WORLD BRIEFING: July 26, 2024

France's high-speed rail network was hit by "malicious acts" including arson attacks that have disrupted the transport system, train operator SNCF said Friday, hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. “This is a massive attack on a large scale to paralyse the TGV network," SNCF told AFP, adding that many routes will have to be cancelled and the situation would last "at least all weekend while repairs are conducted…SNCF was the victim of several simultaneous malicious acts overnight," the national train operator said, adding that the attacks affected its Atlantic, northern and eastern lines. SNCF urged passengers to postpone their trips and stay away from train stations. The attacks were launched as Paris prepares for the opening ceremony, with 7,500 athletes, 300,000 spectators and an audience of VIPs - France 24

One of the world's most powerful drug lords, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, has been arrested by US federal agents in El Paso, Texas. Zambada, 76, founded the criminal organisation with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is currently jailed in the US. Arrested with Zambada on Thursday was Guzman's son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, said the US justice department. In February, Zambada was charged by US prosecutors with a conspiracy to make and distribute fentanyl, a drug more powerful than heroin that has been blamed for the US opioid crisis. - BBC

A wildfire that roared into the community of Jasper, Canada late Wednesday, incinerating vast stretches of the townsite, has grown to 36,000 hectares, more than quadrupling in size since Tuesday. Jasper National Park is one of Canada’s most treasured tourism destinations, nestled in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. Alberta government officials said preliminary estimates suggest 30 to 50 per cent of the town's structures may have burned. Officials from Parks Canada, the lead agency on the fire, confirmed many buildings were lost, but declined to comment on the full extent of the damage. Video shared to social media Thursday, taken from inside a truck, showed blocks of buildings and houses turned to charred rubble and foundations. Cars blackened by fire line the streets. Scorched trees stand like matchsticks - CBC

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday said she urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal soon with Hamas so that dozens of hostages held by the militants in Gaza since Oct. 7 can return home. Harris said she had a “frank and constructive” conversation with Netanyahu in which she affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself but also expressed deep concern about the high death toll in Gaza over nine months of war and the “dire” humanitarian situation there. With all eyes on the likely Democratic presidential nominee, Harris largely reiterated President Joe Biden’s longstanding message that it’s time to find an endgame to the brutal war in Gaza, where more than 39,000 Palestinians have died. Yet she offered a more forceful tone about the urgency of the moment just one day after Netanyahu gave a fiery speech to Congress in which he defended the war, vowed “total victory” against Hamas and made relatively scant mention of cease-fire negotiations. - AP

The Kremlin will intentionally cause YouTube download speeds to plummet in the country in response to the streaming giant’s purported “anti-Russia policy,” a government official said Thursday. “By the end of this week, YouTube download speed on desktop computers may drop [by] 40 percent, and by the end of next week [by] 70 percent,” Alexander Khinshtein, chairman of Russia’s parliamentary committee on technology, wrote on Telegram. The measure will only affect desktop users, Khinshtein said. Khinshtein said the measure was a response to YouTube’s taking down “channels of our public figures (bloggers, journalists, artists), whose position differs from the Western point of view.” - Politico

The Pentagon has released an updated Arctic strategy that warns of low-level Russian "destabilizing" activities in the Far North aimed at the United States, Canada and its allies. The 18-page assessment, released earlier this week, also points to increased naval co-operation in the region between Moscow and Beijing and promises more allied military exercises, the deployment of new technologies and increased co-operation with NATO. The disruption activities in the Arctic involve potential Russian jamming of global positioning system (GPS) satellites, according to the report. "Of concern, Russia's Arctic capabilities have the potential to hold the U.S. homeland, as well as allied and partner territory, at risk," said the strategy. "In addition to nuclear, conventional, and special operations threats, Russia seeks to carry out lower level destabilizing activities in the Arctic against the United States and our allies, including through global positioning system jamming and military flights that are conducted in an unprofessional manner inconsistent with international law and custom." CBC

At least four companies at an obscure Hong Kong address have acquired millions of restricted chips and sensors for military technology companies in Russia, many of which have been placed under sanctions by the U.S. government, according to an examination by The New York Times. The companies have names like Olax Finance and Rikkon Holding. Their office, with a faded 704 number on the door, appears unoccupied. No one answered during a visit last month. An ad for air-conditioning hung in the crack of the door. Yet the companies are a crucial link in a chain connecting U.S. research laboratories to Chinese factories, Russian arms makers and the battlefields of Ukraine — and a sign that the U.S. government and tech giants cannot control where their technology goes. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, nearly $4 billion of restricted chips have poured into Russia from more than 6,000 companies, including those at Hong Kong’s 135 Bonham Strand, according to a Times analysis of Russian customs data, corporate records, domain registrations and sanctions data. The analysis examined nearly 800,000 shipments of restricted electronic goods into Russia since mid-2021. Even as the West sought to cut off access to semiconductors through trade restrictions, Russia established such a robust parallel supply chain that it imported almost the same number of critical chips in the last three months of 2023 that it did in the same period in 2021, according to the analysis of Russian customs data. The reliance on China for many of these chips also deepened, with transactions that were historically settled in U.S. dollars now increasingly executed in Renminbi, according to the analysis. - NYT