Month: September 2024

Greece to tax cruise ships to protect popular islands from overtourism

Posted on by SeeEU

Athens — Greece plans to impose a 20-euro ($22) levy on cruise ship visitors to the islands of Santorini and Mykonos during the peak summer season, in a bid to avert overtourism, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Sunday. 

Greece relies heavily on tourism, the main driver of the country’s economy which is still recovering from a decadelong crisis that wiped out a fourth of its output. 

But some of its most popular destinations, including Santorini, an idyllic island of quaint villages and pristine beaches with 20,000 permanent residents, risk being ruined by mass tourism. 

Speaking at a news conference a day after outlining his main economic policies for 2025, Mitsotakis clarified that excessive tourism was only a problem in a few destinations. 

“Greece does not have a structural overtourism problem… Some of its destinations have a significant issue during certain weeks or months of the year, which we need to deal with,” he said. 

“Cruise shipping has burdened Santorini and Mykonos, and this is why we are proceeding with interventions,” he added, announcing the levy. 

Greek tourism revenues stood at about 20 billion euros ($22 billion) in 2023 on the back of nearly 31 million tourist arrivals. 

In Santorini, protesters have called for curbs on tourism, as in other popular holiday destinations in Europe, including Venice and Barcelona. 

Part of the revenues from the cruise shipping tax will be returned to local communities to be invested in infrastructure, Mitsotakis said. 

The government also plans to regulate the number of cruise ships that arrive simultaneously at certain destinations, while rules to protect the environment and tackle water shortages must also be imposed on islands, he said. 

Greece also wants to increase a tax on short-term rentals and ban new licenses for such rentals in central Athens to increase the housing stock for permanent residents, Mitsotakis said Saturday. 

The government will provide more details on some of the measures Monday.
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France bids farewell to its sporting summer at Paralympics closing ceremony

Posted on by SeeEU

Saint-Denis, France — This time, it really is au revoir.

A summer sporting bonanza which started under pouring rain on July 26 with a remarkable opening ceremony on the Seine River was ending Sunday with the Paralympics closing at a rain-soaked Stade de France.

It lowers the curtain on successful back-to-back events that captivated fans and raised the bar high for others to follow. Good luck Los Angeles in 2028.

As the stadium was lit up in the blue, white and red colors of the French national flag, a trumpet player played the national anthem “La Marseillaise” and Paralympic flagbearers then made their way into the stadium carrying national flags to the sound of “Chariots of Fire” by Vangelis.

Later Sunday, famed French electronic music composer Jean-Michel Jarre was to close out the ceremony which was again led by artistic director Thomas Jolly.

His intention this time was to turn the stadium into a giant open-air dance party. More than 20 DJs, including Etienne de Crecy, Martin Solveig and Kavinsky, were to perform in a tribute to French electro music to the theme “Journey of the Wave.”

Or the wave goodbye from the 64,000 fans, and the city itself, to the more than 4,000 Paralympic athletes.

Summer vibes kept going

After the successful Olympics showcased the vibrancy of fans from around the world and the beauty of the city’s iconic venues, there were doubts that the energy would keep going into the Aug. 28-Sept. 8 Paralympics.

Those doubts were dispelled, with athletes enjoying strong support. Not all venues were sold out, but this was also because the summer holiday period was ending and children were returning to school.

A surge of enthusiasm saw 2.4 million tickets of the 2.8 million tickets sold — second only to the 2.7 million sold at the 2012 London Games — and this was some feat considering that by late June only 1 million had been sold.

Large swathes of Parisians vacated — some say fled — the city amid concerns over traffic chaos, political upheaval, social tensions and growing fears over security.

But locals who stayed or French fans coming in from other towns and cities gave their athletes huge support over both Games.

French success on and off the track

In the Olympics, France tallied 16 golds among its 64 medals to finish fifth overall in the medal count, and it won 75 medals overall in the Paralympics.

The Games themselves were a success for French President Emmanuel Macron. Transport ran well, there were very few organizational glitches and security issues were appeased, with police even engaging in friendly banter or posing for photos with fans — a rarity in France.

For how long the feel-good factor stays remains to be seen.

An early indication came on Saturday, when thousands took to the streets to protest the president’s appointment of a conservative new prime minister.

There were some boos for Macron when he was introduced at the start of the ceremony.

Plus ça change, as the French saying goes.
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At least 48 killed in Nigerian fuel truck explosion 

Posted on by SeeAF

MAIDUGURI — At least 48 people were killed Sunday in a fuel tanker truck explosion following a collision with another vehicle in Niger state in north-central Nigeria, the state’s disaster management agency said.

The State Emergency Management Agency in north-central Niger state said the fuel truck collided with a truck carrying travelers and cattle. Several other vehicles were also caught up in the accident, it said.

Local media reported that two of the other vehicles — a crane truck and a pickup van —were involved in the accident and caught in the fire.

The emergency management agency’s spokesperson Hussaini Ibrahim put the death toll at 48 and officials were still trying to clear the scene of the incident.

Nigeria’s state-owned firm NNPC Ltd last week hiked the price of gasoline by at least 39%, the second major increase in more than a year but shortages have continued, forcing motorists to queue for hours in the country’s major cities and towns. 
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Kenyan police officer fights youth crime with soccer

Posted on by SeeAF

Kenyan police officer Stephen Ominde has his way of fighting crime. In 2020, he started the Mathare soccer team to keep young people off the streets and out of trouble. Four years on, the team is still going strong. Reporter Joel Masibo has more from Mathare, Nairobi, Kenya. Camera: Joseph Kinyua, Joseph Munyiri. In collaboration with Egab.co.
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US volunteer makes metal staple for Ukraine’s military 

Posted on by SeeUS

American Benjamin Hoerber says he has discovered his calling helping Ukraine’s military. He initially helped transport humanitarian aid. Now he also volunteers at a forge, making supports for trenches. Tetiana Kukurika has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Sergiy Rybchynski      
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For many leaving China, it’s Japan — not the US — that’s the bigger draw

Posted on by SeeEA

TOKYO — One by one, the students, lawyers and others filed into a classroom in a central Tokyo university for a lecture by a Chinese journalist on Taiwan and democracy — taboo topics that can’t be discussed publicly back home in China.

