While spectators will long remember the Parisian architecture and landmarks in Olympic mode, they are far from the only ones.
The Olympic athletes remember it too.
“I’m lucky enough to live in Paris, so at least once a week I cross a bridge and think back to the opening ceremony. I pass by the Louvre and remember carrying the Olympic flame. I go past the Grand Palais and relive the emotions of competition”, says French fencer Enzo Lefort.
After making history for French sport with an all-French final against Manon Apithy-Brunet, Sara Balzer has only fond memories of the Grand Palais, which hosted the fencing and taekwondo competitions during the 2024 Olympics.
“Honestly, the Grand Palais holds a lot of memories. Even today, someone showed me some photos. It still brings out strong emotions. I think that will always be the case. I truly believe these Games left a mark on all of us athletes,” shared Sara Balzer during the Soirée des Champions last June.
The Esplanade des Invalides is a must-see for any visitor to the City of Light. During the Games, France’s archery team thrilled home fans there — and they still vividly recall the atmosphere inside that temporary “arena.”
“My best memory is definitely the moment we entered the arena for that final. We were up against [the athletes from the Republic of Korea], and there were huge stands with 4,000 spectators on each side, with 90% of French, cheering us on. The noise was so loud and uplifting that even today, we can still feel it a bit”, said Jean Charles Valladont to Olympics.com.
Silver medallist Baptiste Addis echoed the sentiment, with a hint of nostalgia:
“I think the arena was something truly magical. You walk in, the curtains open, and suddenly it’s our turn, it’s our moment. I just let myself be carried by it.”
A year later, the memory of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games still burns bright for both athletes and Parisians. This summer, Parisians can once again look up and see the Olympic cauldron shining above the Tuileries Garden.
Just one of many lasting reminders that Paris 2024 left behind in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
NatWest chief executive Paul Thwaite said some sectors showed signs of improving
There are signs of growing optimism in Scotland’s mid-market firms, according to the boss of the company that handles much of their money.
Royal Bank of Scotland, part of NatWest Group, says travel and tourism are showing notable signs of improvement in their outlook, despite the increased cost of payroll tax and the minimum wage.
Another shaft of brighter sunlight comes from technology and telecoms – but for manufacturing, June brought another month of negative figures.
Paul Thwaite, chief executive of the NatWest Group, is referring to the firm’s monthly business monitor, which draws on data from its customer base.
That includes more than 100,000 Scottish business accounts.
The chief executive is in Scotland for two weeks to hear from those customers and from some of his 11,500 staff north of the border, covering bigger cities and a visit to Orkney.
Paul Chappells/NatWest Group
Paul Thwaite (middle) visited Whitelee wind farm near Eaglesham as Scottish Power banks with NatWest
On Friday, he visited the windfarm near Eaglesham built by one of the bank’s bigger clients, Scottish Power.
At an accelerator unit for business start-ups, overlooking Glasgow’s iconic statue of Wellington with traffic cone, he heard from the companies using NatWest facilities and offered advice to take their ideas to the next stage and beyond.
In one such group, all of them agree that they have to go to London for finance.
Aditya Mahapatra, 21, is fresh out of St Andrews University with an economics degree.
For four years, he’s been running his company, Augmentum, that links health and wellness firms with influencers. Almost all of his staff have to be in London.
It’s a charge also levelled at NatWest. With its name change from Royal Bank of Scotland, only retaining that brand for Scottish customers, this felt like confirmation that executive power resided in London.
Thwaite, 53, is from Liverpool and a graduate of Manchester University.
He is married to a Fifer and worked in Edinburgh during his 30s. So he’s alert to the risks of seeming too London-centric, reeling off the stats that suggest otherwise.
“Two million retail customers or households, one in three businesses, almost a third of all of our UK staff,” he says.
“That gives you a sense of the importance of Scotland to the NatWest Group. We are very committed.”
