US President Donald Trump blindsided Ukraine and its European backers last week by starting discussions on Russia’s invasion in a call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The new US administration has also warned its NATO allies that Europe will no longer be its top security priority and it may shift forces too as it switches focus to China.

Macron’s office said Sunday European leaders would meet in Paris on Monday afternoon to discuss “the situation in Ukraine” and “security in Europe”.

“The heads of government of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark” will be attending the “informal meeting”, it said.

Antonio Costa, who heads the European Council representing the European Union’s 27 nations, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, and NATO secretary general Marc Ruttewould will also be present.

The Kremlin has pushed for negotiations — set to kick off in Saudi Arabia in coming days — to discuss not just the Ukraine war as it nears a third anniversary but also broader European security.

That has sparked fears among European nations that Putin could revive demands he floated prior to the 2022 invasion aimed at limiting NATO forces in eastern Europe and US involvement on the continent.

European ‘input’

But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio played down expectations Sunday of any breakthrough at upcoming talks with Russian officials on ending the war in Ukraine.

“A process towards peace is not a one-meeting thing,” he told the CBS network as the Munich Security Conference wrapped up.

“Nothing’s been finalised yet,” he said, adding that the aim was to seek an opening for a broader conversation that “would include Ukraine and would involve the end of the war.”

Costa on Sunday said the security of the European Union and of Ukraine were intertwined.

“There will be no credible and successful negotiations, no lasting peace, without Ukraine and without the European Union,” he wrote on X.

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Inter radio earlier on Sunday: “Only the Ukrainians can decide to stop fighting.”

The Ukrainians “will never stop as long as they are not sure that the peace that is suggested to them will be long-lasting,” he added.

“Who can provide the guarantees? It’s the Europeans.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had on Saturday called for the creation of a European army, arguing the continent could no longer count on Washington.

Zelensky said there should be “no decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine” or “about Europe without Europe”.

Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, on Saturday said Europe would not be directly involved in talks though it would still have an “input”.

Asked whether Europeans would be at the table, Kellogg responded: “I’m of the school of realism, I think that’s not going to happen.”

‘Sustainable peace’?

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has appeared to rule out Ukraine joining NATO or retaking all of its territory lost since 2014.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb in Munich on Sunday said that talks between the United States and Russia over the Ukraine war must not rewrite European security.

“There’s no way in which we should open the door for this Russian fantasy of a new, indivisible security order, where it can do spheres of interest,” he said.

Finland shares a 1,300-kilometre (800 mile) border with Russia.

Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Ukrainian rights activist whose NGO was co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, said “civil society” also needed a voice in any negotiations.

“If the goal is to achieve sustainable peace, for sure, you have to get civil society on the table,” Matviichuk, who is head of the Center for Civil Liberties, told AFP in Munich.

“There is a difference between a ceasefire, which can be violated just in an hour, and getting a sustainable peace, which provides a freedom to live without fear of violence,” she added.

 (AFP)

Among the accused is Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche, who is currently serving a life sentence for the deadly attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in 2014.

The trial – expected to last until 21 March – will revisit a period in which foreign journalists and humanitarian workers were targeted by the Islamic State group.

The defendants, two of whom are presumed dead, stand accused of the kidnap and torture, in connection with a terrorist organisation, of French journalists Didier François, Édouard Elias, Nicolas Hénin and Pierre Torres, Italian aid worker Federico Motka, British aid worker David Haines and Spanish journalist Marcos Marginedas Izquierdo.

The four French nationals, Motka and Marginedas Izquierdo were released in 2014, but Haines was executed by Islamic State in the same year.

Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche found guilty of 2014 terrorist attack on Brussels Jewish Museum

French connection

France’s DGSI intelligence agency played a key role in identifying the perpetrators.

Three of the accused – Nemmouche, Abdelmalek Tanem and Kais Al-Abdallah – are either French citizens or have ties to France.

French authorities have long been at the forefront of efforts to bring justice to victims of terrorism, particularly those linked to the Islamic State’s reign in Syria and Iraq, and French anti-terrorism judges have been leading investigations into crimes committed by French jihadists abroad.

Nemmouche – a 38-year-old French national of Algerian descent – was convicted in Belgium for the Brussels attack. Prosecutors allege that before carrying out that atrocity, he was actively involved in the abduction and torture of Western hostages in Syria. His trial in Paris is expected to shed new light on the extent of his role within extremist networks.

France charges IS official’s ex-wife with crimes against humanity

Testimonies of torture

The testimonies of the former hostages will be central to the prosecution’s case. They have provided harrowing accounts of their time in captivity, describing physical abuse, psychological torture and staged executions.

Their statements have been instrumental in identifying the accused and reconstructing the timeline of events.

Security around the trial is expected to be tight, given the high-profile nature of the defendants and the sensitive details involved.

The bronze, entitled L’Âge mûr (The Mature Age), was found by accident in an abandoned Paris flat in September last year.

Estimated between 1.5 and 2 million euros, it was sold for 3.1 million euros at the Philocale auction house in Orleans on Sunday.

The sculpture, which exists in several copies, depicts an elderly woman dragging an ageing man away, while a younger woman, kneeling behind him, appears to implore him to turn back.

The artist sculpted the piece after breaking up with her teacher and lover Auguste Rodin, who was two years her senior, as she tried to create a name for herself in her own right after years as his assistant.

Art historians see evocations of both the cycle of life and the couple’s turbulent relationship, which led to Claudel’s breakdown and confinement in a psychiatric hospital.

This latest copy was discovered by auctioneer and valuer Matthieu Semont during an inventory in a flat, near the Eiffel Tower, that had been unoccupied for around 15 years.

He landed on the work by chance when lifting a dust sheet. “This bronze, which had been lost for over a century, is of stunning quality,” Semont said.

How it found its way into the appartment remains a mystery.

Paris Rodin Museum celebrates centenary

Feminist icon

Also known as Destiny, The Path of Life, or Fatality, the work was originally a commission from the state but was never completed.

Only three other bronzes of the whole work are known. Two are displayed in the Musee d’Orsay and Musée Rodin in Paris, and another in the Musée Camille Claudel in Nogent-sur-Seine. 

In November 2017, an auction organised by Claudel’s direct heirs brought in more than three times the estimated value. Among the 17 works sold, the famous 1886 bronze L’Abandon (The Abandonment) sold for 1.18 million euros – nearly double its estimate.

Claudel destroyed much of her work before her brother confined her to a psychiatric hospital in 1913.

She became a feminist icon as her reputation revived, notably after an eponymous French biopic starring Isabelle Adjani and Gerard Depardieu, was nominated for two Oscars in 1989.

Despite pleas by doctors and friends that she was sane and did not need to be in hospital, Claudel remained confined to the asylum on her family’s orders until her death aged 78 in 1943.

Feminist critics consider Claudel contributed to some of Rodin’s most acclaimed works and some argue she was his equal artistically.

The 46-year-old was among several French local government chiefs guiding counterparts from Brisbane and its satellite towns and cities around Olympic sites in Saint-Denis and Saint-Ouen on the northern outskirts of Paris just before the start of the school holidays.

The Australian delegation comprising inter alia the mayors of Brisbane, Logan, the Sunshine Coast and the Scenic Rim, were in Paris for three days gathering facts and touchy-feely niceties to help them organise the Olympic Games in 2032.

Their early morning labours took them to Saint-Denis Pleyel metro station, the athletes’ village, across a footbridge over the river Seine and a walk along its spruced up banks.

“Saint-Denis wants to be put on the map of the Parisian metropolis,” said Hanotin, breaking away from the solicitations.

“It wants to be on the map in France and internationally, as the hub, the great hub of hospitality,” he said.

“We want it as a place where people come to stay and to have fun so we’re obviously going to continue with this kind of marketing … a kind of soft power.”

All creatures great and small on the Paris 2024 organising committee paraded legacy as one of the most important features of France’s Olympic Games.

Great pride was taken, for example, that the 11,000 seats for the Aquatics Centre in Saint-Denis and the La Chapelle Arena a few kilometres to the south were made from recycled plastic by a French company based in Aubervilliers just to the north of Paris.

Feeling

Post rush-hour of a February morning, Saint-Denis Pleyel station – opened just before the 2024 Games – gleams space-age grandeur though the path from the metro Line 14 terminus to the athletes’ village some 800 metres away screams project unfinished.

“It was very important for us to be able to organise this visit for the people from Brisbane,” added Hanotin. “We’ve done it for the teams organising the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in three years.

“We have become members of the Union of Olympic Cities and we want to be able to share what we have acquired over the seven years of work preparing for our Games.”

The yield was enthusiastically embraced. “It’s just been incredible to see some of the infrastructure and the legacy that the Olympics have left for communities,” beamed Rosanna Natoli, mayor of Sunshine Coast. which is scheduled to host four venues and nine Olympic and Paralympic events during the antipodean extravaganza.

“That’s what’s been most impressive for us,” added Natoli, a former TV journalist who was voted in as mayor in March 2023.

“Legacy, it’s what we all talk about but during this trip what we’re able to see is the actual delivery here after the Games of 2024.

Material

“And that’s what’s really been so astonishing. It’s really heartening to know that those sustainability goals, those environmental goals and those social goals for the people of Paris have been been delivered. And that’s what we are hoping to do for the people of south-east Queensland in 2032.”

During the three-hour tour of the utterly concrete and tangible, Karim Boumrane, mayor of Saint-Ouen, injected the metaphysical.

“Everybody has to understand that this Olympic Games is for them,” expounded the 50-year-old who grew up in his mayoral fiefdom.

“That’s the first point,” Boumrane told the Australian delegation as they paused for coffee and croissants in a former electricity turbine hall en route to a renaissance as offices for the Ministry of the Interior.

