“Being part of this refugee team shows that you can achieve your dream,” says Omid Ahmadisafa.

A kickboxer and boxer who once won medals for his native Iran, he now lives in Germany. 

“I left my country to hope for a better future and get away from all the problems there,” he told RFI at a training centre in Bayeux, near France’s northern coast, where he and his new teammates had gathered before heading to Paris for the 2024 Summer Games.

They come from different countries and specialise in different sports. But in these Olympics, they’ll compete under the same flag: not of a nation, but the Refugee Olympic Team.

Symbol of resilience

It’s the third time a refugee team will take part in the Olympics, and the first time it will have its own flag. 

Debuting in Paris, the white flag with a red heart surrounded by a circle of black arrows that Olympic officials describe as waymarkers. It is supposed to symbolise a journey, unity and refuge.

At the opening ceremony on Friday, the team was the second to appear in the floating procession, after Greece’s. 

“The family has grown since the last editions, it’s fantastic,” said head of mission Masomah Ali Zada, an Afghan former cyclist who competed for the refugee team herself at Tokyo 2020, when it comprised 29 athletes. 

This time they number 37, drawn from 11 countries and specialising in 12 sports, from judo to swimming, badminton to breakdancing.

“They may have different backgrounds, but the thing they all have in common is resilience,” said Ali Zada. “They never gave up, despite the difficulties.”

Freedom in frames: photographing an Afghan refugee’s Olympic dream

Solidarity in exile

Some of the teammates share more than that. Global events mean that certain countries are more present than others, notably Afghanistan, Iran and Syria.

“I’m glad there are lots of Syrians here,” said Yahya al Ghotany, competing in taekwondo. “We share the same story. We’ve lived through the same problems.”

He took up the sport at a refugee camp in Jordan, where he has lived since fleeing the war in Syria.

He was one of the team’s two flag bearers at the Olympic opening ceremony on the river Seine, alongside Cameroonian boxer Cindy Ngamba. 

Sprinter Dorian Keletela, originally from Congo-Brazzaville, knows people back home will be watching. 

“My family and supporters follow what I’m doing and cheer me on from Congo and elsewhere,” said the 100-metre specialist, who is now based in France after arriving in Portugal as a teenager.

“It’s a massive encouragement and makes me want to give it everything I’ve got in Paris, even more than at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.”

Keletela set his personal best in those Games: 10.33 seconds. He’s hoping to outdo himself this time round. 

Fellow runner Farida Abaroge also has a reminder of home.

“I’m staying in a room with another woman from Ethiopia, it’s great – we share everything,” she said. 

Abaroge will be racing in the 1,500 metres, while her roommate Eyeru Gebru is a road cyclist with several medals to her name from African championships. 

Both women now live in France. Abaroge politely declined to discuss the reasons she left Ethiopia or the long journey that brought her to Europe: “I’m just here to talk about sport, please.”

Athletes above all

It’s not surprising that some athletes prefer not to talk about the past.

“It can reopen wounds, and some athletes are struggling to recover,” one member of the team support staff told RFI.

“People ask about their lives a lot, often much more than their sporting results. It makes sense in a way, but for many of them it’s painful.”

Officials organised media training for the team members to prepare them to deal with questions their fellow Olympians won’t have to face. 

“They’re seen primarily as refugees, but above all they’re athletes,” said Anne-Sophie Thilo, a Swiss former Olympic sailor now in charge of communications for the refugee team.

Organisers brought the 37 athletes and 50 or so staff who’ll accompany them to Paris together in Normandy for some final team building before the Games begin.

“Everyone’s in a good mood, there’s lots of laughing and joking,” said Thilo. “It’s our first time meeting all together, and it’s a unique and very special moment.”

In between training sessions, the delegation gathered on the beach at Arromanches-les-Bains to kick a football around and take group photos.

Spirits are high and so are hopes for a medal, something no refugee Olympian has yet won. UK-based boxer Ngamba is tipped to be the first.

While it’s gratifying to see the team gain strength, delegation leader Ali Zada says the mission is bittersweet.

“My dream is that one day this team won’t exist, that there will no longer be any refugees in the world,” she says. “That everyone can live in peace in their own country.”

From refugee to PSG and beyond: The striking story of Nadia Nadim

This story was adapted from original reporting by RFI’s Anne Bernas. 

Ferrand-Prévot completed the course at Elancourt Hill outside Paris in 1:26:02, ahead of Haley Batten of the United States in second and Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds in third.

The five-time world champion dominated from the start, finishing the seven laps of the route over a former quarry nearly three minutes ahead of her closest competitor.

Ferrand-Prévot has a clutch of titles in events from road cycling to cyclo-cross, but hadn’t yet secured an Olympic medal.

France thrash Fiji in rugby sevens to claim first gold medal at Paris Olympics

She finished 25th in the cross-country mountain biking at London 2012, as well as eighth in the road race. At Rio four years later she was forced to abandon the cross-country mid-race due to a pre-existing injury, and at the Tokyo Games she managed 10th.

“I told myself if you’re going to win, you may as well win at home,” she told reporters on Friday.

“Apart from the Olympics, I’ve more or less won everything. It’s really the title I’m missing.”

As Ferrand-Prévot celebrated finally adding it to her collection, the home crowd sang national anthem La Marseillaise.

“She mastered it like a queen, I take my hat off to her,” Julie Bresset, the last woman to  win an Olympic gold for France in the event in 2012, told RFI.

“She was there in London when I became Olympic champion and I’m happy to have been in the audience today.”

Ferrand-Prévot announced after the race that she plans to retire from mountain biking at the end of the year, switching her focus to road cycling – and an attempt at the women’s Tour de France in 2025.

Olympic schedule today

With Cupid’s arrow having hit its mark, spending their first day as a newly engaged couple at the archery seemed somehow appropriate.

“She didn’t know anything about the proposal,” beamed Eduardo.

“Natalia loves Paris. She lived here for six months. It’s the city of love and so it seemed the right place to ask.”

The couple arrived from Mexico City on Friday in time to take up seats for the opening ceremony along the river Seine.

Trips

On Saturday, they watched the beach volleyball and diving and before flying back home, they will attend another session of the beach volley ball.

In the bright sunshine on Sunday afternoon, they were among a vocal contingent of Mexicans supporting the women’s archery team which reached the semi-final before losing to the second seeds China.

But Alejandra Valencia, Ana Vazquez and Angela Ruiz dusted themselves off from the setback to take the bronze medal with a three sets to one victory over the Netherlands.

“There was a bit of bad luck in the semis against the Chinese,” said Eduardo. “But they’ve done so well to get to the bronze medal.”

Tension

The Mexican victory was straightforward in comparison with the final between China and the top seeds South Korea who were seeking a 10th consecutive crown in the women’s team event.

The defending champions wrapped up the first two sets with little ado.

But Jeon Hunyoung, Lim Sihyeon and Jeon Hunyoung faltered in their first shots of the third set. And the Chinese gained a foothold.

The South Koreans had a chance to take the title with the final shot of the fourth set but fluffed the oportunity.

That miss brought the shoot-off in which each archer takes one shot at the target.

It also sent the master of ceremonies into weapons-grade histrionics.

“The time is now and the place is here,” he intoned before South Korea’s first arrow.

A few minutes later, “here” was not where the Chinese wanted to be after South Korea triumphed 29-27.

“Absolutely brilliant,” said Antoine Vielliard, who had been watching proceedings with his wife Aurélie and 10-year-old son Léo.

“I got the tickets from a collegue,” said the 50-year-old Parisian. “It’s been a wonderful atmosphere.”

And looking up to the blue skies, he added: “And we’ve been fortunate with the weather.”

Yet son Marin had not found joy among the bows and arrows.

“He left after an hour,” said Aurélie with a roll of the eyes to describe 18-year-olds and their behaviour.

“He’s a baseball fan … he couldn’t take it. He said it was too soft.”

Probably best. That’s not the kind of thing to shout out in front of ladies who can hit 12.2cm targets from 70 metres.

Another day, another poster boy

Le rugbyman Antoine Dupont strutted his stuff on Day 1 at the Stade de France and inspired the rugby sevens team to the gold medal following a 28-7 victory over Fiji. And so cue Léon Marchand who blitzed his way to the 4×100 metres individual medley. The 22-year-old Frenchman won his swimming race in 4 mins 02.95 seconds. His Olympic record time was nearly six seconds ahead of Tomoyuki Matsushita from Japan who claimed silver. And there’s maybe more. Marchand is set to swim in the 200m butterfly, the 200m breast stroke and the 200m individual medley. If Marchand does pull off the feat of winning gold in more than one event, it will be the first time a French swimmer has won multiple individual Olympic golds. We might be hearing a lot more of the national anthem then.

But is this fair?

Léon Marchand enters the pool with genetic heft. His mother, Céline Bonnet, appeared at the 1992 Olympics and his father, Xavier Marchand, reached the final at the Olympics in 1996 and 2000. They were both good at the individual medley.

Fighting times

Defending champions Canada maintained their slender hopes of reaching the last eight of the women’s football competition with a 2-1 win over France in Saint-Etienne. Canada have 0 points following their second victory in Group A. World football’s governing body docked Canada six points just before the official opening ceremony after two members of the coaching staff were exposed for their part in flying a drone over one of New Zealand’s training sessions. It will be one in the eye for Fifa should Canada retain their title. But the whole tale puts a new twist on the old football phrase “Good in the air”.

Little arrows

So early into the Olympics and we’ve managed to get in the obscure musical reference. But why not? The sun has affected our head after watching the women’s team archery at the Esplanade des Invalides. What a wonderful backdrop the Hotel des Invalides provided with the range of cannons glowering at the archers. The review is quite surprised one of the arrows was not directed at the master of ceremonies. “The stage is set for the most epic of showdowns …the Olympic gold medal match,” uttered he of the dread intent. To be fair – since the review is this among many things – it was nerve-racking stuff. South Korea let slip a two-set lead and eventually beat China in a three- shot “shoot-off”. Kudos to the South Koreans.

Pressure?

South Korea have effectively annexed the women’s team event in the archery. They won the fiirst one in 1988 in Seoul. But they nearly lost the sranglehold in Paris. However, the trio claimed the shoot-off with 10, 9 and a 10 while the Chinese could muster only 8, 10 and 9. “We’re always concentrating on training,” said South Korea’s Jeon Hunyoung. “And we try to embrace the challenge.” You don’t say.

