Protesters gathered from Saturday morning in Yopougon, a densely populated suburb of the capital Abidjan, holding banners with messages such as: “Enough is enough!” and “No true democracy without true justice.”

“We are millions saying YES to Gbagbo and Thiam” said another banner in the crowd.

Côte d’Ivoire, a nation of 32 million that is the biggest economy of francophone West Africa, is due to hold a presidential vote in October.

Earlier this year four main opposition figures, including former President Laurent Gbagbo and former Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam, were barred from running by the electoral commission.

Gbagbo and Thiam joined forces earlier this year to challenge incumbent President Alassane Ouattara.

The 83-year-old leader announced last month that he would seek a fourth presidential term. His candidacy is contested after he changed the constitution in 2016 to remove presidential term limits.

“We don’t want a fourth term, and we want the electoral roll revised, that’s what we are asking for,” said Sagesse Divine, an activist who participated in Saturday’s march. “We want all candidates’ names included, and we want to go to the elections in peace, that’s all we want.”

There was no immediate comments from Ivorian authorities.

Thiam, president of the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), won the party’s primary in an uncontested vote in April. Seen as Ouattara’s main rival, he has been barred from running on the grounds that he was still a French citizen at the time he declared his candidacy, even though he later renounced his French nationality. Ivorian law bans dual nationals from running for president.

Elections in Côte d’Ivoire have usually been fraught with tension and violence. When Ouattara announced his bid for a third term, several people were killed in election violence.

Ouattara is the latest among a growing number of leaders in West Africa who remain in power by changing constitutional term limits.

Ouattara justified his decision to run again by saying that the Côte d’Ivoire is facing unprecedented security, economic and monetary challenges that require experience to manage them effectively.

Over the past decade, groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have been spreading from the Sahel region into wealthier West African coastal states, such as Côte d’Ivoire, Togo and Benin.

 (AFP)

The court in N’Djamena jailed Masra, one of President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno,’s fiercest critics, for his role in inciting inter-communal violence in which 42 people were killed on 14 May.

Most of the massacre victims were women and children in Mandakao, southwestern Chad, according to the court. On Friday, the state prosecutor had called for a 25-year sentence.

“Our client has just been the object of a humiliation,” lead defence lawyer Francis Kadjilembaye told AFP.

“He has just been convicted on the basis of an empty dossier, on the basis of assumptions and in the absence of evidence,” he added.

What we had witnessed, he said, was the weaponisation of the courts.

Activists with his Transformers Party said they would put out a “special message” later Saturday.

Masra was arrested on May 16, two days after the violence, and charged with “inciting hatred, revolt, forming and complicity with armed gangs, complicity in murder, arson and desecration of graves”.

He stood trial with nearly 70 other men accused of taking part in the killings.

Presidential candidate

Originally from Chad’s south, Masra comes from the Ngambaye ethnic group and enjoys wide popularity among the predominantly Christian and animist populations of the south.

Those groups feel marginalised by the largely Muslim-dominated regime in the capital N’Djamena.

During the trial, Masra’s lawyers argued that no concrete evidence against him had been presented to the court.

He went on hunger strike in jail for nearly a month in June, his lawyers said at the time.

Like other opposition leaders, Masra had left Chad after a bloody crackdown on his followers in 2022, only returning under an amnesty agreed in 2024.

Trained as an economist in France and Cameroon, Masra had been a fierce opponent of the ruling authorities before they named him prime minister five months ahead of the presidential election.

He served as premier from January to May last year after signing a reconciliation deal with Deby.

Masra faced off against Deby in the 2024 presidential elections, winning 18.5 percent against Deby’s 61.3 percent, but claimed victory.

Of the May 14 killings, one local source said they were thought to have sprung from a dispute between ethnic Fulani nomadic herders and local Ngambaye farmers over the demarcation of grazing and farming areas.

Conflicts between pastoralists and sedentary farmers are estimated by the International Crisis Group to have caused more than 1,000 deaths and 2,000 injuries in Chad between 2021 and 2024.

 (AFP)

Thousands of Africans travel from Djibouti to Yemen across the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden every year, hoping to reach Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia to work as labourers or domestic workers.

The Eastern route is one of the world’s most dangerous, according to the International Organization of Migration (IOM), which documented at least 558 deaths in 2024, including 462 from shipwrecks.

Overall, the United Nations agency estimates that 3,400 people have died using this route over the past 10 years.

On Sunday a boat carrying nearly 200 people sank off the Yemeni coast, killing more than 90 of them, with some still missing.

Death roll climbs in Yemen migrant boat sinking with dozens still missing

Ethiopia’s permanent mission in Geneva responded by urging its citizens to “avoid irregular routes”.

The IOM said that it was “working with partners to mobilise resources and deliver humanitarian assistance to protect people on the move, as well as to support the government to respond to migration crisis”.

In March, at least 180 people were reported missing off the Yemeni coast, the majority of them from Ethiopia.

Abdusattor Esoev, the IOM’s head of mission in Yemen, told RFI that: “A network of cross-border smugglers exploits the desperation of people who need better jobs and better opportunities.”

Lack of interest

The IOM estimates that 60,000 people landed in Yemen in 2024 alone.

Marina de Regt, an anthropologist at the Free University of Amsterdam who specialises in migration in this region, agrees that “the numbers are enormous”. 

“In many cases, migrants pay and don’t even know they have to cross the sea and then go through Yemen before arriving in Saudi Arabia,” she told RFI.

She is concerned about the lack of interest shown by the international community in this busy and dangerous migratory route.

“These migrations between countries in the South are not considered important by political decision-makers, particularly in Europe. All that matters to [them] is that the migrants do not end up on [their] territory.”

She explains why Ethiopians represent the highest number of people trying to reach the Persian Gulf countries, saying: “Ethiopia is going through a very difficult time. The Tigray War (2020-2022) is over, but instability persists and there is a lot of poverty.”

UN food agency forced to halt aid in Ethiopia for 650,000 women and children

Caught in conflict

Crossing the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden in rickety boats isn’t the only danger for migrants making the journey. In Yemen, a country gripped by civil war, they face an increased risk of violence.

“In addition to the war situation, which results in a lack of food and great insecurity, the exploitation of migrants and refugees is common,” said de Regt. “People are sometimes kidnapped by gangs and migrant women are sexually exploited by criminals.”

Last April, East African migrants also found themselves caught up in the military escalation between the United States and Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Sixty-eight people were killed and dozens more injured in US strikes on a migrant detention centre in Sanaa, a rebel stronghold.

Thirty-eight migrants found drowned after shipwreck off Djibouti

In 2023, the NGO Human Rights Watch revealed that Saudi border guards killed hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross the border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, between March 2022 and June 2023.

“The guards at the checkpoints shoot randomly at migrants trying to cross. Crossing the Saudi border is a very risky undertaking,” said de Regt.

While some manage to find work in Saudi Arabia, many migrants remain in a precarious situation, at risk of arrest and deportation.

“Sometimes men are deported to Ethiopia – but they start again, even though they know how risky the journey is,” she said. “They will start again because they are desperate.”

This story has been adapted from the original RFI report in French.

After nearly 28 months of siege, the UN’s children agency Unicef and the World Food Programme (WFP) say famine could soon take hold in El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.

“The situation in El Fasher is completely catastrophic; the city’s population is on the verge of starvation,” said Leni Kinzli, WFP’s spokesperson in Sudan, speaking to RFI this week

“It is besieged, cut off from the rest of the country, and humanitarian access is extremely difficult.”

WFP says it has not been able to deliver food to the city for over a year. In the meantime, it has carried out cash transfers, but the blockade has made those nearly useless.

“Since the city is under blockade, the prices of basic necessities have skyrocketed, and people cannot even buy enough to make one meal a day,” Kinzli said.

Some residents are reportedly now eating animal feed and rubbish to survive. “And this is despite the fact that we are ready to intervene with food trucks if we are allowed to pass,” Kinzli added.

WFP is again calling for aid convoys to be allowed through.

Two years of devastation: Sudan’s war claims thousands and displaces millions

‘Skin and bones’

The Sudanese army, at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023, recaptured Khartoum state in May, but widespread hunger continues to grip the heart of Africa’s third-largest country.

Many children in Sudan are now “skin and bones”, UN officials said this week, and thousands of families in El-Fasher, more than 1,000 kilometres west of Khartoum, are at risk of starving.

“Everyone in El-Fasher is facing a daily struggle to survive,” said Eric Perdison, WFP’s regional director for eastern and southern Africa, on Tuesday.

RSF forces have surrounded the city since May. It is the last major urban area in Darfur still under army control.

“People’s coping mechanisms have been completely exhausted by over two years of war,” Perdison said in a statement. “Without immediate and sustained access, lives will be lost.”

WFP says food prices in El-Fasher are now 460 percent higher than in the rest of the country. Soup kitchens have shut down, and aid remains blocked.

Unicef’s Sheldon Yett, who recently visited Sudan, warned of growing malnutrition.

“Malnutrition is rife, and many of the children are reduced to just skin and bones,” he said. Around 25 million people across Sudan face severe food insecurity, according to the UN.

UN urges action on Sudan’s ‘forgotten war’ as humanitarian crisis takes hold

Acute hunger, limited access

Famine was first declared in the surrounding displacement camps last year, especially in Zamzam. The UN said the crisis would likely spread to the city itself by May.

Only a lack of reliable data has prevented a formal famine declaration for the wider region.

Aid agencies say insecurity is making it nearly impossible to act. In June, five humanitarian workers were killed when their UN convoy to El-Fasher was attacked.

“We have not had access to the horrible situation unfolding in El-Fasher, despite trying for months and months and months,” said Yett. “We have not been able to get supplies there.”

Nearly 40 percent of children under five in the area are acutely malnourished, UN data shows.

Residents often shelter in makeshift bunkers to avoid shelling as the RSF continues its push to take full control of Darfur.

In April, an RSF attack on Zamzam camp killed hundreds and forced hundreds of thousands to flee to el-Fasher and the nearby town of Tawila. A deadly cholera outbreak is now spreading there.

“Every day the conflict continues in Sudan, innocent lives are lost, communities are torn apart, and trauma continues to haunt generations,” said Radhouane Nouicer, the UN’s expert on human rights in Sudan. “The ongoing war has devastated civilian lives and turned daily survival into a constant struggle.”

Children in crisis

Relative calm has returned to Khartoum, but children there still have only “limited, but growing access to safe water, food, healthcare and learning”, according to Unicef’s Yett.

In the two hardest-hit areas of Khartoum state, Jebel Awliya and Khartoum proper, “children and families in the neighbourhood are sheltered often in small, damaged or unfinished buildings”, he added. 

“We are on the verge of irreversible damage to an entire generation of children.”

The war, now in its third year, has killed tens of thousands across Sudan, displaced millions and left the country’s healthcare system in ruins.

The UN describes the conflict as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.

(with newswires)

Trump has spent his first months in office trying to broker peace — after boasting he could end the war in 24 hours — but multiple rounds of peace talks, phone calls and diplomatic visits have failed to yield a breakthrough.