“Legacy comes in terms of parks, in terms of public infrastructures and the bridges and that brings us pride,” he added.

Sharing

“We provided pride to the people and now we provide a sharing of excellence, a sharing of the beauty and the last point … we share a feeling of security. There is the feeling that when you are in this district, you feel well, whatever your colour, whatever your religion, whether you are LGBT or heterosexual, we don’t care. You will feel well.”

Ripples of applause proceeded Boumrane’s paean. And in the glow of the peroration, the perambulation.

The delegation was led up 14 storeys in swift lifts to the top of the tallest building in the athletes’ village where a roof terrace furnished panoramic views of Olympic venues such as the Stade de France and Aquatics Centre as well as conventional gems such as the Eiffel Tower.

“Good things take time,” exhaled Brisbane mayor Adrian Schrinner after breathing in the splendour of the vistas. “Even here in Paris, good things take time.

“In Brisbane at the moment, we’re just finishing the planning phase and then we move into the delivery phase. 

“The trip has been an incredible learning experience for us,” added the 48-year-old. “And most importantly we’ve created some great connections.

“They’re relationships that will last and that will really help us when it comes to gearing up for the Olympics in seven years time.”

Deschamps was without the services of Mbappé during the side’s last sorties against Israel and Italy for the final games in their Group 2 campaign in November.

Kolo Muani featured in the team that began the games in Saint-Denis and Milan but failed to hit the target.

At the time, the 26-year-old cut a forlorn figure as he dawdled on the bench at Paris Saint-Germain. Coach Luis Enrique often preferred to play a formation in which a midfielder surged into the centre forward position rather than deploying a target man at spearhead.

A move on loan in January to Juventus in Italy has re-energised the forward. 

He notched up five goals in his opening three games to become the first player to achieve the feat since Roberto Baggio in 1990. His assist for Francisco Conceição’s winner on Sunday night over Inter took Juve into the positions offering a berth in next season’s Champions League.

Mbappé’s 11th goal since the beginning of January in Real Madrid’s 1-1 draw at Osasuna on Saturday allowed him to become the first Madrid player to score 25 goals in all competitions in his first season at the club since Cristiano Ronaldo unleashed such pyrotechnics in 2009/10.

Ronaldo went on to finish with 33 in 35 games in all competitions. 

Deschamps said Mbappé, who had to deal with poor form at the start of his Madrid career and allegations in December of raping a woman while he was on holiday in Stockholm, would be back in the squad.

Attachment

“He is very attached to the French team, even if he had a complicated period,” said Deschamps who spoke during his interview with the French sports newspaper L’Equipe about his successor.

Former striker Zinedine Zidane was touted as a candidate when the French football federation (FFF) reappointed Deschamps after the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Just over two years on, Zidane remains a contender even though he has not worked as a manager since leaving Madrid in May 2021.

“There is a lot of respect between us,” said Deschamps who was Zidane’s skipper in the France teams that claimed the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European championships.

“Zizou [Zidane] is a very good candidate, a natural and an expected one,” Deschamps told L’Équipe. “But then again, I don’t know if he will want it.”

Zidane’s appointment will also depend on the FFF. Philippe Diallo, who replaced Noël Le Graët in January  2023, has promised to make the outfit more transparent and diverse.

Deschamps, 55, announced last month that he wanted to quit after the 2026 World Cup.

After taking over from former France teammate Laurent Blanc in 2012, Deschamps guided France to the final of the 2016 European championships where they were beaten by Portugal.

Two years later in Russia, France swept past Croatia 4-2 to claim their second world crown and enable Deschamps to join Mario Zagallo from Brazil and the German Franz Beckenbauer as the only men to have won the World Cup as a player and as a coach.

“I am not tired or worn out,” Deschamps said. “But I feel that I have done my time. The French team is a very good thing, because it represents 25 years of my professional life when I combine my two lives.

“But all good things must come to an end.”

Before becoming France boss, Deschamps steered the Ligue 1 club Monaco to the 2004 Champions League final and he led Marseille to the French domestic title in 2010 – their last success in the top flight before Paris Saint-Germain’s domination.

“There are plenty of possibilities,” said Deschamps of a return to club management in France or internationally. “I will decide based on what is offered to me.”

(With newswires)

The 58-year-old imam, who ran a mosque intended as a safe haven for gay and other marginalised Muslims, was shot dead on Saturday, after the car in which he was travelling near the southern city of Gqeberha was ambushed.

Police confirmed the authenticity of a widely circulated video showing Hendricks’ vehicle trying to pull away while another blocked its exit. 

“Two unknown suspects with covered faces got out of the vehicle and started firing multiple shots at the vehicle,” the Eastern Cape police force said in a statement.

“Thereafter they fled the scene, and the driver noticed that Hendricks, who was seated at the back of the vehicle was shot and killed.”

Police said the motive for the murder was unknown and that an investigation was ongoing.

Justice Deputy Minister Andries Nel told South African media on Monday that the police were “hot on the heels” of the killers and that his department would also be working with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on the matter.

According to several online testimonies, Hendricks was killed after he had reportedly officiated at a lesbian wedding, though this has not been officially confirmed.

LGBTQ+ gains thwarted by enduring discrimination and violence

ILGA family in shock

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) denounced the killing.

“The ILGA World family is in deep shock at the news of the murder of Muhsin Hendricks, and calls on authorities to thoroughly investigate what we fear may be a hate crime,” executive director Julia Ehrt said in a statement.

Hendricks came out as gay in 1996 and in the same year founded The Inner Circle, an organisation providing support and a safe space for queer Muslims seeking to reconcile their faith and sexuality. He then went on to set up the inclusive Masjidul Ghurbaah mosque at Wynberg near his birthplace of Cape Town.

The mosque provides “a safe space in which queer Muslims and marginalised women can practise Islam”, its website states.

Hendricks, the subject of a 2022 documentary called “The Radical”, had previously alluded to threats against him but preferred not to hire bodyguards saying the need to be authentic was “greater than the fear to die”.

The Muslim Judicial Council has condemned the murder and all violence against the LGBT community, while underlining its deep disagreement with the imam’s views. 

South Africa has one of the world’s highest murder rates, with some 28,000 murders in the year to February 2024, according to police data.

 (with AFP)

A spokesperson for the M23 militia told Reuters: “we are there”.

M23 spokesperson Willy Ngoma said in a telephone message that the group was in the city.

“I’m at home, and I can see with my own eyes the M23 entering our town,” a local official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The governor of South Kivu province confirmed on Sunday that Rwandan-backed M23 rebels had entered the centre of the provincial capital Bukavu from where he said Congolese troops had withdrawn to avoid urban fighting.

The Congolese army confirmed it later.

They (the M23) are in Bukavu,” Governor Jean-Jacques Purusi told Reuters in a message.

The armed group had been advancing on the capital of South Kivu province since seizing the city of Goma in late January.

Fighting resumes in DRC’s South Kivu ahead of crisis talks

The M23 rebel group entered the outskirts of Bukavu, a city of 1.3 million in eastern DRC, in mid-February 2025.

This happened two weeks after Goma, another city in the region, came under the control of M23 rebels. With support from the Rwandan army, M23 already controls vast territory in eastern DRC.

Thousands flee eastern DRC as M23 rebels encircle provincial capital Goma

The fall of Bukavu represent the most significant expansion of territory under the M23’s control since the latest insurgency started in 2022.

 (Reuters)

Among the AI projects being showcased beneath the glass roof of the Grand Palais is a robot that could help to break down barriers in healthcare.

“Our AI will provide practical, tailored answers to questions about sexual health and HIV prevention, which are still very taboo subjects. Our users can ask all the questions they want, and our AI will guide them through self-testing and, if necessary, put them in touch anonymously with clinicians,” said Sarah Morris, marketing manager for South African-American company Audere, which produces this robot.

Why the African continent has a role to play in developing AI

AI diagnostics

While this week’s AI Action Summit in Paris is a showcase for future developments in the sphere, AI is already being used to support healthcare professionals.

One area in which it is widely used is medical imaging, where it helps to detect fractures and cancers – notably breast cancer. In a Paris radiology clinic, between the usual light panels and high-definition screens, a small computer equipped with AI software is now playing a crucial role in analysing mammograms.

“AI can detect suspicious microcalcifications on mammograms, ranking their severity on a scale of one to 10. If the AI classifies an anomaly as an eight, further tests are required,” explained Dr Grégory Lenczner, radiologist and president of the Radiological Society for the Île-de-France region.

But is AI better at detection than an expert radiologist? According to Dr Lenczner, studies show that AI does not detect more anomalies than a human expert. However, in everyday practice, the technology offers valuable confirmation.

“AI is not going to detect more things than an expert radiologist. But in everyday life, you can be disturbed by a phone call or visual fatigue, and the human side comes into play. So the AI confirms that we haven’t missed anything,” he said.

Creation must remain ‘fundamentally human’, says expert ahead of Paris AI summit

For Anne, a patient whose routine mammogram result was normal, this additional layer of analysis is reassuring. “It reassures me because, in fact, there are two opinions. For me, it’s complementary.”

There is a risk, however, that AI can raise unnecessary doubts by suggesting false anomalies. “It can waste our time and, above all, cause the patient to have to go for more X-rays and worry for nothing,” explains Dr Christine Salem. 

While the process is yet to be perfected, it is expected that the more AI is used in the medical field, the better it will perform.

New solutions for disabilities

The Paris summit coincides with the 20th anniversary of France’s Disability Act, and AI is raising hopes in this area too.

Blind since birth, Manuel Pereira uses Be My Eyes, an AI application which, among other functions, describes photos. Scanning the screen of his phone, he says AI is already transforming daily life for visually impaired people.