Though nearly a decade away from the thick of the action in the Olympic pool, Maranhao readily recalls bittersweet memories of her trips to the Games.

Remembering her debut in the 400m individual medley in Athens in 2004, the 37-year-old explodes into teenage vitality. “I went for the test event and I came first,” she beams.

“I was joking with my coach that this was only time that I was going to win in this swimming pool, because the next time it was going to be the Olympics and the US swimmers were going to be there.

“It was amazing… an amazing experience. I was never as happy for a race as I was in my first Olympic Games. And I’m so glad that I got to have that experience after remembering what happened to me.”

Behind the excitement lay darkness. As a child she was sexually abused by her swimming coach.

“It’s very difficult for anyone to talk about something so gruelling, especially a nine-year-old,” says Maranhão, moments before addressing a Unesco symposium in Paris on gender equality and creating safer environments for athletes.

“Back then, I knew this was uncomfortable, that it was physically painful and embarrassing and overwhelming.

“But I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know how to call it rape. I didn’t know the term. So within time, I blocked those memories and I just kept going.

“But there is a time that those memories came back. And when they do that’s when I kind of understood the severeness of what I had suffered and what it had done to me because I didn’t understand… like the passing out, because that’s something that happens to me.

“My body just passes out when it’s triggered.”

Legal reform

Aged 17, Maranhao finished fifth in the final in Athens – still the best performance by a Brazilian woman in the individual medley at the Olympics.

“After Athens, it got very heavy. Even though swimming was pleasant sometimes, but it was always heavy. So I’m glad that I had the chance to just be a swimmer for one Olympic Games.”

An attempt to take her own life and depression emerged from the paradox of fearing the arena where she excelled.

With therapy helping to combat the trauma, Maranhao spoke out publicly following the Games in Beijing, where she failed to reach the final in any of her three events.

India’s women wrestlers grapple with sexual harassment claims

Other testimonies of sexual abuse emerged. With that boost, the punch of the star swimmer helped change the way Brazil’s judicial system handled such cases.

Before what became known in 2012 as the Lei Maranhao (Maranhao’s Law), victims had 16 years to start legal action against their alleged abuser – but once they were 18, they only had six months.

Under the new legislation, after the age of 18, they have 20 years to go the courts.

“That change has brought meaning to my story,” Maranhao says. “Because when you go through something like that, you kind of think, ‘why did that happen to me? Why did I deserve something like that?’ So my fight is for justice and for safe sport.

“The change in Brazil is definitely not the ideal because we think we should ban any statutes of limitation. But now that there’s more time is something. It’s important.”

Maranhao’s results at the Olympics in London in 2012 and Rio in 2016 never matched the bravura of Athens.

“That’s the biggest ‘what if?’ and frustration in my life because I know what an amazing swimmer I was,” she says today.

“I’ve always loved hard work… 14 kilometres in one day, 20K in one day, doing the 400m medley 10 times… give it to me, I can train.

“I had no problem with hard work. But I also knew that it was impossible to reach my full potential because when you live the best and the worst experiences and you’re balancing that… There was a lot of trauma and panic attacks in the call room just before a race.”

‘Not safe, but safer’

Today, as a coordinator at the Sports & Rights Alliance, Maranhao oversees the Athletes Network for Safer Sports. 

“We are this group of allies, victims, whistleblowers and survivors who want to be part of the solution and heal,” she says.

That involves not just personal strength but systemic change.

“We do things like webinars and collaborating with sports governing bodies to improve the system,” Maranhao explains.

“When I talk to them I say, ‘you need to understand that the result of the abuse is that there is no ending’… There’s no overcoming what happened to us and no one chooses.

“So always think about that when you’re going to make a decision. You need to go through the moral and ethical aspects of it. I agree it’s extremely complex, but I’m a firm believer in the power of making sports safer, not safe.

“It will never be safe, but safer.”

New generation

Marriage to the Brazilian former judoka Luciano Correa and a five-year-old son, Caetano, help the journey.

Maranhao smiles too when recounting her life as a swimming commentator for Brazilian TV, where she cheers on her successors on the national team. 

“The women still do not have an Olympic medal. We’ve made finals and I feel like this is a huge chance for those girls,” she says. 

“It’s a new generation and I can see that the girls are working as a team, like supporting each other, just like we did back in 2004. And this means the world when you are going into such a big event.”

French women sports journalists call ‘time’s up’ on sexism in the profession

Organisers of the Paris 2024 Olympics have been keen to trumpet that theirs are the first Games where the same number of male and female athletes are competing.

The official database of the International Olympic Committee, which administers the Olympic Games, showed 11,215 athletes registered to participate in Paris: 5,712 in men’s events and 5,503 in women’s events, or a 51-49 percent split.

It’s a far cry from when the Games last came to Paris, when only 135 women were allowed into town.

“I’m very much looking forward to my girls,” says Maranhao. “And they always catch me crying live. I cry every single time. Like at the world championships in February, they made the finals in the relay and I was like, bawling.

“I was so proud of them. I can’t wait to see them at the Olympics.”

Coach Beverly Priestman, who led them to Olympic glory in Tokyo in 2021, was suspended for a year after some of her staff deployed a drone to peer into New Zealand’s training session just before their opening game last Thursday in Saint-Etienne.

Canada won the Group A clash 2-1. But the reduction leaves the side on -3 points ahead of the clash against pacesetters France.

Anything less than a victory over Hervé Renard’s team would leave the Canadians struggling to qualify for the last eight as one of the two best third-placed teams from the three pools.

Canada Soccer chief executive Kevin Blue said he had tried to convince Fifa bosses not to punish the team.

“The players themselves have not been involved in any unethical behaviour,” Blue said. “And frankly we ask Fifa to take that into consideration if contemplating any further sanctions.

“Specifically we do not feel that a deduction of points in this tournament would be fair to our players.”

Olympic schedule today

‘Not our values’

Canada’s players have protested their innocence. “There was a lot of emotion, frustration and humiliation because as a player, it doesn’t reflect our values and what we want to represent as competitors at the Olympics,” lamented defender Vanessa Gilles.

 “The Games represent fair play. As Canadians, these are not our values or those of our country. We are not cheats.”

Analyst Joey Lombardi was ejected from the Canada camp for his part in flying the drone over the New Zealand training session. Assistant Jasmine Mander was also sent home, while Priestman withdrew herself from the game against New Zealand before Canadian football chiefs suspended her.

Brazilian Olympian recounts journey through abuse to fight for athletes’ safety

Canada Soccer, which runs the country’s national football squads, was fined 200,000 euros for failing to stop the plotting.

“At the moment we are trying to directly address what appears to look like it could be a systemic ethical shortcoming, in a way that’s, frankly, unfortunately painful right now, but is turning out to be a necessary part of the rehabilitation process,” Blue added.

“Upon gathering more information from that review, that will be an additional opportunity to see what steps additionally need to be taken, if any.”

Under controversial legislation currently passing through parliament, local authorities would be responsible for rounding up stray dogs, which would be killed after 30 days if an owner can not be found for them.

Opponents claim as many as eight million street dogs could be at risk.

“They are planning to round them up into shelters, which we call death camps,” said Zulal Kalkandelen, one of the animals rights activists taking part in a recent protest against the plan in Istanbul.

“For some time, there has been a campaign to fuel stray animal hatred,” she declared.

“Our people, who have been living with street dogs for many years, in fact for centuries, are now being brought to the point where all these animals will be erased.”

Street dogs have been a part of Istanbul life for centuries. The proposed legislation evokes memories of a dark chapter in the city’s past when, in 1910, street dogs were rounded up and left on a nearby island to starve.

It has provoked emotive arguments in parliament, with MPs jostling one another and exchanging insults – opening another deep divide in an already fractured political landscape.

But President Erdogan insists something must be done to control stray animals that, he argues, have become a menace to society, causing traffic accidents and spreading disease.

Humane alternatives

Addressing parliament, Erdogan claimed he was answering the call of the “silent majority”.

“The truth is that a very large part of society wants this issue to be resolved as soon as possible and our streets to become safe for everyone, especially our children,” he declared.

“It is unthinkable for us to remain indifferent to this demand, this call, even this cry. Our proposals are no different from those of other countries in Europe.”

Mixed reactions as France prepares to simplify wolf culling rules

Lawyer Elcin Cemre Sencan, who has helped organise protests against the proposed legislation, argues there are more humane ways to address people’s concerns.

“There is a group of people who are disturbed by these stray animals or who are afraid even to touch them,” she acknowledges. “But even if there are these concerns, the solution is not to put the dogs to sleep.

“Scientific studies have shown that sterilising animals, especially dogs, reduces not only their numbers but also attacks on people.”

Veterinary organisations have also pointed out that the cost of euthanising a dog is many times higher than sterilisation and vaccination.

Diversion tactic?

Some critics suggest politics could be behind the move.

With Erdogan’s conservative AK Party suffering heavy defeats in local elections this spring and Turkey grappling with near 100 percent inflation, opponents claim the Turkish president could be calculating that objections to his street dog legislation comes mainly from the secular opposition and hoping the issue will consolidate his religious base.

“We know our problems in this country; the world knows our problems. There is an economic crisis, and we have human rights problems everywhere. But they want to change the main topics to these animals,” said Eyup Cicerali, a professor at Istanbul’s Nisantasi University, at a recent protest against the legislation.  

“They want to kill them all,” he claimed. “We are here to protect our values, values of respect and dignity for human and animal rights. Life is an issue for all groups.”

According to one recent opinion poll, less than 3 percent of the Turkish public support the culling of street dogs.

Some of Erdogan’s MPs have even started speaking out against the law in the media, albeit anonymously. “This law makes us dog killers,” one unnamed deputy was quoted as saying.

Despite such misgivings, the legislation is expected to pass parliament later this month.

But with the protests drawing together secular and religious animal lovers, and opposition-controlled local authorities declaring they won’t impose the law, the stray dog legislation could prove a risky move for Erdogan.

Where will Gaza stray dogs find shelter?