“Taiwan’s modern-day democracy took struggle and bloodshed, there’s no question about that,” said Jia Jia, a columnist and guest lecturer at the University of Tokyo who was briefly detained in China eight years ago on suspicion of penning a call for China’s top leader to resign.

He is one of tens of thousands of intellectuals, investors and other Chinese who have relocated to Japan in recent years, part of a larger exodus of people from China.

Their backgrounds vary widely, and they’re leaving for all sorts of reasons. Some are very poor, others are very rich. Some leave for economic reasons, as opportunities dry up with the end of China’s boom. Some flee for personal reasons, as even limited freedoms are eroded.

Chinese migrants are flowing to all corners of the world, from workers seeking to start businesses of their own in Mexico to burned-out students heading to Thailand. Those choosing Japan tend to be well-off or highly educated, drawn to the country’s ease of living, rich culture and immigration policies that favor highly skilled professionals, with less of the sharp anti-immigrant backlash sometimes seen in Western countries.

Jia initially intended to move to the U.S., not Japan. But after experiencing the coronavirus outbreak in China, he was anxious to leave and his American visa application was stuck in processing. So he chose Japan instead.

“In the United States, illegal immigration is particularly controversial. When I went to Japan, I was a little surprised. I found that their immigration policy is actually more relaxed than I thought,” Jia told The Associated Press. “I found that Japan is better than the U.S.”

It’s tough to enter the U.S. these days. Tens of thousands of Chinese were arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border over the past year, and Chinese students have been grilled at customs as trade frictions fan suspicions of possible industrial espionage. Some U.S. states passed legislation that restricts Chinese citizens from owning property.

“The U.S. is shutting out those Chinese that are friendliest to them, that most share its values,” said Li Jinxing, a Christian human rights lawyer who moved to Japan in 2022.

Li sees parallels to about a century ago, when Chinese intellectuals such as Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of modern China, moved to Japan to study how the country modernized so quickly.

“On one hand, we hope to find inspiration and direction in history,” Li said of himself and like-minded Chinese in Japan. “On the other hand, we also want to observe what a democratic country with rule of law is like. We’re studying Japan. How does its economy work, its government work?”

Over the past decade, Tokyo has softened its once-rigid stance against immigration, driven by low birthrates and an aging population. Foreigners now make up about 2% of its population of 125 million. That’s expected to jump to 12% by 2070, according to the Tokyo-based National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.

Chinese are the most numerous newcomers, at 822,000 last year among more than 3 million foreigners living in Japan, according to government data. That’s up from 762,000 a year ago and 649,000 a decade ago.

In 2022, the lockdowns under China’s “zero COVID” policies led many of the country’s youth or most affluent citizens to hit the exits. There’s even a buzzword for that: “runxue,” using the English word “run” to evoke “running away” to places seen as safer and more prosperous.

For intellectuals like Li and Jia, Japan offers greater freedoms than under Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s increasingly repressive rule. But for others, such as wealthy investors and business people, Japan offers something else: property protections.

A report by investment migration firm Henley & Partners says nearly 14,000 millionaires left China last year, the most of any country in the world, with Japan a popular destination. A major driver is worries about the security of their wealth in China or Hong Kong, said Q. Edward Wang, a professor of Asian studies at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey.

“Protection of private property, which is the cornerstone of a capitalist society, that piece is missing in China,” Wang said.

The weakening yen makes buying property and other local assets in Japan a bargain.

And while the Japanese economy has stagnated, China’s once-sizzling economy is also in a rut, with the property sector in crisis and stock prices stuck at the level they were in the late 2000s.

“If you are just going to Japan to preserve your money,” Wang said, “then definitely you will enjoy your time in Japan.”

Dot.com entrepreneurs are among those leaving China after Communist Party crackdowns on the technology industry, including billionaire Jack Ma, a founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, who took a professorship at Tokyo College, part of the prestigious University of Tokyo.

So many wealthy Chinese have bought apartments in Tokyo’s luxury high-rises that some areas have been dubbed “Chinatowns,” or “Digital Chinatowns” — a nod to the many owners’ work in high-tech industries.

“Life in Japan is good,” said Guo Yu, an engineer who retired early after working at ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

Guo doesn’t concern himself with politics. He’s keen on Japan’s powdery snow in the winter and is a “superfan” of its beautiful hot springs. He owns homes in Tokyo, as well as near a ski resort and a hot spring. He owns several cars, including a Porsche, a Mercedes, a Tesla and a Toyota.

Guo keeps busy with a new social media startup in Tokyo and a travel agency specializing in “onsen,” Japan’s hot springs. Most of his employees are Chinese, he said.

Like Guo, many Chinese moving to Japan are wealthy and educated. That’s for good reason: Japan remains unwelcoming to refugees and many other types of foreigners. The government has been strategic about who it allows to stay, generally focusing on people to fill labor shortages for factories, construction and elder care.

“It is crucial that Japan becomes an attractive country for foreign talent so they will choose to work here,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said earlier this year, announcing efforts to relax Japan’s stringent immigration restrictions.

That kind of opportunity is exactly what Chinese ballet dancer Du Hai said he has found. Leading a class of a dozen Japanese students in a suburban Tokyo studio one recent weekend, Du demonstrated positions and spins to the women dressed in leotards and toe shoes.

Du was drawn to Japan’s huge ballet scene, filled with professional troupes and talented dancers, he said, but worried about warnings he got about unfriendly Japanese.

That turned out to be false, he said with a laugh. Now, Du is considering getting Japanese citizenship.

“Of course, I enjoy living in Japan very much now,” he said.
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Fugitive Filipino preacher accused of sexual abuse charges has been arrested  

Posted on by SeeEA

MANILA — A Filipino preacher accused of sexual abuse and human trafficking in the Philippines and similar charges in the United States has been captured, officials said Sunday. 

Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos announced the arrest of Apollo Quiboloy in a brief statement on his Facebook account but did not provide other details. Philippine police chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil confirmed Quiboloy’s arrest without elaborating. 

Quiboloy went into hiding after a Philippine court ordered his arrest and several others on suspicion of child and sexual abuse. The Philippine Senate has separately ordered Quiboloy’s arrest for refusing to appear in committee hearings that were looking into criminal allegations against him. 