But, he says, we still need to go much further. “The dream would be to establish a natural dialogue with the everyday appliances we use – the fridge, the oven and so on. You’re standing in front of your oven, and you say to it, OK, I’ve just put in a veal roast, can you programme to cook it for 30 or 40 minutes.”

Macron announces €109 bn investments in AI as leaders, tech giants meet in Paris

He dreams of being able to use AI systems in which the user wears glasses that are connected to their mobile phone – something which is already in use in the United States but currently banned in France. “You’ll be able to walk down the street and ask artificial intelligence ‘tell me what you see’, which will make people more independent in their daily lives.”

However, Pereira also raises a paradoxical point – AI technology can be intimidating for older people, when they are the ones most often affected by the type of health problems it can help solve.

This article has been adapted from the original French version.

The applications, which the United Nations cultural arm will examine in July 2026, were developed in collaboration with the municipal and regional councils that administer the two sites, according to a Ministry of Culture communiqué.

The D-Day landings on beaches along the Normandy coast in 1944 turned the tide of the Second World War in Europe. The Ministry said the beaches represent a “place of gathering around a universal message” and carry “the memory of a fight for freedom and peace”.

The area proposed for Unesco World Heritage status is made up of the five sectors of the Landings as defined by the Allies in 1944: Utah Beach, Omaha Beach, Juno Beach, Gold Beach and Sword Beach, spanning more than 80 kilometres of coastline.

The coastline is littered with the legacy of the war, from the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall to the wrecks of French, English and German warships.

The application was initiated in 2014 and initially submitted in 2018 but its examination by the Unesco World Heritage Committee scheduled for 2019 was postponed, with the organisation saying it was considering “the evaluation of sites associated with recent conflicts”.

Cultural treasures in Africa and French Polynesia join Unesco heritage list

‘The logical next step’

The committee lifted this moratorium in January 2023, allowing memorial applications submitted before 2022 to be examined outside the quota of one application per year and per state, the Ministry said.

“We all hope that this application will succeed, it is the logical next step in the process of remembrance and commemoration,” Michael Dodds, director of the Normandy Regional Tourism Committee, told French news agency AFP.

Remembering D-Day’s heavy toll on French civilians

Unesco has adopted several guiding principles concerning the participation of all stakeholders potentially affected by a conflict.

Since then, five memorial sites have become World Heritage Sites, including 139 burial sites from the First World War located in France and Belgium, and four memorials commemorating the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda.

France’s second application concerns “the system of fortresses of the Seneschal of Carcassonne, built in the 13th to 14th centuries”.

This system is made up of eight monuments situated between the departments of Aude and Ariège: the ramparts of Carcassonne and the nearby castles of Lastours, Termes, Aguilar, Peyrepertuse, Quéribus, Puilaurens and Montségur, the Ministry said.

“Built on rocky peaks in grandiose landscapes,” these monuments “illustrate a pivotal period in history and offer a unique example of military architecture giving them exceptional universal value”.

(with AFP)

Naâman released his final song Mon Amour in December as a testament to life and love. “Life only dies in books”, he sang.

Born in Normandy, he fell in love with the music of Bob Marley aged 12 and went on to become a leading figure on the French reggae scene combining hip-hop and raggamuffin with more traditional beats.

His catchy hit Outta Road garnered some 29 million views online.

RFI’s World Music Matters met Naâman in 2015 for the release of his second album Rays of Resistance where, among other things, he talked about transcending the ego in music.

Countries are looking for sovereignty in artificial intelligence and at a major AI summit in Paris this week, France and the EU backed a “third path” approach to AI – midway between the US’ private tech firm-dominated model and China’s state-controlled technology. With a focus on regulation to ensure trust, France is creating public/private partnerships, and encouraging companies to develop home-grown products. Linagora, an open-source software developper, recently released a large language model (LLM) trained on French and European content, in contrast to American LLMs like ChatGPT that are trained on mainly US content. While chatbot Lucie got off to a rocky start, Linagora’s General Manager Michel Maudet says there’s a clear need for technology focused on Europe, able to address the nuance of the continent’s languages and culture. (Listen @0′)

French MPs recently voted a controversial draft bill to end birthright citizenship on the overseas department of Mayotte to discourage illegal immigration from neighbouring Comoros. Prime Minister François Bayrou supports the proposed measure and has called for a wider debate on immigration and what it means to be French. His earlier remarks that there was a feeling immigrants were “flooding” France have caused outrage on the left in particular.  We talk to Tania Racho, a researcher on European law and who also works for an association fighting disinformation on migration issues, about the reality of immigration in France. While the data does not support claims France is overwhelmed with foreigners, people’s perceptions – nourished by a fixation on migration by both politicians and media – tell a different story. (Listen @18’40”)

Twenty years after the 11 February 2005 law on disability and inclusion, daily life for France’s 12 million people living with disabilities has improved. But since the law underestimated the timelines and costs of accessibility, there’s still a lot of work to be done. (Listen @14’30”)

Episode mixed by Vincent Pora. 

Spotlight on France is a podcast from Radio France International. Find us on rfienglish.com, Apple podcasts (link here), Spotify (link here) or your favourite podcast app (pod.link/1573769878).

This anniversary fell on Saturday, 8 February, and on Monday Google announced that it had changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” for those using its Maps application inside the United States, complying with an executive order by President Trump.

The tech giant wrote in a blog post that users outside the US will continue to see both the original and the new name, created by the Trump administration, for the Gulf of Mexico, as is the case with other disputed locations.

“People using Maps in the US will see Gulf of America, and people in Mexico will see Gulf of Mexico. Everyone else will see both names,” Google wrote.

Following another of Trump’s orders, Denali – the highest mountain peak in North America, located in Alaska – will revert back to its former name of Mount McKinley, honouring former US president William McKinley. This is a reversal of a decision made by former president Barack Obama in 2015 to give the mountain back its traditional Alaskan native name (meaning “the high one”) which had been in use in Alaska for centuries.

Trump’s renaming of the mountain has sparked criticism from indigenous groups in Alaska, who have long advocated for maintaining the Denali name

As Trump declares ‘Gulf of America,’ US enters name wars

In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Google wrote: “We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”

It added that the changes are made once the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) – a database of names and locations of cultural and geographical features in the US – has been updated.

“When official names vary between countries, [Google] Maps users see their official local name,” Google said. “Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names.”

Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, wrote to Google to ask it to reconsider. She also sardonically suggested that the company could rename the United States “Mexican America”, pointing to a map from before a third of her country was seized by the US in 1848.

Territorial disputes

The naming of places, like the drawing of maps, is an unavoidably political consideration, particularly when it comes to territorial disputes, and Google Maps has juggled toponymy and cartography over its 20 years of existence.

In the midst of the Arab Spring in August 2011, as rebel troops took over Tripoli, RFI reported that Google Maps had erased the name of the city’s Place Verte (“Green Square”) and replaced it with Place des Martyrs (“Martyrs’ Square”) – its previous name before Muammar Gaddafi’s regime changed it. This despite the fact that Gaddafi was still alive at this time. 

Google rivals join forces in online maps

However, in the previous month South Sudan had been recognised by the United Nations following its independence from Sudan – but not by Google Maps.

In 2016, the tech company found itself in the crosshairs of the government of India, the world’s second most populous country. The Indian administration launched a bill to impose strict controls – on pain of fines or even imprisonment – on how the country was represented on all online mapping tools.

Google maps thus had to adapt to New Delhi’s preferences regarding territorial disputes with Pakistan over Kashmir, claimed by Islamabad, and with China over Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing wanted to make an independent state.

Middle East conflict

The same year, the US company found itself at the centre of a social media storm, particularly in the Arab-Muslim world, when a union of Palestinian journalists pointed out that neither the word “Palestine” nor the designation “Palestinian Territories” appeared on Google Maps. Nor, at that time, did the words “Gaza” or “West Bank”.

Palestinian towns were indicated, and the 1967 borders were drawn in dotted lines. But as for the disappearance of the terms “Gaza” and “West Bank”, Google blamed a “bug”. Still today, “Palestinian Territories” does not appear.

NGOs on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict continue to keep a tally of West Bank villages not mentioned or “wiped off the map”. The Avaaz Foundation, a non-profit organisation, launched a campaign aimed at the Silicon Valley giant named #ShowTheWall, to have Israel’s controversial separation barrier shown on Google Maps.

‘We do our best’

Google Maps has been known to play it safe and attempt to keep both parties of a conflict on side. Following the 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea by the Russian Federation, to avoid incurring the wrath of either Kyiv or Moscow – and for fear of being banned in either territory – the company created three maps of the location that year.

For Russian users, Crimea was shown as separated from Ukraine by a border. For the Ukrainians, the map remained as before, showing Crimea attached to their territory, without a border. For the search engine’s users in the rest of the world, Crimea was shown bordered with two dotted lines, reflecting a conflict.

This is also the current state of affairs on the application with Georgia and Kosovo, although not currently with eastern Ukraine.

Germany opens anti-cartel probe into Google Maps

“We do our best to represent disputed borders,” explained a spokeswoman for Google Maps at the time. “Where appropriate, the borders of these disputed areas are drawn in a special way.”

In a divided world, and with those divisions played out in the digital sphere, such ability to adapt is increasingly crucial.

This article was adapted from the original French version.

In a studio near Paris, in a dark room with walls covered with blue fabric, a screen shows excerpts from the Japanese animated series Dragon Ball. Standing at a microphone, actor Bruno Méyère is dubbing several characters in French.

“You can go as far as ‘raw’… There, that’s perfect,” applauds artistic director Brigitte Lecordier, also a well-known French voiceover actor, who that day is working with her son Louis, the production director.