Here is what we know about the summit so far:

When and where

On his Truth Social site on Friday, Trump announced that his meeting with Putin would be held in the far-north US state of Alaska on 15 August, which was later confirmed by the Kremlin.

The announcement came after days of both sides indicating the two leaders would hold a summit next week.

The Kremlin confirmed the summit in Alaska on Friday, calling it “quite logical.”

“They would like to meet with me, I’ll do whatever I can to stop the killing,” Trump said on Thursday, speaking of both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

At the White House Friday, Trump said “there’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both” Ukraine and Russia, without providing further details.

Why Alaska?

The meeting will be held in Alaska, which Russia sold to the United States in 1867.

The western tip of the state is not far — just across the Bering Strait — from the easternmost part of Russia.

“Alaska and the Arctic are also where our countries’ economic interests intersect, and there are prospects for large-scale, mutually beneficial projects,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said in a statement on Telegram.

“But, of course, the presidents themselves will undoubtedly focus on discussing options for achieving a long-term peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis,” he added.

Ushakov also expressed hope that next time the two presidents would meet on Russian territory.

“A corresponding invitation has already been sent to the US president,” he added.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Putin — which obligates members to detain the Russian leader if he visits their country — had been thought to narrow the potential number of venues.

Putin had previously mentioned the United Arab Emirates as a possible host for the talks, while media speculated Turkey, China or India could be possible venues.

Will Zelensky be involved?

Zelensky has been pushing to make it a three-way summit and has frequently said meeting Putin is the only way to make progress towards peace.

Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff proposed a trilateral meeting when he held talks with Putin earlier this week, but the Russian leader has appeared to rule out meeting his Ukrainian counterpart.

At talks in Istanbul in June, Russian negotiators said a Putin-Zelensky meeting could only take place at the “final phase” of negotiations, once the two sides had agreed on terms for peace.

Asked if Putin had to meet Zelensky as a prerequisite for their summit, Trump said on Friday: “No, he doesn’t.”

When did they last meet?

Trump and Putin last sat together in 2019 at a G20 summit meeting in Japan during Trump’s first term. They have spoken by telephone several times since January.

Putin previously held a summit with Trump in Helsinki in 2018. Trump raised eyebrows at the time by appearing to side with Putin over the US intelligence community’s finding that Russia had interfered in the US election to support the New York tycoon.

The last time Putin met a US president in the United States was during talks with Barack Obama at a UN General Assembly in 2015.

Negotiating positions

Despite the flurry of diplomacy and multiple rounds of peace talks, Russia and Ukraine appear no closer to agreeing on an end to the fighting.

Putin has rejected calls by the United States, Ukraine and Europe for an immediate ceasefire.

At talks in June, Russia demanded Ukraine pull its forces out of four regions Moscow claims to have annexed, demanded Ukraine commit to being a neutral state, shun Western military support and be excluded from joining NATO.

Kyiv wants an immediate ceasefire and has said it will never recognize Russian control over its sovereign territory — though it acknowledged securing the return of land captured by Russia would have to come through diplomacy, not on the battlefield.

Kyiv is also seeking security guarantees from Western backers, including the deployment of foreign troops as peacekeepers to enforce any ceasefire. 

 (AFP)

A fire department spokesman said more than 260 firefighters with nearly 80 fire engines and 12 aircraft were deployed near Keratea, a rural area some 43 kilometres (27 miles) southeast of Athens.

“The fire has weakened but there are still active pockets,” the spokesman told AFP.

A new fire broke out close to the nearby town of Kouvaras on Saturday but was quickly brought under control.

Dimitris Loukas, mayor of the nearest city of Lavrio, said the Keratea fire that broke out Friday had devastated nearly 10,000 acres of brush and forest.

“Many homes were destroyed, in addition to other properties, agricultural and forest land,” he told state news agency ANA.

The National Observatory in Athens on Saturday said the high winds will persist until at least Monday.

Firefighters and police evacuated dozens of people late Friday from homes and an elderly care centre as the flames neared the coastal resort of Palaia Fokaia.

Firefighters later found the remains of an elderly man in a hut near Keratea. He died in his bed, Loukas said.

Gale-force winds on Friday also caused the deaths of two Vietnamese tourists who fell into the sea at Sarakiniko beach on the Cycladic island of Milos.

The 61-year-old woman and 65-year-old man were on a cruise ship group visiting the lunar-like, volcanic rock beach, the coastguard said.

A coastguard spokeswoman told AFP the woman had fallen into the water, and the man had tried to help her.

Greece’s national weather service EMY said winds of up to 74 kilometres (46 miles) an hour were forecast for Saturday.

The weather on Friday disrupted ferry travel for tens of thousands of summer holidaymakers.

A sailing ban on Athens ports was lifted Saturday.

Two dead as Greece battles growing wildfire front

‘We knew it was dangerous’

In the municipality of Palaia Fokaia, an hour’s drive south of Athens, a typical bucolic Greek landscape of olive groves and hamlets was also transformed by a raging Friday wildfire into a dystopia of blackened land and incinerated homes.

Observing them from his unscathed house was a relieved Kostas Triadis.

Despite the damage dealt to the landscape, he hailed the work of firemen and volunteers, “otherwise it would be very bad.”

“It is regenerated by itself, I hope it will be the natural future,” the 75-year-old added, referring to the devastated vegetation.

“It is a very good, small forest, we always knew it was dangerous.”

His wife Eleni, 71, added that “everybody did their utmost to save the area, but the real tragedy is that the forest is lost. It was very old.”

But she pointed to the many trees that were relatively unharmed because the fire burned itself out quickly in the short grass that residents had cut in June.

“It’s a tragedy, it’s the first time the fire has come here,” she said of the area, where the couple spend the summer months away from their Athens residence.

A short distance away on the coast, the contrast could not be starker: beachgoers ambled on the sand and swam in the shimmering Mediterranean on a seemingly normal balmy summer morning.

But the signs of the emergency were unmistakeable as beachside diners were greeted with the spectacle of water bombers skimming the water to refill and return to the raging fires.

 (AFP)

Since 2022, Mission Bougainville has been turning French Navy ships into floating science labs.

Recent graduates from the Sorbonne are stationed on board as biodiversity cadets. They work alongside the crew, collecting and studying plankton as the ships patrol thousands of kilometres of open sea.

One of those ships, the Champlain, sailed in June to the Scattered Islands near Madagascar – a remote string of French territories the Navy supplies and protects. The vessel usually patrols for illegal fishing and drug trafficking. Now, it also carries young scientists and plankton-sampling gear.

These minuscule organisms may be invisible to the naked eye, yet their role is immense. They absorb carbon dioxide, produce around 50 percent of the oxygen we breathe, and form the base of the marine food chain. Yet much remains unknown, especially how plankton responds to environmental change.

Mission Bougainville focuses on France’s vast Exclusive Economic Zones in the Indo-Pacific – a maritime area that spans from the Indian Ocean to the South Pacific and gives France one of the largest ocean territories in the world.

The project also has researchers aboard other Navy ships operating between French Polynesia and New Caledonia, territories that offer access to far-flung waters still largely unstudied.

Nations vow to cut shipping noise as sea life struggles to be heard

Charting life on the move

The mission builds on work by the Tara Ocean Foundation, which changed how scientists understand plankton. But Bougainville takes it further by using the Navy’s existing routes to access under-researched zones and collect data over time.

“The big difficulty with plankton is that you have to study it everywhere. It moves fast, adapts fast and you cannot understand it without worldwide study. It’s all interconnected,” said Colomban de Vargas, a marine biologist with France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and co-founder of the mission.

Scientists have studied plankton for more than a century. But Bougainville’s scale and regularity are what set it apart.

Multiple Navy ships are now involved, including the Champlain and vessels operating in the South Pacific. The mission aims to gather around 100 samples per ship each year through to 2030 – enough to build a global database covering millions of square kilometres.

A major focus is what researchers call the “island effect”. The Indo-Pacific is dotted with islands and underwater mountains. In many parts of the ocean, nutrients are scarce. But land masses release material that acts like fertiliser – triggering blooms of phytoplankton.

These blooms can float for weeks and are large enough to be seen from space.

“Islands change the composition of plankton over tens, hundreds of kilometres. They create an ecosystem that moves through the ocean for weeks before disappearing, then being created again. They’re like moving forests,” said de Vargas.

These ecosystems move across the ocean, then vanish and reappear elsewhere. Scientists are now trying to understand how they form, whether they follow patterns, and how they change over time.

Plankton don’t choose where they go – they drift with the currents. That makes each island a kind of natural lab. “Each of these islands is a test tube, ideal terrain for science,” said de Vargas.

Niue, the tiny island selling the sea to save it from destruction

Climate and geopolitics

By taking repeated samples across different seasons and locations, researchers can learn how plankton adapt to changing conditions – from rising temperatures to shifts in ocean chemistry.

“Differences in plankton composition will affect the entire ecosystem, consequently affecting the economy of different territories and therefore global geopolitics,” said de Vargas.

But researchers stress that this work is still in its early stages. It will take years of sampling and analysis before the full picture becomes clear.

“You have to understand the basic functional aspects of plankton before talking about its evolution or adaptation,” de Vargas added.

Mission Bougainville is set to continue through to 2030.

---

This article was adapted from the original version in French by RFI’s Titouan Allain

The historian and author used his swearing-in speech to parliament to make his position clear: “No to illegal immigration, no to the euro.”

Nawrocki’s election campaign was marked by a rise in nationalist rhetoric and repeated criticism of Ukrainian refugees living in Poland. His victory has unsettled many at home and abroad.

His rhetoric is making it easier for people to express anti-Ukrainian views, warned Oleksandr Pestrykov of the Ukrainian House Foundation in Warsaw – calling it a form of social segregation.

“Seeing Nawrocki speak in this way, someone who doesn’t like Ukrainians but would have been ashamed to say so, can now say it openly,” Pestrykov said.

On the campaign trail, Nawrocki described Ukrainian refugees as “ungrateful” and a “burden on society”. His slogan “Poland First, Poles First” came with pledges to give citizens priority in healthcare and education, cut pensions for Ukrainians and restrict benefits to Poles only.

Supreme Court confirms validity of Poland’s presidential election

Calls for unity mask deep divides

Despite his hardline message, Nawrocki has also tried to appear as a unifier. In a video released before the inauguration, he urged Poles to “unite” and spoke of “a new chapter in the history of our beloved Poland”.

He said he would be an “active president” from the outset, ready to propose laws and push government action.

But cooperation with Tusk’s government may prove difficult. The prime minister has already expressed doubts about Nawrocki’s intentions. “I have no doubt that Mr Nawrocki will do everything to annoy us,” Tusk said. He also warned that he would not let the president “demolish” his government.

Nawrocki, who has no prior experience in elected office, narrowly defeated liberal candidate Rafal Trzaskowski in the 1 June election. The close result revealed deep divisions in Polish politics.

Although the president does not run the government, the role comes with real power – including veto rights and a say in foreign and defence policy.

Nawrocki had the backing of former US president Donald Trump during his campaign. But analysts say he lacks international experience. With Ukraine a key issue, this could become a source of friction.

