ABU DHABI: Passengers will be able to travel by train across the Gulf without stopping at borders by December 2030, UAE official media reported, citing senior officials at the Global Rail Conference in Abu Dhabi.

The 2,120km GCC railway will link all six member states, running from Kuwait to Oman. The route will pass through Saudi Arabia, connect to Bahrain and Qatar, and traverse the UAE’s Etihad Rail before reaching Muscat, Oman.

Nasser Al Qahtani, interoperability director at the GCC Railways Authority, said work was advancing across member states, with the deadline set by the GCC ministerial council firmly on track. 

“Border stopping is not on the map. Immigration will be cleared before boarding, just like international air travel,” he explained.

Construction has already commenced on the Hafeet Rail project — the UAE-Oman line is expected to open within three years. The 303km line is designed to enhance passenger movement and strengthen freight connectivity between the two countries.

Progress is evident, with over 21 bridges under construction, two tunnels initiated, and more than two million safe work hours recorded.

Officials said the passenger experience would mirror air travel, with passport checks completed at departure and arrival points. Hafeet Rail is also prioritising freight, with a single 15,000-tonne train expected to replace around 130 lorries.

The long-term objective, officials stressed, is not only to improve trade and transport within the GCC but also to ultimately connect the Gulf by rail to international networks.

• Manchester police activate counter-terror response protocol.
• PM Starmer chairs emergency meeting after leaving summit early.
• King Charles, Israel condemn attack on Yom Kippur as horrific.

Two people were killed on Thursday and three badly wounded outside a packed synagogue in Manchester in a car and stabbing attack, with the suspect believed shot dead by UK police.

As the Jewish community marked the holiday of Yom Kippur in the northwestern city, police were called to the incident, activating a national terrorism-response protocol.

The attack struck days ahead of the second anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, raids on Israe,l which sparked a fierce offensive in Gaza, inflaming passions in Britain.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer swiftly condemned the attack as “horrific”, and announced security was being boosted at UK synagogues.

He left a European political summit in Denmark early to chair an emergency security meeting in London.

King Charles III said he and Queen Camilla were “deeply shocked and saddened to learn of the horrific attack in Manchester, especially on such a significant day for the Jewish community”.

Greater Manchester Police declared a “major incident” shortly after 9:30am (0830 GMT) after officers were called to the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in the Crumpsall neighbourhood.

The force initially said paramedics were treating four people for “injuries caused by both the vehicle and stab wounds” while confirming firearms officers had shot one man “believed to be the offender”.

Within hours, it announced two people had died and the suspected offender shot by officers was “also believed to be deceased”.

Police said the death could not be confirmed due to “suspicious items on his person”, noting a bomb disposal unit was at the scene.

Three people were also in a “serious condition”, police added.

Starmer said he was appalled and pledged to “do everything to keep our Jewish community safe”.

“The fact that this has taken place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, makes it all the more horrific,” he added.

Israel’s embassy in the UK said it was “abhorrent and deeply distressing” that “such an act of violence should be perpetrated on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar”.

“The safety and security of Jewish communities in the United Kingdom must be guaranteed,” it added on X.

Police said officers first responded to calls from the public about a car driving into people outside the synagogue, as well as reports that a security guard had been attacked with a knife.

A witness told BBC Radio he saw police shooting a man after a car crash.

“They give him a couple of warnings, he didn’t listen until they opened fire,” he said.

“He went down on the floor, and then he started getting back up, and then they shot him again.”

Police said “a large number of people worshipping at the synagogue… were held inside while the immediate area was made safe”, but then evacuated.

Manchester mayor Andy Burnham told the BBC police had “dealt with it very quickly with some amazing support from members of the public”.

He urged people “not to speculate on social media”, while noting the Jewish community “will be very worried by the news”.

The city, famous around the world for its two Premier League football clubs and industrial history, is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the UK.

It totalled more than 28,000 in 2021, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.

MP Graham Stringer said the area was home to both large Jewish and Muslim communities.