“I am mostly known for my cartoon voice, Oui-Oui [Noddy], and especially Dragon Ball,” says Lecordier, who is the voice of young Son Goku in the long-running series.

‘Our voices are stolen’

Despite her success, the rise of artificial intelligence in the sector has her worried. “We are not against AI. It can bring things from a technical point of view and in terms of tools,” she told RFI. “But we are very concerned. We want to continue creating and being artists, not be replaced by something that only creates by stealing from us. Our voices are stolen to generate AI and make us say things we did not choose to say.”

The French dubbing industry was recently shocked by an excerpt from the latest Sylvester Stallone film, Armor, in which the French VoiceOver of the American actor was made using AI.

Not only was the end result considered poor quality by the industry, it had been produced using the voice of Alain Dorval, the French voice actor who had previously dubbed Stallone’s voice – but passed away in February 2024.

His daughter, Aurore Bergé – currently a minister in French government – says the family agreed to her father’s voice being used for a test, but did not authorise it beyond that.

It’s a scenario that has raised questions over ethics in the industry, in the face of new technology.

“AI is taking the work of artists. Can we do without artists in society?” Lecordier asks. “AI does not create. It merely reproduces what has already been done, to a mediocre level,” she adds.

Creation must remain ‘fundamentally human’, says expert ahead of Paris AI summit

Preparation and post-recording

On the studio side, away from the microphone, one professional in the industry believes that the actors’ fears are legitimate, but that although AI cannot faithfully reproduce emotion, it can be useful in speeding up the processes of preparation and post-recording, or to modify a word in case of error.

The economic stakes are significant for clients: in France, one minute of dubbing can cost Between €280 and €400.

Negotiations are under way between unions, studios, major American companies, TV channels and streaming platforms to establish a more protective framework for French dubbing professionals.

The Hollywood actors and screenwriters’ strike of 2023 looms large, although industrial action is not yet on the table in France.

French voiceover actors hard at work as Covid boosts demand for dubbed content

Biometric data

Some actors say they have already seen their workload decrease due to AI.

For example, “mock-ups or other elements that are not broadcast but were recorded and for which we were paid,” especially in the advertising sector, says Patrick Kuban from Lesvoix.fr and a member of United Voice Artists, which brings together organisations from 35 countries on the issue of AI and voicing work.

There have also been instances of AI companies, based outside France, cloning the voices of animation actors without their consent.

“We ask that our work is not exploited and that our voice and our face are protected. These are biometric data. We must be asked for our consent. However, platforms based in Dubai, the United States or Israel are circumventing the European General Data Protection Regulation [GDPR] to offer audiobook or dubbing services in France with ‘stolen’ voices,” Kuban explains, echoing complaints that have already been made by the union groups involved in the negotiations in France.

The discussions are progressing, slowly, and a petition entitled “For dubbing created by humans for humans”, launched in January last year, has garnered more than 160,000 signatures.

Workers in the sector still have a strong position in the negotiations: almost 9 out of 10 viewers in France watch films and TV shows dubbed with French voices.

► This report was produced by Justine Fontaine for the RFI podcast Reportage en France.

In a post on social media, Djibouti’s economy and finance minister, Ilyas Dawaleh, said Youssouf had “won” the election.

“We won, we have secured the most votes, and we won,” spokesman Alexis Mohamed said.

He said Mahmoud Ali Youssouf won 33 votes, beating veteran opposition Kenyan politician Raila Odinga to succeed Chad’s Moussa Faki Mahamat for a four-year term.

The 59-year-old career diplomat has been foreign minister of Djibouti since 2005, as the tiny Horn of Africa nation remains strategically located for Western powers.

He was previously Djibouti’s ambassador to Egypt and has also served as foreign minister in the governments of three presidents.

He speaks English, French and Arabic, and, though he is considered an outside contender, observers have praised his low-key campaign.

His knowledge of AU institutions is also considered an advantage, according to an International Crisis Group report.

In an interview with AFP in December, Youssouf had said there was a “governance problem” in some African nations, particularly those shaken by coups.

 (with AFP)

In the small village of Sokrogbo, in the south of Côte d’Ivoire, locals never tire of a particular sight: the take-off of the T-10 drone, a 25 kilogram machine capable of spraying up to 4.8 litres of pesticides per minute.

“I don’t stand too close to the drone, I move a little further away,” Amoin Koffi, an agronomist and drone pilot, told RFI. “And then, anyone who wants to watch stands behind me. They are curious, they want to know. They call it a ‘little plane’,” she explains, in front of a crowd of curious children.

This drone was provided by Investiv, a young Ivorian company specialising in drone use and precision agriculture. Operational since November 2023, it provides phytosanitary products and rents out its drone services to planters.

‘My Cow, My Choice’: Kenyan farmers resist livestock vaccination campaign

Drone spraying

Banouri Coulibaly grows oil palm on a shared 25-hectare plot. At 60 years old, he has spent his life using backpack sprayers but was won over by this new technology – faster and more efficient than manual spraying.

“When I heard about it, I wanted to try drone spraying to see if it was really better. And indeed, it’s more efficient. I immediately realised that it would improve my productivity,” Coulibaly said.

“Since it sprays from above, it can reach the tops of the palm trees, which we can’t do from the ground. Where the drone has passed, the leaves are greener, and the bunches of palm nuts are heavier.”

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Drone spraying is also often more economical. At this centre, it costs 10,000 CFA francs (€15) per hectare, whereas manual labour for spraying costs between 20,000 and 30,000 CFA francs (€30-40) for the same area.

‘In no time, the work is done’

Despite this traditionally conservative environment, farmers have quickly been convinced, notes Hervé Jean-Luc Kouakou Koffi, a cocoa, palm nut, and vegetable producer.

“Things are changing day by day. Agriculture has moved from an archaic phase to a mechanical phase. We, the youth of today, at my age of 34, just follow what will be easier for us,” he said. “There’s the time factor: with the drone, in no time, the work is done. There’s also health; working with the drone is the best way to stay healthy.”

French military exit leaves Ivorian traders facing an uncertain future

Spraying is just one use for drones in agriculture. Investiv also offers aerial photography services, topographic surveys and data collection.

“We’ve evolved along with drone technology,” explains its founder, Aboubacar Karim. “When we started aerial spraying activities, we used a 10-litre drone that required 80 batteries a day. Today, we use a 50-litre drone with six batteries. The drones are bigger, and logistics are less cumbersome. Drone technology is evolving extremely fast.”

► This report was produced by Marine Jeannin for the RFI podcast Reportage Afrique.

The country, a former French colony, uses French in its public schools, with children also learning Arabic. Wolof is the most spoken language however, the first spoken of six national languages, and increasingly used in schools.

Until recently, English was only taught in public high schools and universities, although it is sometimes taught from nursery school onwards in the private sector.

President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was elected last March on a nationalist ticket, is trying to recalibrate Senegal’s relationship with its former colonial power, from whom it proclaimed independence in 1960.

Senegal will remain “the steadfast and reliable ally” of all its foreign partners, Faye announced, while also emphasising his desire to widen Senegal’s prospects. The developing country, which has seen a massive youth boom but also an exodus of young people searching for a better life abroad, has recently become an oil and gas producer.

‘Open to the world’

Despite seven years of teaching at the high school level, “students can barely communicate properly in English,” said Aissatou Sarr Cisse, who is in charge of the Education Ministry’s English programme.

“We’re starting from a younger age so that they can improve their language skills. The aim is to shape people who are open to the world. Mastering English will give them access to opportunities and facilitate better collaboration with Senegal’s partners,” she said.

In the pilot schools, English is taught every Tuesday and Thursday – two lessons of 25 minutes each in nursery and two 30-minute lessons in primary schools.

Vocabulary covered includes family relationships, colours, greetings, the environment and the weather.

French Academy says ‘stop speaking franglais, s’il vous plaît!’

Mamadou Kama is teaching a class of around 60 pupils at a primary school in Dakar’s working-class Medina neighbourhood.

“I can see that the students are motivated. Some of them are asking for English lessons to be every day,” Kama, who has a degree in English, said.

Most teachers have not yet received the digital teaching materials the Ministry has pledged to provide, but Kama has at his disposal tablets, video projectors and USB sticks from the school’s management.

“We haven’t had the time to create handbooks. Computers have been ordered, and in the meantime, we have provided students with printed documents with fun pictures,” Cisse explained. 

The Ministry has “invested in teachers who are proficient in English,” she added.

Senegal ruling party wins parliamentary majority, paving way for reforms

Teacher shortage

The initiative has been praised by Ousmane Sene, director of the Dakar-based West African Research Centre, which handles academic exchanges between American and West African universities.

“English is the most common language at an international level and it’s the most used language in diplomacy and international cooperation, so it’s an additional asset,” Sene told French news agency AFP.

“[Most] global scientific output is written in English. If Senegal doesn’t adapt to this way of accessing knowledge, there will be a [barrier],” said his colleague Mathiam Thiam, who was involved in creating the English programme.

But, Sene added, there was a prerequisite for the success of the lessons: “To train and equip the teachers well.”

Senegal’s President Faye travels to France for first international visit

Opponents of the scheme have criticised a shortfall in teachers.

“On these grounds alone, introducing English at nursery and primary school levels is a pipe dream, it’s impossible,” former MP and retired teacher Samba Dioulde Thiam wrote in an opinion column.

He continued: “Is the aim to compete with French? Is the aim to flatter the Anglo-Saxons who dominate this planet and get them to give us resources?”

(with AFP)

A Congolese government source told AFP Tshisekedi would not attend the summit over the weekend either, saying: “He must closely follow the situation on the ground in DRC.”