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has urged Quiboloy to surrender and assured him of fair treatment by authorities. 

The preacher and his lawyer have denied the allegations against him, saying they were fabricated by critics and former members who were removed from the religious group. 

In 2021, United States federal prosecutors announced the indictment of Quiboloy for allegedly having sex with women and underage girls who faced threats of abuse and  “eternal damnation” unless they catered to the self-proclaimed “son of God.” 

Quiboloy and two of his top administrators were among nine people named in a superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury and unsealed in November 2021. It contained a raft of charges, including conspiracy, sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, marriage fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling and visa fraud. 

The U.S. Embassy in Manila referred requests for comments to Philippine authorities. 

In August, about 2,000 police backed by riot squads raided a vast religious compound of Quiboloy’s group, called the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, in southern Davao city. The police brought equipment that could detect people hiding in underground tunnels but did not find him in the 30-hectare (75-acre) compound that includes a cathedral, a stadium, a school, a residential area, a hangar and a taxiway leading to Davao International Airport. 

In 2019, Quiboloy claimed he stopped a major earthquake from hitting the southern Philippines. 

He was also a close supporter and spiritual adviser of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is being investigated by the International Criminal Court in connection with the extrajudicial killings by police of thousands of drug suspects. 
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African film, TV event draws big names, big dreams, big business

Posted on by SeeAF

MIP Africa — an event that matches African film and TV creatives to the people and countries that produce their work, wrapped up last week [Sept. 4] with several signed deals. Industry members and legislators from film meccas worldwide attended the event, part of the larger Fame Week Africa conference for creative professionals. Reporter Vicky Stark has the story from Cape Town, South Africa.
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As Volkswagen weighs its first closure of a German auto plant, workers aren’t the only ones worried 

Posted on by SeeEU

FRANKFURT, Germany — Volkswagen is considering closing some factories in its home country for the first time in the German automaker’s 87-year history, saying it otherwise won’t meet the cost-cutting goals it needs to remain competitive.

CEO Oliver Blume also told employees Wednesday that the company must end a three-decade-old job protection pledge that would have prohibited layoffs through 2029.

The statements have stirred outrage among worker representatives and concern among German politicians.

Here are some things to know about the difficulties at one of the world’s best-known auto brands:

What is Volkswagen proposing and why?

Management says the company’s core brand that carries the company’s name needs to achieve 10 billion euros in cost savings by 2026. It recently became clear the Volkswagen Passenger Car division was not on track to do that after relying on retirements and voluntary buyouts to reduce the workforce in Germany.

With Europe’s car market smaller than before the coronavirus pandemic, Volkswagen says it now has more factory capacity than it needs — and carrying underused assembly lines is expensive.

Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz explained it like this to 25,000 workers who gathered at the company’s Wolfsburg home base: Europeans are buying around 2 million cars per year fewer than they did before the pandemic in 2019, when sales reached 15.7 million.

Since Volkswagen has roughly a quarter of the European market, that means “we are short of 500,000 cars, the equivalent of around two plants,” Antlitz told the workers.

“And that has nothing to do with our products or poor sales performance. The market simply is no longer there,” he said.

Does Volkswagen make money?

The Volkswagen Group, whose 10 brands include SEAT, Skoda, CUPRA and commercial vehicles, turned an operating profit of 10.1 billion euros ($11.2 billion) in the first half of this year, down 11% from last year’s first-half figure.

Higher costs outweighed a modest 1.6% increase in sales, which reached 158.8 billion euros but were held down by sluggish demand. Blume called it “a solid performance” in a “demanding environment.” Volkswagen’s luxury brands, which include Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini, are selling better than VW models.

So why is Volkswagen struggling?

The discussion about reducing costs focuses on the core brand and its workers in Germany. Volkswagen’s passenger car division recorded a 68% earnings drop in the second quarter, and its profit margin was a bare 0.9%, down from 4% in the first quarter.

One reason is the division took the bulk of the 1 billion euros that went to job buyouts and other restructuring costs. But growing costs, including for higher wages, and sluggish sales of the company’s line of electric vehicles are a deeper problem. On top of that, new, competitively priced competitors from China are increasing their share of the European market.

Volkswagen must sell more electric cars to meet ever-lower European Union emission limits that take effect starting next year. Yet the company is seeing lower profit margins from those vehicles due to high battery costs and weaker demand for EVs in Europe due to the withdrawal of consumer subsidies and the slow rollout of public charging stations.

Meanwhile, VW’s electric vehicles also face stiff competition in China from models made by local companies.

The world’s automakers are in a battle for the future, spending billions to pivot to lower-emission electric cars in a race to come up with vehicles that are competitive on price and have enough range to persuade buyers to switch. China has dozens of carmakers making electric cars more cheaply than their European equivalents. Increasingly, those cars are being sold in Europe.

Profits have also declined at Germany’s BMW and Mercedes-Benz thanks to the same pressures.

Why are VW’s proposed factory and job cuts a big deal in Germany?

Volkswagen has 10 assembly and parts plants in Germany, where 120,000 of its 684,000 workers worldwide are based. As Europe’s largest carmaker, the company is a symbol of the country’s consumer prosperity and economic growth after World War II.

It has never closed a German factory before. VW last closed a plant in 1988 in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania; its Audi division is in discussions about closing an underutilized plant in Belgium.

Far-right parties fueled by popular disenchantment with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s quarreling, three-party coalition government scored major gains in Sept. 1 elections in Thueringia and Saxony states, located in the former communist East Germany. Nationwide polls show the government’s approval rating at a low point. Plant closings are the last thing the Scholz government needs.

The chancellor spoke with VW management and workers after the possible plant closings became known but was careful to stress that the decision is a matter for the company and its workers.

Why hasn’t Volkswagen already made the cost cuts management wants?

Employee representatives have a lot of clout at Volkswagen. They hold half the seats on the board of directors. The state government, which is a part-owner of the company, also has two board seats — together with the employee representatives a majority — and 20% of the voting rights at the company. Lower Saxony Gov. Stephan Weil has said the company needs to address its costs but should avoid plant closings.

That means management will have to negotiate — a process that will take months.

What does the employee side say?

