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WHAT THE WORLD

Fed-Up French Mayor Bans Snow From Falling

Icy roads, electricity outages, whiny city folk … There's only one solution to ending winter chaos.

Google Street View screenshot of Cerdon, in eastern France

No snow (for now, and forever?) in Cerdon

Rozena Crossman

No one’s dreaming of a white Christmas in the town of Cerdon, in eastern France . Marc Chavent, mayor of this municipality tucked into the Jura mountains , apparently has a very different dream: So frustrated by the difficulties his community faced due to snowfall that earlier this week, the mayor banned the chilly precipitation altogether.


Wait, what? The bonafide decree (see below) was of course an act of legislative symbolism, drawing attention to very real issues: As French news website actuLyon reports, the town’s electricity often gets cut as soon as it begins to snow, and a few weeks ago Cerdon’s snow removal tractor broke down.

The plague of neo-rurals


“It’s difficult to invest 150,000 euros in new snow removal material,” Chavent wrote in the mandate, blaming the larger French government’s endless red tape for hampering the financial autonomy of small cities and towns.

The mayor also took a swipe at a new part of Cerdon’s population — “neo-rurals who, despite having made the choice to live in a mountainous region during winter, believe themselves to be in downtown Lyon” — who apparently find that snow is cold, wet and slippery.

Well, if Chavent's law can't stop the snow, maybe there's an app for that?

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War

Gaza And BRICS: Arab Leaders' Visit To China Is Only The Beginning

Frustrated by the United States’ unwavering support for Israel’s war on Gaza, Arab governments have looked at other options to help establish a ceasefire before it becomes too late. First stop: Beijing. Moscow’s role may be more obscure, but no less essential, in building a global coalition that counters the West’s stance.

Arab leaders' visit to Beijing, China, on Nov. 20

Elias Kassem

CAIRO — Call it “the China option.”

The scene Monday in Beijing said a lot, both about the state of the war in Gaza, and the world at large: top diplomats of five Arab countries, all with close ties with the U.S., arrived in the Chinese capital to meet with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, as part of Arab and Islamic diplomatic efforts to rally global support for a ceasefire.

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Choosing Beijing as the first stop of a tour to the five permanent members of the United Nations’ Security Council shows China’s growing role in the Middle East amid global power competition. It also shows regional frustration from the West’s justification of Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians as “a self-defense,” according to Asharq , a United Arab Emirates-based news outlet.

“Motivating the major countries in the East to play a more effective and influential role may restore balance to the international scene,” wrote Gamal Raif , an Egyptian journalist and political writer, on X, formerly known as Twitter. “China in particular has been seeking for some time to find new workspaces within the international arena.”

The delegation included foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan , Indonesia, the Palestinian Authority, and the chairman of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

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