From Washington to Warsaw: how MAGA influence is reshaping Europe’s far right

Foreign policy split

Nawrocki’s support for Ukraine appears conditional, said Jean-Yves Potel, a historian and political scientist. “Nawrocki seems to want to impose conditions on the Ukrainians, particularly regarding Ukraine’s entry into NATO and the European Union. He wants to exert pressure on this issue,” Potel told RFI.

Still, he said Tusk remains Poland’s key foreign policy actor. “He is not going to follow Nawrocki,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated Nawrocki after his win and expressed hope for continued cooperation.

Following a phone call between the two, Zelensky said they had agreed to exchange visits and work together on practical matters. He said he was “thankful for the readiness to work together”.

Even so, Nawrocki’s remarks about Kyiv’s “lack of gratitude” and his opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine suggest a cooler relationship than under former president Andrzej Duda. The shift could affect Poland’s role in the regional response to Russia’s war.

Polish nationalists stage anti-immigration demonstration ahead of polls

Abortion deadlock 

Tensions are also expected to continue in the lead-up to Poland’s next parliamentary elections in 2027. Nawrocki has openly attacked the Tusk government, calling it “the worst in the history of democratic Poland”.

One major fault line is abortion. In predominantly Catholic Poland, the procedure is only allowed in cases of severe foetal abnormalities or when the mother’s life is at risk. Tusk wants to relax the law. Nawrocki has said he will block any such move.

“He promises to block any law in this direction,” said Potel. “But on the other hand, within Tusk’s coalition, there are Christian Democratic currents that refuse to liberalise abortion.” As a result, no major change may be possible, despite public pressure.

Not all observers think the situation will spiral into open conflict. Piotr Trudnowski, from the Klub Jagiellonski think tank, said “both parties should realise that engaging in intense confrontation is obviously not the way forward.”

The months ahead will show whether compromise is possible – or whether Poland’s political divide grows deeper under Nawrocki’s presidency.

Refusing to support the repressive regime of Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad, Amjaad and her husband Firas decided they had no choice but to flee it. 

Having studied in France between 2005 and 2011, in 2014 the couple – he an IT specialist, she a maths teacher – settled in north-west France and quickly obtained French citizenship.

From their adopted city of Rouen, the Abou Latif family – Amjaad, Firas and their two children – witnessed the fall of Assad’s regime in December 2024. As for most Syrians, this was cause for celebration – and time to plan a return trip.

Amjaad and Firas, who are both part of the Druze community, a branch of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam. They decided to go back to their native Sweida, a Druze-majority province in the south of Syria, for the summer holidays. 

For the couple, this would be a reunion with their families, while for their children, aged five and 15, it would be a discovery of their homeland. 

New legal action launched against Syria’s Assad after French court ruling

Stranded in Swedia

“We left on 5 June,” says Amjaad. “We arrived in Damascus and then went to Sweida, where we had planned to stay for two months to spend the holidays there. We had a great first month with the family. Then, in the space of two days, it all came crashing down.”

On 13 July, Amjaad recalls that there were clashes between Bedouin tribes and local fighters in Sweida which left 37 people dead.

Similarly deadly clashes had already occurred in April and May, pitting Syrian security forces against Druze fighters. At that time, local and religious leaders concluded agreements aimed at containing the escalation and better integrating the Druze fighters into the country’s new post-Assad power structures.

Amjaad, her husband and children found themselves stranded with her parents-in-law in the centre of Sweida.

“The children started to get very scared and my husband told me to leave the city with them, to go to my parents who were in a village a long way from Sweida.”

Amjaad and the children arrived in Qanaouat, seven kilometres to the north, with the plan being that they would stay there until the situation calmed down in the provincial capital.

France condemns reported atrocities against civilians in Syria’s Sweida

But the fighting continued and her husband Firas could not find a way to leave Sweida. Tanks rolled into the town centre, and regime men entered houses and looted everything in sight.

Firas and his brother-in-law took refuge in one of the rooms in the family’s house. “On Wednesday, 16 July, before 9am, my husband sent me a text message to say that the tanks had entered the neighbourhood, but that everything was fine with him. At 10am, he sent a text message to the neighbourhood group saying: ‘We’re trapped here, help, help.” From 10.30am onwards, communication was interrupted.”

Firas and his brother-in-law were both shot dead. Then five rocket-propelled grenades hit the house, before it was burnt down.

‘There were corpses all over the town’

Amjaad was told what had happened by neighbours who had managed to hide. On 17 July, the remains of her brother-in-law’s head were found, along with Firas’s watch.

With the security situation in the town becoming increasingly catastrophic, Amjaad and her children had to wait a week before they could return and take refuge in an uncle’s house.

They were stuck there for almost two weeks, unable to return to Damascus from where they could take a flight to France. The town was surrounded by jihadists, recalls Amjaad. “There was no drinking water, food or medicine left. There were corpses all over the town, especially around the hospital.”

A ceasefire put an end to a week of deadly clashes on 20 July, but the situation remains tense and access to the province is difficult. Government troops have set up roadblocks on the access roads, and will only let authorised vehicles through.

Amjaad’s brother, who also lives in France, called the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the family’s behalf. The French embassy in Lebanon then told him to contact the Syrian White Helmets – the country’s humanitarian and civil defence volunteer organisation – who offered to collect the family from outside the town.

“I said no, it was impossible,” Amjaad says. “We couldn’t do it. Because to get to the meeting point they had given me, we had to go through villages that were in the hands of jihadists. What’s more, we had no petrol. I said we’d have to find another solution and they told me: ‘It’s the embassy, that’s the way it is, there’s no other way.'”

Syria’s interim president vows justice for Druze after deadly clashes

‘We don’t want jihadists’

In the end, Amjaad and her children managed to leave with the help of a family friend. On 30 July, thanks to their foreign passports, the Syrian Red Crescent took charge of them and transferred them out of the town.

With them were many other foreign Druze, including a large number of Venezuelans, all of whom had also come to Syria to be with their loved ones for the summer holidays, taking their first chance to come back to the country for years. 

“We, the Druze, had always refused to fight alongside Assad, we were part of the opposition, and now [Ahmed al-Sharaa, the country’s new president] comes along and imposes Islamism on us,” Amjaad said, angrily.

“In Sweida, we didn’t accept the jihadists taking power. We saw what they did against the Alawites in March,” she added, referring to the killing of members of the country’s Alawite religious minority, followers of an offshoot of Shia Islam, to which former president Assad belongs.

On Thursday, 31 July, Amjaad and her two children left for Paris, travelling via Istanbul.

She’s in shock over what has happened, but she’s also angry. “I’m trying to find the strength to respond to what’s happened, here in France – to file complaints, to speak out about the reality in Syria today. So that the government that replaced Assad leaves, like he did. We don’t want jihadists.”

On the same day Amjaad returned to France, the Syrian Ministry of Justice announced the formation of a commission to investigate the deadly inter-communal violence in the Sweida province.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), the violence has left more than 1,400 people dead, including by summary execution – the majority of whom were Druze.

The OSDH claims that “the authorities are imposing a blockade on the province of Sweida to make its inhabitants comply”.

Several aid convoys have entered the province since the ceasefire, including one sent on 31 July by the United Nations, which has warned the humanitarian situation is “critical”.

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This article was adapted from the original version in French.

In England, the memory of last summer’s riots in Southport still lingers. The unrest began after three young girls were stabbed to death at a dance class in the seaside town on 19 July 2024.

The attack sparked violent protests that quickly spread to Northern Ireland, with riots breaking out in over a dozen towns and cities across the two nations of the United Kingdom.

Far-right activists were blamed for fuelling tensions by spreading false claims that the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker.

The unrest, which lasted several days, saw far-right rioters attack police, shops, hotels housing asylum seekers and mosques, with hundreds of participants subsequently arrested and charged.

A year later, the same pattern is repeating. On Sunday 3 August, clashes broke out at protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers in Epping, Manchester, Newcastle and London. Far-right demonstrators clashed with anti-racism groups and local residents. Fifteen people were arrested.

In one such incident in Epping, a London suburb, anti-racism and refugee aid groups and residents opposed to the accommodation of asylum seekers in a local hotel had called for simultaneous rallies on Sunday, 3 August. Hundreds gathered from both sides under heavy police surveillance, following tensions at the site of the hotel the previous week.

On Saturday, a rally was held outside another hotel in Bowthorpe, near Norwich, according to UK media reports. On 21 July, several dozen people had demonstrated in Diss, in the east of England, to demand the closure of another hotel also housing asylum seekers.

UK fears new summer of unrest, year after Southport riots

A few weeks prior, on 9 June, the town of Ballymena in Northern Ireland erupted when two teenagers of Romanian origin were arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a young girl.

Foreign residents of the town were forced to hide in wardrobes and attics to escape the rioters, with some hanging signs outside their homes declaring that they were Filipino, not Eastern European. Some housing associations warned residents to leave their homes and secure their property. 

A month later, on 9 July, similar scenes played out in Spain after a 68-year-old man was attacked in the town of Torre Pacheco in Murcia, in the southwest.

Rallies held on 19 July in more than 80 towns and cities in Poland on 19 July remained peaceful, but saw protesters marching under “Stop immigration” banners in protest at Europe-wide policies.

Poland’s border clampdown highlights EU tensions as leaders gather in London

“We are witnessing a deliberate erosion of the fundamental principles of democratic coexistence,” according to Gemma Pinyol Jiménez, a professor at the faculty of political science and sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

To continue to regard these demonstrations as isolated events would be “to run the risk of missing the crux of the problem” – namely “the growing normalisation of hate speech and xenophobia,” she said.

The chicken or the egg?

Identity-based rhetoric, generally promoted by the far right, has been present in Europe since the beginning of the twentieth century. But the return of frequent, large-scale and often violent demonstrations signals a resurgence in the popularity of these ideas. But are they the root cause of the riots, or a catalyst for pre-existing tensions? 

According to Pinyol Jiménez, “growing inequality, economic anxiety and social fragmentation” are among the reasons why those affected see identity-based discourse as the answer to their situation.

She added that although they are not the only reason for the re-emergence of xenophobic violence, these positions “foster fear, advocate exclusion and give legitimacy to violent action”. The migrant takes on the role of scapegoat and becomes “a danger rather than a human being”.

“High housing prices, unemployment or precarious working conditions” make it easy to “blame immigrants for all the ills of society”, says Zenia Hellgren, a sociologist at Barcelona’s public university and a member of an interdisciplinary research group on immigration.

In the UK, the youth unemployment rate is around 14 percent, while in Spain it is higher than 24 percent. Both countries are also experiencing a major housing crisis.

From Washington to Warsaw: how MAGA influence is reshaping Europe’s far right

In the UK, successive governments have kept the idea of a migratory crisis smouldering for years, with far-right figures fanning the flames by playing on collective fears.

Islamophobic influencer Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – known as Tommy Robinson – has regularly used his X (formerly Twitter) account, with its 1.3 million followers, to declare his support for those demonstrating outside what he calls “migrant hotels” – although he is yet to make an appearance at the protests. 

Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right Reform UK party, made his voice heard in the Epping protests by reposting misinformation about the police busing in counter-demonstrators.

The role of sectarianism

In Northern Ireland, the sectarianism that is an integral party of the country’s history has a significant part to play in anti-immigration rhetoric, according to Jack Crangle, professor of modern history at Queen’s University Belfast.

The hostility between Catholics and Protestants – republicans who identify as Irish and want to see Northern Ireland reunited with the Republic of Ireland, and loyalists who identify as British and support Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK, respectively – manifested as the 30-year ethno-religious conflict known as the Troubles, between the late 1960s and 1998. 

While tensions between the two communities remain, this hostility “has gradually been directed towards a new ‘Other’ as immigration to Northern Ireland has increased” Crangle observed in an article entitled: Northern Ireland has a long history of immigration and diversity. And of racism.

The increase in anti-immigration and xenophobic rhetoric and activity on the part of certain loyalist movements, for whom Britishness is integral to their identity, has been documented for several years now.

On 10 July, a bonfire erected in the village of Moygashel as part of the annual loyalist celebrations of 12 July (commemorating the 1690 Battle of the Boyne in which Protestant King William of Orange defeated Catholic King James II) featured a boat full of black-skinned mannequins at the top of the pyre, accompanied by a sign reading “stop the boats”.

Historical imagery

In Spain too, history is invoked to support the arguments of those opposed to immigration.

Since its rise to prominence in 2019, the country’s far-right Vox party has drawn on “the imagery of the Reconquista,” according to Carole Viñals, senior lecturer at the University of Lille and a specialist in contemporary Spain – referring to the period from 718-1492 in which Christian kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula fought to reclaim territories previously conquered by Muslim forces.

“They reject any attack on Spain’s territorial unity,” Viñals continued, “which [they say] is jeopardised by the influx of immigrants.”

In the 2023 regional elections, Vox doubled its national score of 12.3 percent in the province of Murcia, reaching 26 percent in the municipality of Torre Pacheco – scene of July’s unrest. The president of Vox in the region, José Ángel Antelo, is currently under investigation for inciting racial hatred in connection with the riots.

Pinyol Jiménez believes the violence observed in various parts of Europe since last summer needs to be viewed as a whole.

While she stresses the need to clamp down on hate speech, she says that above all European governments need to strengthen the welfare state, to respond to “the real needs of the population”, if they want to see the “national preference” rhetoric brandished by the far right extinguished once and for all.

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This article has been adapted from the original version in French.

President Félix Tshisekedi used the occasion to call on parliament to adopt a resolution recognising the violence in eastern Congo as genocide.

“I solemnly call upon both houses of parliament to examine as soon as possible the adoption of an official resolution proclaiming the recognition of genocide committed on our territory,” Tshisekedi said on Saturday.

He said the deaths of thousands of civilians in the east of the country meet the legal definition of genocide under the 1948 UN convention. He also promised to take the campaign for recognition to international forums.

The annual Genocost commemoration takes place every 2 August. It was first held three years ago. This year, a new memorial was opened near the National Museum in Kinshasa.

From 1960 to present day, 11 dates that explain the conflict in the DRC

Repeated conflict

Eastern Congo, rich in minerals and bordering Rwanda, has faced repeated conflict since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Violence has escalated again since early 2025.

The term “Genocost” was first used in London in 2013 by a member of the Congolese Action Youth Platform (CAYP). It followed the UN’s Mapping Report, which documented large-scale crimes in eastern Congo dating back to 1996. The report said several neighbouring countries, including Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, shared responsibility.

For CAYP France, the creation of a national remembrance day is a major step. Gloria Menayame, a legal expert with the NGO, told RFI it was a “victory” but said more needs to be done.

But, she also said that it “feels unfinished”.

“The adoption of the Genocost campaign is something we welcome,” she said. “What we didn’t want was this partial appropriation that only takes what suits the authorities. There’s a lot of talk about international responsibility or the creation of an international tribunal. But they forget to put in place mechanisms to address crimes at the national level. We believe our government has the means, but lacks the will.”

DRC conflict coltan entering EU via Rwandan smuggling routes, report finds

Long road to recognition

The idea of the Genocost began gaining support after 2013, as calls for reparations grew. Civil society groups pointed to a long history of resource-driven violence going back to colonial times.

Supporters of the campaign renamed a square in Kinshasa “Genocost Square” and began holding events there every 2 August. The date marks the start of the Second Congo War in 1998.

But the government only adopted the term officially in late 2022, after the M23 rebel group returned to action and tensions with Rwanda increased.

One key aim of the campaign is the creation of an international criminal tribunal for the DRC.

 

Tshisekedi also said he would raise the issue at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

DR Congo extends cobalt export ban by three months

Theoretical issues

Some legal experts say the Genocost concept remains controversial. Ithiel Batumike, a researcher at the Congolese think tank Ebuteli, told RFI the term is based on real anger and frustration over decades of violence, but it still needs to be defined more clearly in legal terms.

“All Congolese believe it is time to stop this spiral of violence,” he said.

“The big questions all Congolese are asking themselves: ‘Until when?’ and ‘Why does the international community act as if it doesn’t see everything that is happening in Congo, when it is paying sustained attention to other crises where it has actually intervened to stop the massacres?'”

Another issue is the role of Congolese leaders and military officials in the conflict.

Menayame said some members of the Congolese government have been named in UN reports as being involved in crimes committed in the country.

These include several generals active in conflict zones. She said their actions should not be ignored.

In early August 1995, the Croatian army recatured the breakaway region of Krajina in just 84 hours. Most of the ethnic Serb population fled.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the operation, authorities in the Croatian capital Zagreb held the largest military parade in the country’s history.

On Thursday, 3,500 soldiers, police and war veterans marched along Vukovar Avenue in the capital. They were marking the events of 4 to 7 August 1995, when Operation Oluja – Storm in Serbo-Croatian – crushed the self-declared Serbian Republic of Krajina and restored control over 14 percent of Croatia’s territory.

Tens of thousands of people watched the parade.

They saw some of the army’s newest equipment, including Turkish Bayraktar drones, German-made Leopard tanks and 12 second-hand French Rafale fighter jets. This was only the fourth military parade in Croatia since independence in 1991.

“Today, everyone will have seen the strength of the Croatian state,” Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on public TV.

President Zoran Milanovic said once again that Operation Oluja was key to changing the course of the 1991–1995 war.

‘Victory for Croatia’

“We are fully aware – and I want those who succeed us to be aware too – that this is a victory for Croatian soldiers, the Croatian people and the Croatian leaders of the time,” said Milanović, who is also head of the armed forces, before the parade began.

More commemorations are planned for Monday 5 August – a key date in the operation and a national holiday in Croatia called Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day.

But the war left deep scars.

The Croatian Helsinki Committee said 677 civilians were killed during Operation Oluja and over 22,000 homes destroyed. Some Serbian sources say around 2,000 people died.

The offensive forced almost the entire Serbian population of Krajina – about 200,000 people – to flee. The Republic of Krajina had been set up in late 1990 by Serb leaders who rejected Croatia’s independence.

Croatian airstrikes and artillery then hit convoys of tractors, buses and cars carrying people to safety in Serbia.

It was not until 2020 – 25 years later – that Croatia officially expressed regret for the crimes committed against Serbs. Milanović said at the time, “We celebrate victory; we hate no one.”

Serbia denounces ‘ethnic cleansing’

Few Serbs have not returned to Krajina. Their families had lived there since the 1600s, when the Habsburg Empire gave them land in exchange for guarding the border with Ottoman-controlled Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Today, there are just over 120,000 Serbs in Croatia – five times fewer than in 1991, just before the war.

In Serbia, Operation Oluja is viewed as a large-scale act of ethnic cleansing. A memorial event is held each year on 3 August, the day before the 1995 offensive began.

This year’s ceremony was called “Oluja is a pogrom, we will remember it forever”. It was attended by President Aleksandar Vucic, Prime Minister Duro Macut and the Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Porfirije.

The Serbian government has also advised citizens not to travel through Croatia between 1 and 10 August.

In both countries, commemorations are marked by nationalism. Each side blames the other and there has been little effort to reconcile.

Attempts at dialogue have often been attacked.

In 2020, Boris Milosevic – a Serb political leader in Croatia – joined official Croatian commemorations. Several ministers in Belgrade called it “shameful” and “humiliating for the entire Serbian nation”.

But some Croatians are also questioning how the event is remembered.

“The Croatian government has decided to celebrate the end of the war by celebrating the war industry,” said the Centre for Peace Studies.

“Tanks do not feed people, weapons do not heal.”

France has been loading aid into its military transport aircraft at a base in Jordan before dropping it off over the Gaza strip. 

The Jordanian army has been assisting France with flight plans and drop locations to avoid accidents when the pallets land. 

The first airdrop took place on Friday, followed by one on Saturday without any hitches, the French army told Franceinfo.

There are still 28 tons of products to be delivered out of the total 40 promised by France.

Concern has escalated in the past week about hunger in the Gaza Strip after more than 21 months of war, which started after Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out a deadly attack against Israel in October 2023.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 60,430 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.

Defining famine: the complex process behind Gaza’s hunger crisis

Israel has also heavily restricted the entry of aid into Gaza, already under blockade for 15 years before the ongoing war.

According to the United Nations, the Palestinian territory is threatened with “widespread famine,” and would need “more than 62,000 tons of vital aid each month “to cover the most basic humanitarian needs for food and nutrition.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Saturday underlined France’s intention to step up aid delivieries. “We will continue. Without respite. But only the immediate opening of land crossings will allow for massive and unhindered delivery,” he wrote on the social network X.

More than 50 tons of French humanitarian cargo are stuck in Egypt, a few kilometres from the border with Gaza.

Earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron thanked Jordanian, Emirati, and German partners for their support.

But he insisted that “airdrops are not enough. Israel must grant full humanitarian access to address the risk of famine.”

International organisations have for months condemned the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on aid distribution in Gaza, including refusing to issue border crossing permits, slow customs clearance, limited access points, and imposing dangerous routes.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – supported by Israel and the United States and opposed by NGOs – has since May become the main channel for distributing food but only has four main sites.

The UN has said that 6,000 trucks are awaiting permission from Israel to enter the occupied Palestinian territory.

Insufficient deliveries

Other European nations such as Germany, Britain, Spain and Italy have also begun delivering aid by air.

Germany staged its first food airdrops into Gaza on Thursday and Friday, which coincided with a visit by Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, who warned that “the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is beyond imagination.”

At a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wadephul, Wadephul urged Israel “to provide humanitarian and medical aid to prevent mass starvation from becoming a reality”.

UN says hundreds killed in recent weeks while seeking aid in Gaza

Italy said Friday it would begin air drops over Gaza, becoming the latest European countries to do so. 

“I have given the green light to a mission involving Army and Air Force assets for the transport and airdrop of basic necessities to civilians in Gaza, who have been severely affected by the ongoing conflict,” Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said in a statement.

Italy’s air force will work with Jordan’s military to air drop special containers containing essential goods, with the first drops on 9 August, he said.