Managers at the employee assembly faced several minutes of boos, whistles and tooting horns before they could start their presentation on the potential explanation. “We are Volkswagen, you are not,” workers chanted.

Daniela Cavallo, who chairs the company works council representing employees, said the council “won’t go along with plant closings.” Reducing labor costs won’t turn around Volkswagen’s financial situation, she argued.

“Volkswagen’s problem is upper management isn’t doing its job,” Cavallo said. “There are many other areas where the company is responsible… We have to have competitive products; we don’t have the entry-level models in electric cars.”
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NATO member Romania says Russian drone violated its airspace

Posted on by SeeEU

Kyiv, Ukraine — A Russian drone violated Romania’s airspace during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, the NATO member reported Sunday, urging Moscow to stop what it described as an escalation.

The incident occurred as Russia carried out attacks on “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube River in Ukraine, Romania’s Ministry of National Defense said.

Romania deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace, and NATO allies were kept informed, the ministry said. Romanian emergency authorities also issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions.

Preliminary data indicates there may be an “impact zone” in an uninhabited area near the Romanian village of Periprava, the ministry said. It added that an investigation is underway.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Romania has confirmed drone fragments on its territory on several occasions and as recently as July this year.

The Romanian Defense Ministry strongly condemned the Russian attacks on Ukraine, calling them “unjustified and in serious contradiction with the norms of international law.”

Mircea Geoana, NATO’s outgoing deputy secretary-general and Romania’s former top diplomat, said the military alliance also condemned Russia’s violation of Romanian airspace. “While we have no information indicating an intentional attack by Russia against Allies, these acts are irresponsible and potentially dangerous,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Civilians reported killed in Ukraine

In Ukraine, two civilians died and four more suffered wounds in a nighttime Russian airstrike on the northern city of Sumy, the regional military administration reported. Two children were among those wounded, the administration said. In the Kharkiv region in the east, overnight shelling killed two elderly women, according to local Governor Oleh Syniehubov.

During the night, Ukrainian air defenses shot down one of four cruise missiles and 15 of 23 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia, Ukraine’s air force reported. It added that none of the cruise missiles had hit targets.

Later Sunday, three women were killed after Russian forces shelled a village in the eastern Donetsk region, Governor Vadym Filashkin reported on the Telegram messaging app. Elsewhere in the province, rescue teams pulled the bodies of two men from the rubble of a hotel that was destroyed Saturday evening in a Russian airstrike, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service.

That same day, the death toll rose to 58 from the massive Russian missile strike that blasted a military academy Tuesday and a nearby hospital in the eastern city of Poltava, regional Governor Filip Pronin reported. More than 320 others were wounded.

Since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the Russian military has repeatedly used missiles to smash civilian targets, sometimes killing scores of people in a single attack.

Poltava is about 350 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Kyiv, on the main highway and rail route between Kyiv and Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, which is close to the Russian border.

The attack happened as Ukrainian forces sought to carve out their holdings in Russia’s Kursk border region after a surprise incursion that began Aug. 6, as the Russian army hacks its way deeper into eastern Ukraine.

Russian forces continued their monthslong grinding push toward the city of Pokrovsk, and ramped up attacks near the town of Kurakhove farther south, Ukraine’s General Staff reported.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday its troops had taken Novohrodivka, a small town some 19 kilometers (11 miles) southeast of Pokrovsk. An update published Saturday evening by DeepState, a Ukrainian battlefield analysis site, said Russian forces had “advanced” in Novohrodivka and captured Nevelske, a village in the southeast of the Pokrovsk district.

Pokrovsk, which had a prewar population of about 60,000, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region. Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defense and supply routes and would bring Russia closer to its stated aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region. 
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UN official says Sudan’s war has killed at least 20,000 people 

Posted on by SeeAF

Cairo — More than 16 months of war in Sudan has killed more than 20,000 people, a senior United Nations official said Sunday, a grim figure amid a devastating conflict that has wrecked the northeastern African country. 

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, gave the tally at a news conference in Sudan’s Red Sea city of Port Sudan, which serves as the seat of the internationally recognized, military-backed government. He said the death toll could be much higher. 

“Sudan is suffering through a perfect storm of crisis,” Tedros said as he wrapped up his two-day visit to Sudan. “The scale of the emergency is shocking, as is the insufficient action being taken to curtail the conflict.” 

Sudan was plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the military and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, exploded into open warfare across the country. 

The conflict has turned the capital, Khartoum, and other urban areas into battlefields, wrecking civilian infrastructure and an already battered health care system. Without the basics, many hospitals and medical facilities have closed their doors. 

The conflict has created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 13 million people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. They include over 2.3 million who have fled to neighboring countries as refugees. 

The fighting has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the U.N. and international rights groups. 

On Friday, U.N.-backed human rights investigators urged the creation of an “independent and impartial force” to protect civilians, blaming both sides for war crimes including murder, mutilation and torture. 

Devastating seasonal floods in recent weeks have compounded the misery. Dozens of people have been killed and critical infrastructure has been washed away in 12 of Sudan’s 18 provinces, according to local authorities. 

A cholera outbreak is the latest calamity for the country. The disease has killed at least 165 and sickened about 4,200 others in recent weeks, the health ministry said in its latest update Friday. 

“We are calling on the world to wake up and help Sudan out of the nightmare it’s living through,” Tedros said, adding that an immediate cease-fire is urgently required. 

“The best medicine is peace,” he added. 
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Rubble and grief: Morocco’s High Atlas marks one year since record earthquake 

Posted on by SeeAF

IMI N’TALA, Morocco — The rescue crews and bystanders are long gone but the remnants of homes still sit in piles off to the side of the jagged roads.

A year after nearly 3,000 people died when a record earthquake shook communities throughout Morocco’s High Atlas, it still looks like a bomb just went off in villages like Imi N’tala, where dozens of residents died after a chunk of mountainside cracked off and flattened the majority of buildings.

Broken bricks, bent rods of rebar and pieces of kitchen floors remain but have been swept into neater piles alongside plastic tents where the displaced now live. Some await funds to reconstruct their homes. Others await approval of their blueprints.

