Paris
Arrests in train attacks: French police this week arrested 10 people with links to far-left groups on suspicion of sabotaging high-speed trains. Over the past few weeks, there have been six attacks on the trains, ranging from the cutting of overhead power cables to the placing of concrete blocks on the tracks. Nobody was injured, but dozens of trains were delayed. Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie said the 10 suspects belong to an anarchist group that was believed to be plotting violent acts. “These individuals are characterized by a total rejection of any democratic expression of political opinion and an extremely violent tone,” she said. Anarchists terrorized France in the 1980s, killing 13 people in a wave of attacks on what they called the capitalist infrastructure.
Brussels
Talking to Russia: The European Union said this week it would restart negotiations with Russia that were broken off in August, after Russia’s invasion of Georgia. The E.U. and Russia had been in the middle of discussing a strategic partnership agreement that would lay out their cooperation on trade and energy as well as security and anti-terrorism efforts. Both sides were eager to continue the talks—Europe because it needs Russian gas, and Russia because it needs the money from selling gas. The only E.U. country to dissent from the decision to restart talks was Lithuania, which is concerned about a Russian threat to station missiles in Kaliningrad, a tiny Russian territory located between Poland and Lithuania.