That may become more apparent in 2027, when Royal Bank of Scotland marks its 300th anniversary.
There’s thought already going into telling that story of heritage, while trying to look to the future.
This marks two years since he was phoned in the middle of the night with the chairman’s invitation to take on the top job.
PA Media
Thwaite stepped up to the top job after Dame Alison Rose quit in 2023
Dame Alison Rose, had been forced to quit, after discussing the personal account of Nigel Farage with the BBC’s business editor.
That unhappy incident is not, says her successor, the reason why he’s kept a low public profile, saying little to the media beyond discussion of NatWest’s financial reports.
His people tell me this is his first broadcast interview other than those quarterly results days. It’s for radio and online but he’s not for talking on camera.
The most recent such results day, covering the first half of this year, had a strong set of figures.
Pre-tax operating profit was up 18% on last year, to £3.6bn. The bank’s share price is looking a lot perkier.
Having been paid nearly £5m last year, it could see the chief executive get closer to his bonus-laden potential of £7.8m this year.
With guidance to markets that the next set of figures will be better than expected, Thwaite argues that his strategy – disciplined growth, simplification and a focus on risk management – is proving right and paying off.
And while he would prefer to talk about the future, the memory of another of his predecessors, Fred Goodwin, is stalking the Edinburgh International Festival as a morality tale and tragedy, borrowing from ancient Greece, of greed, power, pride and nemesis.
The play examines the banking disaster that brought RBS to its knees
With screen star Brian Cox in a leading role on stage and in Festival publicity, it’s hard to avoid the reminders of the Fred Goodwin story, nearly 17 years on.
“It was relatively early in my career,” Thwaite recalls. He was working in Edinburgh, with UK business customers.
“I didn’t know Fred personally. The bank had expanded significantly during that time. And the UK bank was actually not dissimilar to what it is now – a very strong retail bank, a very strong business bank.”
And a very bloated and vulnerable international and investment bank.
“I was shocked and surprised,” he said.
“What it taught me was how important a role banks play in the economy and for customers, and when things go wrong how impactful that can be on communities, on society and on countries.
“Those who were young and in financial services at that time, and I include myself, have been shaped by the financial crisis.
“The way we think about banking now, how the regulators and government think about banking is very different.”
Thwaite added: “I feel a great sense of responsibility to ensure that the bank is run in a thoughtful, safe, informed way… to learn the lessons from the past and run the bank really well for our customers and also for our colleagues, because they have been incredibly loyal over the last 16 or 17 years, for which I’m very grateful.”
Paul Thwaite will meet with staff across Scotland over two weeks
Just over a fifth of staff have remained with RBS/NatWest since the crisis.
For them, he says, the sale in May of the final tranche of UK government shares, having once held 82% of them, was an important symbolic moment.
That doesn’t change the strategy, but it does give the bank more vulnerability to takeover bids and more freedom to take over others.
Recent acquisitions have included parts of Sainsbury’s Bank and Metro Bank.
With further mergers and acquisitions ‘probable’, Thwaite says NatWest’s market valuation is a deterrent against predators.
More opportunities to acquire would be approached carefully and in a disciplined way, and would have to beat the return on internal opportunities to invest, in technology for instance.
Branch closures
Artificial intelligence carries a threat to finance sector jobs, but the bank boss says it’s being used to do routine tasks that free up staff time for talking with customers, while helping to root out fraud and financial crime.
“For AI, it’s still relatively early days,” he says. “I see it as complementing our brilliant colleagues, but I think we’ll know more over the next five or six years.”
There’s a block on further branch closures, but only until next year. Now down to 68 Scottish branches plus bank vans, Thwaite sounds keen to retain that visibility.
“The successful banks of the future will combine very strong physical presence and service from bank colleagues at real moments of truth – whether that’s buying a home, buying a business, buying new premises, but combined with brilliant digital experience, because our customers want and expect that.