Tshisekedi, speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, urged nations to “blacklist” Rwanda, condemning Kigali’s “expansionist ambitions”.

Having captured the key provincial capital of Goma last month, the Rwandan-backed armed group M23 pushed south.

Rwanda has not admitted backing M23 but has accused extremist Hutu groups in DR Congo of threatening its security.

Weak talks

As the AU summit opens, observers have branded the African Union ineffective in the DRC crisis.

“The AU has no power in this conflict and is playing the spectator,” Thierry Vircoulon, of the French International Relations Institute (IFRI), told AFP.

International Crisis Group‘s Great Lakes project director Richard Moncrieff was also pessimistic about what the AU could achieve.

“Kagame has clearly calculated that his best approach is to push forward, and he does have some support,” he told AFP.

“Some African leaders have trouble defending Congo because they don’t defend themselves.”

M23 rebels in Bukavu  

M23 took a vital airport before marching virtually unchecked into another key city, Bukavu, on Friday, security and humanitarian sources said.

“I confirm that we entered Bukavu this evening, and tomorrow, we will continue with the operation to clean up the city,” Corneille Nangaa, leader of the Congo River Alliance, which includes the M23, told Reuters.

Residents also reported seeing the militants in the streets of a northern district.

The Congolese army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rwanda-backed M23 rebels pledge to ‘march all the way to Kinshasa’

Earlier on Friday, the Congolese army confirmed that M23 fighters had taken control of Kavumu airport, north of Bukavu, and that Congolese troops had pulled back with their equipment.

The rebels have been trying to push south towards Bukavu since they seized Goma, in North Kivu, the largest city in eastern Congo, at the end of last month.

Any escalation in fighting could worsen the humanitarian situation, with the UN saying on Thursday that there had been an influx of displaced people moving towards the city, where nearly 1.3 million people already reside.

The capture of Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, would represent an unprecedented expansion of territory under the M23’s control since the latest insurgency started in 2022, and deal a further blow to Kinshasa‘s authority in the east.

 (with newswires)

The 38th African Union Summit brings together representatives from the 55 member states.

Held on 15-16 February, the conference will see the election of the AU’s new chairman – a post which represents some 1.5 billion people across the continent, at a time of heightened uncertainty and regional conflict.

The three candidates are Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, a 59-year-old career diplomat who has been foreign minister of Djibouti; Raila Odinga, the 80-year-old veteran Kenyan opposition politician; and Richard Randriamandrato, Madagascar’s former economy and finance minister, 55. 

The new chair will replace Chad’s Moussa Faki Mahamat, who has reached the two-term limit on the post.

Global context

The election will be closely watched, according to Liesl Louw-Vaudran, senior advisor on the African Union at the International Crisis Group (ICG), an NGO which works to resolve armed conflict.

“The new chair could bring fresh energy to the role and invigorate the organisation’s work in a time of dire need,” she told RFI.

She believes a new chairperson could bring a new sense of optimism, following eight years of what she terms poor leadership. “If we get someone that’s a bit more ambitious and dynamic, you know that can help,” she said.

But she also stressed that the current global context is difficult for multilateral organisations, including the United Nations. “The AU is finding it very difficult in this very fraught international environment to impose itself, and for states to be seen to look at collective responses to crises rather than [being] inward-looking.”

“Each state is looking after their own interests, so it’s not something that’s unique to the African Union. But the African Union is not just governments, it’s also people and civil society organisations who use the African Union as a venue to promote other issues, gender issues and so on. So, hopefully that will continue,” she added.

Crises on the continent

The escalation of the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the United States’ humanitarian aid cuts and the war in Sudan are expected to dominate discussions at the summit.

“With conflicts proliferating and traditional peacekeeping mechanisms faltering, there is both need and opportunity for the African Union to up its game,” said Murithi Mutiga, the ICG’s Africa programme director. “AU leaders and member states must take greater responsibility for conflict prevention on the continent. If they don’t, it is quite possible no one else will.”

On 6 February the NGO published a report entitled Eight Priorities for the African Union in 2025. However, according to Louw-Vaudran, this was overtaken by recent developments.

“We had worked on this report for months and months, and then a week before publication, [we had] literally the fall of Goma… So we might have shifted [the situation in eastern DRC] to number one, ahead of Sudan.”

African leaders await response to call for ceasefire in eastern DRC

In terms of the AU’s role in conflict mediation, she added: “The African Union for the last 20 years has been trying to promote peaceful solutions to conflicts. But when member states are so divided, we get statements that are compromises and don’t mean much. So the mediators and the African Union have to be able to come up with something a bit more robust.” 

Sudan too was high on the agenda for the AU’s Peace and Security Council meeting on Friday.

“It’s such a complex conflict with so many actors, actors outside of Africa – the [mediation] attempts that were made were mostly by the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and the UAE. So it’s unlikely that the African Union itself will be a major mediator. Our recommendations will be towards the Sudanese civil society process that the African Union has been trying to coordinate.”

Sudan war is world’s ‘worst humanitarian crisis’, the African Union says

The climate question

Aside from major conflicts, the ICG report also highlighted the need to adopt a position on climate change for Africa. 

“There’s an overwhelming consensus there that climate change is a huge threat to the African continent,” Louw-Vaudran said. “And the Peace and Security Council has actually been working on this common African position on climate, peace and security, which is a document that kind of warns about the fact that climate change can exacerbate conflict, and also calling for more financing for adaptation.”

Africa Climate Summit ends on high, but huge challenges remain

She continued: “We do believe that in the next couple of months, at least before COP30 or hopefully before the G20 in South Africa in November, there would be a common African position because that makes it much easier for the African Union to speak on behalf of the continent.”

Also on the agenda at the summit are the issues of reparations for colonial-era abuses and damages for the transatlantic slave trade.

The idea for the film came from a book of the same name cowritten by doctor Claude Grange and philosopher Régis Debray, who sought to bring the issue of end of life care into the public dialogue.

The film follows an encounter between a writer (played by Denis Podalydès) and a doctor of palliative care (Kad Merad) who strike up a friendship. The writer comes to the hospital for a scan he is afraid will reveal a life-threatening cancer. 

Instead, he discovers how people prepare for death in “a world [capable of] making the unacceptable bearable”.

For Costa-Gavras, the book was a heartening read, illuminating the options for how the end can be – after all, he says: “The end of life is still life.”

The award-winning director, who celebrates his 92^nd birthday on 13 February, said the topic has been on his mind for some time. Is there a perfect way to die, he wondered? This is the question he addresses with this film, while shining a light on palliative care – an area of medicine that is often overlooked but which he describes as “a wonderful system because the patient is never alone”.

Parliamentary debate

He admits it was not easy to film around such a serious subject, but choosing to work with real nurses and doctors was helpful. Having researched and observed the field of palliative care, Costa-Gavras laments that not everyone who needs it can access this type of care.

“There are two or three thousand beds for palliative care and there should be 200,000,” he told RFI.

French PM under fire for plans to split controversial assisted dying bill

Le Dernier Souffle is coming to French screens at a time when parliamentarians are set to review a bill on assisted dying and palliative care. The original text reached parliament in early 2024 but stalled when the National Assembly was dissolved in June last year.

Prime Minister François Bayrou, a devout Catholic, now wants to separate the two issues into distinct laws – a move that has exposed divisions both within parliament and the governing coalition.

Costa-Gavras – who is the president of the Cinémathèque française film museum and archive – insists that while his film is connected to societal issues, it was not his intention to weigh in on the debate.

“The timing of the film just so happened to coincide with these moments. We didn’t plan anything. I prefer that the film has its own life because we’ll all find ourselves in this situation,” he said.

He says his objective with Le Dernier Souffle was to create a bond with the viewer. “You don’t go to the cinema to listen to a conference about medicine or an academic speech,” he said. “You go to the cinema to feel emotion: to love, or not love, to cry, be angry, be happy.”

A new home in France

Born Konstantinos Gavras in the Arcadia region of Greece in 1933, he was not allowed to enrol in university in his homeland, nor get a visa for the United States, due to his father’s links to Greece’s Communist Party.

In the 1950s, he made France his home, where he studied literature at the Sorbonne University and later went to film school. Most of his films are in French, but he has made six in English and one in Greek.

In a career spanning 20 feature films, Costa-Gavras (as he is professionally known) has built a reputation for dealing with controversial issues, often inspired by real-life situations, all while using the cinematic codes of a thriller.

‘Caméra Libre’: a French plan to foster freedom of speech for muzzled filmmakers

His 1969 film Z deals with political assassination, while 1982’s Missing is the story of a disappeared American journalist in 1970s Chile, and Amen (2002) is centred on the relationship between the Church and Nazi Germany.

‘All films are political’

Despite often dissecting themes of justice and oppression, Costa-Gavras does not see himself as a specialist of the political genre.

“All films are political on some level because they have a direct connection to the spectator, telling them something, stirring up emotions. Then the spectator either does something with that or doesn’t.

“Politics for me isn’t just about who you vote for or who gets into government. It’s about daily life. The relationships you have with other people, whether you make them feel happy or unhappy – that’s politics,” he said.

Catherine Deneuve to host 50th edition of César cinema awards in 2025

Costa-Gavras will be the recipient of an honorary award at this year’s César ceremony – France’s equivalent of the Oscars – on 28 February.

The director says he is “thrilled to be recognised by the profession” – one which he believes has the power to “change the world”. To that end, he has already started working on his next project.

This anniversary fell on Saturday, 8 February, and on Monday Google announced that it had changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” for those using its Maps application inside the United States, complying with an executive order by President Trump.

The tech giant wrote in a blog post that users outside the US will continue to see both the original and the new name, created by the Trump administration, for the Gulf of Mexico, as is the case with other disputed locations.