Following tests and a meeting to discuss water quality, “a joint decision was taken to cancel the swimming part of the triathlon orientation”, a Paris 2024 and World Triathlon statement said.

The River Seine was declared clean enough for swimming in tests from mid-July, but doubts remained as to whether the waters would be fit for competition.

“Paris 2024 and World Triathlon reiterate that the priority is the health of the athletes. The analysis carried out yesterday in the Seine showed water quality levels that… do not present sufficient guarantees to allow the event to take place,” the statement said.

Seine fit for swimming most of past 12 days, Paris city hall says ahead of Olympics

Raw sewage

The quality of the Seine – which is set to be used for triathlon and marathon swimming – is dependent on the amount of rain that falls in and around Paris.

Heavy downpours of the sort seen on Friday during the sodden opening ceremony overwhelm the city’s sewage system, leading to discharges of untreated effluent into the waterway.

“We’re not particularly worried,” chief organiser Tony Estanguet told reporters on Sunday. 

“We know that for 24 to 48 hours after heavy rain that we might need to delay [events]. The weather forecast shows that in theory the rain shouldn’t return.”

The triathlons are set to take place on 30-31 July and 5 August, followed by the open-water swimming on 8-9 August.

Due to an exceptionally wet spring and start to summer, the Seine had been consistently failing water tests until the start of July.

Levels of the E.coli bacteria – an indicator of faecal matter – were sometimes 10 times higher than authorised limits.

Organisers can delay the outdoor swimming events by several days in the event of rain.

As a last resort, they have said they will cancel the swimming leg of the triathlon and move the marathon swimming to Vaires-sur-Marne, on the Marne river east of Paris.

Clean-up operation

French authorities have invested 1.4 billion euros over the last decade to clean up the Seine.

French authorities have invested in new water treatment and storage facilities in and around Paris, as well as ensuring that thousands of homes and canal boats without waste-water connections are linked up to the sewerage system.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Paris 2024 chief organiser Tony Estanguet and French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera are among the dignitaries who have taken a dip in the Seine in recent weeks in a bid to prove the river is swimmable.

Hidalgo plans to create three public bathing areas in the Seine for the city’s residents next year – a century after swimming in it was banned.

(with AFP)

Javaid Rehman, the UN’s independent special rapporteur on the rights situation in Iran, said there should be “no impunity for such gross human rights violations, regardless of when they were committed”.

His 66-page report focuses on “grave human rights violations” that took place in the Islamic Republic in 1981-1982 and in 1988, comprising “summary, arbitrary and extrajudicial executions of thousands of arbitrarily imprisoned political opponents”.

It spotlights alleged extrajudicial executions of thousands of mainly young people across Iranian prisons within a few months in the summer of 1988, just as the war with Iraq was ending, an episode described as a “shocking tale of brutality”.

Those killed were mainly supporters of the People’s Mujahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI), a group Iranian authorities consider a terrorist organisation. At the time, the PMOI was given shelter and heavy weaponry by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.

A history of revolt

The PMOI is known by a variety of names, including Mujaheddin-e-Kalkh (MEK) or “People’s Mujaheddin”, alongside its political wing the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

The organisation was founded in 1965 and, according to human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, author of a 2009 study on Tehran’s persecution of the MEK, the movement “had taken its politics from Karl Marx, its theology from Islam, and its guerrilla tactics from Che Guevara”.

“It had fought the Shah and supported the revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power, but later broke with his theocratic state and took up arms against it, in support (or so it now says) of democracy,” Robertson writes.

Khomeini toppled the regime of Iran’s Shah in 1979 and, according to Robertson, did not want to have anything to do with the MEK and like-minded groups. A period of struggles, bomb attacks, waves of arrests and executions followed.

The group’s current leader is Maryam Rajavi, wife of the group’s founder Massoud Rajavi, who disappeared in 2003. It is not known if he is still alive.

Meanwhile, Iran holds the MEK responsible for the Haft-e Tir bombing on the regime’s party headquarters on 28 June 1981, which killed more than 70 government officials.

It also blames it for the bombing of the Iranian prime minister’s office two months later, which killed Prime Minister Bahonar, President Mohammad Ali Rajai and six other Iranian government officials.

Overall, authorities attribute some 17,000 deaths to MEK attacks over the past four decades, a figure that is regularly repeated by Iran’s state-controlled media. 

The MEK in turn maintains – now with the backing of the UN findings – that Iranian authorities have killed thousands of members of their organisation, following arrests that continue to this day.

Exile in France

After the United States drove out Saddam Hussein from Iraq in the early 2000s, MEK rebels remained concentrated in a refugee camp near Baghdad until Washington pulled out its troops.

Earlier, the group’s political wing, the NCRI, had found shelter in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town outside Paris, where members reside in a walled compound in an uneasy relationship with the French government.

The remaining rebels and their families were moved to Albania.

The members of MEK have often been surrounded by controversy, and the relationship between the NCRI and Paris is complex. After being on US and EU-level terrorist lists for years, the organisation relentlessly lobbied a broad range of public figures, including journalists, ministers, mayors and politicians, and managed to clear its name.

Meanwhile, Tehran and the rebels continue to attack each other, but the struggle moved outside Iran proper. In 2018, the NCRI gathering, then held in the Villepinte convention centre outside Paris, was the target of a suspected bomb plot involving local operatives and the Vienna-based diplomat Assadollah Assadi, who was later sentenced to 20 years in prison as the “mastermind”.

He was released last year in exchange for Belgian humanitarian worker Olivier Vandecasteele, who was held in an Iranian prison for more than a year on charges of espionage.

France denounces ‘state hostage-taking’ by Iran as couple mark two years in jail

Iran on the defensive

The MEK welcomed the UN’s report, which appears to add weight to its long-standing accusations against the Iranian government. 

As a rule, Iran flatly rejects any criticism of its human rights record.

Responding to a fact-finding mission by Rehman in 2022, aimed at investigating the aftermath of mass protests and alleged human rights violations, the secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, Kazem Gharibabadi, declared that the UN’s report contained a “repetition and legitimisation of baseless claims that have been raised repeatedly in the anti-Iranian media and from the platforms of some Western governments, and it lacks any documented source”.

In the same breath, Gharibabadi invoked the MEK and attacked western countries like France that “have supported terrorists who have taken the lives of more than 17,000 innocent people in Iran, including women and children, and have harboured them in their own lands”.

Iran blasts France for hosting opposition meeting

Albanian base

After US troops started to leave Iraq in late 2007, the pressure from Baghdad on MEK to leave the country mounted. In 2013, American and UN diplomats arranged for the MEK to purchase land in Albania, where they opened a camp that is now officially home to some 2,500 members.

But Iran kept a close guard, vilifying the camp and their Albanian hosts.

A rare visit by the New York Times to the camp in 2020 painted a picture of a rather desperate group that operates in extreme secrecy and fear, in spite of the relative distance from Iran.

Tensions rose again last year, when according to cybersecurity watchdog Mandiant, Tirana suspended diplomatic ties with Iran after it found that Tehran had staged cyberattacks against Albania, apparently to show its discontent over the presence of the MEK.

Iran also accuses the group of holding members against their will, which they deny.

Thar be gold in Saint-Denis

Let’s rewind to late autumn 2023 and the silence in the Stade de France when South Africans had the temerity to come over here and steal Frenchmen’s jobs of parading with the rugby World Cup trophy.

France skipper Antoine Dupont was not a happy bunny after the 29-28 defeat at the Stade de France. He said the referee was not up to the job.

But Dupont was all smiles at the same venue eight months on because France are rugby sevens Olympic champions following a 28-7 wallop of defending champions Fiji.

“It’s always difficult to appreciate what you’ve just achieved straight afterwards,” said Dupont as he cradled his gold medal. “I’ll have the whole summer to look back and savour what we’ve done.”

He can look forward too. Only three more years until the next dodgy referee at a rugby World Cup.

France thrash Fiji in rugby sevens to claim first gold medal at Paris Olympics

Abridged version

Antoine Dupont’s from near Toulouse. There was a family-run Hotel Dupont near a pont (bridge) in the village. We’re into nominative determinism. Antoine. Bridge.

His introduction for the second-half of the final against Fiji led to another stratosphere. He set up one try and scored two others in the 28-7 rout of Fiji.

The France team – kitted out in their rather striking creamy white suits – did a snazzy dance routine as part of the celebrations. Groovy for some. A bridge too far for others.

And so farewell

The final was coach Jerome Daret’s last dance with the cream of France. The 49-year-old steps away from his post after seven years in charge.

It’s not been all glory. France’s rugby sevens teams reached the last eight at the 2018 and 2022 rugby sevens World Cup.

Daret hinted he might stay with the French rugby federation to develop the game of sevens around France.

Sevens heaven: France win first Olympic gold in event at fan’s first rugby match

Medals

France’s golden boys capped a good day at the Olympic office for the hosts.

Shirine Boukli won the country’s first medal with bronze in the -48kg women’s judo. Luka Mkheidze took silver in the men’s -60kg judo and Auriane Mallo-Breton claimed silver in the women’s epee.

At the end of Day 1, the French delegation’s haul had put them fourth overall in the medals table.

Voyage

What better way to forget domestic political armageddon than trips around the 6 billion-euro Olympic showcase?

President Emmanuel Macron was hither and thither of Day 1. To the Champs de Mars to watch the judokas, up to Saint-Denis for the rugger and down to Grand Palais for the fencing. The whirl.

Macron says he hopes the French will finish in the top five in the medals table. Such are his political woes that if he were to put such a statement to his parliament, there’d be disagreements. Emmanuel, you need a bridge.

In total, more than 200 delegations and 10,000 athletes are participating in 36 sports at the Paris Games. 

RFI’s sport editor Paul Myers discusses how African athletes from all over the continent are likely to perform.

Who are the African athletes to watch out for at Paris Olympics?

Episode mixed by Erwan Rome. 

Spotlight on Africa is a podcast from Radio France Internationale. 

Antoine Dupont, the skipper of the full-size national rugby team, came off the bench to orchestrate a second-half rout of the defending champions.

Fijian teams have won the title since rugby sevens was introduced at the 2016 Games in Rio.

And the 2024 vintage got off to a flyer with a try on their first attack.