“I think it’s important we play a very active role in communities and I want our people to be visible and effective in them.”
With that, he’s off to Aberdeen and Orkney, to see the islands’ flying branch and to listen to the oil and gas sector.
Higher tax weighs heavily on his customers, he says, as does the threat of further increases at the next Westminster budget.
“That’s definitely in business owners’ minds and at board tables,” he says, with a message for Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
“The role of business, the role of financial services needs to be at the heart of that growth agenda.
“Our role is to ensure that we’re supporting businesses who have growth aspirations, and I think it’s very important that the policy agenda is supportive of that.”
Prince Andrew’s daughters keep their distance amid fresh allegations
Prince Andrew’s relationship with his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, is in trouble as new book makes explosive claims about the Duke of York.
The “disgraced” Prince is facing renewed public scrutiny after the new biography by Andrew Lownie made bombshell claims about his life and marriage to Sarah Ferguson.
The book, described by the author as a story of “childhood trauma, infidelity, lust, betrayal, corruption, greed, extravagance, arrogance, entitlement, establishment cover-up and hubris,” has reportedly left his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, “utterly mortified.”
According to the Daily Mail, the intense global attention has taken them by surprise and led them to keep their distance from their father.
An insider shared with the publication that the girls are “keeping a distance” from their father since the excerpts from the book became public.
Speaking on the matter, royal expert Ingrid Seward said Beatrice and Eugenie will be “finding this very difficult – it’s a horrid time.”
“I’m not surprised they haven’t come out and said anything in his defence,” she added. “For his girls to show their solidarity publicly wouldn’t benefit them in any way.”
A group of Chinese scientists has overcome a challenge that stumped biologists for decades by developing a new gene-editing tool that can precisely manipulate millions of base pairs – the building blocks of DNA.
The innovation has been hailed as “very significant progress” by Professor Yin Hao, a gene editing specialist at Wuhan University’s medical research institute, who was not involved in the study. He added that it would help lay the foundation for future advances in genetic engineering in biomedicine and agriculture.
A single human cell contains around 3 billion base pairs. Well-known technologies such as Crispr are widely used for the precise editing of specific genes and nucleic acid bases. However, biologists have struggled to scale up the process to precisely manipulate thousands or even millions of bases.
Now, a team led by Gao Caixia – a principal investigator at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing – has solved the riddle by making the decade-old gene editing tool much easier to use and more efficient. The study was published by the peer-reviewed journal Cell on Monday.
The new genome editing technologies, collectively known as programmable chromosome engineering (PCE) systems, can edit large DNA fragments with precision by “handling bases ranging from the thousands to the millions in higher organisms, especially plants”, according to the institute.
The toolset holds promise for transforming the way scientists conduct research in emerging fields such as agricultural seed cultivation and synthetic biology.
According to a CAS branch institute in Beijing, by manipulating genomic structural variation, the technology will “open up new avenues for crop trait improvement and genetic disease treatment”.
The advance could also accelerate the development of artificial chromosomes, which have promising applications in emerging fields such as synthetic biology.
This collage shows Hania Aamir enjoying bike ride in Karachi. — Screengrab via Instagram/haniaheheofficial
A video of famed Pakistani actor Hania Aamir dancing while enjoying a ride on a motorcycle through the streets of Karachi has gone viral on social media.
The 28-year-old actor, known for her energetic and light-hearted personality, shared the video on her official Instagram account.
In the video, Hania is seen enjoying a motorcycle ride around the city, while cheerfully dancing to background music.
This latest video comes shortly after her appearance at singer Asim Azhar’s concert, which has also generated buzz online.
At the concert, Hania, dressed in a white outfit and glasses, was spotted in the front row dancing with her close friend Yashma Gul as Asim performed his viral hit Trasti Hain Nighayin.
In addition, Hania also posted several photos from recent outings with friends, showing her enjoying various activities, including horse riding.