Spain on Friday said it had already air-dropped 12 tonnes of food into Gaza.

Meanwhile, the United States special envoy Steve Witkoff promised a plan to deliver more food to Gaza after inspecting a US-backed GHF distribution centre on Friday.

The visit was intended to give “a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza,” Witkoff said.

(with newswires)

The case has raised concerns among government critics, including opposition leader Bobi Wine and rights groups, about a crackdown ahead of Uganda’s national election early next year in which President Yoweri Museveni, 80, is seeking re-election.

The government denies targeting opposition figures and says all those who have been detained have committed crimes.

Bobi Wine’s fight for democracy in Uganda continues on the big screen

A former ally and personal physician of Museveni, Besigye has stood and lost against Museveni in four elections. He has not said whether he is running again.

Besigye, who denies any wrongdoing, was forcefully returned to 

Uganda from neighbouring Kenya in November last year, and initially charged in a military tribunal, before his case was transferred to a civilian court.

Kenya investigates alleged kidnapping of Ugandan opposition leader Besigye

His lawyers argued he should be automatically released on bail because he has spent more than 180 days in jail without his trial starting.

One of Besigye’s lawyers, Erias Lukwago, labelled the ruling “absurd”.

“For the Judge to rule that Besigye and Lutale have not spent 180 days on remand, discounting the days on remand since November last year, is a miscarriage of justice,” he told AFP.

Another defence lawyer, Eron Kiiza, told AFP he was not surprised by the ruling.

“There is a total breakdown in the constitutional order in this country,” he said.

Judge Emmanuel Baguma said on Friday the 180-day maximum period before mandatory bail is granted only began when he was remanded in the civilian court on 21 February, which means he falls short by 12 days in order to secure bail.

Rights groups have said that Besigye’s abduction and trial for treason are linked to next January’s elections, when Museveni will seek to extend his term.

 (with newswires)

The plan runs contrary to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Israel must bring its occupation to an end as soon as possible, to the realisation of the agreed two-state solution and to the right of Palestinians to self-determination, Turk said in a statement.

Israel‘s political-security cabinet approved a plan early on Friday to take control of Gaza City, as the country expands its military operations despite intensifying criticism at home and abroad over the devastating almost two-year-old war.

Former Israeli ambassador and French historian urge Macron to sanction Israel

Earlier Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel intended to take military control of the entire Gaza Strip.

“On all evidence to date, this further escalation will result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction and atrocity crimes,” Turk said.

“Instead of intensifying this war, the Israeli Government should put all its efforts into saving the lives of Gaza’s civilians by allowing the full, unfettered flow of humanitarian aid.

“The hostages must be immediately and unconditionally released by Palestinian armed groups.”

“Today’s Romania is the creation of Ion Iliescu,” said Ioan Stanomir, a professor of political science at the University of Bucharest, speaking to RFI’s Romanian service.

An engineer by training and a committed Communist, Iliescu was at the centre of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989.

He took power during the uprising, which many later described as a coup. Iliescu then oversaw the summary trial and execution of the country’s former leader – “whose protégé he was before becoming his executioner”, according to historian Traian Sandu in his biography of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Iliescu founded the National Salvation Front (FSN) during the revolution, alongside other former members of the Communist Party. The FSN later became the Social Democratic Party (PSD).

After serving as acting president for five months, Iliescu was elected head of state in May 1990 in Romania’s first free elections in 50 years. He was re-elected in 1992 after a new constitution was adopted.

Defeated in 1996 by his Christian Democrat opponent Emil Constantinescu, Iliescu went on to win a third and final four-year term as president of Romania in 2000.

During that final term, Romania joined NATO in March 2004 and completed its negotiations to join the European Union. The country became a member on 1 January 2007.

From inner circle to sidelines

Born on 3 March 1930 in the city of Oltenita, on the southern border of the country across the Danube from Bulgaria, Iliescu was raised by his stepmother, grandparents and latterly an aunt, after his mother abandoned the family when he was a baby. His father, a staunch Communist at a time when the party was illegal, spent several years in Moscow and was jailed on his return.

Iliescu studied engineering at the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute, and was then awarded a scholarship to study at the Faculty of Energy in Moscow.

While there, he reportedly became friends with Mikhail Gorbachev, the future Soviet leader – a connection that later led some to suspect Soviet influence in the fall of Romania’s dictatorship. Critics called Iliescu “Gorbachev’s man in Romania”.

He joined the Romanian Communist Party in 1953, at the age of 23, and quickly climbed the ranks. He led the Young Communists, became minister for youth in 1967, and joined the Central Committee the following year, where he handled propaganda.

In the 1970s, Iliescu fell out of favour with the leadership due to his reformist views. He remained on the Central Committee until 1984 but was pushed to the margins of political power.

Romania at a crossroads: confronting communist nostalgia on election day

Speaking to Radio Free Europe in 1999 about these ideological differences, Iliescu said: “In [19]71 [Ceausescu] saw in the [North] Korean model, a possible model for him to introduce the same control in the country. And we had some discussion about this matter.

“I asked him: what are the elements which could inspire any confidence in such a system, in such a model, which is an anti-human model of organising the state? Afterwards, I was thrown out of my political position, from the leadership of the country.”

Between 1972 and 1979, he held local council roles, before moving to a government publishing house in the 1980s. The Securitate, Romania’s secret police, kept him under constant surveillance.

A televised revolution

From that obscure position, Iliescu returned to public life on 22 December 1989 as one of the orchestrators of the revolution, which had begun with anti-government protests that spread across the country. 

However, this did not surprise many viewers, as by the late 1980s rumours abounded that he was to become Ceausescu’s replacement, backed by Gorbachev. His exile from the dictator’s inner circle had positioned him as a palatable alternative when the regime eventually crumbled.

Iliescu later said the first sign of change came when the secret police who followed him “night and day” suddenly disappeared at 11am on 22 December.

He described how friends told him crowds were gathering at the country’s television studio and people were meeting there, so he joined them.

“I was in this studio of the television, addressing the country. There was a… presence of different people expressing their enthusiasm with this movement, which was taking place in our country,” Iliescu said.

“Some hours of general enthusiasm, of general solidarity, of general hope for better things… But I felt that something had to be put in order because such enthusiasm and general sentiment of liberation can lead to… anarchy and dissolution of the country.”

A group of about 20 people met to draft a proclamation and propose a plan.

“When we started to discuss this proclamation, it was already after [6pm], some shooting was provoked by somebody. We didn’t know what had happened and who was provoking it, but a panic began and a military confrontation started in the dark of the evening of the 22nd.”

They went to the Ministry of the Army to restore order and then returned to the TV station.

“We presented our proclamation to the country, with 10 points… It became the main programme of the Romanian Revolution and the setting up of the first provisional body, with the responsibility to rule the country – the National Salvation Front,” Iliescu said.

His role in the events of December 1989 remains controversial. He was accused of heightening a national atmosphere of confusion which led to violence, and alleged to have called for armed intervention by the Soviet Union.

The revolution lasted from 16 to 25 December, the day on which Ceausescu and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad after a two-hour trial, and saw more than 1,000 people killed – 862 of them after Iliescu had taken power.

Iliescu became Romania’s interim president and oversaw the rapid dismantling of the Ceausescu regime. In May 1990, he and his party won the elections with 85 percent of the vote. At the height of his popularity, Romanians were known to chant: “The sun shines, Iliescu appears.”

Roma push France to recognise Holocaust-era genocide

Miners vs students

But this election victory was swiftly followed, in June 1990, by what came to be known as the Mineriads – a moment that would overshadow the rest of Iliescu’s political career.

When student protests against his leadership broke out in Bucharest, Iliescu called on the country’s coal miners – then politically influential – to come to the capital and put an end to the peaceful demonstrations by force. 

Armed with bats, shovels and pickaxes, 20,000 of them answered his call.

From June 13 to 15, the city was engulfed in violence. Reports on the number of people killed vary between four, six and 100, while estimates of those injured reach more than 1,300.

The Mineriads are now seen as an attempt to destroy the democratic opposition by turning social groups against each other. Some say the divide between working-class and educated Romanians remains visible today.

Stagnation and loss of support 

Between 1990 and 1996, Iliescu served two presidential terms marked by stagnation and a refusal to implement economic reforms. He opposed privatisation and the restitution of property confiscated by the Communist regime.

Miners’ riots throughout the decade also hampered Romania’s transition to a market economy and deterred badly needed foreign investment for years.

Iliescu was criticised for surrounding himself with corrupt figures, former Communist Party decision-makers and members of the Securitate, as well as people suspected of having ties to the Soviet and Russian secret services.

After years of rampant inflation, economic stagnation and lack of prospects, by the election of 1996 Iliescu had lost much of his popular support, and lost the presidency to university professor Emil Constantinescu.

He returned to office in 2000, amid disappointment with the centre-right government. His second term was marked by less political acrimony and a critical stance towards corruption surrounding then-prime minister Adrian Năstase.

This final term also contained two bright spots in Iliescu’s career – the Snagov consensus of 1995, which saw all parliamentary parties support Romania’s application to join the European Union, and the historic reconciliation with Hungary, which paved the way for both countries to join the EU and NATO.

Romania’s joining of the latter was marked by a historic visit from United States president George W Bush to Bucharest.

Crimes against humanity

Iliescu left the presidency in 2004 and served in the Senate until 2008. But he was later brought to court.

In 2018 he was formally indicted over his role in the 1989 revolution and charged with crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the killing of 862 people, with prosecutors alleging that he failed to prevent “numerous situations” in which people were killed and accusing him of spreading misinformation through the media, causing a panic. 

The trial was suspended and postponed, initially due to the Covid-19 pandemic and then because of procedural issues, and was eventually dropped.

In a separate case, he was also charged over allegedly bussing in miners to Bucharest to crush peaceful student protests in June 1990.

After launching the legal proceedings in 2017, the Court of Cassation decided in 2020 to start the investigation from scratch, but this case too failed to reach a resolution.

Contested memory

In a statement on its website following his death, Iliescu’s former party, the PSD, said: “Mr President Ion Iliescu will remain for all of us a symbol of the politician and statesman. He had the courage to confront Ceausescu and his dictatorship, and directed Romania irreversibly on the Euro-Atlantic path.”

“He was a strong leader, loved by most, contested by others, as happens in democracy,” it added.

Sorin Grindeanu, the party’s current leader, said: “Regardless of divergent views, his contribution to Romania’s transition to democracy remains part of our collective memory.”

According to Sergiu Miscoiu, a political science professor at Babes-Bolyai University: “Ion Iliescu must be understood in the context of his time. He stirred anti-totalitarian sentiments in the 1990s, rightly so, but he was also the object of adulation by a large part of the population.

“While he called miners to Bucharest [in the Mineriad] and sealed the slow and uncertain transition, he also pushed Romania on a Euro-atlantic path.”

Divided Romania faces uncertain future despite rejecting the far right

The Romanian government declared Thursday, 7 August a day of national mourning, and held a two-day state funeral for the former president on Thursday and Friday.