“People using Maps in the US will see Gulf of America, and people in Mexico will see Gulf of Mexico. Everyone else will see both names,” Google wrote.

Following another of Trump’s orders, Denali – the highest mountain peak in North America, located in Alaska – will revert back to its former name of Mount McKinley, honouring former US president William McKinley. This is a reversal of a decision made by former president Barack Obama in 2015 to give the mountain back its traditional Alaskan native name (meaning “the high one”) which had been in use in Alaska for centuries.

Trump’s renaming of the mountain has sparked criticism from indigenous groups in Alaska, who have long advocated for maintaining the Denali name

As Trump declares ‘Gulf of America,’ US enters name wars

In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Google wrote: “We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”

It added that the changes are made once the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) – a database of names and locations of cultural and geographical features in the US – has been updated.

“When official names vary between countries, [Google] Maps users see their official local name,” Google said. “Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names.”

Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, wrote to Google to ask it to reconsider. She also sardonically suggested that the company could rename the United States “Mexican America”, pointing to a map from before a third of her country was seized by the US in 1848.

Territorial disputes

The naming of places, like the drawing of maps, is an unavoidably political consideration, particularly when it comes to territorial disputes, and Google Maps has juggled toponymy and cartography over its 20 years of existence.

In the midst of the Arab Spring in August 2011, as rebel troops took over Tripoli, RFI reported that Google Maps had erased the name of the city’s Place Verte (“Green Square”) and replaced it with Place des Martyrs (“Martyrs’ Square”) – its previous name before Muammar Gaddafi’s regime changed it. This despite the fact that Gaddafi was still alive at this time. 

Google rivals join forces in online maps

However, in the previous month South Sudan had been recognised by the United Nations following its independence from Sudan – but not by Google Maps.

In 2016, the tech company found itself in the crosshairs of the government of India, the world’s second most populous country. The Indian administration launched a bill to impose strict controls – on pain of fines or even imprisonment – on how the country was represented on all online mapping tools.

Google maps thus had to adapt to New Delhi’s preferences regarding territorial disputes with Pakistan over Kashmir, claimed by Islamabad, and with China over Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing wanted to make an independent state.

Middle East conflict

The same year, the US company found itself at the centre of a social media storm, particularly in the Arab-Muslim world, when a union of Palestinian journalists pointed out that neither the word “Palestine” nor the designation “Palestinian Territories” appeared on Google Maps. Nor, at that time, did the words “Gaza” or “West Bank”.

Palestinian towns were indicated, and the 1967 borders were drawn in dotted lines. But as for the disappearance of the terms “Gaza” and “West Bank”, Google blamed a “bug”. Still today, “Palestinian Territories” does not appear.

NGOs on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict continue to keep a tally of West Bank villages not mentioned or “wiped off the map”. The Avaaz Foundation, a non-profit organisation, launched a campaign aimed at the Silicon Valley giant named #ShowTheWall, to have Israel’s controversial separation barrier shown on Google Maps.

‘We do our best’

Google Maps has been known to play it safe and attempt to keep both parties of a conflict on side. Following the 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea by the Russian Federation, to avoid incurring the wrath of either Kyiv or Moscow – and for fear of being banned in either territory – the company created three maps of the location that year.

For Russian users, Crimea was shown as separated from Ukraine by a border. For the Ukrainians, the map remained as before, showing Crimea attached to their territory, without a border. For the search engine’s users in the rest of the world, Crimea was shown bordered with two dotted lines, reflecting a conflict.

This is also the current state of affairs on the application with Georgia and Kosovo, although not currently with eastern Ukraine.

Germany opens anti-cartel probe into Google Maps

“We do our best to represent disputed borders,” explained a spokeswoman for Google Maps at the time. “Where appropriate, the borders of these disputed areas are drawn in a special way.”

In a divided world, and with those divisions played out in the digital sphere, such ability to adapt is increasingly crucial.

This article was adapted from the original French version.

Europe will not have a seat at the table for Ukraine peace talks, Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg said on Saturday after Washington sent a questionnaire to European capitals to ask what they could contribute to security guarantees for Kyiv.

In response, French President Emmanuel Macron is likely to host on Monday an emergency gathering of European leaders, including Britain.

It would aim to see what immediate help they can give Ukraine, what concrete role Europe can play in providing security guarantees for Kyiv as well as how to strengthen Europe’s collective security.

But dozens of similar summits have shown Europe to be dithering, at times disunited and politically weak and scrambling to come up with a cohesive plan to end the Ukraine war and dealing with Russia.

“If I may just throw out one idea loosely, if there is a negotiating table, I think we need to do something similar that was done in Kosovo,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said at the annual Munich Security Conference, referring to diplomacy that helped end Serbia’s 1998-99 military crackdown on its restive southern province and bring about Kosovan statehood.

“Europe needs to have a special envoy like Martti Ahtisaari (on Kosovo), and then a deputy envoy who is on the level of … Kellogg…, and in that sense, we get some kind of a skin in the game.”

Nato chief Rutte insists Trump and Putin peace plan must include Ukraine

Trump shocked European allies this week by calling Russian President Vladimir Putin – whose forces began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago – without consulting them or Kyiv and declaring an immediate start to peace talks.

His administration also left them dismayed after blunt comments on its approach to the nearly three-year Ukraine-Russia war and US Vice President JD Vance launched a scathing attack in Munich on Europe’s democracies and values.

“What we lacked on Ukraine in recent years was one personality highly respected by everyone, taken into account in Moscow, taken into account in Kyiv, and having support in Washington and European capitals and other leaders, including the global South, that could have the authority to manage the peace talks,” Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said.

“We need the high visibility of someone strong, who can manage the process.”

 (Reuters)

Speaking on the same stage at the Munich Security Conference, the German chancellor pushed back against Vance’s blistering speech from the previous day and defended Germany’s taboo against including the far right in government coalitions.

Scholz, whose country is holding elections on 23 February, said, “we will not accept outsiders intervening in our democracy, in our elections. That is not appropriate – especially not among friends and allies.”

‘Never again’

He started his speech by mentioning US Vice President Vance’s earlier visit to Nazi Germany’s Dachau concentration camp near Munich, and the US vice president’s commitment to “never again” allow such crimes to be committed.

The crimes of the Holocaust were the reason “the vast majority of Germans is firmly opposed to those who glorify or justify” the Nazis, Scholz said.

This was something that members of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) had done by trivialising Nazi crimes, the chancellor said.

“A commitment to ‘never again’ cannot be reconciled with support for the AfD,” Scholz said.

“That is why we will not accept outsiders intervening in our democracy, in our elections, in the democratic formation of opinion in favour of this party.

“That is not appropriate — especially not among friends and allies.

“We decide for ourselves how our democracy will continue,” he said.

“We are absolutely clear that the extreme right should stay outside the political decision-making process and that there would be no cooperation with them,” Scholz said, when pushed on Vance’s comments during a question and answer session.

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot also defended European policies on Saturday.

“Freedom of expression is guaranteed in Europe,” Barrot wrote on social media, after Vance alleged it was “in retreat”.

“Nobody is obliged to adopt our model, but nobody can impose theirs on us,” the French minister added.

European fears mount at Munich conference as US signals shift on Ukraine

Broadside against Europe

Vance on Friday launched a broadside against Europe, and Germany in particular, accusing them of limiting free speech and excluding parties that voice strong concerns over immigration.

The US Vice-President told the Munich conference that “democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters”.

“There’s no room for firewalls,” he added, using the common term for the German political taboo against working with the far right.

The clash between the traditional allies comes just over a week before German national elections.

Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats are currently third in the polls on around 15 percent of the vote.

The AfD is expected to score its best-ever national result, now polling in second place on around 20 percent.

The race is being led by the conservative CDU/CSU bloc, whose support stands at around 30 percent.

(AFP)

French President Emmanuel Macron had called for a summit of European leaders in Paris.

The announcement came after US President Donald Trump’s  Ukraine envoy said at the Munich Security Conference earlier on Saturday that Europe would not have a seat at the table for Ukraine

peace talks.

European fears mount at Munich conference as US signals shift on Ukraine

Trump also shocked European allies this week by calling Russian President Vladimir Putin without consulting them or Kyiv beforehand and declaring an immediate start to peace talks.

Europe’s focus is now shifting to what concrete role it can play in providing security guarantees for Kyiv, as well as how to strengthen Europe’s collective security.

Speaking on a panel at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that “President Trump has a method of operating, which the Russians call reconnaissance through battle. You push and you see what happens, and then you change your position, legitimate tactics. And we need to respond.”

Four diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said discussions were continuing about who should be invited to any summit. Two of them said non-EU member Britain had been invited.

The Dutch news agency reported that Prime Minister Dick Schoof would go to Paris on Monday for the summit.

It was unclear whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would be invited.

Zelensky called on Saturday for the creation of a European army, saying the continent could no longer be sure of protection from the United States.

France, Germany reject US interference after Vance urges Europe to accept far right

“There’s no way in which we can have discussions or negotiations about Ukraine, Ukraine’s future or European security structure, without Europeans,” Finland’s President Alexander Stubb told reporters in Munich.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to attend the summit in Paris, and said on Saturday evening that it was a “once-in-a-generation moment for our national security”.

He also said however that his country would work to ensure the US and Europe remained together and should not allow divisions to distract them from “external enemies”, the BBC reported, adding the two could not “allow any divisions in the alliance to distract” from “external enemies”. 

“It’s clear Europe must take on a greater role in NATO as we work with the US to secure Ukraine’s future and face down the threat we face from Russia,” according to Starmer.

