International Desk French rail officials warned of travel chaos for hundreds of thousands of people throughout the weekend after saboteurs following a meticulous plan paralyzed much of the train network Friday as the Olympic Games started. No immediate claim of responsibility was made for the arson attacks on cabling boxes at junctions strategically picked out north, southwest, and east of the capital where the Olympics opening ceremony was staged on Friday night. Rail workers thwarted a fourth attempt to destroy safety equipment. The SNCF rail company called it a "massive attack". "Our intelligence services and law enforcement are mobilized to find and punish the perpetrators of these criminal acts," Prime Minister Gabriel Attal posted on X, calling the attacks "prepared and coordinated acts of sabotage". Services from Paris to much of France saw mass cancellations and delays. The Eurostar company said it scrapped about a quarter of its trains between London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. It predicted cancelling about a fifth of trains over the weekend and all services will face delays. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had to take a plane instead of a high-speed train to the Olympics ceremony. Four special trains bringing Olympic athletes to Paris, including some US team members, went ahead, SNCF said. With one of France`s busiest holiday travel weekends clashing with the start of the Olympics, SNCF said about a quarter of trains will be cancelled on Saturday and Sunday on the lines attacked. Trains that run will face delays. The company said thousands of staff worked to repair the damage and try to get services running again. It is estimated that about 250,000 passengers were affected on Friday. Junior transport minister Patrice Vergriete said 800,000 could face the fallout over the three days. The coordinated attacks were staged at 0200 GMT. At each site, the perpetrators targeted fibre optic cables that carry safety information for drivers and control rail changes, SNCF chief executive Jean-Pierre Farandou said. Gerard Due, mayor of Croisilles in northern France, one of the sites hit, said the attackers had specialised equipment to access the cables and then "threw a flammable liquid" on them. Vergriete said that the saboteurs had been spotted with "vans", while "incendiary devices were found at the scene". Paris prosecutors opened an investigation into attacks on "the fundamental interests of the nation" and criminal conspiracy. A similar sabotage attack was staged in Germany last year and in eastern France in January 2023. The attacks left passengers stranded in stations across Paris and in many cities in eastern, western and northern France. Some at Montparnasse station in Paris were left in tears. Charles Fazio, a 70-year-old American from Florida, went to the station to try to get information. "I don`t understand anything," he said. "We have to go to Lille tomorrow for the Olympics". French security forces are on their highest alert to prevent attacks during the Paris Olympics. Workers carrying out maintenance at Vergigny, southeast of Paris, stopped one attempted attack there. French officials refused to comment on the identity of the saboteurs. Far-left French anarchists have a history of targeting the train network with arson attacks. The arson method used resembled past attacks by extreme-left activists, a security source told AFP. President Emmanuel Macron has said in the past that Russia was planning to target the Games. Police arrested a Russian man this week in Paris who was suspected of "organizing events likely to lead to destabilization during the Olympic Games".

International Desk Following the withdrawal of US President Joe Biden from the US presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris is widely expected to be nominated as the Democrat’s candidate in the coming weeks. If Harris wins the presidency, she is expected to largely stick to Biden’s foreign policy script on key issues. “Harris’s policy appears to pursue a conflicted de-escalation with Iran by trying to reach, if not a new nuclear deal, at least a new agreement or understanding that would pause Iran’s nuclear weapon development,” Arman Mahmoudian, lecturer and international affairs analyst at the University of South Florida in the US, told DW. “On the other hand, Harris is also interested in developing a new generation of human rights-oriented policies toward Iran, specifically improving women’s rights. The combination of these two approaches makes it challenging for her to pursue Iran policy effectively,” he added. Standing up for women’s rights in Iran As vice president, Harris has met several times with well-known personalities from the Iranian diaspora, including in October 2022 with Iranian-British actress Nazanin Boniadi during the nationwide “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests in Iran. Harris has condemned the authorities’ harsh treatment of protesters. “The United States continues to stand with the brave women of Iran as they protest peacefully for their fundamental rights and basic human dignity,” Harris said in November 2022. Harris also supported the Iranian women’s demand to exclude the Islamic Republic of Iran from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. This commission is the highest UN body for gender equality. Iran’s election to this commission outraged women’s and human rights activists from the outset.02:47 “International organizations have to take themselves seriously if they want to be taken seriously,” Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi told DW in April 2021. “Kamala Harris could support further demands by Iranian women,” added Mohammadi’s husband, Taghi Rahmani. Rahmani, a writer and political journalist, has left Iran and lives with the couple’s children in Paris. Mohammadi is in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison for her peaceful campaign for human and women’s rights in Iran. “Narges is calling for gender discrimination to be made a criminal offense at an international level. This means that those responsible in countries where women are systematically discriminated against on the basis of their gender should be held accountable by international bodies,” said Rahmani. “Harris could support such a demand if she were to become the first female president of the United States. She could support the women’s movement in Iran,” he added. Dealing with Iran’s perennial nuclear problem On Iran’s nuclear program, Harris has consistently defended the nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed with Iran in 2015, and she has considered it a significant achievement of the Democratic Party during Barack Obama’s presidency. The US unilaterally withdrew from this agreement, which was reached after more than 12 years of international negotiations, under former President Donald Trump in 2018. Trump said he was convinced he could negotiate a “better deal” than the one signed by his predecessor Obama. However, Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran remained unsuccessful. One year after the US withdrew from the agreement, Iran also began to gradually abandon the commitments it had made. Today, Iran is closer than ever to being able to produce a nuclear bomb. “The Islamic Republic of Iran is interested in de-escalation and easing sanctions pressure, but is strict on not compromising domestic politics, as they fear it might lead to more demands and challenge the government further,” said Iran expert Mahmoudian. Over the past four years, President Biden has tried several times to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran. All these attempts have failed. “I believe Harris has a chance to reach a new deal or understanding with Iran regarding nuclear policy. However, her path might be even harder than that of President Obama during the JCPOA negotiations for several reasons,” added Mahmoudian. He said the little trust that existed between the US and Iran before the withdrawal from the JCPOA, and the killing of General Qassim Soleimani in 2020, has been “demolished.”