When asked by RFI’s Romanian service whether he agreed that Iliescu should receive such an honour, political scientist Ioan Stanomir said: “This is a rather delicate moment, because Ion Iliescu’s posterity also includes the memory of the victims. There are the victims of the Revolution, in particular those after December 22, 1989, and there are also the victims of the Mineriad.

‘He cannot be separated from the composition of a political system that has left a legacy of corruption, patronage, nepotism and clientelism in Romania.”

Following current President Nicusor Dan’s election victory in May this year, Iliescu congratulated him saying: “Romania needs coherence, dialogue and a firm commitment to strengthening democratic institutions and its European path. I am convinced that you will exercise this responsibility with dignity and a sense of duty to the nation.”

Following Iliescu’s death, Dan, a pro-Western centrist, called him “the main figure of the 1990s transition” and said: “History will judge Ion Iliescu.”

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(with newswires and partially adapted from this article in French and this article in Romanian)

The historic mosque-turned-cathedral in Cordoba in southern Spain reopened on Saturday, a day after a blaze that was quickly contained by firefighters, a spokesman for the site said.

The spectacular blaze had broken out on Friday around 9:00 PM (1900 GMT), raising fears for the early medieval architectural gem and evoking memories of the 2019 fire that ravaged Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

The site opened at 10:00 am (0800 GMT) and will close at 7:00 pm — its regular hours — with only the area where the fire broke out cordoned off to the public, a spokesman for the site told AFP.

Widely shared videos had shown flames and smoke billowing from inside the major tourist attraction, visited by two million people per year.

“The monument is saved. There will be no spread, it will not be a catastrophe, let’s put it that way,” Mayor Jose Mara Bellido said on Cadena television.

Later, he said the fire, which the fire brigade had earlier described as under control, was now extinguished.

“Luckily, the rapid and magnificent intervention of the Cordoba firefighters averted a catastrophe. The fire is now out, and tonight firefighters and local police teams will remain on site to avoid any risk,” the mayor posted on X.

ABC and other newspapers reported that a mechanical sweeping machine had caught fire in the site.

Several fire engines and police lined a street near the building on Saturday morning as tourists lined up to get inside, images broadcast on Spanish media showed.

The fire-damaged section, known as the Almanzor nave, was cordoned off with waist-high barriers.

Considered a jewel of Islamic architecture, the site was built as a mosque — on the site of an earlier church — between the 8th and 10th centuries by the southern city’s then Muslim ruler, Abd ar-Rahman, an emir of the Umayyad dynasty.

After Christians reconquered Spain in the 13th century under King Ferdinand III of Castile, it was converted into a cathedral and architectural alterations were made over following centuries.

 (AFP)

The court said there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that Saif Suleiman Sneidel was responsible for war crimes of murder, torture and “outrages upon personal dignity”.

The November 2020 warrant found “reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Sneidel participated in three executions where a total of 23 people were murdered”, the ICC‘s prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The crimes were allegedly committed in Benghazi or surrounding areas, in Libya, on or before 3 June 2016 until on or about 17 July 2017.

The prosecutor’s office said Sneidel’s arrest warrant had been issued under seal to “maximise arrest opportunities” and to minimise risks to the criminal investigation.

“For this reason, no details of the application or warrant could be provided until this stage,” it said.

The decision to make it public followed a second application by the prosecutor’s office to “increase prospects for arrest”.

“We hope to create the momentum for Mr Sneidel’s arrest and surrender,” said deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan said.

“The Court can now discuss issues related to possible arrest with States, the UN Security Council, and the international community at large, fostering support and cooperation.”   

Group 50    

Sneidel is believed to have been serving in Group 50, a sub-unit of the Al-Saiqa Brigade led by the the late Libyan commander, Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf Al-Werfalli.

Prior to his death, Al-Werfalli was the subject of two ICC arrest warrants for eight executions in Benghazi, three of which the prosecution alleges Sneidel took part in.

“The prosecution alleges that Mr Sneidel was a close associate of Mr Al-Werfalli, and had an important leadership role alongside him in the Al-Saiqa Brigade,” the statement said.

The ICC has been investigating atrocities in Libya since 2011, following a referral from the United Nations Security Council.

The ICC also confirmed that another Libyan suspect, Khaled Mohamed Ali El  Hishri, had been arrested by German authorities on 16 July 2025 for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

He remains in custody in Germany pending legal proceedings.

Libya has faced years of instability, militia violence and fractured government since Kadhafi was overthrown and killed in 2011 near his hometown of Sirte during the Arab Spring uprising.

 (AFP)

Moldova’s pro-European leader, President Maia Sandu, has warned that Moscow is orchestrating an “unprecedented” campaign to sway the outcome in its favour.

“The Russian Federation wants to control Moldova from the autumn,” she declared at a press conference on 30 July. “They are preparing massive interference to get their people into the next parliament.”

Sandu, who has been a vocal critic of the Kremlin, particularly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, outlined a broad playbook of alleged interference tactics: vote-buying funded through cryptocurrencies, violent protests, cyberattacks and information manipulation – all coordinated from a “single command point” in Moscow.

France strengthens support for Moldova as Russian destabilisation efforts persist

Diaspora targeted

With the country’s European Union accession talks officially launched in June 2024, the outcome of the parliamentary vote could cement, or derail, Moldova’s Western trajectory.

The ruling centre-right Action and Solidarity Party (PAS), led by Sandu, is currently polling at 39 percent, with the pro-Russian Socialist party trailing at just under 15 percent.

However, a sizable 30 percent of voters remain undecided.

“It’s clear Russia is pulling out all the stops,” said Stanislav Secrieru, Moldova’s national security adviser, in an interview with Politico.

He pointed to a “renewed blitz” targeting Moldovans abroad, with nearly a quarter of a million voters outside the country eligible to cast their vote.

“The campaign is designed to demobilise diaspora voters – encouraging them to stay home – and to manipulate those who do vote into supporting a fake pro-EU force.”

Moldova’s diaspora overwhelmingly supported Sandu in last year’s presidential vote, which was also dogged by accusations of Russian meddling, including a cash-for-votes scheme and staged protests abroad.

Pro-Russian governor imprisoned

In a move that has stirred controversy both at home and abroad this week, a Moldovan court sentenced pro-Russian regional governor Evghenia Gutul to seven years imprisonment for illegal party financing – a ruling the Kremlin quickly condemned as “politically motivated”.

Gutul, the outspoken governor of the autonomous Gagauzia region in southern Moldova, was found guilty on Tuesday of channelling illicit funds to the now-banned Shor party, once led by fugitive businessman Ilan Shor.

Prosecutors say she helped transport undeclared money from Russia to Moldova between 2019 and 2022, while serving as the party’s secretary.

Gutul has denied the charges, calling the ruling a “political reprisal” and accusing the government of trying to silence opposition voices ahead of September’s election. Her lawyer pledged to appeal the verdict, branding the trial “a public execution”.

The sentencing sparked protests in the Moldovan capital, with dozens of Gutul’s supporters chanting “Shame!” and accusing Sandu of stifling dissent.

Gutul, 38, has frequently travelled to Moscow and maintains close ties to Russian officials – even appealing directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year after she was briefly detained at the capital’s airport.

European leaders meet in Moldova in show of unity against Russia

‘Strategy of chaos’

Experts say the Kremlin’s interference has aims far beyond the coming elections. Speaking to RFI, Christine Dugoin-Clément, a researcher at IAE Paris-Sorbonne, described Moscow’s approach as a calculated “strategy of chaos”.

“Russian operations exploit the weaknesses of democracies and the echo chamber of social media to destabilise, confuse and polarise,” she said. “It’s not just about winning elections – it’s about undermining democratic processes over the long term.”

At the centre of the alleged interference is the Social Design Agency (SDA), a Kremlin-linked firm whose internal workings were exposed in a major data leak.

The SDA has been implicated in several influence operations, including “Doppelgänger” – an effort to impersonate reputable European media outlets to spread disinformation.

“SDA evolved from a small provincial consultancy into a key service provider for the Kremlin’s digital interference operations,” said Kevin Limonier, an expert in Russian cyberspace.

Speaking to RFI, Limonier said: “The leak shows how deeply integrated these firms are into Moscow’s political warfare strategies, but also how vulnerable they can be to exposure.”

Moldova’s vote on EU membership in deadlock as president cites ‘foreign interference’

Over recent months, Moldovan police have arrested dozens of paid demonstrators and shut down scores of pro-Russian Telegram channels – which Sandu has criticised for ignoring reports of electoral manipulation.

Police have also released videos warning voters about apps such as Taito, allegedly used to facilitate vote buying. Moldovan media outlet NewsMaker reported earlier this week that police alerted the public to a scheme involving illegal financing and paying for votes, allegedly coordinated from Russia via the Taito app, which runs on the Telegram platform.

Moldova’s General Police Inspectorate has also advised citizens to avoid using the app and to refrain from sharing any personal information.

AI-generated content too is playing a role, with Moldova becoming a testing ground for new forms of hybrid warfare – from synthetic media to cyber sabotage and even Russian missile overflights designed to stoke fear and instability.

Synthetic media is content generated or manipulated by AI to appear convincingly real. This includes fabricated news videos, deepfake social media profiles, and digitally altered images that mimic credible outlets or public figures to spread false narratives.

Authorities have flagged examples of AI-generated reports designed to look like European media outlets, pushing anti-EU disinformation to confuse voters and suppress turnout, particularly among the diaspora.

At the same time, Russia continues to deploy intimidation tactics in the physical realm. On Thursday, several Russian cruise missiles reportedly flew through Moldova’s airspace en route to targets in Ukraine – a violation that has become symbolic of the Kremlin’s disregard for Moldova’s sovereignty. Though no physical damage was done, officials warned that the incursions were intended to create a climate of fear and uncertainty ahead of the elections.

Moldova hosts first EU summit as leaders tackle Russia’s interference threat

Wider European concern

There are fears too that what happens in Moldova won’t stay in Moldova. “This election is no longer just about our country,” said Secrieru. “It’s a European election by proxy.”

The EUvsDisinfo project – the EU’s counter-disinformation arm – has labelled Russia’s campaign as a “coordinated effort” to discredit Sandu, manipulate public discourse and weaken Moldova’s democratic resilience.

The July arrest of fugitive oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc in Athens has added another twist to the tale.

Suspected of working with Kremlin power broker Dmitry Kozak – the architect of a 2003 federalisation plan that would have split Moldova – Plahotniuc is alleged to be plotting a return to power by reactivating his old political networks.

The former lawmaker is one of the chief suspects in Moldova’s “theft of the century” – the disappearance in 2014 of $1 billion from the Moldovan banking system, the equivalent at the time of 12 percent of the country’s GDP.

For now, the PAS government is hoping that transparency, security and international support will counter the Kremlin’s plans. But with disinformation swirling and digital attacks intensifying, the road to 28 September promises to be anything but smooth.

Plastic pollution isn’t just a problem for beaches and marine wildlife – it’s a growing global health crisis.

From the food we eat to the air we breathe, plastics and their tiny by-products – known as microplastics – are showing up everywhere.