“By and large, community relations are excellent between all the different ethnic groups and religious groups,” he told BBC Radio Manchester.

The Community Security Trust (CST), a Jewish charity that records antisemitic incidents, said it was “working with police and the local Jewish community”.

“This appears to be an appalling attack on the holiest day of the Jewish year,” CST added.

The city has witnessed several deadly terror attacks, notably in 2017 when Salman Abedi detonated a homemade suicide bomb outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Arena.

It killed 22 people, some of them children, and injured hundreds more.

Ali Akbar knows everyone, and everyone knows him. The last newspaper hawker in Paris zigzags each day from cafe to cafe, shouting humorous headlines in the heart of the French capital.

“France is getting better!” he cries, just one of the headlines he invents to sell his wares around the upmarket streets of Saint-German-des-Pres.

“(Eric) Zemmour has converted to Islam!” he shouts, referring to the far-right candidate in the 2022 presidential elections.

Locals and tourists on the Left Bank, the intellectual and cultural heart of Paris, look on amused.

“Even the walls could talk about Ali,” smiled Amina Qissi, a waitress at a restaurant opposite the Marche Saint-Germain, who has known Akbar for more than 20 years.

Now 73, Akbar, a slim, fine-featured “character” with newspapers tucked under his arm, is a neighbourhood legend, she added.

“Even regular tourists ask where he is if they don’t see him,” she told AFP.

Hard life 

French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to soon make Akbar a knight in the national order of merit in recognition of his “dedicated service to France”.

“At first, I didn’t believe it. Friends must have asked him (Macron) or maybe he decided on his own. We often crossed paths when he was a student,” said Akbar.

“I believe it’s related to my courage, because I’ve worked hard,” he added.

Akbar, who wears round spectacles, a blue work jacket and a Gavroche cap, mainly sells copies of the French daily Le Monde.

When he arrived in France at the age of 20, hoping to escape poverty and send back money to his family in Pakistan, he worked as a sailor, then a dishwasher in a restaurant in the northern city of Rouen.

Then in Paris, he bumped into Georges Bernier, the humourist also known as Professeur Choron, who gave him the chance to sell his satirical newspapers Hara-Kiri and Charlie Hebdo.

Akbar has been homeless, experienced extreme poverty and had even been attacked—but despite the hardships, he said he has never given up.

“Emmanuel Macron is going to put a bit of antiseptic on my wounds,” he told his son Shahab, who at 30 is the youngest of his five children.

Shahab, who describes himself as “very proud” of his father, enjoys cataloguing the numerous profiles dedicated to his father in the foreign press.

When he started out as a hawker in the 1970s, Akbar focused on the Left Bank of the river Seine, which was a university area “where you could eat cheaply”, he said.

On the rue Saint-Guillaume in front of the prestigious Sciences Po university, he recalled learning French from interactions with students like former prime minister Edouard Philippe and “many others who became ministers or lawmakers”.

‘A good mood’ 

Paris used to have about 40 newspaper hawkers—street vendors without a fixed newsstand— who were posted at strategic locations such as the entrances to metro stations.

Akbar stood out by choosing to walk around, selecting the Latin Quarter. In the 1980s, he started inventing sensational headlines.

“I want people to live happily. I do it to create a good mood, that’s all,” he said.

But he admitted that he is finding it increasingly difficult to come up with good jokes.

“Everything is such a mess,” he added.

Akbar, who receives a pension of 1,000 euros ($1,175) a month, still works from 3 pm until 10 pm each day.

When AFP met him on a recent afternoon, clients were few and far between. On average, he sells about 30 newspapers every day, compared to between 150 and 200 when he started.

“As long as I’ve got the energy, I’ll keep going. I’ll work until I die,” he joked.

On the terrace of one cafe, Amel Ghali, 36, said Akbar was “inspiring”.

“It’s good to see it in the digital age,” he said. “Unfortunately, our children won’t experience the pleasure of reading a newspaper with a coffee.”