Britain said 100 new “specialist intelligence and investigation officers” would be recruited to the National Crime Agency (NCA) to help dismantle smuggling gangs that run the dangerous Channel crossings.

The government also aims over the next six months to achieve the highest rate of deportations of failed asylum seekers for five years.

The goal is to remove more than 14,000 people by the end of the year, according to The Times.

The new Labour government intends to increase detention capacity at removal centres and sanction employers who hire people with no right to work in the UK, the ministry said.

“We are taking strong and clear steps to boost our border security and ensure the rules are respected and enforced,” interior minister Yvette Cooper said in a statement.

Stopping the small boat arrivals was a key issue in the 4 July election, in which Labour won a thumping majority.

Within days of taking power, Prime Minister Keir Starmer scrapped a controversial scheme to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda, which had been a flagship policy of the last Conservative government.

People-smuggling gangs

Starmer has instead pledged to dismantle the people-smuggling gangs who organise the crossings and are paid thousands of euros by each migrant.

The interior ministry is recruiting a so-called Border Security Commander who will work with European countries against the people-smuggling gangs.

Starmer has also pledged with French President Emmanuel Macron to strengthen “cooperation” in handling the surge in undocumented migrant numbers.

But the Conservatives, who are now the country’s main opposition party, have attacked Labour on the issue since the handover of power.

Small boat arrivals

Former interior minister James Cleverly, who is running to be the party’s new leader, accused new ministers of failing to “get a grip” on small boat arrivals.

More than 200 people crossed the Channel in three boats on Monday, taking the provisional total for the year so far to 19,294, according to Home Office figures.

• Record number of migrants cross Channel to UK in single day this year

This is a 10 percent increase on the number recorded last year, which was 17,620, but down on the 21,344 crossings recorded in the same period of 2022.

The interior ministry said the NCA is pursuing about 70 investigations against criminal networks involved in people trafficking.

It said the government would issue financial penalty notices, business closure orders and bring possible prosecutions against anyone employing illegal workers.

Failed asylum seekers

The department also said it was adding 290 beds to two removal centres and redeploying staff to try to remove failed asylum seekers at the highest rate since 2018. The ministry did not give figures on the numbers involved.

But Enver Solomon, of the Refugee Council, accused the government of “wasting taxpayers’ money on expanding detention places” and said it should be investing in voluntary returns programmes.

“If you treat people with respect, humanity and support them to return, many more people return,” he told BBC Radio.

Enver also urged ministers to focus on providing safe routes to deter small boat crossings, arguing “unless the government also provides safe routes, it won’t succeed”.

(with AFP)

“It’s very good news, because we’ll have full stadiums for the events,” said Michaël Aloïsio, one of top officials on the organising committee.

“The vast majority of French people were enthusiastic about the Olympic Games, and we’re going to see the same ingredients again, the same competition venues that made such a lasting impression.

“We’ll find the same openness in the city and the same atmosphere in the stadiums, with French athletes trying to go for the medals.”

Aloïsio’s optimism came on the day that the first of the 4,4000 athletes arrived in Paris for the events.

After the opening ceremony around the Place de la Concorde and Champs Elysées, they will compete in 22 para sports at the same sites used during the Olympic Games in which the French athletes racked up their best haul of gold medals for 100 years.

“We’re going to find all that atmosphere again,” added Aloïsio. “We’re obviously urging all the French fans to come along and get involved in the events.”

Breakdown

A breakdown of ticket sales for the Paralympic Games shows nearly 75 percent of sales have gone to fans from the Ile de France – the 12,000 square kilometre area housing more than 12 million people aorund Paris.

Aloïsio added: “In terms of foreign countries, we’re where we were with the Olympics, with people from Britain, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands buying most of the tickets.”

An advertising campaign titled “Game is not over” was launched as the Olympics was coming to an end with the aim of highlighting French paralympic athletes and wooing people returning from summer holidays, who may have regretted leaving Paris during the Olympics.

“The Paralympic Party is going to be even louder and more fun for everyone in Paris,” said Andrew Parsons who heads the International Paralympic Committee.

“After witnessing the Olympics, I am even more confident than ever before that Paris 2024 is going to stage the most spectacular Paralympic Games in history.

“In terms of preparation, pretty much everything is ready.”

The 47-year-old joked: “The test event – as we call the Olympic Games – has resolved some of the operational issues which are always experienced in the first days of a major event.

“For certain, the sport is going to be incredible and highly competitive. The world’s best Paralympians are coming to Paris not to participate, but to compete.

“They are not playing games here. They are going to show that by training, just as hard as their Olympic counterparts, they can deliver sporting performance that are off the scale and that will blow your mind.”

Paralympic organisers say they are hoping to entice families preparing for the start of the new school year to events via evening sessions in athletics and swimming at the Stade de France and La Defense Arena respectively.

“You can go back to work and experience an Olympic final in the evening, or you can take your family and your children back to school and experience an Olympic final, it’s completely possible,” added Aloïsio.

The 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum said last month its leadership would visit the archipelago to try to help resolve three months of deadly violence.

Eleven people have been killed since the unrest broke out, sparked in part by indigenous Kanaks’ thwarted struggle for independence.

The visit had been planned for this week, ahead of an annual Pacific forum meeting in Tonga from August 26-30.

But the mission is being postponed because New Caledonia‘s local government raised “issues regarding due process and protocol that will need to be addressed”, the forum said in a statement.

The Pacific body includes sovereign countries as well as territories such as New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

‘Humiliation’

The delay follows allegations by a senior New Caledonia lawmaker that France is seeking to dictate the purpose of the forum’s mission.

“We consider this as an unacceptable form of humiliation,” the president of New Caledonia’s law-making congress, Roch Wamytan, was quoted as saying by New Zealand radio RNZ.

A source close to the French government said the French state was ready to welcome the Pacific forum’s visit “at any time”, denying any responsibility for the delay.

Can France solve the economic collapse and unrest plaguing New Caledonia?

President Emmanuel Macron had agreed to the mission within certain “guiding principles”, the source told AFP this week, listing the themes of public order, security, governance, and economic and social stability.

The head of New Caledonia’s government – pro-independence Kanak, Louis Mapou – had rejected Paris’ invitations to help organise the Pacific body’s visit, the French source said.

Unrest broke out in New Caledonia in mid-May over a planned expansion of the electoral roll that Kanaks feared would dilute their vote and put independence forever out of reach.

France sent thousands of troops and police to the archipelago, almost 17,000 kilometres (10,600 miles) from Paris, to restore order as cars, local businesses and public buildings went up in flames .

Macron suspended the electoral reform in June.

Morocco is a major cannabis producer and has allowed the cultivation, export and use of the drug for medicine or in industry since 2021 – but it does not allow it to be used for recreational purposes.

The pardon by King Mohammed VI would encourage farmers “to engage in the legal process of cannabis cultivation to improve their revenue and living conditions”, Mohammed El Guerrouj, head of Moroccan cannabis regulator ANRAC, told Reuters.

Morocco’s first legal cannabis harvest was 294 metric tons in 2023, according to official figures. Legal exports since 2023 so far stood at 225 kilograms, Guerrouj said.

This year it is expected to be higher as the number of farming permits increases and ANRAC allows the cultivation of the local strain known as Beldia.

Nearly a million people live in areas of northern Morocco where cannabis is the main economic activity.

It has been publicly grown and smoked there for generations, mixed with tobacco in traditional long-stemmed pipes with clay bowls.

The 2021 legalisation was intended to improve farmers’ incomes and protect them from drug traffickers who dominate the cannabis trade and export it illegally.

Morocco is also seeking to tap into a growing global market for legal cannabis, and awarded 54 export permits last year.

Former president Obama was greeted with rapturous applause and cheers at the packed arena hosting the party’s nominating convention, then said Vice President Harris would fight for Americans.

He called her November poll rival Donald Trump “dangerous.”

“Kamala Harris is ready for the job. This is a person who has spent her life fighting for people who need a voice,” he said.

Obama called Harris “someone who sees you and hears you and will get up every single day and fight for you.”

“Yes she can,” Obama said of Harris, prompting the boisterous crowd to repeatedly chant the phrase, recalling his own “Yes we can” campaign slogan from 2008.