Joseva Talacolo’s score silenced the partisans at the Stade de France. But they refound their voice and fervour just before halftime when Andy Timo’s barnstorming run set up Jefferson-Lee Joseph.

Change

At 7-7, France coach Jerome Daret sent on Dupont.

His searing run down the left wing at the start of the second half left Aaron Grandidier Nkanang with the formalities and Rayan Rebbadj added his second conversion of the match to give France a 14-7 lead.

The score broke Fiji, who lost their discipline. Dupont took charge of a penalty and tricked his way over the touchline to effectively end the contest. The try at the end was pure grandstanding.

South Africa took the bronze medal following a 26-19 win over Australia.

China, Australia become first countries to win gold at Paris Olympics

Judo bronze

Earlier, Shirine Boukli won France’s first medal of the Games when the 25-year-old claimed bronze in the women’s judo -48 kg with victory over Laura Martinez Abelenda from Spain.

Natsumi Tsunoda took the gold in the category to notch up Japan’s first medal.

Luka Mkheidze from France won silver in the men’s -60kg after his loss to Yeldos Smetov from Kazakhstan at the Champ de Mars Arena.

Olympic schedule today

“I was hooked from the moment I walked into the stadium,” said the 60-year-old nurse.

“It was impressive to see the fervour rising and rising as the semifinal got underway. The atmosphere was great. It was well coordinated between the music and the matches. I thought it was really good.”

Husband Christian concurred.

“It was magical. Exceptional. It’s true that the fact that France won helps, doesn’t it?”

The couple, who live in Saint-Cloud on the leafy western fringes of Paris, paid 145 euros each on Friday for their first trip to an event at an Olympic Games – as well as a piece of Paris 2024 history.

“The stadium was superb, and the teams played really well,” said Christian. “And the atmosphere in the stadium was exceptional, very strong.”

Memories of World Cup

Unlike his neophyte wife, Christian is a Stade de France habitué, with trips last autumn during the rugby union World Cup for a semifinal and the third-place playoff between England and Argentina.

A heavily fancied France flopped in that tournament. South Africa beat them 29-28 in a nail-biting quarter-final.

Antoine Dupont, who was injured in a pool match against Namibia, returned sporting a mask to protect a broken cheekbone but to no avail.

The skipper of the 15-man team dropped out of the 2024 Six Nations tournament to devote himself to the cause of the national sevens team.

And it paid off handsomely.

“When I joined the squad for the first time I wondered what I was doing with them and  if I made the right choice to not play the Six Nations,” Dupont admitted.

But after dancing in the centre of the pitch with his teammates following the rout, he beamed: “The atmosphere was amazing. I’ve rarely heard such an atmosphere here in Stade de France.

“The fans made a lot of noise and we had to embrace it and give something back to them.”

French triumph

Coach Jérôme Daret started Dupont on the bench. It appeared a waste of riches as Fiji scored on their first attack.

Joseva Talacolo’s impudence silenced the partisans. But they were re-energised just before half-time when Andy Timo’s barnstorming run set up Jefferson-Lee Joseph.

At 7-7, Daret sent on Dupont for and he lived up to his name. The 27-year-old offered the bridge into the promised land.

France thrash Fiji in rugby sevens to claim first gold medal at Paris Olympics

A searing run down the left wing at the start of the second half left Aaron Grandidier Nkanang with the formalities and Rayan Rebbadj added his second conversion of the match to give France a 14-7 lead.

Dupont took charge of a penalty and tricked his way over the touchline to effectively end the contest at 19-7. Another conversion made it 21-7 and Dupont’s try at the end hinted at excess.

Satisfied with silver

“It was not what we wanted but France were too good for us,” said Fiji’s Jerry Tuwai.

“We started really well but a lot of things happened that didn’t go our way. I wanted to end my career with a third gold but not everything goes to plan.”

A group of Fiji supporters were equally realistic as they planned the evening’s entertainment outside the stadium.

“It’s the first time they’ve lost at the Olympics,” said Robert Nicole, who was over from Christchurch in New Zealand with his wife Raijeli to see the game and meet up with his younger brothers George, 56, and 54-year-old Philippe. They had travelled respectively from Zhengzou in China and Solothurn in Switzerland with their families.

“But we’re so proud of them,” added Robert. “Even a silver … Fiji is only 900,000 people and so to get to the final of this event is just so brilliant.”

South Sudan soars in basketball

Just 13 years after gaining independence, South Sudan will be a star attraction in the men’s basketball competition.

It’s the only country to represent the African continent in men’s basketball, although Nigeria is in the women’s competition.

South Sudan‘s Bright Stars qualified for the 2024 Paris Games via their first appearance at the Fiba World Cup in September last year.  

Their victory over Angola (101-78), combined with Egypt’s defeat by New Zealand (86-88), ensured that they finished as the top African team at the World Cup.

The country has risen from 82nd to 33rd place in the International Basketball Federation’s world rankings, making it the second highest-ranked African team, behind Côte d’Ivoire in 31st place.

Championed by former National Basketball Association (NBA) star Luol Deng – now president of the South Sudan Basketball Federation – the Bright Stars are, in the words of player Wenyen Gabriel, “a bunch of refugees that come together for a few weeks each year, trying our best, playing against some of the best players ever”.  ​​​​​​

Marathon man Kipchoge eyes third Olympic gold

Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge is undoubtedly one of the most eagerly awaited African athletes at the Paris Games.

The 39-year-old is already a double Olympic marathon champion, having won in Rio in 2016 and Tokyo in 2021.

He’s currently tied with Ethiopian legend Abebe Bilkila, winner in 1960 and 1964, and Germany’s Waldemar Cierpinski, who won in Montreal in 1976 and Moscow in 1980.

If he secures a hat trick in Paris on 11 August, Kipchoge will be crowned the greatest of all time.

Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge makes history by running a marathon in under two hours

Ta Lou sprints for the podium

Ivorian sprinter Marie-Josée Ta Lou has made it clear this is her last Olympics and last chance to finally get a medal.

The four-time Olympic finalist, now 35, finished fourth in both the 100m and 200m in her Olympic debut at Rio 2016, missing out on the 100m bronze by seven-thousandths of a second.

At Tokyo 2020 she came fourth in the 100m and fifth in the 200m.

Ta Lou was 100m and 200m runner-up in the London World Athletics Championships in 2017.

She wants to break that cycle in Paris and finally climb to the top of the podium.

“I am determined to give it my all to finish on a high note. My aim is the podium, I strive for the gold medal because I don’t want to leave these last Olympics without a medal,” she told Ivorian media in March this year.

Faso’s Zango to leap into history books again? 

Burkina Faso’s triple jump star Hugues Fabrice Zango made history at Tokyo 2020 when he claimed bronze in the men’s event – becoming the first Burkinabé to win an Olympic medal.

His bronze in Doha in 2019 was the nation’s first World Athletics Championships medal; he took silver in Oregon in 2022 and then gold in Budapest in August 2023.

The 30-year-old, who also has a doctorate in electrical engineering, was crowned world indoor champion in March this year, beating Algeria’s Yasser Triki and Portugal’s Tiago Pereira.

Hopes are high that Zango could bring Burkina Faso its first Olympic gold medal.

Cissé looks to reclaim taekwondo title 

Cheick Salah Junior Cissé is out to win his second taekwondo Olympic title after Rio in 2016, when he beat British athlete Lutalo Muhammad in the very last second of the competition to become the first Ivorian to win an Olympic gold medal.

The 30-year-old is flag bearer for Côte d’Ivoire’s delegation to Paris 2024, along with Marie-Josée Ta Lou.  

Cissé lost his Olympic welterweight title in the Tokyo Games in his opening fight against Achraf Mahboubi of Morocco. 

But he won his first world title and first world medal at last year’s World Taekwondo Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan, defeating defending champion Carlos Sansores of Mexico in the men’s over-87kg heavyweight division.

Cissé’s motto is “never give up”.

Mali returns to the pitch

Mali has waited 20 years to return to the Olympic football competition, and qualified by beating Guinea in a play-off match at the U23 Africa Cup of Nations in 2023.

Twenty years after competing in the Athens Olympics, where they reached the quarter-finals, Mali’s Eagles of Hope are back in the Olympic limelight.

Coach Alou Badra Diallo told Fifa his objective was “to do better than our quarter-final finish at Athens 2004. I believe they (Mali) are capable of achieving great things.” 

All eyes on South African swimmer Smith

South African breaststroke champion Tatjana Smith (née Shoenmaker) won gold in the 200m breaststroke in Tokyo 2020, beating the world 200m record in 2 minutes and 18.95 seconds.

Smith also took silver in the 100m breaststroke, and laid down a new world record of 1 minute 4.82 seconds during the preliminaries.

She competes in both distances in Paris and expectations are high she’ll go home with a medal.

Hatherly, South Africa’s mountain biking standout

Alan Hatherly got a major boost ahead of the Paris Games, winning the men’s elite cross-country at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup at Les Gets in France earlier this month.

The 28-year-old finished in 26th place in the cross-country event at the 2016 Rio Olympics. In 2018, he won bronze at the Commonwealth Games, and went on to be crowned the 2018 Under-23 Cross-Country World Champion.

In Tokyo he entered the top 10, coming in eighth place.

Ranked second in the world this year, he’s expected to put up a good fight in the hunt for a medal.

This article was adapted from the original in French.

The route along the Seine river took teams along the same waterway where protesters were thrown by Paris police during a demonstration in support of Algerian independence from France on 17 October 1961. 

Algerian athletes carried red roses with them as they sailed in the river parade, then tossed them into the water. 

Some members of the delegation chanted “Long live Algeria!” in Arabic.

Watching from Algeria, the grandson of one of the victims called it “a moment of intense emotion”.

“To make such a gesture, the day of the opening of the Olympics in Paris, is a monumental homage to the victims of 17 October,” Yanis, whose grandfather Kaci Yahia disappeared into the Seine that day, told the Associated Press.

Colonial legacy

Some 12,000 people were arrested during the 1961 protest and an estimated 120 people died, according to historians. Many of the bodies were never recovered, while others dragged from the water showed signs of harrowing violence.

It came during the final year of Algeria’s war for its independence, which it eventually won in 1962.