The region shaken by the earthquake is full of impoverished agricultural villages like Imi N’tala, accessible only via bumpy, unmaintained roads. Associated Press reporters revisited half a dozen of them last week ahead of the first anniversary.

In some places, residents who say they’re awaiting governmental action have begun reconstructing buildings on an ad hoc basis. Elsewhere, people tired of the stuffiness of plastic tents have moved back into their cracked homes or decamped to larger cities, abandoning their old lives.

Streets have been neatly swept in towns like Amizmiz and Moulay Brahim, although cracked buildings and piles of rubble remain, much as they were in the days after the quake.

The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns, where rebuilding efforts on roads, homes, schools and businesses are underway and some residents have been provided metal container homes. But many of those displaced from the more than 55,000 homes destroyed by the temblor remain vulnerable to summer’s heat and winter’s cold, living in plastic tents, impatient to return.

Mohamed Soumer, a 69-year-old retiree who lost his son in last year’s earthquake, is angry because local authorities have forbidden him from rebuilding his home on the same steep mountainside due to safety concerns. He now spends his days with his wife in a plastic tent near his now-rubbled home and fears moving elsewhere and restarting his life in a larger, more expensive area.

“Residents want to stay here because they have land where they grow vegetables to make a living,” he said. “If they go somewhere else and abandon this place, they will not be able to live there.”

The government early on promised households monthly stipends in the aftermath of the earthquake and additional funds for seismically safe reconstruction. It said last week that both had been provided to the majority of eligible families and households.

“Specific solutions are being deployed on the ground for difficult cases,” Morocco’s Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

But on the ground, its disbursal has been uneven, residents say, with many still waiting for funds or reconstruction to commence.

Anger has mounted against local authorities in towns like Amizmiz and villages like Talat N’Yaqoub, where residents have protested against their living conditions. They have criticized the slow pace of reconstruction and demanded more investment in social services and infrastructure, which has long gone neglected in contrast with Morocco’s urban centers and coastline.

Officials have said rebuilding will cost 120 billion dirhams ($12 billion) and take about five years. The government has rebuilt some stretches of rural roads, health centers and schools but last week the commission tasked with reconstruction acknowledged the need to speed up some home rebuilding.
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‘Digital pause’: France pilots school mobile phone ban 

Posted on by SeeEU

Paris — Tens of thousands of pupils in France are going through a slightly different return to school this autumn, deprived of their mobile phones.

At 180 “colleges,” the middle schools French children attend between the ages of 11 and 15, a scheme is being trialed to ban the use of mobile phones during the entire school day.

The trial of the “pause numerique” (“digital pause”), which encompasses more than 50,000 pupils, is being implemented ahead of a possible plan to enforce it nationwide from 2025.

Right now, pupils in French middle schools must turn off their phones. The experiment takes things further, requiring children to hand in their phones on arrival.

It is part of a move by President Emmanuel Macron for children to spend less time in front of screens, which the government fears is arresting their development.

The use of “a mobile phone or any other electronic communications terminal equipment” has been banned in nurseries, elementary schools and middle schools in France since 2018.

In high schools, which French children attend between the ages of 15 and 18, internal regulations may prohibit the use of a cell phone by pupils in “all or part of the premises.”

Bruno Bobkiewicz, general secretary of SNPDEN-Unsa, France’s top union of school principals, said the 2018 law had been enforced “pretty well overall.”

“The use of mobile phones in middle schools is very low today”, he said, adding that in case of a problem “we have the means to act.”  

Improving ‘school climate’

The experiment comes after Macron said in January he wanted to “regulate the use of screens among young children.”

According to a report submitted to Macron, children under 11 should not be allowed to use phones, while access to social networks should be limited for pupils under 15.

With an increasing amount of research showing the risks of excessive screen time for children, the concern has become a Europe-wide issue.  

Sweden’s Public Health Agency said this week children under the age of two should be kept away from digital media and television completely and it should be limited for more senior ages.

One of Britain’s biggest mobile network operators, EE, has warned parents they should not give smartphones to children under the age of 11.

The French education ministry hopes that the cellphone-free environment would improve “school climate” and reduce instances of violence including online harassment and dissemination of violent images.

The ministry also wants to improve student performance because the use of telephones harms “the ability to concentrate” and “the acquisition of knowledge.”

The experiment also aims to “raise pupils’ awareness of the rational use of digital tools.”

Jerome Fournier, national secretary of the SE-UNSA teachers’ union, said the experiment will seek “to respond to the difficulties of schools for which the current rule is not sufficient,” even if “in the vast majority of schools it works.”

‘Complicated to implement’

According to the education ministry, “it is up to each establishment to determine practical arrangements,” with the possibility of setting up a locker system.

Pupils will have to hand in their phones on arrival, putting them in boxes or lockers. They will collect them at the end of classes. The ban also extends to extracurricular activities and school trips.

But the enforcement of the measure across all schools in France from January 2025 could be expensive.

According to local authorities, the measure could cost “nearly 130 million euros” for the 6,980 middle schools in France.

If a phone goes missing from a locker, this would also cause an added financial problem.

Education Minister Nicole Belloubet said on Tuesday that the ban would be “put in place gradually.”

“The financial costs seem quite modest to me,” she added.

Many are sceptical.

For the leading middle and high school teachers’ union Snes-FSU, the ban raises too many questions.

“How will things work on arrival?” wondered the head of the union, Sophie Venetitay. “How will things work during the day,” she said, adding that some students have two mobile phones.  

The SE-UNSA teachers’ union also expressed reservations.

“We’re going to need staff to manage arrivals, drops-off and departures, and the collection of mobile phones,” said Fournier. 

“Sometimes pupils just have time to put their things away when classes end, and run to the bus so as not to miss it,” he added.

Bobkiewicz of SNPDEN-Unsa, France’s top union of school principals, agreed.

He said he did not want to rummage through pupils’ bags to look for their phones.

“It’s going to be complicated to implement.” 
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Drought forces Kenya’s Maasai, other cattle herders to consider fish, camels

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KAJIADO, Kenya — The blood, milk and meat of cattle have long been staple foods for Maasai pastoralists in Kenya, perhaps the country’s most recognizable community. But climate change is forcing the Maasai to contemplate a very different dish: fish.

