03/11/2025

MONDAY | NOV 3, 2025

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UK police probe mass train stabbing case

Egypt opens grand museum

HUNTINGDON: British police were investigating a mass stabbing on a London-bound train that left 10 people wounded, including nine critically, with two people arrested. The attack occurred on Saturday evening on the typically busy service between the town of Doncaster, in northern England, and King’s Cross station in the capital. The incident forced the train to stop at Huntingdon station in Cambridgeshire. Police said 10 people were hospitalised, nine of whom were “believed to have suffered life-threatening injuries”. Two suspects were arrested at the station, police said, adding that counter-terrorism units were assisting the investigation. The suspects’ identities and motives were not immediately known. AFP journalists saw police and forensics teams, some wearing white overalls, working through the night at the station where the train had stopped. Witness Olly Foster told the BBC that he heard people shouting “run, run, there’s a guy literally stabbing everyone”, and initially thought it was a Halloween-related prank. But passengers then started pushing through the carriage, Foster said, adding that his hand was left “covered in blood” that had spilled onto the chair he had been leaning on. Foster said he saw an older man block the assailant from stabbing a younger girl, adding that the attack “felt like forever” though it lasted only minutes. Witnesses told Sky News they saw a man holding a large knife on the platform after the train halted. They then saw the man tasered and restrained by police. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the “appalling” incident was “deeply concerning”. London North Eastern Railway, which operates along the route, urged customers not to travel WASHINGTON: A US strike on an alleged drug-trafficking vessel in the Caribbean killed three people on Saturday, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said. The United States has deployed Navy ships to the Caribbean and sent F-35 stealth warplanes to Puerto Rico, part of a military force that Washington insists is aimed at curbing drug trafficking. More than 15 US strikes on boats PARIS: France’s anti-fraud unit said on Saturday it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance”. The DGCCRF watchdog said in a statement that the “description and categorisation” of the items on Shein’s website “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content”. Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry.

CAIRO: Egypt officially opened on Saturday the Grand Egyptian Museum, a long-awaited, billion-dollar showcase of pharaonic grandeur that Cairo hopes will revive tourism and boost its economy. “Today, as we celebrate together the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum, we are writing a new chapter in the history of the present and the future,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told a gathering of dignitaries, sitting in the museum’s square. Spanning half a million square metres, the museum houses around 100,000 artefacts, half of them on display, dating back more than six millennia. The audience at the opening watched a display of lights and music, with the pyramids towering in front of them. Dozens of performers dressed in elaborate Pharaonic costumes played traditional tunes as a laser show depicting pharaohs and fireworks lit up the night sky above the museum. On giant screens above, scenes from celebrations in Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro played out against the backdrop of Egypt’s ancient monuments. “It is a living testimony to the genius of the Egyptian human,” Sisi said, referring to the new institution. Set on a gentle slope overlooking the Giza Plateau, just beyond the shadow of the pyramids, the museum was built with major financial and technical support from Japan. – AFP

has tried to rein in their use. Nearly 60,000 blades have been either “seized or surrendered” in England and Wales as part of government efforts to halve knife crime within a decade, the Interior Ministry said. – AFP

Wales has increased since 2011, according to government data. While Britain has some of the strictest gun controls in the world, rampant knife crime has been branded a “national crisis” by Starmer. His Labour government

o Two men arrested

yesterday, saying services may be cancelled at short notice. Knife crime in England and

Police and emergency services personnel searching the track beneath a train at Huntingdon Station. – AFPPIC

US strike on suspected drug-trafficking vessel kills three

threat to the United States. Hegseth said Washington would continue to “hunt ... and kill” alleged drug traffickers. The United Nations urged Washington on Friday to halt its strikes. UN rights chief Volker Turk said these people had been killed “in circumstances that find no justification in international law”. – AFP

“Three male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters. All three were killed.” Experts say the attacks, which began in early September, amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers, and Washington has yet to make public any evidence that its targets were smuggling narcotics or posed a

in the Caribbean and the Pacific have killed at least 65 people in recent weeks, prompting criticism from governments in the region. The latest strike hit “another narco-trafficking vessel ... in the Caribbean,” Hegseth wrote on social media. “This vessel – like every other – was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling,” he said. Le Parisien daily published on its website a photo of one of the dolls sold on the platform, accompanied by an explicitly sexual caption. The dolls measure around 80cm in height. In the photo, it was pictured holding a teddy bear. “Imagine a child randomly clicking on and coming across these products while browsing the site looking for a doll,” DGCCRF official Alice Vilcot Dutarte was quoted as saying by Le Parisien . The news comes in the wake of Shein’s announcement last month

Drones were used in a presentation during the opening ceremony. – AFPPIC

French fraud watchdog reports ‘childlike’ sex dolls

environmental impact of its ultra-fast fashion business model. Yet the company, now headquartered in Singapore, has seen its share value skyrocket while overtaking many traditional fixtures of high street shopping in recent years. The DGCCRF warned that “the dissemination, via an electronic communications network, of child pornography is punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment and a fine of €100,000 (RM485,860)”. It said it had reported the case to French prosecutors and to Arcom,

that it intended to set up shop in a prestigious department store in central Paris, its first physical outlet. Its outlet is due to open on Wednesday at BHV Marais, an iconic building that has stood across from Paris City Hall since 1856. That decision provoked outrage among other clients of the upmarket store, BHV Marais, with some top fashion brands pulling their products from its shelves. Shein, which was originally founded in China, has faced consistent criticism over working conditions at its factories and the

France’s online and broadcasting regulator. France has already fined Shein three times this year for a total of €191 million. Those were imposed for failing to comply with online cookie legislation, false advertising, misleading information and not declaring the presence of plastic microfibres in its products. The European Commission is also investigating Shein over risks linked to illegal products, while EU lawmakers have approved legislation aimed at curbing the environmental impact of fast fashion. – AFP