The French branch of the National Liberation Front (FLN) rallied protesters to defy a nighttime curfew and demonstrate peacefully around Paris.

Yet on the orders of Paris’s infamously brutal police chief, Maurice Papon, the protests were violently broken up. Demonstrators were beaten, rounded up and murdered by officers who had been assured they would be protected from prosecution. 

France and Algeria revisit painful past in battle to mend colonial wounds

Survivors and their descendants battled for decades for France to investigate the deaths and recognise its responsibility.

For years French authorities were reluctant to scrutinise the events, and it was only in 2001 that the state recognised that a massacre occurred.

In 2021, on the 60th anniversary of the killings, President Emmanuel Macron called the police’s actions “crimes” and called them “inexcusable for the Republic”.

Earlier this year, lawmakers backed a parliamentary motion that would create an official day of commemoration for the events. 

(with AP)

Less than a week since he flew down the beachfront of Nice in cycling’s most famous event, Girmay will be pounding his pedals in Paris as he launches his Olympic campaign.

If the Tour de France is anything to go by, he’ll have a large Eritrean contingent out to cheer him as he competes in the time trials on Saturday, and again in the road race a week later. 

At home and along the nearly 3,500 kilometres of the Tour’s route, his compatriots roared their support as he became the first black cyclist – from Africa or any continent – to win a stage of the race, then another, then another. 

The records kept coming. By the time the race concluded in the south of France last weekend, Girmay had accumulated enough points to take home the green sprinter’s jersey, one of the race’s three overall prizes – something no other African rider has done before. 

“I don’t have the words for it,” Girmay told RFI’s sister station France 24 when asked about the Eritrean supporters lining the way to the finish line. 

“They’ve come all the way from Asmara, from neighbouring countries. Their enthusiasm gave me lots of strength. 

“It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but today it was something special.”

An African outlier

As his fans’ commitment testifies, Girmay is something special himself: a rare African rider on the international scene, and an even rarer black one. 

The only black competitor in this year’s Tour, he’ll be one of a handful of African cyclists at the Paris Olympics.

Girmay hopes he won’t be an outlier for much longer. “It’s more beautiful to see in the peloton different colours from different countries and different continents,” he told France 24.

“I’m super happy to be part of that, and to see myself in this historic way.”

“There’s no doubt he can inspire generations of future champions, as we hope he will,” the Tour’s director Christian Prudhomme told RFI, praising Girmay’s “incredible feline style, fluid in every way”.

Cycling country

Eritrea’s long-standing passion for cycling, introduced by the Italians who once colonised it, has made it a powerhouse for the sport in Africa.

Scores of athletes have grown up training in its mountains and found success nationally and in all-Africa competitions.

It has produced world-class riders before too – including Daniel Teklehaimanot, Eritrea’s first ever Olympic cyclist, who represented the country at the 2012 Games in London.

Together with countryman Merhawi Kudus, he became one of the two first black Africans to compete in the Tour de France in 2015 and even climbed his way to the spotted “King of the Mountains” jersey in one early stage.

But Girmay, who left Eritrea as a teenager to train in Switzerland after being spotted by a talent scout for governing body the International Cycling Union (UCI), has racked up more wins outside the continent than any other African cyclist yet.

First came the one-day Gent-Wevelgem sprint in Belgium in 2022, then a stage of the Giro d’Italia the same year, a stage of the Tour de Suisse in 2023, and now this summer’s victories in France. 

“He’s staying in Europe to race. He knows he has to stay in Europe to be professional and make money,” said Belgian filmmaker Lieven Corthouts, who spent more than six years filming Girmay for his documentary This Is My Moment. 

That comes at a personal cost, according to Corthouts, not least the separation from his wife and daughter back in Asmara. 

“It’s very hard,” the filmmaker told RFI. “They can’t share the victory.”

On a mission

Girmay’s sacrifices are proof of his commitment – something the 24 year old will need plenty of if he’s to maintain his stellar trajectory.

Next year sees Rwanda host the UCI’s cycling world championships, a chance for Girmay to claim a global victory on African soil. Last time he took part in the event as a junior rider, in the 2021 under-23s race, he took silver.

“He’s going to have to incorporate everything he’s done, question himself and get back to work this winter,” French former pro racer Pierre Rolland said.

“He’s going to have avoid floating too high on his little cloud because this sport is thankless. He has to continue to write the history of his sport. I think that’s what he was born to do.”

Before then, there’s the Olympics.

As Eritrea’s lone rider, Girmay will be at a tactical disadvantage without teammates to help him to a sprint finish – but those who witnessed him make history in the Tour believe he can do it again in Paris.

“The gold medal in Paris – it’s to complete his mission,” one supporter told RFI. “Now, he’s on a mission.”

Who are the African athletes to watch out for at Paris Olympics?

This story features interviews by RFI’s Thomas de Saint Léger and Nicolas Sur, and James Vasina of France 24. 

Nearly one-third of trains were cancelled Saturday in the three regions affected by the attacks, with most trains still operating delayed by between one and two hours, state rail company SNCF said.

About a quarter of Eurostar services between London and Paris also failed to leave.

Traffic will remain disrupted into Sunday on the northern line running to Lille and Brussels, but should gradually improve on the Atlantic route to Brittany and the south-west, SNCF said.

Trains to Strasbourg and Germany have largely returned to normal.

Full service is expected to resume from Monday, Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete told a press conference. 

Authorities have taken measures to prevent any further sabotage, he said, including deploying police helicopters and 250 rail security agents to monitor France’s train lines.

Rail workers were out throughout the night making emergency repairs, said SNCF director Jean-Pierre Farandou, who estimated that about 160,000 of the 800,000 people due to travel this weekend still faced cancellations or delays.

Coordinated attacks

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the coordinated arson attacks on cabling boxes at junctions strategically picked out north, south-west and east of the French capital.

Rail workers thwarted an attempt to destroy safety equipment on a fourth line to the Mediterranean in what the SNCF called a “massive attack”.

The strikes staged early on Friday morning cut and burned fibre optic cables running along the tracks that transmit safety information to train drivers.

‘Sabotage’ on French rail network before Olympics: What we know

Prosecutors have opened an investigation into “damage to property likely to undermine the fundamental interests of the nation” and other offences.

“We have uncovered a certain number of elements that allow us to think that we will soon know who is responsible for what clearly did not sabotage the Olympic Games but did sabotage part of the holidays of the French people,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told France 2 television.

Some 250,000 people missed their train on Friday, according to SNCF.

Many travellers were on their way to the French capital for the start of the Olympics, while others were hoping to travel in the opposite direction to start their summer holidays.

(with AFP)

“The military authorities in Niger have cracked down on the opposition, media, and peaceful dissent since taking power in a coup one year ago,” Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said in their joint report.

The groups called on the ruling authorities to “immediately release all those held on politically motivated charges; guarantee respect for fundamental freedoms, particularly the rights to freedom of expression, opinion, and association”.

The military, led by General Abdourahamane Tiani, seized power on 26 July last year, after deposing elected president Mohamed Bazoum over allegations of failing to protect the West African nation from jihadist attacks.

Bazoum, who remains under strict detention with his wife Hadiza in the capital Niamey, should also be released, said Samira Daoud, Amnesty’s regional director for West and Central Africa.

On Friday, the military regime marks its first year in power holding festivities over several days.

Niger’s military coup widely condemned following overthrow of President Bazoum

Arrests and restrictions

According to the rights groups, the military regime had “arbitrarily arrested at least 30 officials from the ousted government, including former ministers, members of the presidential cabinet and people close to the deposed president, failing to grant them due process and fair trial rights”.

Among those arrested, some “were detained in secret by the intelligence services, before being transferred to high-security prisons on trumped-up charges”, lawyers cited in the NGOs’ statement said.

Meanwhile, “media freedom has been severely restricted in the country”, with journalists being threatened and “arbitrarily” arrested, leading to self-censorship for fear of reprisals, the NGOs said.

“The long list of attacks on journalists over the past year demonstrates the authorities’ determination to restrict press freedom and the right of access to information,” said Drissa Traoré, secretary general of the FIDH.

In June, the new regime in place in Niger also reinstated prison sentences for cyber-crimes involving disseminating information that “may disturb public order”, a measure “that could be used to silence any voice deemed to be dissenting”, Traore added.

Military regimes have turned the Sahel into a ‘black hole’ of information

At the end of January, a decree also suspended the activities of the independent media group Maison de la Presse, while installing a new committee headed by the Interior Ministry to oversee the organisation.

“Public oversight of the military’s economic activities is not only critical for restoring civilian democratic rule and holding military officials accountable for abuses, but also for preventing the loss of public resources to corruption and mismanagement,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“The Niger authorities should commit to transparency and accountability by immediately disclosing verifiable financial information about military spending.”

 (with AFP) 

Koniambo Nickel SAS, which is in serious financial difficulty with a colossal debt of over €13 billion, had been looking for a buyer since the departure last February of the Anglo-Swiss group Glencore – its main shareholder.

KNS said in a press release on Friday: “While the search for a buyer is continuing actively and three groups continue to show an interest in our company … we have neither a finalised offer nor visibility on the financing of the operations”.

“As a result, we are obliged to continue the process of collective redundancies for economic reasons,” KNS added.

According to management, the 1,200 employees will be made redundant on 31 August.

Around 50 of them will stay on after that date, “to ensure that the site remains on cold standby”.

Debt management

The KNS site – one of the main employers in New Caledonia – has also relied on subcontractors employing some 500 people.

Glencore had agreed to fund salaries until the end of August to allow operations to be put on a so-called “hot standby”, enabling a rapid resumption of activities in the event of a takeover.

The company said Friday that the decision to lay off almost all the staff “does not call into question the process of finding a new economic partner”. 

Until now, the company’s debt had been entirely assumed by Glencore, under the terms of a shareholders’ agreement linking the group to Société minière du Pacifique Sud (SMSP), which is owned by public interests representing the archipelago’s pro-independence North Province.

• Blow for France as Glencore quits struggling New Caledonia nickel mine
• New Caledonian capital Noumea ‘under control’ after deadly riots

Market collapse

New Caledonia is bearing the full brunt of the global nickel crisis, and the territory’s two other plants are also threatened with closure.

