Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a coordinated attack on France’s railways ahead of the Olympics, a U.S. law enforcement victory against Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, and a North Korean global cyber espionage campaign.
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Arson vs. Olympic Torch
Coordinated arson attacks targeted France’s high-speed train network on Friday, just hours before Paris was due to kick off the 2024 Olympic Games. Local officials reported no injuries, but the fires damaged signal substations and cables along at least three major lines connected to the capital. Authorities foiled another attack on the Paris-Marseille line, and a bomb alert briefly suspended operations at the Basel-Mulhouse airport near the French-Swiss border.
“This attack is not a coincidence,” said Valérie Pécresse, president of the regional council of the Île-de-France region. “It’s an effort to destabilize France.” Around 800,000 commuters, including some Olympic athletes, were stranded at railway stations, and thousands of staff have been deployed to repair the damages.
“What we know, what we see, is that this operation was prepared, coordinated, that nerve centers were targeted, which shows a certain knowledge of the network to know where to strike,” French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said. Paris’s anti-terrorist sub-directorate along with the organized crime office will oversee a nationwide investigation into the incident.
France has faced a litany of security challenges ahead of the Games. On Tuesday, the French Interior Ministry announced that around 1,000 people suspected of possibly meddling on behalf of foreign powers were blocked from attending the Olympics. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin did not specify which countries were involved, but he suggested that Russia was likely just one of the perpetrators.
The attacks also exposed security gaps in Paris despite Élysée Palace having launched a massive safety operation ahead of the Games. France deployed around 45,000 police officers, 10,000 soldiers, and 2,000 private security agents to secure the opening ceremony along the River Seine, as well as other sites in the Paris region, with snipers positioned on rooftops and drones in the air. Roughly 1,900 police reinforcements sent by more than 40 countries are also assisting in security operations.
The ongoing Israel-Hamas war has also led Paris to assign its elite police unit, the GIGN, to protect Israel’s athletes 24 hours a day; in the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, a Palestinian terrorist organization killed 11 Israeli athletes and one West German police officer. Friday’s incident also raised the specter of past terrorist attacks in France. In 2015, Islamic State militants killed 130 people in and around Paris. The following year, an attacker drove a truck through Bastille Day celebrations in Nice, killing 86 people and injuring hundreds more.
Yet many in Paris have hoped that the Olympics would mark a turning point for France—both in terms of safety as well as political trust. French politics has been bogged down by party infighting for weeks after snap elections earlier this month led to a gridlocked National Assembly, with no bloc obtaining an absolute majority. Attal is expected to step down as prime minister once a new cabinet is appointed.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach reiterated on Friday that he had full confidence in French authorities, and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the attacks would have “no impact” on the opening ceremony.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Sinaloa crackdown. U.S. authorities arrested two suspected leaders of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel on Thursday in one of U.S. law enforcement’s biggest victories against the organization, which is considered the No. 1 supplier of fentanyl into the United States. Federal agents reportedly tricked Sinaloa co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada into boarding a private plane carrying Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of co-founder and former Sinaloa boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán. Zambada thought the aircraft was taking them to inspect property in Mexico near the U.S. border. However, Guzmán López was actually helping U.S. officials capture Zambada, according to a U.S. law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.
The U.S.-bound plane landed at Santa Teresa International Jetport in Texas, on Thursday, where Guzmán López and Zambada were then both detained. Mexican Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said the Mexican government “did not participate” in Thursday’s operation. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said both suspects face several charges, including involvement in the cartel’s “deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.” On Friday, Zambada entered a plea of not guilty. He is being held without bond, and a detention hearing is set for July 31.
Guzmán López is expected to appear in federal district court in Chicago in the coming days. It is not clear what potential benefits—if any—he or his family may receive for cooperating with law enforcement. His father, El Chapo, is serving a life sentence at a maximum state prison in Colorado for drug trafficking, money laundering, and other weapons-related offenses. His brother, Ovidio Guzmán López, was arrested in Mexico and extradited last September to Chicago, where he is expected to stand trial.
Cyber espionage. The United States, United Kingdom, and South Korea accused a group of North Korean hackers on Thursday of operating a yearslong global cyber espionage campaign. The group—which cybersecurity researchers have variously dubbed Andariel, APT45, or Onyx Sleet—allegedly targeted computer systems in India, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as possibly others, to gather classified military intelligence to bolster North Korea’s banned nuclear weapons program. At least one suspect has been named, though he is believed to be in North Korea.
The targeted computer systems were involved in their respective countries’ defense and engineering sectors, including the manufacturing of tanks, submarines, naval vessels, fighter aircraft, and missile and radar systems. NASA, Randolph Air Force Base in Texas, and Robins Air Force Base in Georgia were among the U.S. targets. The hackers funded their efforts by using ransomware targeting U.S. hospitals and health care entities, U.S. officials allege.
Presidential election. Venezuelans head to the polls on Sunday in one of the country’s most serious electoral challenges in decades. Incumbent President Nicolás Maduro is facing former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia after Maduro blocked the candidacy of opposition leader María Corina Machado. Venezuela’s usually fractious opposition has since unified around González.
The opposition is campaigning largely on economic reforms. Falling oil prices, corruption, government mismanagement, and high emigration rates have plagued Maduro’s 11 years in office. In 2018, Maduro won reelection in a vote widely seen as a sham, and renewed efforts in recent years to ban political dissidents, activists, and journalists have resulted in sweeping human rights abuse allegations against Maduro’s administration.
Meanwhile, high costs of living and medicine shortages continue to afflict the general population. According to Gallup, 68 percent of Venezuelans struggle to afford food—the highest percentage across Latin America. Freedom House classified Venezuela as “not free” in its 2023 global index.
What in the World?
About how many citizens did Malaysia evacuate from Bangladesh on Tuesday in response to ongoing violent protests that country?
A. 75
B. 120
C. 210
D. 290
Odds and Ends
While all eyes are on Olympic sprinters in Paris to see if they can break Usain Bolt’s world record, another major race has kicked up dust in Europe. Dozens of garden snails gathered in the rural village of Congham, England, earlier this month for the World Snail Racing Championships. Instead of Bolt’s 9.69 seconds to complete the 100-meter dash in the 2008 Olympics, a record that he beat the following year, snails competed to break the two-minute record to cross 13.5 inches. At that rate, it would take a snail nine hours and 43 minutes to achieve the shortest Olympic race.
And the Answer Is…
B. 120
The protests, which began last month in response to a government job quota policy, have morphed into a nationwide uprising against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, Salil Tripathi writes.
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