A recent yearslong drought in Kenya killed millions of livestock. While Maasai elders hope the troubles are temporary and they will be able to resume traditional lives as herders, some are adjusting to a kind of food they had never learned to enjoy.

Fish were long viewed as part of the snake family due to their shape, and thus inedible. Their smell had been unpleasant and odd to the Maasai, who call semi-arid areas home.

“We never used to live near lakes and oceans, so fish was very foreign for us,” said Maasai Council of Elders chair Kelena ole Nchoi. “We grew up seeing our elders eat cows and goats.”

Among the Maasai and other pastoralists in Kenya and wider East Africa — like the Samburu, Somali and Borana — cattle are also a status symbol, a source of wealth and part of key cultural events like marriages as part of dowries.

But the prolonged drought in much of East Africa left carcasses of emaciated cattle strewn across vast dry lands. In early 2023, the Kenya National Drought Management Authority said 2.6 million livestock had died, with an estimated value of 226 billion Kenya shillings ($1.75 billion).

Meanwhile, increasing urbanization and a growing population have reduced available grazing land, forcing pastoralists to adopt new ways to survive.

In Kajiado county near Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, the local government is supporting fish farming projects for pastoralists — and encouraging them to eat fish, too.

Like many other Maasai women, Charity Oltinki previously engaged in beadwork, and her husband was in charge of the family’s herd. But the drought killed almost 100 of their cows, and only 50 sheep of their 300-strong flock survived.

“The lands were left bare, with nothing for the cows to graze on,” Oltinki said. “So, I decided to set aside a piece of land to rear fish and monitor how they would perform.”

The county government supplied her with pond liners, tilapia fish fingerlings and some feed. Using her savings from membership in a cooperative society, Oltinki secured a loan and had a well dug to ease the challenge of water scarcity.

After six months, the first batch of hundreds of fish was harvested, with the largest selling for up to 300 Kenyan shillings each ($2.30).

Another member of the Maasai community in Kajiado, Philipa Leiyan, started farming fish in addition to keeping livestock.

“When the county government introduced us to this fish farming project, we gladly received it because we considered it as an alternative source of livelihood,” Leiyan said.

The Kajiado government’s initiative started in 2014 and currently works with 600 pastoralists to help diversify their incomes and provide a buffer against the effects of climate change. There was initial reluctance, but the number of participants has grown from about 250 before the drought began in 2022.

“The program has seen some importance,” said Benson Siangot, director of fisheries in Kajiado county, adding that it also addresses issues of food insecurity and malnutrition.

The Maasai share their love for cattle with the Samburu, an ethnic group that lives in arid and semi-arid areas of northern Kenya and speaks a dialect of the Maa language that the Maasai speak.

The recent drought has forced the Samburu to look beyond cattle, too — to camels.

In Lekiji village, Abdulahi Mohamud now looks after 20 camels. The 65-year-old father of 15 lost his 30 cattle during the drought and decided to try an animal more suited to long dry spells.

“Camels are easier to rear as they primarily feed on shrubs and can survive in harsher conditions,” he said. “When the pasture dries out, all the cattle die.”

According to Mohamud, a small camel can be bought for 80,000 to 100,000 Kenyan shillings ($600 to $770) while the price of a cow ranges from 20,000 to 40,000 ($154 to $300).

He saw the camel’s resilience as worth the investment.

In a vast grazing area near Mohamud, 26-year-old Musalia Piti looked after his father’s 60 camels. The family lost 50 cattle during the drought and decided to invest in camels that they can sell whenever they need cattle for traditional ceremonies. Cows among the Samburu are used for dowries.

“You have to do whatever it takes to find cattle for wedding ceremonies, even though our herds may be smaller nowadays,” said Lesian Ole Sempere, a 59-year-old Samburu elder. Offering a cow as a gift to a prospective bride’s parents encourages them to declare their daughter as “your official wife,” he said.
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Super Typhoon Yagi toll rises to 9 in Vietnam after landslide

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Ha Long, Vietnam — Super Typhoon Yagi ripped roofs off buildings, sank boats and triggered landslides in Vietnam, leaving nine people dead as of Sunday, after tearing through southern China and the Philippines.

A family of four was killed in a landslide in the mountainous Hoa Binh province of northern Vietnam early Sunday morning, according to state media.

The landslide happened around midnight, after several hours of heavy rain brought by Yagi, when a hillside gave way and collapsed onto a house, VNExpress said, citing local authorities.

The home’s 51-year-old owner escaped but his wife, daughter and two grandchildren were buried, their bodies recovered soon after.

Yagi, which has devastated infrastructure and uprooted trees, made landfall in northern Vietnam on Saturday, packing winds exceeding 149 kilometers per hour.

Four people were killed Saturday as roofing flew through the air, disaster management authorities said.

A man in Hai Duong province was killed Friday when heavy winds brought down a tree.

Several areas of the port city of Hai Phong were under half a meterof flood waters on Sunday, and electricity was out, with power lines and electric poles damaged, according to AFP journalists.

At Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site about 70 kilometers up the coast from the city, fishermen were in shock as they examined the damage Sunday morning.

At least 23 boats were seriously damaged or sunk at the Hai Au boat lock on Tuan Chau island, according to local residents.

Rooftops of buildings were blown off and motorbikes were left toppled over in piles of building rubble and glass, AFP journalists observed.

Pham Van Thanh, 51, a crew member of a tourist boat, said all the vessel’s crew remained on board since Friday to prevent it from sinking.

“The wind was pushing from our back, with so much pressure that no boat could stand,” he told AFP.

“Then the first one sank. Then one after another.

“I have been a sailor for more than 20 years and have never experienced such a strong and violent typhoon,” he said.

Before hitting Vietnam, Yagi tore through southern China and the Philippines, killing at least 24 people and injuring dozens of others.

Typhoons in the region are now forming closer to the coast, intensifying more rapidly, and staying over land for longer due to climate change, according to a study published in July.

 
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Pope Francis delivers medical supplies in visit to remote jungle town

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VANIMO, Papua New Guinea — Pope Francis flew deep into the jungle of the Southwestern Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea on Sunday to visit Catholics living in one of the most remote areas of the world and deliver medical supplies and other aid.