As representatives of nearly 180 countries meet in Geneva this week, scientists are sounding the alarm: plastic is harming human health at every stage of the former’s life cycle.

Global plastic treaty talks open in Geneva amid urgent calls for action

Simultaneously, in a new report published in British medical journal The Lancet this week, authored by an international team of researchers, the Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics was launched.

Described as “an independent, indicator-based global monitoring system”, the  project will monitor the health impact of plastics and track progress on international action, similarly to the existing Lancet Countdown on Climate Change.

Plastics and the human body

According to the peer-reviewed report, plastic harms human health throughout its entire life cycle – during production, use and disposal.

Workers in plastic manufacturing plants are exposed to harmful chemicals and airborne pollutants, including sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. These emissions contribute not only to local respiratory illness but also to the wider climate crisis. Plastic production now releases more greenhouse gases annually than the entire nation of Brazil.

Post-production, plastics also release a cocktail of chemicals – many of them untested for safety – into consumer products and the environment.

The issue is particularly concerning for vulnerable groups. “Infants in the womb and young children are especially susceptible,” explains Philip Landrigan of Boston College, one of the authors of The Lancet report, noting that 75 percent of plastic-related chemicals have never undergone proper toxicity testing.

One of the most insidious aspects of plastic pollution is its transformation into microplastics – particles less than five millimetres in size and often invisible to the naked eye.

First identified by scientists in 2004, microplastics have since been found everywhere from the deepest oceans to remote mountaintops – and inside the human body. They have been detected in human lungs, blood, placenta and breast milk.

While scientists are still uncovering the full effects of these particles, early studies have linked microplastics to cardiovascular disease, inflammation and hormonal disruption. One study has suggested possible associations between microplastics and increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Petrochemical industry joins global talks to agree plastic pollution treaty

Fossil fuel crisis

Plastics are a fossil fuel product made from oil and gas. From annual production of 2 million tonnes in 1950, the world now produces around 475 million tonnes annually year.

Without major policy shifts, that figure is projected to triple by 2060.

Less than 10 percent of plastic is currently recycled. Instead, much of it ends up in landfills or the ocean, or is burned – frequently in low and middle-income countries – releasing toxic emissions that endanger health. In some regions, plastic waste creates breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

While plastic pollution worsens climate change, climate change in turn exacerbates the health risks associated with plastics. 

“There is no understating the magnitude of both crises,” said Landrigan. “They are both causing disease, death and disability today in tens of thousands of people.”

France leads charge in UN talks to tackle global plastic pollution crisis

‘We need to use plastic wisely’

The goal of the talks being held in Geneva, from 5 to 14 August, is ambitious: to mitigate the health and environmental impact of plastic across its full life cycle, by agreeing on terms for a legally binding international treaty to curb plastic pollution.

But political obstacles remain. A previous round of negotiations in Busan, South Korea, in December 2024, ended without consensus, largely due to pushback from oil-producing countries and industry lobby groups.

These actors have sought to limit the treaty’s scope, arguing against restrictions on virgin plastic production and pushing instead for voluntary recycling targets.

At UN ocean summit, 95 countries back ‘wake-up call’ to cap plastic production

Advocates argue that nothing less than a robust, enforceable treaty can change the trajectory. The Lancet Countdown project aims to serve as a watchdog for such a treaty’s effectiveness.

Led by institutions including Boston College, Heidelberg University and Australian charity the Minderoo Foundation, it will track key indicators – from chemical exposure levels to policy implementation – giving governments and the public the tools to demand real accountability.

According to Landrigan: “This isn’t about banning all plastic. Plastics have undeniable benefits, especially in medicine, hygiene and food safety. But we need to use them wisely, transparently and safely.”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will meet with Trump at the White House on Friday for a summit aimed at ending decades of conflict in the South Caucasus.

The trilateral meeting, confirmed by the Armenian government earlier this week, will focus on finalising a peace framework between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and establishing a new US-backed transit corridor through Armenian territory.

US officials say the summit could pave the way for a “concrete pathway to peace”, following years of failed negotiations and sporadic violence.

The leaders are expected to sign a preliminary peace framework and unveil plans for the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity – a proposed 32-kilometre corridor linking mainland Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave, which borders Turkey.

The corridor would run through southern Armenia and, under the proposed agreement, would be developed by the US, which would hold exclusive rights to its construction and management.

Growing military buildup in Azerbaijan and Armenia a concern for peace talks

“This agreement, if signed, will be a game-changer,” one senior US official told reporters. “It’s a strategic and economic solution that benefits all parties and reduces the risk of future conflict.”

In addition to the corridor, the two leaders are expected to jointly request the formal dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group, the defunct international mediation mechanism that includes the US, France and Russia.

Decades of conflict

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in hostilities since the late Soviet era, primarily over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but previously home to a majority-Armenian population.

The First Karabakh War from 1988 to 1994 left more than 30,000 people dead and more than a million displaced.

A second war in 2020 saw Azerbaijan reclaim much of the territory it had lost, and in 2023 a swift Azerbaijani offensive led to the full recapture of Karabakh, prompting the exodus of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians.

Although both sides agreed on the draft text of a peace deal earlier this year, progress has since stalled.

Baku is demanding constitutional changes in Armenia that would remove references to Karabakh, while Yerevan remains cautious, particularly ahead of parliamentary elections in 2026.

Another sticking point has been the status and control of the proposed transit corridor. While Azerbaijan wants guaranteed access, Armenia has been wary of ceding too much control – a concern the US aims to address by overseeing the project.

Nagorno-Karabakh almost empty as most of population flees to Armenia

Friday’s summit follows months of diplomacy led by US special envoy Steve Witkoff and his team, who have travelled across the region to lay the groundwork for the meeting.

US officials have suggested that a successful deal could open the door for Azerbaijan to join the Abraham Accords – Trump’s initiative to normalise relations between Israel and Muslim-majority nations from his first presidential mandate.

Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday. This week, you’ll hear musical requests from your fellow listeners Hossen Abed Ali from Rangpur, Bangladesh and a composition written by SB Leprof from Winneba, Ghana.

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

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: “Epitaph” by Robert Fripp, Ian McDonald, Greg Lake and Michael Giles, to lyrics by Peter Sinfield, performed by King Crimson, and “Ginger Milk” by SB Leprof.

The ePOP video competition is open!

The ePOP video competition is sponsored by the RFI department “Planète Radio”, whose mission is to give a voice to the voiceless. ePOP focuses on the environment and how climate change has affected “ordinary” people.

The ePOP contest is your space to ensure these voices are heard.

How do you do it?

With a three-minute ePOP video. It should be pure testimony, captured by your lens: the spoken word reigns supreme. No tricks, no music, no text on the screen. Just the raw authenticity of an encounter, in horizontal format (16:9). An ePOP film is a razor-sharp look at humanity that challenges, moves, and enlightens.

From June 12 to September 12, 2025, ePOP invites you to reach out, open your eyes, and create a unique bridge between a person and the world.

Join the ePOP community and make reality vibrate!

Click here for all the information you need.

We expect to be overwhelmed with entries from the English speakers!

The agreement, which came into force on Wednesday, seeks to curb record levels of irregular Channel crossings, which are causing discontent in Britain and helping fuel the rise of the hard-right Reform UK party.

“Detentions began for those who arrived in the UK on a small boat yesterday lunchtime (Wednesday). They will be held in immigration removal centres pending their removal,” the interior ministry said in a statement.

The detained individuals are expected to be removed to France in the “coming weeks”, it added.

Under the arrangement – for now a pilot scheme set to run until June 2026 – irregular migrants arriving on UK shores can be detained and then returned to France if they are deemed ineligible for asylum.

This would include those who have passed through a “safe country” to reach the UK, according to a Home Office fact sheet.

In exchange, London will accept an equal number of migrants from France who can apply for a visa to enter the UK via an online platform, giving priority to nationalities most vulnerable to smugglers and people with ties in Britain.

If approved, they will have a three-month period in which they can enter the UK and apply for asylum.

Rwanda agrees to take migrants from US in deal that includes cash grant

‘Important step’

“If you break the law to enter this country, you will face being sent back. When I say I will stop at nothing to secure our borders, I mean it,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote on X after the announcement of the detentions.

His government will refer the detainees’ cases to France within three days, and the French authorities will be expected to respond within 14 days.

The whole process of returning someone could take three months and the UK will cover all the costs until the migrant is handed over, according to the treaty.

Unaccompanied minors will not be eligible for deportation under the scheme.

The reciprocal process to allow migrants to submit an expression of interest to come the UK also began on Thursday.

Applicants must upload a passport or other identity documents as well as a recent photograph and will have to pass further security checks and biometric controls.

Interior Minister Yvette Cooper said that the detentions “send a message to every migrant currently thinking of paying organised crime gangs to go to the UK that they will be risking their lives and throwing away their money if they get into a small boat.

“Criminal gangs have spent seven years embedding themselves along our border and it will take time to unravel them, but these detentions are an important step towards undermining their business model and unravelling the false promises they make,” she added.

Refugee charities have criticised the deal, urging the British government to provide more safe and legal routes for asylum seekers instead.

The number of migrants making the dangerous journey in flimsy dinghies this year crossed 25,000 at the end of July, the highest tally ever at this point in the year.

In recent weeks, anti-immigration demonstrators and counter-protesters have clashed outside hotels housing asylum seekers in Britain, with some marches turning violent.

French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed support for a ceasefire and peace talks after what he called a “long discussion” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders.

“I reiterated to the Ukrainian President France’s full support for establishing a ceasefire and launching discussions toward a solid and lasting solution that preserves Ukraine’s legitimate rights and guarantees its security and that of Europeans,” Macron said on social media.

His statement comes amid growing diplomatic manoeuvres over the conflict, with reports of a possible summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But any progress remains uncertain, as Moscow continues to resist the idea of direct talks with Ukraine.

Putin’s reaction to Ukraine ceasefire proposals deepen G7 rifts over US strategy

Kyiv demands direct role in talks

The Kremlin said Putin was willing to attend a summit with Trump “in the coming days” but dismissed the possibility of Zelensky joining.

Zelensky pushed back in his nightly address on Thursday.

“It is only fair that Ukraine should be a participant in the negotiations,” he said. “Ukraine is an integral part of Europe – we are already in negotiations on EU accession. Therefore, Europe must be a participant in the relevant processes.”

Trump appeared to move away from earlier suggestions that a summit would require a meeting between Putin and Zelensky first.

When asked directly if such a meeting was needed, he replied: “No, he doesn’t.”

US special envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to Moscow this week, but there has been no breakthrough on a ceasefire deal.

Previous talks between Ukraine and Russia have stalled. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine give up remaining territory and renounce Western backing.

Though the flames are not yet fully extinguished, firefighters have successfully contained the blaze after it tore through more than 17,000 hectares – an area greater than the size of Paris.

Fire crews remain on high alert, with strong winds and dry ground continuing to fuel hotspots.

Nearly 2,000 residents and holidaymakers have been forced to flee since the fire began in Tuesday, and dozens of homes have been lost.

