WORLD ROUNDUPX Is Boosting the Far Right’s UK Riots as Telegram Scrambles for Control | Israel’s Disaster Foretold | French Rail Sabotage Tied to a Murky ‘Ultraleft’, and more
· X Is Boosting the Far Right’s UK Riots as Telegram Scrambles for Control
Far-right protesters are trying to share violent rhetoric on social media. For the first time, Telegram is blocking them—while X is giving them a platform
· After French Rail Sabotage, Some See Signs of a Murky ‘Ultraleft’
Experts say the arson attacks before the opening of the Paris Olympics bear the hallmarks of insurrectionary anarchists opposed to the state
· Court Disbands Thailand’s Most Popular Political Party
Since the Move Forward Party won the last election with a call for change, conservative forces have kept it out of power. Now, it no longer exists
· Israel’s Disaster Foretold
The ICJ’s opinion on the West Bank is devastating, and it isn’t wrong
X Is Boosting the Far Right’s UK Riots as Telegram Scrambles for Control (David Gilbert and Isael Fraser, Wired)
As asylum centers are boarding up ahead of another predicted day of violent protests across the UK on Wednesday, X owner Elon Musk has stoked tensions by labeling UK prime minister Keir Starmer “#TwoTierKier” and spreading a far-right conspiracy theory that claims white rioters are being dealt with more severely than minorities by police.
For days now, Musk has sought to use his huge influence to suggest that diversity was causing the riots: “If incompatible cultures are brought together without assimilation, conflict is inevitable,” Musk wrote. Responding to a video of riots in Liverpool on Monday, Musk warned: “Civil war is inevitable.”
Six thousand police officers are on standby in response to far-right figures sharing a list of dozens of targets, including locations of asylum centers and offices of lawyers who help asylum seekers. Officials are facing resistance from X to take down posts that are deemed a threat to national security, according to a report by the Financial Times.
After French Rail Sabotage, Some See Signs of a Murky ‘Ultraleft’ (Aurelien Breeden and Catherine Porter, New York Times)
Who sabotaged France’s high-speed train lines last month?
Clear answers to that question have been elusive so far, more than a week after coordinated arson attacks that disrupted rail travel for hundreds of thousands of travelers before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
There have been no arrests, and no suspects have been publicly identified. For now, the country appears far more invested in its Olympic medal count than in the outcome of the investigation. That is probably a good thing for the authorities, because such cases, though not uncommon, are notoriously difficult to solve.
Officials are not ruling out any possibilities, including foreign interference. But much suspicion has fallen on what French authorities label as “ultraleft,” anticapitalist groups that are less interested in gaining notoriety for their actions than in disrupting the workings of the state.
Railway sabotage is a “traditional method of action” for such groups, Gérald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said in the aftermath of the attacks.
France’s domestic intelligence agency also has said that arson has been “a preferred modus operandi” for the “ultraleft” movement, “which regularly launches campaigns aimed mainly at energy and telecommunications infrastructures.” (Cont.)