Before his stardust performance, his wife and former US first lady Michelle Obama had told convention goers “something magically wonderful is in the air.”

“It’s the contagious power of hope,” she said, calling Harris “my girl” and saying that hope – another rallying cry of her husband’s successful 2008 campaign – “is making a comeback.”

‘Joy and toughness’

Obama’s speech amped up the already buoyant mood in Chicago where President Joe Biden delivered his own emotional speech late Monday less than a month after ending his reelection bid.

“They shared with us how they felt, and we were able to resonate with them,” said Mae Beale who wore a hat in the colours of Maryland, her home state.

“They were so real… I could identify with everything they were saying.”

In deeply personal remarks shifting the focus onto Harris’s qualities, her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, told the convention “she is ready.”

“She brings both joy and toughness to this task,” he said to cheers.

“At this moment in our nation’s history, she is exactly the right president.”

With the party united and Harris polling strongly, Democrats are making clear they believe they can defeat Trump.

The Republican nominee had seemed set to regain power in November’s election until Biden upended the race by dropping out and endorsing his vice president.

Comparisons are already being made by Democratic faithful to Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, where a tidal wave of enthusiasm carried him to the White House.

Bullish delegates symbolically nominated Harris as their candidate in a boisterous roll call, following a paper exercise to confirm her as their standard bearer earlier this month.

“Thank you… see you in two days, Chicago,” she said to delegates via video link from her event in Milwaukee.

Trump’s attacks

Harris, who was received rapturously in America’s third largest city at her debut appearance before Biden spoke, travelled to Milwaukee Tuesday for an event at the basketball arena where Donald Trump attended the Republican National Convention just a month ago.

The choice of the 18,000-seat arena will rile Trump, who has been rattled that 59-year-old Harris, unlike Biden, is able to draw the kinds of crowds the Republican has long attracted to his events.

Addressing both crowds simultaneously highlighted that she had filled the DNC and RNC venues.

Trying to pry media attention away from the Democratic convention, Trump is holding events all week, and on Tuesday he spoke about what he says is Harris’s “anti-police” stance.

At an event in Howell, in the battleground state of Michigan, he attacked what he called “the Kamala crime wave.”

“You can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread – you get shot,” he said flanked by police officers and their cars, falsely claiming there has been a 43 percent increase in violent crime.

While allies have pleaded publicly for Trump to focus on policies and stop his barrage of personal insults against Harris, he has not stopped.

(AFP)

Emilia Perez wowed audiences in Cannes this year with its experimental hybrid form in which the entire cast sings, dances and speaks in Spanish.

Set in Mexico but filmed entirely in a studio near Paris, the film blends drama, romance, comedy and thriller elements, swinging between the incredible and the convincing.

The plot is anything but conventional. It follows Manitas, a powerful Mexican cartel boss played by transgender actress Karla Sofia Gascon, who embarks on a dangerous quest to become a woman – keeping the transformation secret from his wife (played by Selena Gomez) and children.

Daring plotline

Enter Rita (Zoe Saldana), a disillusioned lawyer roped into Manitas’s plan for a hefty sum, leading to the birth of Emilia Perez (also played by Gascon) and the unfolding of a surprise love story involving Epifania (Adriana Paz).

This unpredictable and daring scenario convinced musicians Clément Ducol and Camille to join Audiard’s ambitious project.

Although they didn’t know Audiard personally, they were recommended by a friend familiar with Ducol’s work on the Annette soundtrack, the opening film at Cannes in 2021.

“I love trying new things,” Ducol told RFI after the premiere in May. “In this job you have to bounce back and learn all the time … again and again, it was a crazy adventure.”

Room for experimentation

Ducol recalls how the project began with just the outline of an idea inspired by Boris Razon’s story Ecoute (Listen).

“None of us had ever made a musical,” Ducol admitted, but the team found their way, benefiting from Audiard’s (Palme d’Or in 2015 for Dheepan) collaborative approach, with plenty of room for exploration.

Erotic dancer comedy-drama wins top prize at Cannes Film Festival

Working closely with scriptwriter Thomas Bidegain, the team watched classic film musicals and spent hours experimenting in the studio. As the script evolved, so did the music, with melodies and lyrics crafted to complement the storyline.

“These are people are so inspiring. We can innovate with them thanks to the way they merge dance, music, staging and image together,” Ducol enthuses.

“These are people so inspiring, allowing us to innovate by merging dance, music, staging and image,” Ducol enthused.

Camille echoed this sentiment, saying she was immediately drawn to the story’s Shakespearean echoes, particularly its themes of transformation – whether emotional, metaphorical or physical.

“I believed in the project immediately because it fundamentally shows what theatre is all about,” she says.

“And transsexuality for me speaks so much about the freedom that there is in theatre and in deciding to change within our bodies. It really fits into the history of humanity. Within the body, you decide, you change.”

Postcard from Cannes #4: the curveball of cinema

Despite not speaking Spanish, Ducol found the language’s musicality and rhythm helpful in composing the score. Camille, with only high school-level Spanish, convinced Audiard she could manage, even singing a song in Spanish at their first meeting.

She worked closely with a Mexican translator on set and credited the diverse cast – Gomez, Saldana, Gascon, and Paz – with enriching the film’s cultural authenticity.

The collective effort paid off, with Emilia Perez winning the Jury Prize and Best Actress Award (shared by the four lead actresses) at Cannes.

The film also took home the Cannes Soundtrack prize, a sidebar award chosen by a panel of independent journalists.

Represented by Sacem, the French copyright agency, Ducol and Camille were thrilled to highlight the role of music in the film’s success.

Emilia Perez would certainly not be the same without the score.

Guiding the audience with a lament, a lullaby or a punchy dance number, the infectious energy lingers long after the final notes.

Emilia Perez was released in France on 21 August, 2024.

The Indian foreign ministry said the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine will be a central focus during Modi’s talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.

“This is also a landmark and historic visit since this will be the first time an Indian prime minister will be visiting Ukraine in more than 30 years, since we established our diplomatic relations,” foreign ministry spokesman Tanmaya Lal said.

The trip is expected to strengthen defence, economic and technological ties between the two nations.

It would offer an opportunity to discuss cooperation in defence, economic and business ties, science and technology and other sectors.

Modi will first travel to Poland on Wednesday, before making a 10-hour journey to Kyiv via the south-eastern Polish city of Przemysl.

“This will be the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Poland in the past 45 years,” the foreign ministry added.

Ukraine’s presidential office confirmed the two leaders would sign several cooperation agreements and discuss both bilateral and multilateral issues.

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Neutral on Russia

India has maintained a neutral stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, avoiding direct condemnation while advocating for diplomacy and dialogue.

“The conflict is ongoing, and we believe that resolution can only come through dialogue and diplomacy,” Lal said.

He did not confirm whether Modi would propose a peace plan during the visit, but underscored India’s participation in the Switzerland-hosted Summit for Peace in Ukraine in June, reaffirming Delhi’s commitment to supporting a settlement.

The visit comes a month after Zelensky criticised Modi’s trip to Moscow in July, where he met with Putin on the same day Russia launched missile attacks on Ukraine, killing 41 people and hitting a children’s hospital.

Zelensky called the meeting a “huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts”, expressing dismay at seeing the leader of the world’s largest democracy embrace Putin amid such violence.

Modi did not directly address the missile strikes but expressed sorrow over the loss of life, saying: “When innocent children are killed, when we see innocent children dying, then the heart pains. And that pain is very horrible.”

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Widening conflict

Modi’s upcoming visit coincides with escalating military action in Ukraine, including strikes on a third bridge over the Seym River in Kursk, part of Ukraine’s efforts to create a military buffer zone in Russian territory.

President Zelensky described these actions as proof of Russia’s empty threats of retaliation and urged Kyiv’s allies to lift restrictions on using their weapons against Russian targets.

Meanwhile, Russian forces claimed progress in their advance around the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a critical transport hub in the Donbas region.

Amid the escalating conflict, Kyiv-based Indian academic Mridula Ghosh expressed hope that Modi’s visit could serve as a soothing presence.

“It will be an overwhelming thing for the Ukrainians,” Ghosh said in an interview with Indian TV.