Prony Resources in the south of the archipelago has come to a complete standstill, while SLN in the capital Nouméa posted a net loss of €72 million in the first half of the year, according to figures presented on Thursday by its main shareholder, the French group Eramet.

The difficulties have been exacerbated by the insecurity and civil unrest that has reigned in New Caledonia since mid-May, disrupting ore supplies and employee access to many sites.

Recent riots, sparked by a vote on a proposed reform of the territory’s electoral body – which the pro-independence faction opposes – have resulted in the deaths of at least 10 people, including two policemen, and considerable material damage to the archipelago’s infrastructure, estimated at over €2 billion.

(with newswires)

Following qualification heats, the 10m air rifle mixed team gold and bronze medal matches will take place at the shooting range in Chateauroux, some 300 kilometres south-west of Paris.

Back in the metropolis, golds will be decided in the judo, men’s street skateboarding, men’s rugby sevens as well as the individual time trials in the road cycling.

In the pool at the Aquatics Centre in Saint Denis, eight teams – including hosts France – will vie for the women’s synchronised 3m springboard diving title.

And at La Défense Arena, the men’s and women’s 400 metres freestyle as well as the men and women’s 4x100m freestyle relays will be contested.

• President Emmanuel Macron declares the Paris Olympics open

Celebration

Friday night’s opening extravaganza featured an array of national and international stars and homages to athletes from 120 years of Olympic history as well as the Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin, who resuscitated the ancient Greek sports festival.

Water was very much to the fore as around 300,000 people braved persistent, driving downpours to watch a flotilla of vessels ferry around 7,000 athletes between the Pont d’Austerlitz and Pont d’Iéna and fete the Games in Paris since 1924.

During the six-kilometre voyage, opening ceremony artistic director Thomas Jolly unfurled a sporadically wry but continually engaging vision of French history, histrionics and kinks.

At one point, playing with pop and pomp, Jolly orchestrated a vignette in which the Franco-Malian singer Aya Nakamura belted out some of her hit tunes accompanied by musicians from the Republican Guard who eventually broke ranks to get down and funky.

Lady Gaga revelled in an early interlude before the heavens opened.

Soon after her appearance, the 38-year-old American posted a message on social media.

Dancers – who had threatened to boycott the opening ceremony in a dispute over pay and conditions – performed routines along the scaffolding at Notre Dame and along the roof tops.

“I’ve got such an adrenaline rush,” said Selene Martinez, who had travelled from Mexico for the ceremony.

“The atmosphere is really friendly,” added 75-year-old Frenchman Jean-Yves Herve, who watched the show with his granddaughter. “There are lots of foreigners, we’re enjoying it. It’s good for France.”

‘Love story’

Nearly three hours after the Greek delegation led the way in the first boat, the French athletes emerged in their craft.

Their arrival in front the VIPs perched under a roofed stand at Trocadéro signalled the start of the formalities.

“It’s a huge honour to welcome you back after 100 years,” said Tony Estanguet, the boss of the organising committee.

“There’s been a big love story between France and the Olympics,” added the three-time gold medallist in canoeing. “We have put our whole heart into welcoming you and we want to share everything that is most precious to us.”

And paying tribute to the teams that instigated and executed the first opening ceremony outside a main stadium, Estanguet added: “We’ve been bold … doing things that have never been done before with the desire to make the Games bigger.

“There are often times when we don’t see eye to eye but in the moments that count, we can come together.”

Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, which was set up by de Coubertin in 1894, added: “What better place than Paris to celebrate the Olympics, the birthplace of the IOC founder?”

Eiffel power

Addressing the athletes, Bach, a gold medallist for West Germany in the fencing at the 1976 Games in Montreal, insisted: “This is the pinnacle of your Olympic journey.

“Now you are Olympians like generations before you. Now you are part of something bigger than yourself.

“In our world there is no global south or global north. As Olympians we care for each other.”

French football legend Zinedine Zidane, who appeared in the opening segment of the show to take the Olympic torch from comedian Djamel Debbouze at the Stade de France, turned up at Trocadéro to reclaim the torch. 

He handed it on to the 14-time French Open winner Rafael Nadal. The torch then went through other sports stars such as the former tennis world number one Amélie Mauresmo and the former basketball player Tony Parker.

French Olympians Marie-José Perec and Teddy Riner combined to light the flame for the Games.

But the coup de théâtre came from the Canadian singer Céline Dion, who in her first public performance for four years following a battle with an illness that affected her voice, belted out from the Eiffel Tower the Edith Piaf song L’Hymne à l’amour.

All that remained from the Jolly good show were the lights and music. Cue the Eiffel power.

Under controversial legislation currently passing through parliament, local authorities would be responsible for rounding up stray dogs, which would be killed after 30 days if an owner can not be found for them.

Opponents claim as many as eight million street dogs could be at risk.

“They are planning to round them up into shelters, which we call death camps,” said Zulal Kalkandelen, one of the animals rights activists taking part in a recent protest against the plan in Istanbul.

“For some time, there has been a campaign to fuel stray animal hatred,” she declared.

“Our people, who have been living with street dogs for many years, in fact for centuries, are now being brought to the point where all these animals will be erased.”

Street dogs have been a part of Istanbul life for centuries. The proposed legislation evokes memories of a dark chapter in the city’s past when, in 1910, street dogs were rounded up and left on a nearby island to starve.

It has provoked emotive arguments in parliament, with MPs jostling one another and exchanging insults – opening another deep divide in an already fractured political landscape.

But President Erdogan insists something must be done to control stray animals that, he argues, have become a menace to society, causing traffic accidents and spreading disease.

Humane alternatives

Addressing parliament, Erdogan claimed he was answering the call of the “silent majority”.

“The truth is that a very large part of society wants this issue to be resolved as soon as possible and our streets to become safe for everyone, especially our children,” he declared.

“It is unthinkable for us to remain indifferent to this demand, this call, even this cry. Our proposals are no different from those of other countries in Europe.”

Mixed reactions as France prepares to simplify wolf culling rules

Lawyer Elcin Cemre Sencan, who has helped organise protests against the proposed legislation, argues there are more humane ways to address people’s concerns.

“There is a group of people who are disturbed by these stray animals or who are afraid even to touch them,” she acknowledges. “But even if there are these concerns, the solution is not to put the dogs to sleep.

“Scientific studies have shown that sterilising animals, especially dogs, reduces not only their numbers but also attacks on people.”

Veterinary organisations have also pointed out that the cost of euthanising a dog is many times higher than sterilisation and vaccination.

Diversion tactic?

Some critics suggest politics could be behind the move.

With Erdogan’s conservative AK Party suffering heavy defeats in local elections this spring and Turkey grappling with near 100 percent inflation, opponents claim the Turkish president could be calculating that objections to his street dog legislation comes mainly from the secular opposition and hoping the issue will consolidate his religious base.

“We know our problems in this country; the world knows our problems. There is an economic crisis, and we have human rights problems everywhere. But they want to change the main topics to these animals,” said Eyup Cicerali, a professor at Istanbul’s Nisantasi University, at a recent protest against the legislation.  

“They want to kill them all,” he claimed. “We are here to protect our values, values of respect and dignity for human and animal rights. Life is an issue for all groups.”

According to one recent opinion poll, less than 3 percent of the Turkish public support the culling of street dogs.

Some of Erdogan’s MPs have even started speaking out against the law in the media, albeit anonymously. “This law makes us dog killers,” one unnamed deputy was quoted as saying.

Despite such misgivings, the legislation is expected to pass parliament later this month.

But with the protests drawing together secular and religious animal lovers, and opposition-controlled local authorities declaring they won’t impose the law, the stray dog legislation could prove a risky move for Erdogan.

Where will Gaza stray dogs find shelter?

In total, more than 200 delegations and 10,000 athletes are participating in 36 sports at the Paris Games. 

RFI’s sport editor Paul Myers discusses how African athletes from all over the continent are likely to perform.

Who are the African athletes to watch out for at Paris Olympics?

Episode mixed by Erwan Rome. 

Spotlight on Africa is a podcast from Radio France Internationale. 

Hello everyone!

This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear an essay by listener Ashik Eqbal Tokon from Rajshahi, Bangladesh. I hope you’ll be inspired to write an essay for us, too!

If your essay goes on the air, you’ll find a package in the mail from The Sound Kitchen. Write in about your “ordinary” heroes – the people in your community who are doing extraordinarily good work, quietly working to make the world a better place, in whatever way they can. As listener Pramod Maheshwari said: “Just as small drops of water can fill a pitcher, small drops of kindness can change the world.”

I am still looking for your “This I Believe” essays, too. Tell us about the principles that guide your life … what you have found to be true from your very own personal experience. Or write about a book that changed your perspective on life, a person who you admire, festivals in your community, your most memorable moment, and/or your proudest achievement. If your essay is chosen to go on the air – read by you – you’ll win a special prize!

Send your essays to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

Or by postal mail, to:

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Here’s Ashik Eqbal Tokon’s essay:

The Transformative Journey, Inspired by Pather Panchali 

As a child growing up in the bustling megacity of the 1980s, I was accustomed to the constant hum of trains, the clanging of trams, the honking of buses, and the rhythmic peddling of rickshaws. My world was a mosaic of concrete, electricity, radio broadcasts, and black-and-white television screens. It was a life saturated with modern conveniences and rapid movement, where nature seemed distant, relegated to small parks and occasional glimpses of the sky between towering buildings. However, this perception shifted dramatically when I encountered a short story extracted from the novel Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. The tale of Apu and Durga’s discovery of the train in their remote Bengali village captured my imagination with its vivid descriptions and emotional depth. The scene where they run through lush fields, their eyes widening in awe at the sight of the train, resonated deeply within me. This moment became etched in my mind, igniting a spark of curiosity and longing for a world beyond the urban sprawl.

My First Journey to the Village

Shortly after reading the story, I had the opportunity to visit my ancestral village, a place starkly different from my city life. The journey began with a train ride that mirrored Apu’s wonder and excitement. As the train chugged through the countryside, I gazed out of the window, mesmerised by the passing landscapes. Rivers snaked through the green fields, and orchards of mangoes, lychees, and jackfruits painted the scenery with vibrant colours. It was as if I had stepped into Apu’s world, experiencing the same unmeasurable happiness he felt. The bus journey that followed took me deeper into the heart of nature. The scent of fresh earth and blooming flowers filled the air. The sight of villagers working in the fields, children playing under the shade of trees, and the serene flow of rivers created a permanent visual in my mind. This experience was a revelation, a tactile encounter with the natural world that Apu had introduced me to.