 (Reuters)

“A peace that is a capitulation is bad news for everyone,” Macron told the Financial Times (FT).

“The only question at this stage is whether President Putin is genuinely, sustainably, and credibly willing to agree to a ceasefire on this basis.

“After that, it’s up to the Ukrainians to negotiate with Russia,” Macron said.

The interview appears amid concerns in Europe that the US president Donald Trump and Putin are trying to negotiate the future of the continent’s security over the heads of European leaders.

On Thursday, Mark Rutte, the head of the 32-nation defence bloc Nato, insisted that Ukraine must be closely involved in any peace talks.

His comments, which echoed statements from a meeting in Paris of European foreign ministers, came as European defence chiefs gathered in the Belgian capital Brussels to begin preparations for the Nato summit in The Hague in June.

The foreign ministers of France, Germany and Spain said on Wednesday night that any peace deal in Ukraine must come with the involvement of Kyiv and its European partners.

“There will be no just and lasting peace in Ukraine without the participation of Europeans,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the Paris meeting.

Stages

The agenda of the defence chiefs was overshadowed by Trump’s move to engage with Putin over a peace deal for Ukraine.

In their first confirmed contact since Trump’s return to the White House, Trump said he had held a lengthy and highly productive conversation with Putin who ordered the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Zelensky is expected to meet the US vice-president, JD Vance, at a security conference in Munich on Friday. The Ukrainian leader insists Ukraine must be a part of any negotiations for a peace deal.

Vance is due to outline the American position on its commitment to security in Europe.

On Thursday evening, Trump used the press conference with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to  accuse Europe of skimping in its support for Ukraine.

Trump said: “We had some talks and we told the European Union, we told the Nato people – largely they overlap – you have to pay more money because it’s unfair what we’re doing.

“We’re doing a tremendous amount more, we’re probably 200 billion dollars more going into Ukraine, using for Ukraine to fight, and Europe has not really carried its weight in terms of the money.

“It’s not equitable and we want to see a counterbalance. We want to have them put up more money. They have to do that.”

Macron told the FT it would be up to Ukraine to discuss issues of territory and sovereignty but added that Europe had a role to play in regional security.

“It is up to the international community, with a specific role for the Europeans, to discuss security guarantees and, more broadly, the security framework for the entire region,” he said. “That is where we have a role to play.”

(with newsires)

Foreign sales of wine, champagne, cognac and other French alcoholic beverages totalled €15.6 billion in 2024, down 4 percent from the previous year, according to figures released by the French Wine and Spirits Exports Federation (FEVS) on Tuesday.

The organisation attributed the decline to “a context still marked by economic and geopolitical tensions”.

Trump’s tariffs 

Sales of French alcohol to the United States, its top foreign market, grew by 5 percent last year. However, French wine and spirits exporters – alongside other businesses in the European Union – are concerned about US President Donald Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on the bloc.

France leads EU fightback against Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs

“If taxes were to come back, it would be very bad,” Albéric Bichot, a Burgundy wine merchant, told RFI at the Wine Paris event, taking place this week.

“What we saw with the taxes during the Airbus-Boeing conflict a few years ago is that they were 25 percent, and French business with the United States dropped by almost 25 percent.”

In 2020, the damage to the French wine sector caused by US tariffs was estimated at €500 million, according to FEVS.

Chinese retaliation

In China, the sector’s third-largest market, sales of French alcohol plummeted 20.2 percent, as a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy weighed on the industry, FEVS said.

The federation also cited Chinese tariffs on European brandy, which Beijing imposed after the EU placed duties on Chinese electric cars over unfair competition claims.

Cognac exports fell 10.9 percent, while armagnac dropped 15.4 percent in terms of value.

France says still ‘open’ to negotiation over China’s brandy tariffs

FEVS president Gabriel Picard said EU and French leaders “must resolve without further delay the dispute affecting cognac and armagnac for over a year, as otherwise it will severely impact all links in the supply chain and beyond”.

He called on French Prime Minister François Bayrou to travel to China to resolve the dispute, saying: “This is an absolute emergency.”

(With newswires)

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.

The RFI English team is pleased to announce that Saleem Akhtar Chadhar, the president of the RFI Seven Stars Listening Club in District Chiniot, Pakistan, won the RFI / Planète Radio ePOP video contest, in the RFI Clubs category. Bravo Saleem! Mubarak ho!

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!

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

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 bilingual 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 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 Spotlight on France, Spotlight on Africa, The International Report, and of course, The Sound Kitchen. We also have an award-winning bilingual series – an old-time radio show, with actors (!) to help you learn French, called Les voisins du 12 bis. 

Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our 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. N.B.: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!

This week’s quiz: On 18 January, I asked you a question about our article “’Exhausted’ Frenchman held in Iran since 2022 reveals identity in plea for help”. It was about Olivier Grondeau, a 34-year-old French national, who was arrested and sentenced to five years behind bars for “conspiracy against the Islamic Republic”.

In the article, you learned that there are two other French nationals currently in Iran’s prisons. You were to send in their names, as well as the crime with which they’ve been charged.

The answer is, to quote our article: “The other two French nationals – teachers Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris – were detained in May 2022 on charges of seeking to stir up labour protests. Their families strongly deny the accusations.” 

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by Sabah binte Sumaiya from Bogura, Bangladesh: “Which profession do you find is the best, and why?”

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

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member John Yemi Sanday Turay from Freetown, Sierra Leone. John Yemi is also this week’s bonus question winner. Congratulations John Yemi, on your double win !

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are M. N. Sentu, a member of the RFI Amour Fan Club in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, and RFI Listeners Club members Habib Ur Rehman, the president of the International Radio Fan and Youth Club in Khanewal, Pakistan; Sharifa Akter Panna from Kishoreganj, Bangladesh, and Rahematun Nesan from Odisha, India.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Slap Bass” by Paul Mottram; “Rose of Tehran” by E. Dozor; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and the traditional Kanak chant “Lue ixoe wael qa kiki”, sung by the Wetr Dance Troupe.  

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 Paul Myer’s article: “Namibian independence leader Sam Nujoma dies aged 95”, which will help you with the answer. 

You have until 10 March to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 15 March 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

Click here to learn how to 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.   

Countries are looking for sovereignty in artificial intelligence and at a major AI summit in Paris this week, France and the EU backed a “third path” approach to AI – midway between the US’ private tech firm-dominated model and China’s state-controlled technology. With a focus on regulation to ensure trust, France is creating public/private partnerships, and encouraging companies to develop home-grown products. Linagora, an open-source software developper, recently released a large language model (LLM) trained on French and European content, in contrast to American LLMs like ChatGPT that are trained on mainly US content. While chatbot Lucie got off to a rocky start, Linagora’s General Manager Michel Maudet says there’s a clear need for technology focused on Europe, able to address the nuance of the continent’s languages and culture. (Listen @0′)

French MPs recently voted a controversial draft bill to end birthright citizenship on the overseas department of Mayotte to discourage illegal immigration from neighbouring Comoros. Prime Minister François Bayrou supports the proposed measure and has called for a wider debate on immigration and what it means to be French. His earlier remarks that there was a feeling immigrants were “flooding” France have caused outrage on the left in particular.  We talk to Tania Racho, a researcher on European law and who also works for an association fighting disinformation on migration issues, about the reality of immigration in France. While the data does not support claims France is overwhelmed with foreigners, people’s perceptions – nourished by a fixation on migration by both politicians and media – tell a different story. (Listen @18’40”)

Twenty years after the 11 February 2005 law on disability and inclusion, daily life for France’s 12 million people living with disabilities has improved. But since the law underestimated the timelines and costs of accessibility, there’s still a lot of work to be done. (Listen @14’30”)

Episode mixed by Vincent Pora. 

Spotlight on France is a podcast from Radio France International. Find us on rfienglish.com, Apple podcasts (link here), Spotify (link here) or your favourite podcast app (pod.link/1573769878).

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not hold back on the hospitality when hosting Sharaa, sending one of his presidential jets to fly the new Syrian leader and his large delegation to Ankara.

The Turkish president was keen too to underline the significance of the meeting. “I see today’s historic visit as the beginning of a period of permanent friendship and cooperation between our countries,” he declared in a joint press statement with the Syrian leader.

Erdogan also announced that Turkey’s institutions and ministries are coordinating efforts to help with Syria’s reconstruction.

Sharaa was quick to praise this assistance, saying: “The significant support is still tangible through Turkey’s ongoing efforts to ensure the success of the current leadership in Syria politically and economically, ensuring the independence, unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria.”

Macron calls Syrian leader to discuss transition, terrorism, sanctions

Ties with Turkey

The new Syrian leader developed close ties with Ankara during the years of fighting the Assad regime. The Turkish military protected the Idlib enclave where Sharaa was based, while Turkey offered refuge to many Syrians fleeing the fighting. 

“Ankara will definitely be viewed as a positive outside contributor by these new Syrian rulers because of the fact that we here in Turkey are hosting over 5 million Syrians and that, also, Turkey helped protect Idlib,” said Aydin Selcen, a former senior Turkish diplomat who served in the region, now an analyst for the independent Turkish news outlet Medyascope.

However, Selcen cautions that Ankara should not overestimate its influence when it comes to dictating policy for its Syrian neighbour. “The centre of this Syrian endeavour, of this restructuring or this fresh beginning, will be Damascus. It will not be Doha, it will not be Ankara, it will not be Geneva,” he said.

Erdogan hails Syria leader’s ‘strong commitment’ to fighting terror

‘Islamic background’

While the Syrian and Turkish leaders meeting in Ankara lasted more than three hours and was followed by an exchange of warm words, no concrete announcements came out of it – only vague commitments to cooperation in security and development.

