at ArabNews.com/RayRadioShow.
As US colleges raise the stakes for protests, activists are weighing new strategies
- “You always have to risk something to create change and to create a future that we want to live in,” said Howell-Egan, a member of the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter
- The stakes have gone up this fall for students protesting the war in Gaza, as US colleges roll out new security measures and protest guidelines
WASHINGTON: University of Southern California law student Elizabeth Howell-Egan isn’t allowed on campus because of her role in last spring’s anti-war protests, but she is keeping up her activism.
She and like-minded students are holding online sessions on the Israel-Hamas war and passing out fliers outside the campus, which is now fortified with checkpoints at entrances and security officers who require students to scan IDs.
“Change is never comfortable. You always have to risk something to create change and to create a future that we want to live in,” said Howell-Egan, a member of the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, which is calling on USC to divest from companies profiting off the war.
The stakes have gone up this fall for students protesting the war in Gaza, as US colleges roll out new security measures and protest guidelines — all intended to avoid disruptions like last spring’s pro-Palestinian demonstrations and protect students from hate speech. Activism has put their degrees and careers at risk, not to mention tuition payments, but many say they feel a moral responsibility to continue the movement.
Tent encampments — now forbidden on many campuses — so far have not returned. And some of the more involved students from last spring have graduated or are still facing disciplinary measures. Still, activist students are finding other ways to protest, emboldened by the rising death toll in Gaza and massive protests this month in Israel to demand a ceasefire.
Tensions over the conflict have been high on American campuses since the war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 250 hostage. The war in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 people, according to Gaza health officials.
As the pro-Palestinian demonstrations took off nationally, Jewish students on many campuses have faced hostility, including antisemitic language and signs. Some colleges have faced US civil rights investigations and settled lawsuits alleging they have not done enough to address antisemitism.
A desire ‘to be part of something’
Temple University senior Alia Amanpour Trapp started the school year on probation after being arrested twice last semester during pro-Palestinian protests. Within days, she was back on the university’s radar for another demonstration.
As she reflects on the fallout from her activism, she thinks of her grandfather, a political prisoner killed in 1988 massacres orchestrated by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.
“He paid the ultimate price for what he believed in. And so, I feel like the least I can do is stand my ground and face it,” she said.
Trapp, a political science major, devotes much of her time outside classes to Students for Justice in Palestine, which led her to the back-to-school protest on Aug. 29. The group of a few dozen protesters made several stops, including outside the Rosen Center, a hub of Jewish life that is home to Temple’s Hillel Chapter.
Some Jewish students inside said they were shaken by the demonstration. Protesters used megaphones to direct chats toward people inside, Temple President Richard Englert said. The university called it intimidation and opened an investigation.
“Targeting a group of individuals because of their Jewish identity is not acceptable and intimidation and harassment tactics like those seen today will not be tolerated,” Englert said.
Trapp said they were not out to intimidate anyone, but to condemn Hillel for what she called its support of Zionism. “To the students inside that felt threatened or harmed, I’m sorry,” she said.
Trapp is appealing a Temple panel’s ruling that she violated the college’s conduct code last spring. As she reflects on the discipline, she recalls a Temple billboard she saw on Interstate 95 after her first visit to campus.
“Because the world won’t change itself,” the ad beckoned. It reassured her that Temple was the right fit. “I so badly wanted to be part of something, you know, meaningful,” she said, “a community committed to change.”
A renewed push for divestment
At Brown University, some students who were arrested last spring are taking another tack to pressure the Ivy League school to divest its endowment from companies with ties to Israel.
Last spring, the university committed to an October vote by its governing board on a divestment proposal, after an advisory committee weighs in on the issue. In exchange, student protesters packed up their tents.
Now students including Niyanta Nepal, the student body president who was voted in on a pro-divestment platform, say they intend to apply pressure for a vote in favor of divestment. They are rallying students to attend a series of forums and encouraging incoming students to join the movement.
Colleges have long rebuffed calls to divest from Israel, which opponents say veers into antisemitism. Brown already is facing heat for even considering the vote, including a blistering letter from two dozen state attorneys general, all Republicans.
Rafi Ash, a member of the Brown University Jews For Ceasefire Now and Brown Divest Coalition, declined to say what activism might look like if the divestment push fails. A Jewish student who was among 20 students arrested during a November sit-in at an administrative building, Ash dismisses critics who see the anti-war protests as antisemitic.
“The Judaism I was taught promotes peace. It promotes justice. It promotes ‘tikkun olam’ — repairing the world,” said Ash, who is on disciplinary probation. “This is the most Jewish act I can do, to stand up for justice, for everyone.”
Barred from campus, but strategizing on protests
For Howell-Egan, the crackdown at USC and her suspension only deepened her desire to speak out.
“Even with this threat of USC imposing sanctions and disciplinary measures, I am at peace with it because I am standing up for something that is important,” Howell-Egan said. “There are no more universities in Gaza. We are in an incredibly privileged position for this to be our risk.”