“They view it as a visit of goodwill, a visit that will definitely try to seek some peace for the country as the prime minister has been very, very vocal about the inadmissibility of the war.”

Ukraine is home to a significant Indian community, including business leaders, engineers, builders and a large number of medical students.

Modi’s visit is expected to underscore India’s ongoing concern for its citizens in the region and its role in global peace efforts.

The Paralympic Games, from 28 August to 8 September, will see a robust security operation, with Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin assuring that no “tangible” terror threat has been detected.

The Israeli delegation, consisting of 27 athletes, will receive round-the-clock protection by elite police officers, similar to the precautions taken during the Olympics.

This heightened security is a response to ongoing tensions in the Middle East, particularly in light of the conflict in Gaza.

• Paris Paralympic ticket sales get Olympic boost, but still lagging

Crowd of 30,000

The opening ceremony, set to take place at the Concorde venue, is expected to draw around 30,000 spectators, with an additional 15,000 attending for free along the Champs-Elysées.

The torch relay, which will begin when the Paralympic flame arrives from Stoke Mandeville in the UK – a village northwest of London that is widely considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games – will also be closely monitored by police forces to ensure its security.

In addition to the police presence, about 10,000 private security agents will be deployed to safeguard athletes and spectators at various venues.

The Paralympic Games will feature 4,400 athletes competing across 19 venues, compared to the 10,500 athletes and 41 venues during the Olympics, said Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee.

So far, 1.7 million of the available 2.8 million tickets have been sold. Events will include wheelchair tennis at Roland Garros, track and field at the Stade de France, basketball at the Bercy Arena, and swimming at La Défense Arena.

The left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front (NFP), is hosting a series of “summer schools” to promote their candidate for prime minister, Lucie Castets.

The NFP, which includes the Communists (PCF), Ecologists and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s hard left France Unbowed (LFI) is hosting conferences to discuss how to form a viable coalition.

Castets will be speaking at events across the country, including engagements with the Ecologists in Tours, the PCF in Montpellier, the LFI in Valence and the Socialist Party in Blois.

However, the NFP’s unity is fragile. Melenchon and his LFI are threatening to start an impeachment process against Macron, who is hesitant to appoint a far-left prime minister and appears to favour candidates from the moderate left or centre-right.

Impeachment – how realistic?

In the United States, impeachment is a well-established process embedded in the constitution. The president (and other top officials) are removed from office in case of “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanours”.

Only four US presidents have faced impeachment, with none being removed from office. Andrew Johnson (1968) and Bill Clinton (1999) were acquitted; Richard Nixon resigned from office before the end of the procedure (1974); and Donald Trump, who faced the impeachment process twice (in 2020 and 2021) was also acquitted. 

• As Trump becomes first US president to be impeached twice, what happens now?

In France, however, the ability to impeach a president is a relatively new concept, introduced in 2007 and strengthened in 2014 under president François Hollande.

Until 2014 the president continued to enjoy the highest protection, including immunity from criminal prosecution while in office. 

Hollande’s revision of the 1958 Constitution‘s article 68, which deals with the “criminal liability of the government”, gave teeth to the measure.

But no French president has ever been impeached under the Fifth Republic.

Even Hollande, who was accused of leaking national security secrets to journalists at newspaper Le Monde, faced an impeachment attempt that ultimately failed, with only 159 out of 577 lawmakers supporting it.

Macron in crosshairs

The chances of an impeachment against Macron are slim.

Castets has downplayed the issue, focusing instead on “cohabitation” between Macron’s centrist party and a left-wing coalition.

While LFI’s Manuel Bompard insists that impeachment is a “credible possibility,” Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure rejects the idea outright.

Acting Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin dismissed the impeachment talk as the hard left’s “wish to plunge France into anarchy”.

Chief of Defence Raimundas Vaiksnoras estimated that over the next three years Lithuania would spend over €1 billion on the project, which is one of the largest construction efforts in the nation’s history.

“It’s a huge investment for a country of 2.9 million,” Vaiksnoras said at the launch ceremony, adding that the German brigade will serve as both reassurance for the population and a deterrent against Russian aggression.

The base, located in Rudninkai, near the capital Vilnius and just 20 kilometres from Belarus, will include facilities for tanks, storage and shooting ranges.

Around 1,000 additional German military and civilian contractors will be stationed at other sites across Lithuania.

Germany committed last year to deploying troops to Lithuania, a NATO and EU member that borders Russia.

Defence Minister Boris Pistorius likened the move to the Cold War-era posting of allied forces in West Germany to defend against the Soviet Union.

Delays

However, with only a fifth of the construction contracts awarded, concerns are growing about meeting the 2027 deadline.

Lithuanian Defence Minister Laurynas Kasciunas promised that the remaining contracts would be issued by the end of this year, just as his government’s term concludes.

The German government has requested €2.93 billion from parliament to purchase 105 Leopard 2 A8 tanks, partly to equip the Lithuanian base, according to a draft budget seen by Reuters.

But internal budget disputes within Germany’s coalition are threatening the pledge to upgrade its military.

Lithuania has boosted its defence spending to 3 percent of GDP this year, with Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte’s government raising taxes to fund the base and other defence needs.

“If we are not secure, there is no security for them,” Simonyte said at the ceremony, referring to Germany.

Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson had given Budapest until 19 August to explain the changes in its immigration policy, but as of Monday afternoon, no reply had been received, the commission confirmed.

Hungary recently relaxed entry rules for Russians and Belarusians, allowing “guest workers” to stay for two years, with an option to extend for another three years.

Johansson sent a letter in August to Hungary’s Interior Minister, Sándor Pintér, requesting an explanation for these changes.

“The extension of the facilitated processing of residence and work permit applications for citizens of Russia and Belarus could lead to a de facto circumvention of the restrictions the Union has imposed,” Johansson warned.

While issuing long-stay visas and residence permits is a national matter, Johansson emphasised that such schemes must be balanced to protect the integrity of the EU’s border-free zone and consider potential security risks.

Some European diplomats fear these changes could pave the way for Russians and Belarusians to gain permanent residency in Hungary, threatening the security of the Schengen Area amid ongoing tensions with Russia and Belarus.

Espionage concerns

Earlier this year, several EU countries, led by the Czech Republic, pushed to ban Schengen travel for Russian diplomats due to espionage concerns. After entering the passport-free zone, Russian diplomats could potentially travel freely across the bloc.

On 15 August, eight Baltic and Nordic countries – Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden – expressed concern that Hungary’s relaxed restrictions could increase security risks.

In a joint letter to Brussels, they stated: “Regardless of whether it falls under national or Union competence, we are worried that this decision may constitute a serious security risk to all member states.”

They welcomed Johansson’s involvement, calling Hungary’s response “of utmost importance” for ensuring EU security.

Denials from Hungary

Hungary, however, strongly denied these concerns. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó dismissed the allegations as “plain lies” in a statement published on social media, adding that Russian and Belarusian citizens still undergo comprehensive checks to enter and stay in Hungary.

He accused Northern European and Baltic colleagues of being “blinded by their adherence to the pro-war camp”.

The issue is expected to be discussed at next week’s EU foreign and defence ministers meeting in Brussels.

Hungary currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union until 31 December 2024, but a recent meeting scheduled in Budapest was moved to Brussels due to the ongoing controversy, news site Euractiv reported.

Since August 2023, the world’s biggest digital platforms have faced the toughest ever tech regulations in the European Union – which shows no sign of slowing down in enforcing them.

Brussels scored its first major victory after forcing TikTok to permanently remove an “addictive” feature from a spinoff app in Europe in August, a year after content moderation rules under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) started to apply.

That followed a seven-day period earlier in the summer in which Brussels issued back-to-back decisions targeting Apple, Meta and Microsoft.

And more is to come before 2024 is over, say officials.

The EU’s moves are all thanks to two laws, the DSA – which forces companies to police online content – and its sister competition law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) – which gives big tech a list of what they can and can’t do in business.

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Since the DMA curbs kicked in in March, the EU has notably pressured Apple to back down in a spat with Fortnite maker Epic over a gaming app store.

“The European Commission is doing the job: it is implementing the DMA with limited resources and within a short timeframe compared to lengthy competition cases,” said EU lawmaker Stephanie Yon-Courtin, who focuses on digital issues.