Traveling 1,000 kilometers in a C-130 cargo aircraft provided by the Royal Australian Air Force, Francis arrived with a small entourage in Vanimo, a township of some 12,000 people in the northwestern corner of country’s main island, with no running water and scarce electricity.

The 87-year-old pope brought hundreds of kilograms of items to help support the local population, said Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni. They included various medicines and clothing, as well said toys and musical instruments for school children, Bruni said.

The pope is visiting the nation of 600 islands as part of his ambitious 12-day, four-country tour of Southeast Asia and Oceania, the longest of his 11-year-old papacy.

He came to Vanimo at the invitation of local missionaries with the Catholic Institute of the Incarnate Word. They, like Francis, the first pope from the Americas, are from Argentina.

“You are doing something beautiful, and it is important that you are not left alone,” Francis told the crowd, which the Vatican estimated at 20,000, of missionaries and Catholic faithful from Vanimo in a meeting outside the town’s one-story, wood-paneled cathedral parish.

“You live in a magnificent land, enriched by a great variety of plants and birds,” said the pope. “The beauty of the landscape is matched by the beauty of a community where people love one another.”

The Rev. Tomas Ravaioli, one of the missionaries, said he could not believe the pope had actually come to Vanimo. “He is keeping his promise to come,” said the priest. “We cannot believe it. At his age he is making an enormous effort.”

A sprawling country of mountains, jungle and rivers, Papua New Guinea is home to more than 800 languages and hundreds of tribes, including dozens of uncontacted peoples.

As with other events throughout his stay in the country, Francis was greeted in a field outside the cathedral with a traditional dance from a group wearing feathered headdresses and straw skirts. Some of the men wore koteka, a traditional gourd covering over the penis.

The pope also heard four testimonies from local Catholics. Steven Abala, a lay teacher, described how some rural communities, cut off from roads, must wait weeks or months between visits by priests.

Abala presented Francis with a headdress with yellow and brown feathers, which the pope tried on.

The Vatican says there are around 2.5 million Catholics in Papua New Guinea, which has a population estimated at anywhere from 9 million to 17 million.

The country has become a major target of international companies for its gas, gold and other reserves. In a speech to its political authorities on Saturday, Francis called for better treatment of its workers and appealed for an end to a spate of ethnic violence that has killed dozens in recent months.

In Vanimo, the pope asked local Catholics to work “to put an end to destructive behaviors such as violence, infidelity, exploitation, alcohol and drug abuse, evils which imprison and take away the happiness of so many of our brothers and sisters.”

Before heading to Vanimo, Francis celebrated a Mass on Sunday with about 35,000 people at a sports venue in Port Moresby, the nation’s capital. He told the local populace that while they may think they live in “a far away and distant land,” God is near to them.

The pope will return to Port Moresby on Sunday evening after spending 2½ hours in Vanimo. Round trip, the pontiff will fly some 2,000 kilometers over about four hours.

Francis is visiting Papua New Guinea until Monday as part of a tour that first included a stop in Indonesia. He travels next to East Timor, then Singapore before heading back to Rome on Sept. 13.
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Pope brings humanitarian aid to Papua New Guinea as he celebrates periphery

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PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — Pope Francis honored the Catholic Church of the peripheries on Sunday as he celebrated Mass in Papua New Guinea before heading to a remote part of the South Pacific nation with a ton of humanitarian aid to deliver to the missionaries and faithful who live there.

An estimated 35,000 people filled the stadium in the capital, Port Moresby, for the morning Mass. It began with dancers in grass skirts and feathered headdresses performing to traditional drum beats as priests in green vestments processed up onto the altar.

In his homily, Francis told the crowd that they may well feel themselves distant from both their faith and the institutional church, but that God was near to them.

“You who live on this large island in the Pacific Ocean may sometimes have thought of yourselves as a far away and distant land, situated at the edge of the world,” Francis said. “Yet … today the Lord wants to draw near to you, to break down distances, to let you know that you are at the center of his heart and that each one of you is important to him.”

Francis was himself traveling to a distant land on Sunday, flying into remote Vanimo, on Papua New Guinea’s northwest coast, to meet with the small Catholic community there served by missionaries from his native Argentina.

Francis was being transported by an Australian military aircraft and was bringing with him one ton of humanitarian aid, including medicine, clothes and toys for children, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.

Eight suitcases of medicine and other necessities had been prepared by one of the Argentine missionaries, the Rev. Alejandro Diaz, during a recent trip to Rome and left with the Vatican to bring in on the cargo plane, the ANSA news agency reported.

Francis has prioritized the church on the “peripheries,” saying it is more important than the center of the institutional church. In keeping with that philosophy, Francis has largely shunned foreign trips to European capitals, preferring instead far-flung communities where Catholics are often a minority.

Vanimo, population 11,000, certainly fits the bill. Located near Papua New Guinea’s border with Indonesia, the coastal city is perhaps best known as a surfing destination.

Francis, history’s first Latin American pope, has also had a special affinity for the work of Catholic missionaries. As a young Argentine Jesuit, he had hoped to serve as a missionary in Japan but was prevented from going because of his poor health.

Now as pope, he has often held up missionaries as models for the church, especially those who have sacrificed to bring the faith to far-away places.

There are about 2.5 million Catholics in Papua New Guinea, according to Vatican statistics, out of a population in the Commonwealth nation believed to be around 10 million. The Catholics practice the faith along with traditional Indigenous beliefs, including animism and sorcery.

On Saturday, Francis heard first-hand about how often women are falsely accused of witchcraft, then shunned by their families. In remarks to priests, bishops and nuns, Francis urged the church leaders in Papua New Guinea to be particularly close to these people on the margins who had been wounded by “prejudice and superstition.”

“I think too of the marginalized and wounded, both morally and physically, by prejudice and superstition sometimes to the point of having to risk their lives,” Francis said. He urged the church to be particularly close to such people on the peripheries, with “closeness, compassion and tenderness.”

Francis heads on Monday to East Timor and then wraps up his visit in Singapore later in the week.
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Belarusian Sabalenka defeats America’s Pegula to win US Open women’s title

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NEW YORK — Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka beat American sixth seed Jessica Pegula 7-5, 7-5 in the U.S. Open women’s final on Saturday.