“Make space for a chill girl, kids… also don’t lie, you like his music too,” she wrote in her Instagram post.
The Parde Mein Rehne Do actor continues to attract attention with her candid and playful presence on social media, maintaining a strong connection with her fan base across platforms.
The request for the UN security council was reportedly endorsed by all members of the security council except Panama, which is its current chair, and the US, Israel’s most powerful ally and biggest arms supplier.
The security council is the UN’s most powerful body; it has the authority to issue legally binding resolutions that can be backed up by sanctions and peacekeepers.
There are five permanent members of the council (China, the Russian Federation, France, the UK and the US). They can vote against, and effectively veto, any proposal put forward by the council.
The ten non-permanent members are currently Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Somalia.
UN security council to meet over Israel’s Gaza City takeover plan
The UN security council will shortly hold an emergency session to discuss Israel’s plan to capture and occupy Gaza City, which if carried out would give Israel control of about 85% of the strip (the Israeli military currently controls about 75% of the territory).
The meeting, requested by Denmark, France, Greece, the UK and Slovenia, is scheduled to start at 10am (14:00 GMT) in New York and will see UN rapporteurs outline the likely disastrous consequences of seizing Gaza’s main city.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was among foreign leaders urging Israel to reconsider its decision to advance into Gaza City.
Buildings destroyed in Israeli airstrikes surround makeshift shelters for displaced Palestinian people in Gaza City. Photograph: Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty Images
Regional power Saudi Arabia, which has said it could not normalise ties with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state, condemned any move to occupy Gaza.
Germany, Israel’s second-biggest arms supplier and strongest backer in Europe, on Friday suspended the delivery of weaponry that could be used in Gaza.
Foreign ministers from the UK, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and Australia released a joint statement rejecting the plan on the same day, saying it would “aggravate” the already “catastrophic” situation in Gaza.
“Any attempts at annexation or of settlement extension violate international law,” they added.
Tens of thousands protest in Israel over plan to escalate war on Gaza
Welcome to our live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night to oppose Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to escalate his war on Gaza.
The plan lists five so-called “principles” for ending the war: disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarising the Gaza Strip, taking security control of Gaza, and setting up “an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority”.
The demonstration against the plan, estimated to have attracted more than 100,000 protesters by organisers, saw calls for an immediate end to the military assault and for the release of hostages.
Authorities did not provide an official estimate for the size of the crowd, though it dwarfed other recent anti-war rallies.
Public opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of Israelis favour an immediate end to the war to secure the release of the remaining 50 hostages held by militants in Gaza. Israeli officials believe about 20 hostages are still alive.
Families of hostages lead a march around the Kirya complex in Tel Aviv during an anti-government protest and rally against an expansion to the war on Gaza. Photograph: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images
In other developments:
The Israeli government has faced sharp criticism at home and abroad, including from some of its closest European allies, over the announcement that the military would expand the war to seize Gaza City. The full cabinet is expected to give its approval as soon as Sunday.
The Palestinian Authority on Saturday lambasted the Israeli government’s decision to expand its assault in Gaza, as it called on the international community to push for the entry of aid into the strip. According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, the PA’s presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said the Israeli government’s moves were “an unprecedented challenge and provocation to the international will to achieve peace and stability”.
Several Arab and Muslim countries on Saturday condemned as a “dangerous escalation” Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City. About 20 countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, said the plan constituted “a flagrant violation of international law, and an attempt to entrench the illegal occupation and impose a fait accompli… in contravention of international legitimacy”. Muslim nations must work in total unison and work to mobilise the international community against Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City, Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday after talks in Egypt. Speaking at a joint press conference in El Alamein with his Egyptian counterpart after meeting Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Fidan also said the Organisation of Islamic cooperation had been called to an emergency meeting.
More than 450 people were arrested in central London on Saturday at the largest demonstration relating to Palestine Action since the group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation. On Saturday night, police said that as of 9pm, 466 people had been arrested for showing support for Palestine Action. There were a further eight arrests for other offences including five assaults on officers. Police said the total of 474 was the most arrests it had made related to a single operation in at least the past decade.