Jan Penfrat, senior policy advisor at online rights group EDRi, says changes are already visible: the DSA giving users the “right to complain” when content is removed or accounts are suspended, or the DMA allowing them to select browsers and search engines via choice screens.

“This is just the beginning,” Penfrat said.

He notes for instance that EDRi and other groups in July compiled a list of areas where Apple fails to follow the DMA. “We expect the commission to go after those as well in time,” Penfrat told AFP.

High-profile tests

Apple is the biggest thorn in the EU’s side as the DMA’s chief critic, claiming it puts users’ security at risk.

The iPhone maker became the first company in June to face formal accusations of breaking the DMA’s rules and faces heavy fines unless it addresses the charges.

Apple announced changes to the App Store on August 8 to comply with the DMA, although smaller tech firms under the Coalition for App Fairness slammed them as “confusing”. The EU is now evaluating Apple’s plans.

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It is too early to say whether Apple will fall into line without the EU’s heavy hand but one thing is clear: Brussels is ready for a fight.

Another high-profile test of the bloc’s new powers will be X, with regulators to decide as early as September whether the former Twitter should be made to comply with the DMA.

The DSA’s rules on curbing disinformation and hate speech have already sparked a spectacular clash between X’s billionaire owner Elon Musk and the bloc’s digital chief Thierry Breton — with the spectre of fines or an outright EU ban on the site if violations persist.

Full speed

EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager has said that Brussels is going at “full speed”.

This was always the goal: to cut short the length of competition investigations, which lasted years, to a maximum of 12 months under the DMA.

But companies can challenge fines or decisions in the EU courts, which could mean years of subsequent legal battles, lawyers say.

And difficulties can also come from elsewhere: Apple said in June it would delay the rollout of new AI features in Europe because of “regulatory uncertainties”.

EDRi’s Penfrat accused Apple of fearmongering by blaming the EU for certain features not arriving in the bloc in order “to put pressure on the commission to not be too tough in the enforcement”.

Big tech told to identify and label AI deepfakes ahead of EU elections

Pressure building

Apple aside, big tech isn’t happy with DMA action so far.

“Instead of announcing possible punitive measures with political posturing, these probes under the DMA should focus on fostering open dialogue between the European Commission and the companies concerned,” Daniel Friedlaender, head of tech lobby group CCIA Europe told AFP.

Undeterred, Brussels is turning up the heat.

In addition to potential new DMA curbs on X, the EU could soon add Telegram to its list of “very large” platforms, such as WhatsApp, that face the DSA’s strictest rules.

Brussels wants no corner of the digital sphere left untouched.

That includes the critical area of artificial intelligence, with the EU currently looking into deals between giants and generative AI developers, such as Microsoft and its $13-billion tie-up with ChatGPT maker OpenAI.

“America, America, I gave my best to you,” the 81-year-old Biden said, quoting a patriotic hymn during a nearly hour-long address that ran through his achievements while urging voters to back his vice president against Donald Trump in November.

Harris joined him on stage after the speech and the pair embraced, as the crowd gave Biden a rapturous reception following his stunning decision less than a month ago to drop out of the 2024 White House race.

In a remarkable turnaround, Harris has reenergized the party and wiped out Republican rival Trump’s lead in the polls, but Biden insisted that he was not bitter about stepping aside.

Instead, as he contemplates the imminent end of a five-decade political career, he said that he had done what he thought best to ensure that his nemesis Trump does not return to the Oval Office.

“I love the job, but I love my country more. I love my country more,” said Biden. “And all this talk about how I’m angry at all those people who said I should step down – that’s not true.”

Democratic convention catapults Harris into US presidential race

Both Biden and Harris appeared to wipe away a tear as the US leader won a huge four-minute ovation when he first took to the stage, following an introduction by First Lady Jill Biden and his daughter Ashley.

Several members of the audience were also in tears as Biden made his farewell speech, before leaving the stage to the strains of the song “Higher Love.”

‘Gave my best’

And Harris had earlier made a surprise appearance – Democratic nominees don’t normally speak until the final day of the convention – to heap lavish tribute on her boss.

“I want to kick us off by celebrating our incredible president Joe Biden,” said Harris, who was wearing a tan suit and took to the stage to Beyonce’s “Freedom.”

“We are forever grateful to you.”

It was undoubtedly a difficult swan song for Biden, but he insisted he would be the “best volunteer” for Harris’s campaign – knowing perhaps that his legacy depends on her beating Trump.

But he couldn’t quite let go of the presidency, with his speech focusing more on his own record in office than the future under a President Harris.

Biden listed his proudest achievements including on the economy and health care, but above all for healing the “soul of America” after Trump’s time in office and the pro-Trump January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

“Donald Trump calls America a failing nation… He says we’re losing. He’s the loser,” he said, also referring to Trump as a “convicted felon” after the Republican was found guilty of doctoring business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star.

Despite his low popularity ratings and the debate debacle against Trump that led him to step aside, Biden again insisted he’d given his all.

“I made a lot of mistakes in my career, but I gave my best to you,” he said.

Protests against Gaza war

As he has been so often in his five-decade-long political journey, Biden was surrounded by family at the end of his speech.

“Joe and I have been together for almost 50 years. And still, there are moments when I fall in love with him all over again,” the first lady said in a speech introducing him.

Monday’s first night of the convention was an emotional one on many levels, and for many of the key players.

Hillary Clinton, who lost against Trump in 2016 in her own bid to become America’s first woman president, backed Harris to finally break the glass ceiling.

“Something is happening in America, you can feel it – something we’ve worked for and dreamed of for a long time,” the former secretary of state and first lady said.

Earlier, protests against Israel‘s war in Gaza had shadowed the opening of the convention, underscoring what remains a potential vote-loser for Democrats among left-wingers and Arab Americans.

A group of demonstrators broke through the outer security fence of the convention after splitting off from a larger protest of thousands of people.

Police in blue helmets with shields and carrying black batons prevented them from getting to the inner cordon.

Trump, meanwhile, has been sent into a tailspin by the sudden change at the top of the Democratic ticket.

While Democrats are in Chicago, the Republican will spend the week crisscrossing the country.

In the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Monday, he highlighted what he called Harris’s “craziness” and said she “has no idea what the hell she’s doing” on the economy.

The government is launching a €45 million response plan for awareness campaigns, team deployment and patient care, but it does not include vaccines, RFI’s correspondent reports.

The DRC hopes to receive doses as early as next week.

On Monday DRC Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba said that Japan and the United States had pledged vaccines.

“We’ve just finished discussions with USAID and the US government. I hope that by next week we’ll be able to see the vaccines arrive,” he told reporters.

Their arrival would help to address a huge inequity that left African countries with no access to the two shots used in a 2022 global mpox outbreak, while the vaccines were widely available in Europe and the United States.

The World Health Organization (WHO) last week declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years as a new variant of the disease, known as clade Ib, spread rapidly in Africa.

“We need about 3.5 million doses,” Kamba said. “Thanks to Belgium we will have 215,000, thanks to Japan we should have three million doses and the United States is wondering how much to send because they themselves need these vaccines.” 

More vaccines

Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare also said that it was preparing to provide the DRC with supplies of mpox vaccines and needles in cooperation with the WHO and other partners.

The ministry intended to provide “as much support as possible”, Masano Tsuzuki, section chief of its division of infectious disease prevention and control, said.

Japan-based KM Biologics is one of the manufacturers of an mpox vaccine.

Denmark’s Bavarian Nordic (BAVA.CO), makes another vaccine, called Jynneos, for the disease. Japan holds a stockpile of the KM Biologics vaccine.

Outside clinical trials, neither of the shots have been available in the DRC or across Africa, where the disease has been endemic for decades.

The global vaccine group Gavi said last week it had up to $500 million to spend on getting shots to countries affected by Africa’s escalating mpox outbreak.

“Gavi has offered to make the vaccines available and we agreed,” Kamba said.

Mpox, a viral infection that causes pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms, is usually mild but can kill.

Two strains are spreading in the DRC – the endemic form of the virus, clade I, and the new clade Ib offshoot, and first cases were reported in Europe last week, in Sweden, as well as in Pakistan.