She is not allowed to attend in-person classes because she was suspended in May for joining protests at the private school in Los Angeles.
There has been a trend of heavier punishments for students engaging in activism than in the past, including banishment from campus and suspensions that keep students “in limbo for months,” said Tori Porell, an attorney with the nonprofit Palestine Legal, which has supported student protesters facing disciplinary measures. Howell-Egan sees it as part of a strategy to stifle free speech.
In a memo this month, USC President Carol Folt said the campus has seen peaceful protests and marches for years. “However, the spring semester brought incidents that tested our values, disregarded our policies, sparked fears, and required unprecedented safety measures,” she said.
For now the focus of the USC Divest Coalition, which includes several student organizations, has moved off campus, to incorporate the wider community and take a cautious approach as students get a handle on the university’s new rules, Howell-Egan said.
In addition to the community outreach, students have been holding teach-ins.
“The idea is to raise our skill set and our understanding of where we stand in this moment, and where we are in this fight,” Howell-Egan said, “especially as we continue with it.”
Three civilians injured as Ukraine shells Belgorod region, governor says
- Belgorod has come under frequent shelling and drone attacks from Ukraine in the course of the war
MOSCOW: Three civilians were injured in Russia’s Belgorod region after Ukrainian shells hit the town of Shebekino, the regional governor said on Saturday.
“Ambulance crews brought a woman in serious condition with shrapnel wounds to the back and thigh and a man with a shrapnel wound to the chest to the regional clinical hospital,” Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor, said in a post on his Telegram channel.
A third person was taken to hospital with a shrapnel wound to the thigh, he said, adding that two houses and four outbuildings caught fire.
Reuters could not independently confirm the report.
Belgorod has come under frequent shelling and drone attacks from Ukraine in the course of the war. It is next to the Kursk region, a large swath of which is occupied by Ukrainian forces following a cross-border attack last month.
How one Pakistani father defied conservative 20th-century norms to see his 13 daughters gain master’s degrees
- Fazal Haq withstood family pressure to ensure his children had the opportunity to pursue education
PESHAWAR: For Fazal Haq, a Pakistani octogenarian academic who grew up in the country’s conservative northwest, acquiring education was a gateway to empowerment and self-reliance for his children, especially his daughters.
In an era when education was a rare privilege in Pakistan’s northwestern Karak district, Haq stood as a beacon of progressive thinking by sending his first-born daughter, Nighat Parveen, to school in the 1970s.
Although he never formally attended college himself, the 82-year-old has earned postgraduate degrees in Arabic, Urdu literature, and Islamic studies. And all of his children — 13 daughters and four sons — also have higher-education qualifications.
“Fewer men attended school during his time, and the notion of women pursuing education was virtually unheard of,” Haq told Arab News this week. “Yet, despite societal constraints, I made a pioneering decision to send my daughter Parveen to school.”
Haq said his daughters’ early education proceeded smoothly but as they grew older, murmurs of dissent within his family became louder. Relatives questioned his wisdom for allowing his girls to be educated and the resistance escalated to threats of disownment, but Haq said he remained resolute and Parveen’s results in exams in both the 8th and 10th grades were better than many in their area. Her academic success reinforced Haq’s belief in his decision.
“That was a big relief, I would say one of my happiest moments,” Haq said.
Parveen, who passed her matriculation exam in 1986, told Arab News that, initially, she did not grasp the necessity of education and only saw herself fulfilling her father’s wishes on a path fraught with obstacles.
“I would often find myself as the only girl in a classroom full of boys. Sitting in a corner, isolated from my peers, I faced the weight of societal scrutiny and the discomfort of being an ‘outsider,’” she said.
“The psychological toll of being the only girl in a boys’ class was immense, but I remained steadfast in the pursuit of education.”
Parveen now stands as a testament to the power of perseverance and the importance of education as she serves as the principal of Government Girls’ High School in Karak, shaping the minds of future generations.
She set the bar high for all 16 of her siblings, who now hold master’s degrees in disciplines including English literature, political science, history, botany, zoology, and physics. All of Haq’s daughters became teachers.
Haq has always seen education as a gateway to empowerment and self-reliance for women, contrary to the common perception in Pakistan’s rural communities, where most believed that investing in daughters’ education would only serve to benefit the household they joined when they married.
“Education equips women with knowledge and confidence to contribute actively to their family’s economic affairs, eliminating the need to depend on others for financial support,” he said.
Haq’s wife, Jahan Bano, had no formal education, but her ability to converse in English and engage in discussions about politics demonstrates her intellectual growth and self-confidence.
Both Haq and Bano feel proud that their perspective on women’s education, which was once widely disapproved by society, has now been embraced by those same critics.
“At this later stage of life, when I watch young girls in school uniforms going to school, college, and university from my balcony, I feel a strange sense of happiness,” Haq said.