Sabalenka blocked out the wild cheers of the home crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium to break Pegula in the final game and win her first title at Flushing Meadows.

A year after coming up short in the final, the second seed fought back from a break down in both sets to claim victory and fell to the court in her moment of triumph.

The 30-year-old Pegula had waited a long time to reach her first major final but could not match her opponent’s raw power despite the noisy backing of the New York crowd.

The roof on Arthur Ashe Stadium was closed because of heavy rain, and the players traded breaks twice as they settled into the stormy affair in front of a celebrity-packed house.

Sabalenka held her serve through a four-deuce 11th game and fought through a spine-tingling 12th, mixing precision at the net with her usual power from the baseline before breaking her opponent on the fifth set point.

Pegula struggled with her rackets throughout the match, complaining to her coaches as she seemed unable to find the right tension on her strings, and it looked as though she would not put up a fight in the second set when Sabalenka went 3-0 up.

But the American found another level and brought the fans to their feet when she won the next five games in a furious fight back.

Sabalenka leveled when she sent over a forehand winner that just kissed the line on break point in the 10th game and sought to bring a swift end to the contest, holding serve and then applying pressure from the baseline in the final game.

The tears flowed immediately for Sabalenka as she claimed her third Grand Slam title after winning the Australian Open twice, and she high-fived fans as she ran up the stands to share a joyful celebration with her team.
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Almodovar’s ‘The Room Next Door’ triumphs at Venice Festival

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VENICE, ITALY — Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s first English-language movie “The Room Next Door,” which tackles the hefty themes of euthanasia and climate change, won the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

Starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, the film received an 18-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Venice earlier in the week — one of the longest in recent memory.

Almodovar is a darling of the festival circuit and was awarded a lifetime achievement award at Venice in 2019 for his bold, irreverent and often funny Spanish-language features.

He also won an Oscar in the best foreign language category for his 1999 film “All About My Mother.”

Now aged 74, he has decided to try his hand at English, focusing his lens on questions of life, death and friendship. Speaking after collecting his prize, he said euthanasia should not be blocked by politics or religion.

“I believe that saying goodbye to this world cleanly and with dignity is a fundamental right of every human being,” he said, speaking in Spanish.

He also thanked his two female stars for their performances.

“This award really belongs to them, it’s a film about two women and the two women are Julianne and Tilda,” he said.

While “The Room Next Door” had been widely tipped to win, the runner-up Silver Lion award was a surprise, going to Italian director Maura Delpero for her slow-paced drama set in the Italian Alps during World War Two — “Vermiglio.”

Australia’s Nicole Kidman won the best actress award for her risqué role in the erotic “Babygirl,” where she plays a hard-nosed CEO, who jeopardizes both her career and her family by having a toxic affair with a young, manipulative intern.

Kidman was in Venice on Saturday, but did not attend the awards ceremony after learning that her mother had died unexpectedly.

France’s Vincent Lindon was named best actor for “The Quiet Son,” a topical, French-language drama about a family torn apart by extreme-right radicalism.

Road to Oscars

The best director award went to American Brady Corbet for his 3-1/2 hour-long movie “The Brutalist,” which was shot on 70mm celluloid and recounts the epic tale of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor played by Adrien Brody, who seeks to rebuild his life in the United States.

“We have the power to support each other and tell the Goliath corporations that try and push us around: ‘No, it’s three-and-a-half hours long and it’s on 70mm,” he told the auditorium Saturday.

The festival marks the start of the awards season and regularly throws up big favorites for the Oscars, with eight of the past 12 best director awards at the Oscars going to films that debuted at Venice.

The prize for best screenplay went to Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega for “I’m Still Here,” a film about Brazil’s military dictatorship, while the special jury award went to the abortion drama “April,” by Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili.

Among the movies that left Venice’s Lido island empty-handed were Todd Phillips’s “Joker: Folie à Deux,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, the sequel to his original “The Joker” which claimed the top prize here in 2019.

Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” with Daniel Craig playing a gay drug addict, and Pablo Larrain’s Maria Callas biopic “Maria,” starring Angelina Jolie as the celebrated Greek soprano, also won plaudits from the critics but did not get any awards.

The Venice jury this year was headed by French actress Isabelle Huppert.
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Iran’s secret service plots to kill Jews in Europe, says France

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paris — A Paris court in May detained and charged a couple on accusations that they were involved in Iranian plots to kill Jews in Germany and France, police sources told Agence France-Presse.

Authorities charged Abdelkrim S., 34, and his partner Sabrina B., 33, on May 4 with conspiring with a criminal terrorist organization and placed them in pretrial detention. 

The case, known as “Marco Polo” and revealed Thursday by French news website Mediapart, signals a revival in Iranian state-sponsored terrorism in Europe, according to a report by France’s General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) seen by AFP. 

“Since 2015, the Iranian (secret) services have resumed a targeted killing policy,” the French security agency wrote, adding that “the threat has worsened again in the context of the Israel-Hamas war.” 

The alleged objective for Iranian intelligence was to target civilians and sow fear in Europe among the country’s political opposition as well as among Jews and Israelis. 

Iran is accused of recruiting criminals, including drug lords, to conduct such operations. 

Abdelkrim S. was previously sentenced to 10 years in prison in a killing in Marseille and released on probation in July 2023. 

He is accused of being the main France-based operative for an Iran-sponsored terrorist cell that planned acts of violence in France and Germany. 

A former fellow inmate is believed to have connected the suspect with the cell’s coordinator, a major drug trafficker from the Lyon area who likely visited Iran in May, according to the DGSI. 

The group intended to attack a Paris-based former employee at an Israeli security firm and three of his colleagues residing in the Paris suburbs. 

Three Israeli-German citizens in Munich and Berlin were also among the targets. 

Investigators believe that Abdelkrim S., despite his probation, made multiple trips to Germany for scouting purposes, including travels to Berlin with his wife. 

He denied the accusations and said he simply had purchases to make. 

French authorities are also crediting the cell with plots to set fire to four Israeli-owned companies in the south of France between late December 2023 and early January 2024, said a police source. 

Abdelkrim S. rejected the claims, saying he had acted as a go-between on Telegram for the mastermind and other individuals involved in a planned insurance scam, the source added. 
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