The virus transmits through close physical contact, including sexual contact, but unlike previous global pandemics such as Covid, there is no evidence it spreads easily through the air.

(with Reuters)

The virus, which affects livestock, has been confirmed in three regions – Nord, Aisne and Ardennes – raising concerns of a broader outbreak that could significantly impact the agricultural sector. 

Carried by tiny biting insects called midges, the virus causes symptoms such as fever, mouth ulcers, and difficulty breathing in infected animals. In severe cases, it can be fatal. 

In response, the French government is distributing 6.4 million doses of vaccine to regions most impacted by the newly identified BTV3 serotype (FCO-BTV3). The vaccine drive includes 1.1 million single doses for sheep and 5.3 million doses for cattle, which will receive two doses. 

To contain the outbreak, a 150-kilometre regulated zone around the affected areas has been established. 

Economic repercussions

Livestock within the zone must undergo insecticide treatments and pass health tests before they can be moved – a measure that makes it difficult for farmers to sell or transport their animals. 

“The bluetongue virus does not affect humans or the quality of meat and milk, but its economic repercussions can be significant, including the closure of foreign markets,” the Foreign Ministry said on its website. 

“Livestock within the regulated zone are subject to mandatory insecticide treatments and health tests  … with exceptions made only for direct transport to abattoirs or closed fattening facilities.” 

• France warns against influx of Japanese beetles that can decimate ecosystems

European spread

BTV3 was first detected in Europe at the end of 2023. The outbreak began in the Netherlands, around Amsterdam, and spread to Belgium and Germany by late 2023.  

By late July 2024, it was detected in Belgium near the French border. The virus subsequently crossed into France, with the first confirmed case reported on 5 August in the Nord department. 

As of 8 August, three outbreaks have been confirmed in France, with 22 additional suspected cases under investigation. The vaccination drive, which began on 12 August and will continue until 31 December, aims to prevent a more severe crisis. 

The restrictions on moving livestock and the high costs of vaccination and insecticide treatments are hitting farmers hard, both financially and emotionally. 

The uncertainty surrounding the virus’s spread is adding intense stress to an already strained agricultural community. 

• Experts weed out flaws in France’s revamped plan to cut pesticides

“We’re worried about the progression of biting insects,” said Michèle Boudoin, president of the National Ovine Federation.  

“We need to order more vaccines, even though we have 5.1 million ewes in France, not counting ewe lambs and rams.” 

Boudoin advised farmers grappling with bluetongue to remain calm and focused on their vaccination efforts. 

Vaccination is voluntary, but strongly recommended. 

Some farmers in northern France shared their vaccination efforts in posts to social media.

“FCO 3 vaccination for dairy cows, dry cows and pregnant heifers … Fingers crossed the vaccine is effective,” Adrién, an animal health technician, wrote on X.

“Good luck to everyone facing the arrival of this new virus wave.”

According to a statement from the emergency services, the fire in Canet-en-Roussillon, in the Pyrénées-Orientales broke out on Monday around 2:00 am local time and was fanned by winds blowing at 80 km/h.

It destroyed one mobile home. “Five others were partially affected, as well as a caravan,” the statement noted.

During the rescue and evacuation operations, “seven people were slightly injured: four civilians, two firefighters, and one police officer,” according to the same source.

The tourists were accommodated in a municipal building, but “by 7:00am, about 2,500 campers had returned to their accommodation”.

Elsewhere, a fire that started on Sunday afternoon in Frontignan – near Montpellier – was brought under control by firefighters during the night after ravaging around 350 hectares of pine forest without causing any injuries.

“The fire has been under control for two and a half hours, and we are still working on it,” Lieutenant Colonel Jérôme Bonnafoux, spokesperson for the Hérault firefighters, told French press agency AFP on Monday shortly after dawn.

‘Too hot to handle’: 2024 likely to be warmest year on record

“We’re still working on it because there are several hot spots where the risk of it flaring are high,” he added.

600 firefighters on duty

Of the 600 firefighters deployed on Sunday, “300 to 350 are still mobilized and will remain so throughout the day,” Bonnafoux stated.

Firefighters emptied the swimming pools of private homeowners to tackle the blaze, the mayor’s cabinet director added.

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin visited the area on Monday morning and hailed the work done by the authorities.

“There haven’t been many forest fires since the start of the season, around 4,000 hectares burned, whereas last year, at the same date, we’d lost some 12,000 hectares,” Darmanin said, adding that “nine out of ten fires are of human origin”.

On Sunday, four Dash planes, two Beechcraft planes, five Canadair planes, a Dragon helicopter, and a water-bomber helicopter carried out over 150 drops in the area, according to authorities.

An aerial survey on Monday is expected help to clarify the scope of the affected area and determine if aircraft need to be deployed again.

How satellite technology is being used in France to fight forest fires

On Sunday evening, a further 220 firefighters from the Hérault area responded to a fire that burned 60 hectares of pine forest in Nissan-les-Ensérunes, near Béziers.

The fire was still burning as of Monday, authorities warned on social media, noting that two Morane helicopters and a Dash plane would be deployed.

Seven forest areas in southern France remain closed to the public on Monday due to the fire hazard: Alpilles massifs, Chambremont, Castillon, Montagnette, Rougadou, Sulauze and the industrial-port area of ​​Fos-sur-Mer.

(With newswires)

“The normalization of violence against aid workers and the lack of accountability are unacceptable, unconscionable and enormously harmful for aid operations everywhere,” Joyce Msuya, acting director of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in a statement on World Humanitarian Day.

“With 280 aid workers killed in 33 countries last year, 2023 marked the deadliest year on record for the global humanitarian community,” a 137 percent increase over 2022, when 118 aid workers died, OCHA said in the statement.

It cited the Aid Worker Security Database which has tracked such figures back to 1997.

The UN said 163 of those killed in 2023 were aid workers killed in Gaza during the first three months of the war between Israel and Hamas, mainly in air strikes.

South Sudan, wracked by civil strife, and Sudan, where a war between two rival generals has been raging since April 2023, are the next deadliest conflicts for humanitarians, with 34 and 25 deaths respectively.

South Sudan buckles from stream of refugees fleeing Sudanese war

Call to end impunity

Also in the top 10 are Israel and Syria, with seven deaths each; Ethiopia and Ukraine, with six deaths each; Somalia at five fatalities; and four deaths both in Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In all the conflicts, most of the deaths are among local, rather than visiting foreign staff.

“We demand an end to impunity so that perpetrators face justice,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

Despite 2023’s “outrageously high number” of aid worker fatalities, OCHA said 2024 “may be on track for an even deadlier outcome.”

France condemns killing of Gaza NGO workers as US pressed to toughen stance with Israel

As of 9 August, 176 aid workers have been killed worldwide, according to the Aid Worker Security Database.

Since October, when Hamas-led militants launched a deadly raid into Israel, triggering the war, more than 280 aid workers have been killed in Gaza, the majority of them employees of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, according to OCHA.

Against this backdrop, the leaders of multiple humanitarian organisations and UN agencies sent a letter Monday to UN member states calling for the end of “an era of impunity.”

“Attacks that kill or injure civilians, including humanitarian and health-care personnel, are devastatingly common,” said the letter, signed by groups including the World Food Programme and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“Yet despite widespread condemnation, serious violations of the rules of war too often go unpunished.”

Gratitude

Each year the United Nations marks World Humanitarian Day on 19 August, the anniversary of the 2003 attack on its Baghdad headquarters.

The bombing killed 22 people including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN special representative to Iraq, and injured some 150 local and foreign aid workers.

Marking World Humanitarian Day, the United States said “we owe humanitarian workers our gratitude for their service and our commitment.”

“We reaffirm our steadfast commitment to this work and continue to urge international partners to join us in stepping up their contributions to address growing humanitarian needs around the world,” said the statement from National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett, which did not mention the record death toll.

(with AFP)

“We are declaring a cholera epidemic because of the weather conditions and because drinking water has been contaminated,” Sudan’s Health Minister Haitham Ibrahim said in a video released on Saturday.

He said the decision was taken in conjunction with authorities in the eastern state of Kassala, United Nations agencies and experts after the “discovery by the public health laboratory of the cholera virus”.