Discovering Pather Panchali in My Teenage Years

As a teenager, I read the full novel Pather Panchali and felt an even stronger connection to Apu’s journey. The book opened my eyes to the beauty of nature, the simplicity of rural life, and the profound emotions tied to family and survival. It made me realise that true happiness and fulfilment could be found in the simplest of experiences and the purest of surroundings. This realisation shaped my life’s journey and passions. I developed a deep love for travel, seeking out places where I could immerse myself in nature’s embrace. The novel’s influence led me to explore diverse landscapes, from the golden deserts of Rajasthan, India, to the lush hills of Bhutan. I found joy in the contrasting environments—the tranquil charm of Thailand’s beaches, the cultural richness of Bali, the waves of the Bay of Bengal, and the expansive horizons of the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Thailand, and Java Sea.

Embracing My Home Country, Bangladesh

One of the most profound impacts of Pather Panchali was how it deepened my appreciation for my own beautiful country, Bangladesh. After my teenage years, I have had the privilege to explore all 64 districts of Bangladesh, each with its unique natural beauty and cultural heritage. From the verdant hills of Sylhet to the serene beaches of Cox’s Bazar, the majestic Sundarbans mangrove forest to the vibrant cultural tapestry of Dhaka, every corner of Bangladesh offered a new discovery and a deeper connection to my roots. The green landscapes, the winding rivers, and the warmth of the people in Bangladesh constantly reminded me of Apu’s world. This profound connection to my homeland enriched my life and reinforced my love for travel and exploration. Bangladesh, with its rich history and diverse natural beauty, continues to be a source of inspiration and joy.

Embracing Nature and the Love of Travel

Pather Panchali taught me to appreciate the feather-light touch of nature, to find beauty and peace in its presence, even in the most unexpected places. Whether it was the arid sands of Rajasthan, where the desert winds whispered ancient tales, or the verdant hills of Jalpaiguri, where the air was thick with the scent of tea leaves, nature became my sanctuary. The novel instilled in me a sense of wonder and a desire to explore, to experience the world through the lens of its natural splendour. In Thailand and Bali, I found a different kind of charm, where the azure waters and golden sunsets painted the skies with hues of tranquility and adventure. Swimming in the waves of the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, I felt a connection to the vastness of the world, a reminder of Apu’s endless curiosity and love for discovery. The icy expanse of Mongolia, though harsh, revealed the serene and stark beauty of a world wrapped in snow and silence, expanding my understanding of nature’s extremes.

Final Word

The transformative power of Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay lies in its ability to transport readers into a world where nature and simplicity hold profound meaning. For me, the novel was not just a story but a catalyst for a lifelong passion for travel and an enduring love for the natural world. It taught me to seek out the beauty in every corner of the earth, to cherish the moments of awe and wonder, and to find joy in the journey itself. This timeless tale of Apu’s adventures has forever changed my perspective, making every travel experience a homage to the spirit of discovery and the beauty of nature, from the warm beaches of Bali to the freezing steppes of Mongolia, and the verdant beauty of Bangladesh, my beloved homeland.

The music chosen by Ashik is “Janmo Amar Dhonno Holo Mago” by Azad Rahman, sung by Sabina Yeasmin.

Be sure and tune in next week for an essay written by Bidhan Chandar Sanyal. Talk to you then!

Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday – here on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts. You’ll hear the winner’s names announced and the week’s quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you’ve grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and listen every week.

Erwan and I are busy cooking up special shows with your music requests, so get them in! Send your music requests to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr – tell us why you like the piece of music, too – it makes it more interesting for us all!

The ePOP video competition is open!

The ePOP video competition is sponsored by the RFI department “Planète Radio”, whose mission is to give a voice to the voiceless. ePOP focuses on the environment, and how climate change has affected “ordinary” people. You are to create a three-minute video about climate change, the environment, pollution – told by the people it affects.

You do not need expensive video equipment to enter the competition. Your phone is fine. And you do not need to be a member of the RFI Clubs to enter – everyone is welcome. And by the way – the prizes are incredibly generous!

Go to the ePOP page to read about past competitions, watch past videos, and read the regulations for your entry.  You can also write to us at thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr, and we’ll forward your mail to Planète Radio.

The competition closes on 12 September, but you know how “time flies”, so get to work now! We expect to be bombarded with entries from the English speakers!

Facebook: Be sure to send your photos for the RFI English Listeners Forum banner to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

More tech news: Did you know we have a YouTube channel? Just go to YouTube and write RFI English in the search bar, and there we are! Be sure to subscribe to see all our videos.

Would you like to learn French? RFI is here to help you!

Our website “Le Français facile avec RFI”  has news broadcasts in slow, simple French, as well as bi-lingual radio dramas (with real actors!) and exercises to practice what you have heard.

Go to our website and get started! At the top of the page, click on “Test level”. According to your score, you’ll be counselled to the best-suited activities for your level.

Do not give up! As Lidwien van Dixhoorn, the head of “Le Français facile” service told me: “Bathe your ears in the sound of the language, and eventually, you’ll get it.” She should know – Lidwien is Dutch and came to France hardly able to say “bonjour” and now she heads this key RFI department – so stick with it!

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

In addition to the breaking news articles on our site with in-depth analysis of current affairs in France and across the globe, we have several podcasts that will leave you hungry for more.

There’s Paris Perspective, Spotlight on France, Spotlight on Africa, and of course, The Sound Kitchen. We have an award-winning bilingual series – an old-time radio show, with actors (!) to help you learn French, called Les voisins du 12 bis. And there is the excellent International Report, too.

As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our staff of journalists. You never know what we’ll surprise you with!

To listen to our podcasts from your PC, go to our website; you’ll see “Podcasts” at the top of the page. You can either listen directly or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone.

To listen to our podcasts from your mobile phone, slide through the tabs just under the lead article (the first tab is “Headline News”) until you see “Podcasts”, and choose your show. 

Teachers take note! I save postcards and stamps from all over the world to send to you for your students. If you would like stamps and postcards for your students, just write and let me know. The address is english.service@rfi.fr  If you would like to donate stamps and postcards, feel free! Our address is listed below. 

Another idea for your students: Br. Gerald Muller, my beloved music teacher from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, has been writing books for young adults in his retirement – and they are free! There is a volume of biographies of painters and musicians called Gentle Giants, and an excellent biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, too. They are also a good way to help you improve your English – that’s how I worked on my French, reading books that were meant for young readers – and I guarantee you, it’s a good method for improving your language skills. To get Br. Gerald’s free books, click here.

Independent RFI English Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department in your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) when you write to her so that I know what is going on, too. NB: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!

This week’s quiz: On 22 June, I asked you a question about the world’s largest arms show – the Eurosatory weapons show – which was just ending up here in France. RFI English journalist Jan van der Made went out to take a look, and wrote an article about it for you: “Israel and Russia barred as world’s largest arms show opens in Paris”.

You were to re-read Jan’s article and send in the answer to this question: why is the arms fair called “Eurosatory”?

The answer is, to quote Jan’s article: “Eurosatory is named after Satory, a town near Versailles that is home to Paris’s 24th infantry regiment and the GIGN (an elite French crisis intervention group) headquarters.

The first Eurosatory show was held there in 1967, but due to its expansion over the years, the show moved to the Villepinte exhibition halls north of the French capital.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: “What is your favorite food, and why?”, which was suggested by Momotaz Begum Nazu from Naogaon, Bangladesh.

Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to us!

The winners are: Riaz Ahmad Khan, the president of the RFI Listeners Club in Sheikhupura, Pakistan. Riaz is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations Riaz, on your double win.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Ferhat Bezazel, the president of the RFI Butterflies Club Ain Kechera in West Skikda, Algeria, and RFI Listeners Club member Zenon Teles, the president of the Christian – Marxist – Leninist – Maoist Association of Listening DX-ers in Goa, India.

Last but not least, there are RFI English listeners Nilu Dhakal from Mechi, Nepal, and Laily Akhter Nessa from Naogaon, Bangladesh.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: The theme from The Pink Panther by Henry Mancini; “No Apparent Reason” by Alex Norris, performed by Ralph Irizarry and Timbalaye; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “Canon” by Siouxsie Sioux, Budgie, and Steven Severin, performed by Siouxsie and The Banshees.

Do you have a music request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read our article “Rwanda heads to the polls to likely re-elect Kagame for fourth term”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 9 September to enter this week’s quiz. The winners will be announced on the 14 September podcast. When you enter be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

or

By text … You can also send your quiz answers to The Sound Kitchen mobile phone. Dial your country’s international access code, or “ + ”, then  33 6 31 12 96 82. Don’t forget to include your mailing address in your text – and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

To find out how you can win a special Sound Kitchen prize, click here.

To find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or form your own official RFI Club, click here. 

Erdogan’s call for talks comes after widespread riots against Syrian refugees in Turkish cities. He aims to facilitate the return of Syrians who have fled to Turkey since the Syrian civil war began in 2011.

Soli Ozel, an international relations expert at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University, says the situation is volatile.

“The country is like a tinderbox regarding refugees, especially as economic conditions deteriorate. Syrians have become easy scapegoats, and there’s widespread frustration with their presence, justified or not. This has become a significant political issue,” Ozel said.

He also stresses that key to any solution is a credible plan for the orderly departure of Syrian refugees to reassure the Turkish public.

Erdogan’s party suffered losses in local elections in March, largely due to growing hostility towards over three million Syrian refugees in Turkey and rampant inflation approaching triple digits. These factors have intensified pressure on Erdogan to address the refugee situation.

• Turkey vows to keep borders shut despite new exodus of Syrians

Russia’s position

Russia, under Putin, supports Erdogan’s diplomatic outreach, seeing it as a potential end to Turkish backing of Syrian rebels and a conclusion to the civil war.

This aligns with Moscow’s priorities, since resolving the Syrian conflict would allow Russia to redirect military resources to Ukraine.