And despite Ankara’s strong support for the Syrian rebels, Syria’s new leader chose to make his first overseas visit as president to Saudi Arabia, one of Turkey’s main rivals in the region.

International relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University says the Syrian president is sending a message to Ankara.

“He [Sharaa] is an Arab nationalist with an Islamic background, not a Turkish one,” said Bagci. “And that’s why many people expect that in the long run, there will be different opinions on certain regional issues [with Turkey].”

For several years, Saudi and Turkish leaders have been engaged in a competition for influence among Sunni Arab countries. But Ankara is at a disadvantage, with its economy in crisis. Unlike oil-rich Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, it has little cash to offer to pay for Syria’s rebuilding.

‘Realpolitik’

Sharaa also appears ready to broaden his horizons further as he seeks to rebuild his country. “He has turned out to be such a realpolitik buff. He’s turning and negotiating with almost everyone, including the Russians,” observed Sezin Oney, an international relations commentator for Turkey’s Politikyol news outlet.

“They [Syria] will also be approaching Turkey with their own interests, and whether they’re aligned with Turkey’s interests is another question,” she added.

Turkey’s ongoing military presence in Syria as part of its war against a Kurdish insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) could become a point of tension between Ankara and Syria’s new rulers, experts predict.

Iran too – like Russia, also a key backer of the ousted Assad regime – is now seeking to reposition itself to reach out to the new Syrian regime.

Russia’s interest in Syria

“There are some pragmatic approaches,” said professor of international relations Bilgehan Alagoz, an Iran expert at Istanbul’s Marmara University. 

“The Iranian authorities have already started to label Assad as a person who didn’t act in accordance with Iran in order to have some new approach towards the new system in Syria.”

Ankara still has cards to play with Syria, being well positioned to offer support in helping to rebuild the country with its expertise in construction, energy and security. But experts warn Turkey faces a battle for influence in Damascus, as Syria seeks to widen its opportunities.

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.

RFI English listeners have been very generous with their wonderful graphics for World Radio Day that they have posted on the RFI English Listeners Forum Facebook page – there’s even a World Radio Day quiz from Anand Mohan Bain, the president of the RFI Pariwer Bandhu SWL Club in Chhattisgarh India – so don’t miss out!

The RFI English team is pleased to announce that Saleem Akhtar Chadhar, the president of the RFI Seven Stars Listening Club in District Chiniot, Pakistan, won the RFI / Planète Radio ePOP video contest, in the RFI Clubs category. Bravo Saleem! Mubarak ho!

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!

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

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 bilingual 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 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 Spotlight on France, Spotlight on Africa, The International Report, and of course, The Sound Kitchen. We also have an award-winning bilingual series – an old-time radio show, with actors (!) to help you learn French, called Les voisins du 12 bis. 

Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our 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. N.B.: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!

This week’s quiz: On 11 January, I asked you a question about France’s ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy. That week, Sarkozy’s trial on charges of accepting illegal campaign financing from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi began.

You were to refer to Melissa Chemam’s article “France’s ex-president Sarkozy on trial over alleged Gaddafi pact”, and send in the answer to this question: What was former French president Nicolas Sarkozy convicted of on 18 December, and what was his penalty?

The answer is, to quote Melissa: “This new trial is starting barely half a month after France’s top appeals court on 18 December rejected Sarkozy’s appeal against a one-year prison sentence for influence peddling, which he is to serve by wearing an electronic tag rather than in jail.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: “What do you remember about the first time you caught a fish?” It was suggested by Ratna Shanta Shammi from Naogaon, Bangladesh.

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

The winners are: RFI English listener Shahanoaz Akter Ripa, the president of the Sonali Badhan Female Listeners Club in Bogura, Bangladesh. Shahanoaz is also this week’s bonus question winner.

Congratulations Shahanoaz, on your double win !

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are RFI Listeners Club members Mogire Machuki from Kisii, Kenya; Najimuddin, the president of the RFI International DX Radio Listeners Club in West Bengal, India; Nasyr Muhammad from Katsina State, Nigeria, and Hans Verner Lollike from Hedehusenen in Denmark.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Preparation” from the film The Little Prince, written by Hans Zimmer and Richard Harvey; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Vannier, performed by Serge Gainsbourg and orchestra.  

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 “French PM pushes through budget, faces second no-confidence vote”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 3 March to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 8 March 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

Click here to learn how to 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.   

Since its launch in 2013, and even more so since 2018, the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair has grown into one of the most significant cultural events for African art, drawing gallery owners and artists from across the continent and beyond.

The galleries represent artists from all over the continent, from Ghana to South Africa, Tunisia to Angola.

The fair took place in the iconic events’ venue La Mamounia, in the heart of Marrakesh.

Since 2024, the art fair has also had exhibition spaces for younger artists in Dada, a gathering space for art, food and music near La Medina.

This year’s fair was held from 30 January to 2 February, during which the entire city hosted various art events, including exhibitions at the El Badi Palace and MACAAL, a museum dedicated to contemporary African art and artists from the African diaspora.

To understand how the fair built a platform for African art, RFI spoke to the fair’s founder and director, Touria El Glaoui on the opening day in Marrakesh.

El Glaoui shared how she frequently travels to African countries to discover new artists, events, and galleries. She also noted that new participants from across the African continent—and now even from Japan and Korea—are coming to the fair seeking representation.

We also visited other sites that make the event special, including art galleries, like Loft. 

“We opened the gallery sixteen years ago and we are a Moroccan gallery based in Morocco but with a real openness to the international scene,” Yasmine Berrada, co-founder of the gallery, told RFI.

“We’re open to Africa. We represent African artists from its diaspora. We’ve also worked with European artists,” she added. “We’re not closed off at all because, for me, there shouldn’t be any separation in art. I think that, on the contrary, we need to open up perspectives and integrate the Moroccan art market into the international stage.”

Our guests this week:

–Touria El Glaoui, founder and director of the 1:54 contemporary African art fair;

–Mous Lamrabat, Moroccan-Belgian artist;

-Yasmine Berrada, co-founder of the Loft art gallery.  

Episode mixed by Melissa Chemam.

Spotlight on Africa is produced by Radio France Internationale’s English language service.

Turkish and Azerbaijani foreign ministers met in January in both Baku and Istanbul as part of efforts to deepen economic and trade cooperation.

Key to those goals is the plan to create a route dubbed the Zangezur corridor that would link Azerbaijan to the autonomous region of Nakhchivan bordering Turkey.

The corridor, which would go through Armenian territory, is part of a Turkish-Azerbaijani vision to develop a trade route between China and Europe.

Iran strongly opposes the proposed 40-km corridor because, observers say, it fears it would cut a vital route it uses to circumvent sanctions.

Iran’s ally Armenia also opposes the corridor as an imposition on its territory. But with Iran weakened by setbacks in Syria and Lebanon, Baku and Ankara see an opportunity to push ahead.

“A weaker Iran is a huge opportunity for Turkey in the Caucasus,” said Atilla Yesilada, a Turkey analyst for GlobalSource Partners.

“The only reason why Armenia resists the establishment of the Zangezur corridor is because of promises by Iran to defend it militarily.”

But with Iran coming under pressure from the administration of US President Donald Trump, Azerbaijan or Turkey might be less likely to take Iran’s threats seriously, argues Yesilada.

Iran softens its stance

However, given Iran’s regional setbacks and the threat of increased pressure from Washington, Tehran needs friends in the region.

“It would be good for Iran if the Zangezur corridor is opened. It then has much better and closer relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan,” argues Huseyin Bagci, a professor of international relations at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.

It will depends on “whether they want two countries which are not friendly or two friendly countries,” Bagci adds.

In January, Iran appeared to soften its opposition, with one senior Iranian diplomat declaring opposition to the Zangezor corridor no longer a priority. Tehran’s apparent softening coincides with its deepening ties with Moscow. 

Since Turkey and Azerbaijan don’t enforce many sanctions against Russia, Moscow supports the Zangezor corridor as a way to bypass international sanctions by creating new trade routes through countries that don’t impose them.

US position unclear 

“Russia is basically rebuilding its whole logistical network and this corridor is a potentially important part of this new network from north to south,” says Tatiana Mitrova, a research fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at New York’s Columbia University. 

“Therefore, Russia is saying: ‘It matters. It’s part of a new plan of diversification of our export and import routes.'”

US and Armenia launched joint military exercises last year in a sign of their closer ties. Analysts suggest that Washington has, until now, contained Turkey and Azerbaijan’s intentions.

However, the new Trump administration has not yet positioned itself on the corridor project. Armenian political consultant Eric Hacopian warns Baku and Ankara could try to exploit the uncertainty.   

“Trump creates chaos, and chaos is an opportunity for bad actors to do things that they normally wouldn’t do when there’s no one on the watch,” said Hacopian.

Turkey’s Erdogan sees new Trump presidency as opportunity

In 2023, Azerbaijan’s army, supported by Turkey, defeated Armenian-backed forces over the disputed Nagorno Karabakh enclave.

A final peace agreement has yet to be secured. But if Ankara focuses its efforts on reviving the stalled Azerbaijani-Armenian peace talks, then diplomatic gains could outweigh the economic benefits of the Zangezur corridor, says Asli Aydintasbas of the Washington-based Brookings Institution says . 

“Turkey can actually make itself a very significant partner (with Trump),” Aydintasbas argued, citing the Armenian-Azerbaijan peace deal.

If Turkey positions itself on that issue “it would be very interesting to President Trump, who wants to position himself as an international peacemaker,” said Aydintasbas. 

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking to foster close ties with Trump. At the same time, the Turkish leader is committed to supporting his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev in their shared goal of turning their countries into a bridge between Europe and China.

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.