Ibrahim said that at least 22 people have died from the disease, and that at least 354 confirmed cases of cholera had been detected across the county.

He didn’t give a time frame for the deaths or the tally since the start of the year.

The World Health Organization, however, said that 78 deaths were recorded from cholera this year in Sudan as of 28 July.

The disease also affected more than 2,400 others between 1 January and 28 July, it said.

Cholera is a fast-developing, highly contagious infection that causes diarrhoea, leading to severe dehydration and possible death within hours when not treated, according to WHO. It is transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated food or water.

The cholera outbreak is the latest calamity for Sudan, which was plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the military and a powerful paramilitary group exploded into open warfare across the country.

The conflict has turned the capital, Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields, wrecking civilian infrastructure and an already battered health care system. Without the basics, many hospitals and medical facilities have closed their doors.

It has killed thousands of people and pushed many into starvation, with famine already confirmed in a sprawling camp for displaced people in the wrecked northern region of Darfur.

Sudan’s conflict has created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 10.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over 2 million of those fled to neighbouring countries.

Devastating floods

The fighting has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the UN and international rights groups.

Devastating seasonal floods in recent weeks have compounded the misery. Dozens of people have been killed and critical infrastructure has been washed away in 12 of Sudan’s 18 provinces, according to local authorities. About 118,000 people have been displaced due to the floods, according to the UN migration agency.

Sudan at ‘cataclysmic breaking point’ amid multiple crises, UN warns

Cholera is not uncommon in Sudan. A previous major outbreak left at least 700 dead and sickened about 22,000 in less than two months in 2017.

Tarik Jašarević, a spokesman for WHO, said the outbreak began in the eastern province of Kassala before spreading to nine localities in five provinces.

He said in comments to The Associated Press that data showed that most of the detected cases were not vaccinated. He said the WHO is now working with the Sudanese health authorities and partners to implement a vaccination campaign.

Sudan’s military-controlled sovereign council, meanwhile, said Sunday it was sending a government delegation to meet with American officials in Cairo amid mounting US pressure on the military to join ongoing peace talks in Switzerland that aim at finding a way out of the conflict.

(With newswires)

Delon had made it clear he did not want a national memorial event, but rather burial near his dogs on his property in Douchy in central France where he died.

He had already started sounding out the authorities and had their agreement in principle, local official Christophe Hurault told AFP.

The actor had been in poor health since suffering a stroke in 2019, rarely leaving his estate.

His three children, Anthony, Anouchka and Alain-Fabien, having squabbled bitterly for months over his medical treatment, spoke in a unified voice Sunday when they announced their father’s death.

Now they have to manage the funeral of the screen icon, deciding whether to limit it to close family or extend it to the cinema world.

Delon, naturally, dominated the front pages of France’s newspapers Monday, many of them featuring full-page portraits of the actor in his prime.

French monument

Delon’s performances in some of the greatest films of the 1960s and 70s were widely praised, his charisma on screen impossible to ignore.

He was one of the last living legends of a golden era for French cinema in the 1960s.

Fellow 60s star Brigitte Bardot, 89, told French news agency AFP Delon “leaves a huge void that nothing, nobody, can fill”.

Nathalie Baye, who starred with him in the film Our Story, said Delon was “not a fun guy” but, she added, “very endearing”.

French President Emmanuel Macron called him a “French monument” who “played legendary roles and made the world dream”.

His death was covered by newspapers around the world, with The New York Times, Washington Post and New York Post all publishing lengthy obituaries.

The Washington Post described him as the “angel-faced tough guy of international cinema”, while The Hollywood Reporter said he was the “seductive star of European cinema”.

Delon shot to fame in two films by Italian director Luchino Visconti, Rocco and His Brothers in 1960 and The Leopard in 1963.

He starred alongside venerable French elder Jean Gabin in Henri Verneuil’s 1963 film Melodie en Sous-Sol (Any Number Can Win) and was a major hit in Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 Le Samourai (The Godson).

The role of a philosophical contract killer involved minimal dialogue and frequent solo scenes, and Delon shone.

Idol in Japan

Delon became a star in France and was idolised by men and women in Japan, but never made it as big in Hollywood despite performing with American cinema giants, including Burt Lancaster when the Frenchman played apprentice-hitman Scorpio in the eponymous 1973 film.

In the 1970 film Borsalino, he starred with fellow French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, playing gangsters who come to blows in an unforgettable, stylised fight over a woman.

Crowning moments also included 1969 erotic thriller La Piscine (The Swimming Pool), where Delon paired up with real-life lover Romy Schneider, in a sultry French Riviera saga of jealously and seduction.

Businessman

Born just outside Paris on 8 November 1935, Delon started life on the back foot: he was put in foster care aged four after his parents divorced.

He ran away from home at least once and was expelled several times from boarding schools before joining the Marines at 17 and serving in then French-ruled Indochina. There too he got into trouble over a stolen jeep.

Back in France in the mid-50s, he worked as a porter at Paris wholesale food market, Les Halles, and spent time in the red-light Pigalle district before migrating to the cafes of the bohemian St. Germain des Pres area.

There he met French actor Jean-Claude Brialy, who took him to the Cannes Film Festival, where he attracted the attention of an American talent scout who arranged a screen test.

He made his film debut in 1957 in Quand la femme s’en mêle (Send a Woman When the Devil Fails).

Delon was a businessman as well as an actor, leveraging his looks to sell branded cosmetics and dabbling in race-horses with old underworld friends. He invested in a racehorse stable with Jacky “Le Mat” Imbert, a notorious figure in a thriving Marseille crime scene.

Delon’s more dubious friendships exploded to the surface when a former bodyguard-cum-confidant, a young Yugoslav called Stefan Markovic, was found dead in a bag, with a bullet in his head, discarded in a rubbish dump near Paris.

The actor was interrogated and cleared by police but the “Markovic Affair” snowballed into a national scandal.

The man police charged with the Markovic murder – he was later acquitted – was Francois Marcantoni, a Corsican cafe owner and friend of Delon who thrived in the hustle and bustle of the Pigalle district in the aftermath of World War Two.

Outspoken

Delon was outspoken off-stage and courted controversy when he did so – notably when he said he regretted the abolition of the death penalty and spoke disparagingly of gay marriage, which was legalised in France in 2013.

He publicly defended the far-right National Front and telephoned its founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, an old friend, to congratulate him when the party did well in local elections in 2014.

Delon’s lovers included German model-turned-singer Nico, with whom he had a son. In 1964, he married Nathalie Barthelemy and fathered a second son before ending the marriage and embarking on a 15-year relationship with Mireille Darc. He had two more children with Dutch model Rosalie van Breemen.

In a January 2018 interview, Delon told Paris Match that he was fed up with modern life and had a chapel and tomb ready for him on the grounds of his home near Geneva, and for his Belgian shepherd dog, called Loubo.

“If I die before him I’ll ask the vet to let us go together. He will give the dog an injection so he can die in my arms.”

Delon’s last major public appearance was to receive an honorary Palme d’or at the Cannes film festival in May 2019.

In April 2024 a judge placed Delon under “reinforced curatorship”, meaning he no longer had full freedom to manage his assets. He was already under legal protection over concerns over his health and well-being.

(with newswires)

The Democratic National Convention (DNC) which started in 1832, is a political event held every four years by the United States Democratic Party.

Since 1852, the convention has been organised by the Democratic National Committee and takes place in Chicago.

Its main objectives are to formally nominate candidates for president and vice president, adopt a party platform and unify the party.

Delegates from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and US territories, along with “superdelegates” (unpledged party leaders and officials), attend the convention to vote on the party’s presidential candidate, as well as a delegation consisting of Americans living abroad.

Like its Republican counterpart, the RNC, which was held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 15-18 July, the DNC marks the formal end of the primary season and the beginning of the general election campaigns.

• Trump makes triumphant appearance at party convention after shooting

Jim Cohen, a retired political scientist who is now with Democrats Abroad France told RFI that the Democratic convention functions like a rubber stamp.

“In terms of expectations regarding the candidacy of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, there are not too many surprises,” he says.

“The roll call vote has already taken place and Kamala Harris is already, for all practical purposes, the nominee.”