The UK announced another £8.5m for UN aid to Gaza after Israel unveiled plans to expand its military operations in the territory. Development minister Baroness Jenny Chapman said the money would “help address urgent need” in Gaza, but only if Israel allowed the region to be “flooded with aid”.
Five Lebanese soldiers were killed in a blast on Saturday while removing munitions from a Hezbollah military facility in south Lebanon, a military source told AFP.
Iran’s judiciary said Saturday it was investigating the cases of 20 people arrested over their suspected links with Israel after the 12-day war between the two arch-foes.
As reported by the Mail on Sunday, an insider has said: “‘The Duke [of Sussex] is anxious that the fight against poverty and Aids in Lesotho and Botswana carries on.
“He and Prince Seeiso are keen to work together on a new venture. They are talking about setting up a new charity or clubbing together to support other existing charities doing similar work in the region.”
Last week, a Charity Commission probe found “no evidence” to support Dr Sophie Chandauka’s allegations of bullying, harassment, misogyny and misogynoir – discrimination against black women.
Following last week’s findings, Harry broke his silence by accusing the Charity Commission of “sitting on the fence” after it published a report that “criticised all parties” at his charity for weaknesses that “risked undermining public trust in charities more generally”.
As reported by the Times, a source close to Harry then criticised the report. They have said that the royal was “devastated that the chair has been allowed to succeed with a hostile takeover”.
Sentebale was founded to help young people and children in southern Africa, particularly those living with HIV and Aids.
Just days after his departure in March, Prince Harry said in a statement: “From the inception of Sentebale nearly 20 years ago, Prince Seeiso and I have had a clear goal: to support the children and young people in Southern Africa in memory of our mothers. What has transpired over the last week has been heartbreaking to witness, especially when such blatant lies hurt those who have invested decades in this shared goal. No one suffers more than the beneficiaries of Sentebale itself.”
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ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will visit Japan in the first week of October.
This visit is being made at the special invitation of the Japanese government and will be the first visit by a Pakistani prime minister to Japan in 20 years.
According to reports, during this visit, Japan is expected to announce a major economic and trade package for Pakistan, which will include projects related to investment, industrial development, technology exchange, and the promotion of exports.
Several important agreements and memoranda of understanding will also be signed, which are being regarded as a milestone in the relations between the two countries.
Previously, in 2005, then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz visited Japan.
Japan’s ambassador, Akamatsu Shuichi, described this visit as exceptionally important, stating that Japan is a longstanding friend of Pakistan and this visit will mark the beginning of a new chapter in the relationship.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will meet with the Japanese prime minister and other senior leadership. He hopes this visit will open new doors of cooperation not only at the government level but also in public, business, and educational sectors.
Also, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif will visit Japan on August 17 for a five-day official trip, where she will address an investment conference and meet with senior Japanese government officials and business leaders.
Her aim is to introduce investment opportunities in Punjab and enhance cooperation in trade, technology, education, and agriculture sectors.
China wants the United States to ease export controls on chips critical for artificial intelligence as part of a trade deal before a possible summit between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
Chinese officials have told experts in Washington that Beijing wants the Trump administration to relax export restrictions on high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.
The White House, State Department, and China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report.
HBM chips, which help perform data-intensive AI tasks quickly, are closely watched by investors due to their use alongside AI graphic processors, particularly Nvidia’s NVDA.O.
The FT said China is concerned because the US HBM controls hamper the ability of Chinese companies such as Huawei to develop their own AI chips.
Successive US administrations have curbed exports of advanced chips to China, looking to stymie Beijing’s AI and defence development.
While this has impacted US firms’ ability to fully address booming demand from China, one of the world’s largest semiconductor markets, it still remains an important revenue driver for American chipmakers.
