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Paris’ Seine River tests for E. coli 10 times above acceptable limit a month out from 2024 Summer Olympics
The world is officially a month from the start of the 2024 Summer Olympics — and new tests just revealed that one of the Games’ focal points for events, the Seine River in Paris, isn’t ready. For the third consecutive week, samples from the Seine River show that the waterway, which is planned for some Olympic swimming events, has unsafe levels of bacteria linked to fecal matter.
The latest tests from the Eau de Paris monitoring group, taken between June 17 and June 23, show E. coli bacteria, which is often linked to fecal matter and can cause diarrhea, urinary tract infections, pneumonia and sepsis, was 10 times above the acceptable levels, according to AFP, based on results released by the Paris mayor’s office. At no point have levels fallen below the upper limits, AFP said.
Eau de Paris
Enterococci bacteria have also been detected in the river water for weeks, and while levels were better in the latest test, they were still unsafe.
“Water quality remains degraded because of unfavourable hydrological conditions, little sunshine, below-average seasonal temperatures and upstream pollution,” the mayor’s office said, AFP reported.
Eau de Paris
Rainfall has only worsened the issue, as it washes sewage and wastewater into the waterway. The summer sun and heat is helpful in deteriorating bacteria levels, the report with the test results says, but heavy rains like those that occurred the week of June 18 only increase bacterial levels.
The Olympics, which begin July 26, is set to include triathlon events starting July 30 and marathon swimming on Aug. 8 and 9 in the Seine near the Alexandre III bridge. While the city has spent $1.5 billion in trying to clean up the waterway, it has so far been unsuccessful in removing the contamination and quelling concerns among athletes and locals.
Many Parisians had launched a social media campaign known as #JeChieDansLaSeineLe23Juin in which they threatened to defecate in the river on June 23. The event, whose phrase translates to “I sh*t in the Seine on June 23,” didn’t happen, although many are still expressing outrage over officials pushing the river events.
Olympics organizers are also not backing down from the set schedule.
“By the second half of July, things will settle down,” Tony Estanguet, head of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, said.
“At some point, we’ll have summer weather,” Marc Guillaume, who is in charge of the Seine, added. “That’s when the plan will take full effect.”
Israel said Sunday that the body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates has been found after he was killed in what it described as a “heinous antisemitic terror incident.”
The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel “will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death.” There was no immediate comment from the UAE.
Zvi Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a Kosher grocery store in the futuristic city of Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.
Jon Gambrell / AP
The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into southern Israel. But Israel’s devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of fighting with the Hezbollah militant group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the UAE.
Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, has also been threatening to retaliate against Israel after a wave of airstrikes Israel carried out in October in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack.
The Emirati government did not respond to a request for comment.
Early Sunday, the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency acknowledged Kogan’s disappearance but pointedly did not acknowledge he held Israeli citizenship, referring to him only as being Moldovan. The Emirati Interior Ministry described Kogan as being “missing and out of contact.”
“Specialized authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report,” the Interior Ministry said.
Netanyahu told a regular Cabinet meeting later Sunday that he was “deeply shocked” by Kogan’s disappearance and death. He said he appreciated the cooperation of the UAE in the investigation and said that ties between the two countries would continue to be strengthened.
Israel’s largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the killing and thanked Emirati authorities for “their swift action.” He said he trusts they “will work tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Kogan was an emissary of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism based in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood in New York City. It said he was last seen in Dubai. The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners.
The Rimon Market, a Kosher grocery store that Kogan managed on Dubai’s busy Al Wasl Road, was shut down Sunday. As the wars have roiled the region, the store has been the target of online protests by supporters of the Palestinians. Mezuzahs on the front and the back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off when an Associated Press journalist stopped by on Sunday.
Kogan’s wife, Rivky, is a U.S. citizen who lived with him in the UAE. She is the niece of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The UAE is an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and is also home to Abu Dhabi. Local Jewish officials in the UAE declined to comment.
While the Israeli statement did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have carried out past kidnappings in the UAE.
Western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations in the UAE and keeps tabs on the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country.
Iran is suspected of kidnapping and later killing British Iranian national Abbas Yazdi in Dubai in 2013, though Tehran has denied involvement. Iran also kidnapped Iranian German national Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 from Dubai, taking him back to Tehran, where he was executed in October.
Hyundai and Kia are recalling more than 208,000 electric vehicles to fix a problem that can cause the loss of drive power, increasing the risk of a crash.
The recall covers more than 145,000 Hyundai and Genesis including some IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 6 EVs along with Genesis GV60, Genesis GV70 and Genesis G80 models.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said the vehicles’ transistors in a charging control unit may get damaged and stop charging the 12-volt battery, “which can result in a loss of drive power.”
In the Kia recall, nearly 63,000 EV6 vehicles from 2022 through 2024 are impacted.
Car dealers will inspect and replace the control unit and a fuse if needed, as well as update software. Owners whose vehicles were recalled earlier this year to fix the same problem will have to visit their dealer again.
Owners will be notified by letter in December and January.
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