Bittersweet farewell

US President Joe Biden will no doubt give a bittersweet farewell address, Cohen goes on.

While he can expect a hero’s send-off – it will come from many of the same people who helped push him out due to age concerns.

Cohen also suggests that there will be speeches by prominent Democrats including Barack Obama, possibly Bill and Hillary Clinton.

New York Times writers like Frank Bruni and Maureen Dowd, have often been critical of the conventions, calling them “overly scripted spectacles focused on optics rather than substance”.

While others, like the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank and E.J. Dionne have described the happenings as “grandiose”, theatrical events that prioritise “messaging and party unity over real political debate.”

But there may be some surprises.

“Some delegates are uncommitted,” says Cohen, singling out “a small number, mostly from Michigan and Minnesota” who will be asking for speaking time during the convention.

They will most likely “discuss the issue of Israel-Palestine, and see what they can do to get Kamala Harris to consider strong commitments to a different policy,” he explains.

Cost of living

Just days before the convention, Harris unveiled parts of her economic program, including capping price increases for food producers and grocers, constructing three million new houses, lowering the cost of medication in the line with Biden’s recent proposals.

According to Robert Kuttner, editor of the American Prospect, there “has been a lot of chatter about whether Harris is positioning herself to the left of President Biden and whether that is a good idea.

“Supposedly, by moving left, Harris risks alienating swing voters. But swing voters also buy groceries. The only voters whom Harris risks alienating by championing consumers are large corporations and their allies.

“They have few votes,” he adds.

Critics disagree, says Cohen. “The Republicans are denouncing this as communism or as ruining the state by causing more deficits but I think that these are not wild proposals,” he says.

The Harris shock

Biden’s shock announcement on 21 July to quit the race followed by Harris’ sudden surge in popularity hit the preparation of the convention like a tsunami. Where Biden was lagging behind Trump in most polls, Harris has now taken the lead, even in some of the “battleground states” like Arizona.

With her recent campaign overhaul modelled after pop star Charli XCX’s Brat album cover and her frequent Tiktok messages, she has managed to get the attention of young people, many of them tired of politics dominated by white, ageing men.

• How does the Electoral College affect political strategy today?

“I think that we have seen an incredible turnout for Vice President Harris,” Donna Ghosh, an American studying in France who will attend the DNC as a delegate, told RFI.

At 19, she is the youngest delegate for Democrats Abroad and she thinks probably one of the youngest delegates at the convention overall.

“As a young person, especially when you’re getting involved in politics, it can feel like the space isn’t quite there for you,” she says, “because representation of young people in politics has been something that we’ve struggled with for a very long time.”

But things are improving and Ghosh is “passionate about just being able to be a part of these conversations.”

Immigration

One of the conversations that will dominate the election campaigns after the DNC is immigration.

Cohen, who is a specialist in immigration and authored the book The hunt for illegals :anti-immigrant politics and movements in the US,” originally published in French, thinks Harris’s policy on immigration won’t differ much from Biden’s.

“We’ve come through a transition in the past several years whereby the people who arrive at the US-Mexican border are no longer in the majority Mexican,” he says.

“Most people are from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and in the last year year and half or so, [there are] people coming across the border in larger numbers than ever from Venezuela, from Cuba sometimes, from African countries, sometimes from Asian countries.

He suggests that under a Harris administration, firmer measures will be put in place to try and curb those flows but they will likely be “more humane than Trump’s measures” and notably take into account the law stipulating that asylum seekers can “formulate their demand for asylum within the territory”.

Cohen says that while Republicans are always accusing the Biden administration of allowing too many people in, “most of them are coming in legally”.

In any given year, there are “between 800,000 and a million people who come in quite legally through family reunification or through some sort of a work visa and that would probably continue under Harris,” he says.

That is “usually thought of as good for the economy, not something that’s a threat.”

The Democratic National Convention will end on Thursday, 22 August.

Polish rider Kasia Niewiadoma did just enough in a thrilling battle Sunday with rival Demi Vollering on the iconic Alpe d’Huez to win the women’s Tour de France by four seconds overall.

It was the smallest margin of victory in any Tour de France edition, including the men’s race.

“It’s so crazy, this Tour has been a crazy roller-coaster,” Niewiadoma said after the eighth and final stage. “I’ve had bad moments. I hated every moment of this last climb, but when I heard that I had won the Tour de France, I could not believe it.”

Niewiadoma sat on the road after finishing, exhausted and waiting to get the confirmation that she had won. When the news finally came, she lifted her bike in triumph and appeared overwhelmed by the magnitude of her achievement.

Knowing she still trailed Niewiadoma overall, Vollering had been part of a breakaway Sunday with fellow Dutch rider Pauliena Rooijakkers earlier in the race. Vollering accelerated powerfully in the final stretch to win the stage.

But the gap wasn’t quite enough as Niewiadoma finished fourth to narrowly clinch her first Tour title, with an overall time of 24 hours, 36 minutes, 7 seconds. Vollering’s final time was 24:36:11.

Vollering, the defending champion, had fought back after suffering a crash in the fifth stage. She was inconsolable when she learned she had finished second overall after starting the stage more than a minute behind Niewiadoma overall.

“Right now I feel really bitter that I only lost by four seconds,” Vollering said. “It’s really painful to know that I did not do enough today.”

Rooijakkers, also a title contender, finished third in the overall standings at only 10 seconds behind Niewiadoma.

• Tour de France women’s race gets underway in the Netherlands
• Vollering hails teammates for victory in women’s Tour de France

(with newswires)

Abbas received a standing ovation in the Turkish Parliament on Thursday, where he addressed an extraordinary session. Deputies wore scarves adorned with Turkish and Palestinian flags as a show of solidarity.

With Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan watching from the balcony, Abbas praised Turkey’s unwavering support for the Palestinian cause.

“We highly appreciate Turkey’s pioneering role under the leadership of President Erdogan for its courageous and unwavering positions in defense of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to freedom and independence,” declared Abbas.

Increasing isolation

Erdogan is attempting to position himself at the forefront of international opposition to Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, even as Turkey finds itself increasingly sidelined from global efforts to resolve the conflict.

China’s recent hosting of Palestinian faction leaders highlights Erdogan’s diminishing influence.

“Erdogan was hoping to reconcile Palestinian factions, but China stole the spotlight and acted preemptively. China had more political clout over the parties,” Selin Nasi, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics contemporary Turkish studies department, told RFI.

Abbas’s visit to Russia on Tuesday further underscores the growing importance of other nations in efforts to address the Gaza conflict.

Domestic message

Erdogan’s invitation to Abbas also serves as a way to reinforce his pro-Palestinian credentials with his domestic conservative base.

“He’s trying to keep his base intact domestically,” Sezin Oney, a commentator on Turkey’s Politikyol news portal, told RFI.

“Once upon a time, Erdogan resonated with the Arab public in general.

“The Arab Street, as it was called back then, and the Muslim population in general saw him as connected with international grassroots movements. But he doesn’t have that appeal anymore; he’s lost that appeal.”

Turkey a bridge?

Erdogan has long claimed to be a bridge between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

“This is an issue that Erdogan personally invested a lot of time and energy in,” said Selin Nasi.

However, Erdogan’s influence with Hamas has waned, particularly after the assassination of its leader Ismail Haniyeh last month, and his replacement by Yahya Sinwar, who is relatively unknown in Turkey.

“They cannot host [Sinwar], they cannot contact him, nor do they have the kind of relations that they had with Haniyeh. So they have to settle with Mahmoud Abbas at this point,” Oney said.

Abbas, however, appears to show little interest in Turkey’s playing a larger role in resolving the conflict, and Erdogan’s strong support of Hamas and his fiery rhetoric against Israel is increasingly isolating him from countries seeking to end the fighting.

Hello everyone!

Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday. This week, you’ll hear what Rodrigo Hunrichse, your fellow RFI English listener, has found to be true in his life. Don’t miss it!