However, Turkey’s extensive military presence in Syria complicates potential talks. Turkish forces are engaged in operations against Kurdish groups, which Ankara claims are linked to domestic separatists. The Turkish military also protects Syrian rebel forces along the border.

Aydin Selcen, a former Turkish diplomat and now a foreign policy analyst with Medyascope, suggests that Ankara’s willingness to negotiate could provide Syria with an opportunity to secure Turkish withdrawal.

“Assad relies heavily on external support and even internal factions” he said.

“Unable to forcibly remove Turkish troops, Assad’s only option is to request their withdrawal as a precondition for talks.”

Despite this, Erdogan insists on maintaining Turkey’s military presence until Syria can effectively secure its borders.

Sinan Ulgen of the Istanbul-based Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies said: “Turkey’s primary concern is preventing the border region from becoming a security threat post-withdrawal. Turkey needs assurances from Syria before considering troop removal.”

• Turkey’s Syrian refugees face local hostility as economic problems mount

Humanitarian crisis?

The news of Erdogan’s pursuit of dialogue with Damascus sparked unrest in rebel-held northeast Syria, with protesters targeting Turkish bases out of fear of potential abandonment by Ankara.

Erdogan maintains that any agreement with Damascus would safeguard returning Syrian refugees and rebels. However, Fabrice Balanche, a regional expert from Lyon University, warns of an impending humanitarian crisis.

“If the regime regains control of rebel areas, most residents will attempt to flee to Turkey. Turkey cannot accommodate four million additional refugees,” Balanche cautions.

“These people are acutely aware that remaining under regime control, even with promised amnesties, puts them at risk of targeting by security forces, conscription, or worse. There’s no real protection.”

Despite ongoing tensions in Turkey over the Syrian refugee presence, Erdogan is seeking Putin’s assistance to soften Assad’s stance on negotiations.

The Turkish leader has proposed hosting a trilateral summit this summer, though there’s been no positive response so far.

The current situation highlights the complex interplay of regional politics, humanitarian concerns and diplomatic manoeuvering in addressing the Syrian conflict and its far-reaching consequences.

• Syria’s Assyrians flee to Turkey

Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday – here on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts. You’ll hear the winner’s names announced and the week’s quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you’ve grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and listen every week.

Erwan and I are busy cooking up special shows with your music requests, so get them in! Send your music requests to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr – tell us why you like the piece of music, too – it makes it more interesting for us all!

The ePOP video competition is open!

The ePOP video competition is sponsored by the RFI department “Planète Radio”, whose mission is to give a voice to the voiceless. ePOP focuses on the environment, and how climate change has affected “ordinary” people. You are to create a three-minute video about climate change, the environment, pollution – told by the people it affects.

You do not need expensive video equipment to enter the competition. Your phone is fine. And you do not need to be a member of the RFI Clubs to enter – everyone is welcome. And by the way – the prizes are incredibly generous!

Go to the ePOP page to read about past competitions, watch past videos, and read the regulations for your entry.  You can also write to us at thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr, and we’ll forward your mail to Planète Radio.

The competition closes on 12 September, but you know how “time flies”, so get to work now! We expect to be bombarded with entries from the English speakers!

Facebook: Be sure to send your photos for the RFI English Listeners Forum banner to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

More tech news: Did you know we have a YouTube channel? Just go to YouTube and write RFI English in the search bar, and there we are! Be sure to subscribe to see all our videos.

Would you like to learn French? RFI is here to help you!

Our website “Le Français facile avec RFI”  has news broadcasts in slow, simple French, as well as bi-lingual radio dramas (with real actors!) and exercises to practice what you have heard.

Go to our website and get started! At the top of the page, click on “Test level”. According to your score, you’ll be counselled to the best-suited activities for your level.

Do not give up! As Lidwien van Dixhoorn, the head of “Le Français facile” service told me: “Bathe your ears in the sound of the language, and eventually, you’ll get it.” She should know – Lidwien is Dutch and came to France hardly able to say “bonjour” and now she heads this key RFI department – so stick with it!

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

In addition to the breaking news articles on our site with in-depth analysis of current affairs in France and across the globe, we have several podcasts that will leave you hungry for more.

There’s Paris Perspective, Spotlight on France, Spotlight on Africa, and of course, The Sound Kitchen. We have an award-winning bilingual series – an old-time radio show, with actors (!) to help you learn French, called Les voisins du 12 bis. And there is the excellent International Report, too.

As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our staff of journalists. You never know what we’ll surprise you with!

To listen to our podcasts from your PC, go to our website; you’ll see “Podcasts” at the top of the page. You can either listen directly or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone.

To listen to our podcasts from your mobile phone, slide through the tabs just under the lead article (the first tab is “Headline News”) until you see “Podcasts”, and choose your show. 

Teachers take note! I save postcards and stamps from all over the world to send to you for your students. If you would like stamps and postcards for your students, just write and let me know. The address is english.service@rfi.fr  If you would like to donate stamps and postcards, feel free! Our address is listed below. 

Another idea for your students: Br. Gerald Muller, my beloved music teacher from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, has been writing books for young adults in his retirement – and they are free! There is a volume of biographies of painters and musicians called Gentle Giants, and an excellent biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, too. They are also a good way to help you improve your English – that’s how I worked on my French, reading books that were meant for young readers – and I guarantee you, it’s a good method for improving your language skills. To get Br. Gerald’s free books, click here.

Independent RFI English Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department in your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) when you write to her so that I know what is going on, too. NB: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!

We have a new RFI Listeners Club member to welcome: Tahmidul Alam Orin from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Welcome,Tahmidul! So glad you have joined us!

You too can be a member of the RFI Listeners Club – just write to me at english.service@rfi.fr and tell me you want to join, and I’ll send you a membership number. It’s that easy. When you win a Sound Kitchen quiz as an RFI Listeners Club member, you’ll receive a premium prize.

This week’s quiz: On 15 June, I asked you a question about the European Parliament elections, where the far-right National Rally party trounced President Macron’s centrist bloc. Macron then preceded to dissolve and call snap elections for France’s lower house of Parliament, which was a surprise to us all – even his Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, it seems.

You were to refer to Jessica Phelan’s article “Why did Macron call snap elections and what does it mean for France?”, and send in the answer to this question: What percentage of the votes did Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party win, and what percentage of the votes did Macron’s centrist bloc win in the European Parliament elections?

The answer is, to quote Jessica’s article: “With 31.4 percent of the vote to the Macronists’ 14.6 percent, National Rally leader Jordan Bardella called the results a “stinging rejection” of the president.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by Father Steven Wara from Bamenda, Cameroon: “What do you do to help others have a secure and happy life?”   

Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to us!

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Jayanta Chakrabarty from New Delhi, India. Jayanta is also this week’s bonus question winner. Congratulations, Jayanta!

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are two RFI Listeners Club members from Dhaka, Bangladesh: Monzurul Alam Ripon and Atikul Islam, who is also the president of the Narshunda Radio Listeners Family Club, and hailing from Hedehusene, Denmark, Hans Verner Lollike.

Last but not least, there’s RFI English listener Nizhom Yeasmin Kona from Naogaon, Bangladesh.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: The James Bond Theme written by David Arnold; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer; “I Love to Laugh” from the film Mary Poppins, music and lyrics written by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman with George Stiles, and sung by Ed Wynn, Julie Andrews, and Dick Van Dyke, and John Coltrane’s “Naima”, performed by Eric Dolphy.

Do you have a music request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read our article “What are the next steps now that France finds itself with a hung parliament?”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 26 August to enter this week’s quiz. The winners will be announced on the 31 August podcast. When you enter be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

or

By text … You can also send your quiz answers to The Sound Kitchen mobile phone. Dial your country’s international access code, or “ + ”, then  33 6 31 12 96 82. Don’t forget to include your mailing address in your text – and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

To find out how you can win a special Sound Kitchen prize, click here.

To find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or form your own official RFI Club, click here. 

Madhya Pradesh is often referred to as the Heart of India. Located right in the middle of the country, the Indian region shows everything India has to offer through its abundant diversity. The IFTM trade show, which took place in Paris at the end of September, presented the perfect opportunity for travel enthusiasts to discover the region.

Sheo Shekhar Shukla, Managing Director of Madhya Pradesh’s tourism board, sat down to explain his approach to sustainable tourism.

“Post-covid the whole world has known a shift in their approach when it comes to tourism. And all those discerning travelers want to have different kinds of experiences: something offbeat, something new, something which has not been explored before.”

Through its UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Shukla wants to showcase the deep history Madhya Pradesh has to offer.

“UNESCO is very actively supporting us and three of our sites are already World Heritage Sites. Sanchi is a very famous buddhist spiritual destination, Bhimbetka is a place where prehistoric rock shelters are still preserved, and Khajuraho is home to thousand year old temples with magnificent architecture.”

All in all, Shukla believes that there’s only one way forward for the industry: “Travelers must take sustainable tourism as a paradigm in order to take tourism to the next level.”

In partnership with Madhya Pradesh’s tourism board.

Also known as the Land of the Beautiful Islands, Malaysia’s landscape and cultural diversity is almost unmatched on the planet. Those qualities were all put on display at the Malaysian stand during the IFTM trade show.

Libra Hanif, director of Tourism Malaysia, explained the appeal of the country as well as the importance of promoting sustainable tourism today: “Sustainable travel is a major trend now, with the changes that are happening post-covid. People want to get close to nature, to get close to people. So Malaysia being a multicultural and diverse [country] with a lot of natural environments, we felt that it’s a good thing for us to promote Malaysia.”

Malaysia has also gained fame in recent years, through its numerous UNESCO World Heritage Sites, which include Kinabalu Park and the Archaeological Heritage of the Lenggong Valley.

Green mobility has also become an integral part of tourism in Malaysia, with an increasing number of people using bikes to discover the country: “If you are a little more adventurous, we have the mountain back trails where you can cut across gazetted trails to see the natural attractions and the wildlife that we have in Malaysia,” says Hanif. “If you are not that adventurous, you’ll be looking for relaxing cycling. We also have countryside spots, where you can see all the scenery in a relaxing session.”

With more than 25,000 visitors at this IFTM trade show this year, Malaysia’s tourism board got to showcase the best the country and its people have to offer.

In partnership with Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board. For more information about Malaysia, click here.