Here’s Rodrigo’s essay:

Seize the moment, cherish loved ones, make a good impression, avoid toxicity, plant seeds, harvest in time, write/ report regularly, study/ inform yourself, make good, love, find someone to love you back, question important things, rest regularly, good deeds should return, bad ones too, don’t judge until having good understanding of facts, don’t take their words for a fact: verify, don’t mind popular opinion, save for the uncertainty, remember good/bad people in your life so you’ll be remembered similarly, find a belief and a belonging so you have peers to support and be supported, no one is perfect especially you that know yourself, take care of yourself so to age with dignity, it’s never too late!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: “People Are Strange”, by Jim Morrison and Robby Krieger, performed by The Doors. 

The quiz will be back next Saturday, 24 August. Be sure and tune in! 

In a ceremony attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, China’s BYD car company signed an agreement to build a billion-dollar factory in Turkey.

The factory will produce 150,000 vehicles annually, mainly for the European Union market.

Analysts say the July deal marks a turning point in Turkish-Chinese relations.

“The significance of this deal is Turkey would be considered as a transition country between China and the EU,” Sibel Karabel, director of the Asia Pacific department of Istanbul’s Gedik University told RFI.  

“This deal has the potential to reduce the trade imbalance, the trade deficit, which is a detriment to Turkey,” he adds, “Turkey also wants to reap the benefits of China’s cutting-edge technologies by collaborating with China.”

Sidestepping tariffs

China’s pivot towards Turkey, a NATO member, is also about Beijing’s increasing competition for global influence, especially with the United States.  

Karabel says the planned BYD factory offers a way for China to avoid the EU’s new tariffs on vehicles.

Turkey is already a part of China’s global investment strategy through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Beijing has shown interest in Turkey becoming a trade route from China to Europe through Ankara’s Middle Corridor Intiative.

But until now, such collaborations have until been just empty words, claims Ceren Ergenc a China specialist at the Centre for European Policy Studies.  

Turkey set on rebuilding bridges with China to improve trade

“When you look at the press statements after meetings, you don’t see Chinese investments in Turkey, and the reason for that is because China perceives Turkey as a high political risk country in the region,” Ergenc explains.

One of the main factors widely cited for Beijing’s reluctance to invest in Turkey is Ankara’s strong support of China’s Muslim Uyghur minority.

Ankara has been critical of Beijing’s crackdown on Uyghurs, offering refuge to many Uyghur dissidents. Their Turkish supporters fear Beijing’s billion-dollar investment in Turkey could be part of an extradition deal struck during Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s recent visit to China.

“There are rumors, of course, that the Chinese side is pressing for the ratification of this extradition agreement, that they would want Uyghurs in Turkey, some of them at least, to be returned to China to be tried in China,” warns Cagdas Ungor of Istanbul’s Marmara University, referring to people China considers to be dissidents or “terrorists”.

Common ground over Gaza

Elsewhere, Ankara and Beijing are finding increasing diplomatic common ground, including criticism of Israel’s war on Hamas.

“If you take, for instance, the Gaza issue right now, Turkey and China, and even without trying,” observes Ungor, “they see eye to eye on this issue. Their foreign policies align, overlap, and their policy becomes very much different from most of the other Western countries.”

Carmakers unhappy after EU hits China with tariffs on electric vehicles

For example, Ankara welcomed last month’s decision by Beijing to host Palestinian leaders amid an escalation of threats and bombardment by Israel.

Such a move can provide common ground, Ungor suggests, and this could be the basis for future cooperation.

“There are certain issues at a global level, at the regional level, that China seems to be a much better partner(to Turkey) than the Western countries,” he concludes.

Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday. This week, you’ll hear musical requests from your fellow listeners Hossen Abed Ali, Karuna Kanta Pal, and Jayanta Chakrabarty.

Be sure you send in your music requests! Write to me at thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: “How Long”, written and performed by Jackson Browne; “Top of the World” by John Bettis and Richard Carpenter, performed by The Carpenters, and “Mademoiselle Chante le Blues” by Didier Barbelivien, sung by Patricia Kaas.

Be sure and tune in next week for a “This I Believe” essay written by RFI Listeners Club member Rodrigo Hunrichse.   

In this episode we hear from the artist and from Hoor Al-Qasimi, director of the Sharjah Art Foundation and the president of the Africa Institute, Sharjah, UAE, who helped organise the London retrospective.

Jantjes’s formative years in Cape Town coincided with the early years of South African apartheid, and his journey has since embodied a quest for artistic emancipation, with a freedom not bound by the Eurocentric gaze or expectations of black creativity.

For Jantjes, this quest has meant a life of itinerant exile manifesting in multiple careers.

Structured into chapters, To Be Free! explores his engagement with anti-apartheid activism from the 1970s to the mid-1980s, his transformative role at art institutions in Europe, his compelling figurative portrayals of the global black struggle for freedom, and his recent transition to non-figurative painting.

This retrospective also provides insights into Jantjes’ curatorial initiatives, written contributions, and wider advocacy, which had a significant impact on both African and African diaspora art on the global contemporary art scene.

It coincides with the 30th anniversary of the end of apartheid in South Africa.

The exhibition is at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (12 June – 1 September 2024), after opening at the Sharjah Art Foundation from 18 November 2023 to 10 March 2024, and was organised in collaboration with The Africa Institute, Sharjah.

Episode mixed by Erwan Rome. 

Spotlight on Africa is a podcast from Radio France Internationale. 

July saw major military drills in Armenia between Armenian and United States forces.

“Politically, it is exceptionally relevant; they are four or five times larger than last year,” explains Eric Hacopian, a political analyst in Armenia, who notes the range of US divisions mobilised for the drills. “It’s not about peacekeeping.”

The military exercise, dubbed “Eagle Partner“, is part of Yerevan’s wider efforts to escape its Russian neighbour’s sphere of influence, Hacopian believes.

“These are serious exercises, and they were followed up with the news that there is going to be US permanent representation in the Ministry of Defence of Armenia as advisors to join the French who are already there,” he noted.

“Essentially, there is no other play but to join the West.”

France, Russia stand on opposite sides of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict

Armenia is also seeking to reduce its economic dependence on Russia, pressing Turkey to open its border and providing a new gateway to Western markets for the landlocked country.

Ankara closed the frontier in 1993 after ethnic Armenian forces seized the contested Azerbaijani enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, with Azerbaijani forces recapturing the enclave last year, analysts say the opening of the border could now align with Turkey’s goals to expand its regional influence.

“The normalisation of the relationship with Armenia would allow Turkish policy in the Cacasus to acquire a more comprehensive dimension today. That’s the missing element,” said Sinan Ulgen, an analyst with the Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, a think tank in Istanbul.

“Turkey obviously has very strong links to Azerbaijan and very good relations with Georgia, but not with Armenia,” he explained. “And that’s a predicament, as we look at Turkey’s overall policy in the Caucasus.”

Leverage

Washington is working hard to broker a permanent peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. “A deal is close,” declared US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of July’s NATO summit in Washington.

Last week, Turkish and Armenian envoys held their fifth meeting aimed at normalising relations. However, with critical issues between Armenia and Azerbaijan unresolved, Baku sees Turkey’s reopening of the Armenian border as important leverage.

In principle, both Azerbaijan and Turkey are in favour, claims Farid Shafiyev, an Azeri former diplomat and now chair of the Centre of Analysis of International Relations in Baku.

“However, we believe at this stage, as we have not signed a peace agreement, it might send a wrong signal to Yerevan and Armenia that we don’t need to come to an agreement about the core issues – the mutual recognition of territorial integrity,” he said.

Can Turkey tip the balance of power in the Caucasus conflict?

Meanwhile Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has developed close ties with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, and is ruling out opening the border until Baku’s demands are met.

Turkish arms were key to Azerbaijan’s recent military successes against Armenian-backed forces. “Azerbaijan is where it is, in good part because of Turkey’s military assistance, intelligence assistance and all that,” argues Soli Ozel, who teaches international relations at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

But Ozel says Baku is dictating Ankara’s Caucasus policy. “It is befuddling to me that Turkey cannot open the borders with Armenia, which Armenia both needs and wants, because of Azerbaijan’s veto,” he said. “Especially if indeed Azerbaijan, for one reason or another, believes that its interests are once more in turning toward Russia.”

With Azerbaijan’s Socar energy company Turkey’s biggest foreign investor, Baku retains powerful economic leverage over Ankara – meaning any hope of reopening the Turkish-Armenian border appears dependent on the wishes of Azerbaijan’s leadership.

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.