One woman died after refusing to evacuate her home, and 18 others were injured – 16 of them firefighters.

“There is still a lot of work to be done,” said Aude police prefect Christian Pouget. “The fire’s progression has slowed, but flare-ups remain a real risk.”

Residents have not yet been allowed to return, with roads still blocked by fallen power lines and other hazards. Temporary shelters remain open in schools and community centres for those displaced.

At its height, the blaze consumed land at an astonishing rate of 1,000 hectares per hour, driven by powerful winds and parched vegetation after months of drought.

Authorities say land-use changes have made the area more vulnerable to fires. Nearly 5,000 hectares of vineyards were uprooted in the past year, removing natural firebreaks that once helped slow the spread of flames.

Biggest French wildfire since 1949 a ‘catastrophe on an unprecedented scale’

Ravaged landscape

The wildfire swept through 15 communes in the Corbières mountains, leaving behind a patchwork of blackened hills and ruined homes. In Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, the hardest-hit village, residents described the scene as apocalyptic.

“We saved the house, but we had to fight the whole night, for two days,” said local farmer Alain Reneau told the French news agency AFP. He is still without electricity or running water.

In total, 36 homes were destroyed and 20 others damaged, while thousands of households lost power.

While investigations continue into the exact cause of the blaze, officials are drawing a direct line to climate change.

“This is clearly a consequence of global warming and drought,” said Environment Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, calling it the worst wildfire since 1949.

Wildfire in southern France kills woman and forces mass evacuations

Vines reduced to ash

Beyond the physical destruction, the fire has also dealt a heavy blow to the region’s economy – particularly its proud winemaking tradition.

Up to 9 square kilometres of vineyards have burned, with officials estimating that as much as 80 percent of the local crop has been destroyed or tainted by smoke.

For winemakers already grappling with years of drought and extreme weather, the fire is yet another setback.

“The vineyards are burnt, and the landscape is gone,” said Batiste Caval, a seventh-generation vintner near Saint-Laurent told the Associated Press.

Some vines, acting as natural firebreaks, were spared – leaving behind eerie islands of green in a sea of ash. But for many, recovery will take years.

“New vines take three years before they produce fruit,” said Xavier de Volontat, the village mayor. “It’s heartbreaking to see our region like this.”

Still, there’s defiance too. “We’re at war, but we will win the war,” said local vineyard owner Xavier Guille, who fought the flames alongside firefighters.

His vineyard survived, though his in-laws lost their home.

(with newswires)

To make his case, Bayrou has launched a weekly YouTube show. The series, called FB Direct, opened with an eight-minute video in which the 74-year-old addressed the camera in a white shirt and black tie.

During the episode, Bayrou covered the challenges of the 2026 budget and the dangers of shying away from action.

“The 2026 budget is the last chance to control the debt before it becomes unmanageable,” Bayrou said.

“We need to make the efforts from right now. We cannot push it off until tomorrow,” he added.

The monologues to the nation are expected to continue until early September. They aim to explain not just the debt problem, but also other government reforms Bayrou wants to introduce.

On 15 July, Bayrou presented the 2026 budget to parliament.

Measures in 2026 budget

Among the most controversial proposals is the removal of two public holidays. Bayrou named Easter Monday and 8 May – which marks the end of World War II in Europe – as possible candidates.

He said May was “riddled” with holidays and that cutting two of them could bring in several billion euros. He added that he was open to other ideas.

France’s public deficit reached 5.8 percent of GDP in 2024. Its public debt climbed to almost 114 percent – the third-highest in the eurozone, behind Greece and Italy.

“I am trying to look at you directly in the eyes,” Bayrou said during the first episode of FB Direct. “This all depends on each and everyone of you.”

Bayrou leads a minority government and may struggle to get his proposals through parliament. Leaders from across the political spectrum have said they are unlikely to support them.

Cut debt while boosting production

Bayrou wants to reduce debt while growing the economy. But even as spending is frozen in most areas, defence funding will increase by €6.7 billion in 2026, due to rising international tensions.

His goal is to bring the deficit down to 2.9 percent of GDP by 2029. To get there, he says France must not spend more in 2026 than it did in 2025.

“Through FB Direct, the Prime Minister wishes to demonstrate his willingness to communicate directly with the French people to explain his choices and approach,” said a government spokesperson.

But political journalist François Beaudonnet said Bayrou’s message was repetitive.

“He provides no new information, and merely elaborates on France’s financial situation, dramatising it even further, as he had already done at length in his speech on 15 July,” Beaudonnet said on FranceInfo.

Statistics showed that 44,000 people watched the first video. Almost 4,000 left comments.

“‘Great initiative, François, really,” wrote one viewer. “We needed a podcast so that a guy who’s been sitting in power since 1993 could explain to us why it’s still up to us to ‘make an effort.’”

Bayrou has promised to start responding to viewer questions and ideas next week.

“This call for dialogue is intended to be transparent, constructive, and respectful of everyone’s sensibilities,” the government spokesperson said.

“The objective is to involve the French people in the search for realistic and sustainable solutions.”

The court struck down the most contested part of the Duplomb law, ruling it violated France’s Environmental Charter, which has constitutional status.

President Emmanuel Macron said he had “taken note of the Constitutional Council’s decision” and would “promulgate the text as it results from this decision as soon as possible”, the Élysée Palace said.

The council allowed other parts of the law to stand. It approved measures simplifying paperwork for large livestock operations and the construction of water storage facilities for agriculture – though with some reservations for the latter.

It also ruled that the law had been adopted in line with constitutional rules, despite being rejected by its own backers at one point in the National Assembly.

French court to rule on agriculture law that poses threat to bees and nature

Unions welcome ruling

The Confédération Paysanne, France’s third-largest agricultural union, welcomed what it called a “step victory” and urged continued pressure “to obtain a reorientation of agricultural policies”.

“We hope that the mobilisation will not die out,” said Stéphane Galais, the union’s spokesperson, speaking to AFP outside the Constitutional Council in Paris. The group promotes a “real” agroecological transition.

The Duplomb law was passed in early July with government support, despite opposition from scientists, environmental groups and much of the public.

The proposal to bring back acetamiprid – part of the neonicotinoid family of pesticides – became the focus of protest.

The chemical is still allowed in other parts of Europe, but France banned it in 2018. Its return was pushed by the powerful FNSEA farming union to help beetroot and hazelnut growers. Senator Laurent Duplomb, a member of Les Républicains and a former FNSEA leader, sponsored the bill.

The council said it had to rule under pressure from both public opinion and farming interests. It found that “lacking sufficient oversight”, the measure was incompatible with the “framework defined by its jurisprudence, stemming from the Environmental Charter”.

Grassroots campaign against controversial French pesticide bill gathers momentum

‘Risk to human health’

In their ruling, the judges stressed that neonicotinoids “have impacts on biodiversity, particularly for pollinating insects and birds” and “induce risks for human health”.

A previous exemption had been granted in 2020, limited to sugar beet crops and restricted to seed coatings. But the new clause was broader. It was not limited in time or to a specific crop, and it also permitted spraying – which raises the risk of the substance spreading into surrounding environments.

“By introducing such a derogation, the legislature deprived of legal guarantees the right to live in a balanced environment respectful of health guaranteed by article 1 of the Environmental Charter,” the judges wrote.

The ruling represents a setback for farming interests seeking more flexibility in pesticide use. For environmental campaigners, it is a clear win that reaffirms constitutional protections.

While the pesticide clause has been struck out, the rest of the Duplomb law remains in place – including rules that simplify procedures for large farms. The Élysée said the revised version would be published “as soon as possible”.

Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday. This week, you’ll hear musical requests from your fellow listeners Hossen Abed Ali from Rangpur, Bangladesh and a composition written by SB Leprof from Winneba, Ghana.

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

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: “Epitaph” by Robert Fripp, Ian McDonald, Greg Lake and Michael Giles, to lyrics by Peter Sinfield, performed by King Crimson, and “Ginger Milk” by SB Leprof.

The ePOP video competition is open!

The ePOP video competition is sponsored by the RFI department “Planète Radio”, whose mission is to give a voice to the voiceless. ePOP focuses on the environment and how climate change has affected “ordinary” people.

The ePOP contest is your space to ensure these voices are heard.

How do you do it?

With a three-minute ePOP video. It should be pure testimony, captured by your lens: the spoken word reigns supreme. No tricks, no music, no text on the screen. Just the raw authenticity of an encounter, in horizontal format (16:9). An ePOP film is a razor-sharp look at humanity that challenges, moves, and enlightens.

From June 12 to September 12, 2025, ePOP invites you to reach out, open your eyes, and create a unique bridge between a person and the world.

Join the ePOP community and make reality vibrate!

Click here for all the information you need.

We expect to be overwhelmed with entries from the English speakers!

“I am going to make a new deadline of about 10 or 12 days from today,” Trump declared at a press conference on 28 July during his visit to Scotland.

“There is no reason to wait 50 days. I wanted to be generous, but we don’t see any progress being made.” 

The American president admitted his efforts to end the Ukraine war had failed and that his patience with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, was at an end.

Turkish President Erdogan ready to rekindle friendship with Trump

 

Trump later confirmed 8 August as the date for the new measures. With US-Russian trade down 90 percent since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump warned that other countries importing Russian goods would also be hit by secondary sanctions.

“If you take his [Trump] promises at face value, then he should look at all countries that import any Russian commodities that is of primary importance to the Russian budget – this includes, of course, crude oil, and here you have China and India mostly,” explained George Voloshin of Acams, a global organisation dedicated to anti-financial crime, training and education.

Voloshin also claims that Turkey could be a target as well. “In terms of petroleum products, Turkey is one of the big importers. It also refines Russian petroleum in its own refineries,” Voloshin added.

“Turkey imports lots of Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline. Turkey is very much dependent on Russian gas and Russian petroleum products.”

Turkey’s rivalry with Iran shifts as US threats create unlikely common ground

 

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ankara insists it is only bound by United Nations sanctions.

Last year, Turkey was Russia’s third-largest export market, with Russian natural gas accounting for more than  40 percent of its energy needs.

Putin has used Turkey’s lack of meaningful domestic energy reserves and dependence on Russian gas to develop a close relationship with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“Putin knows that no matter what Trump wants, Turkey is not going to act in any military or sanctions capacity against Russia and Iran. You know, these are Turkey’s red lines. We can’t do it,” said analyst Atilla Yeşilada of Global Source Partners.

“Trump is 10,000 miles away. These people are our neighbours,” added Yeşilada. “So Putin doesn’t think of Turkey as a threat, but as an economic opportunity, and perhaps as a way to do things with the West that he doesn’t want to do directly.”

Ankara is performing a delicate balancing act. While maintaining trading ties with Russia, Erdoğan remains a strong supporter of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Turkey is a major arms seller to Ukraine, while at the same time, Erdoğan continues to try and broker peace between the warring parties.

Last month, Istanbul was the venue for Russian–Ukrainian talks for the second time in as many months. Such efforts drew the praise of Trump.

Trump and Erdogan grow closer as cooperation on Syria deepens

Trump’s pressure mounts on energy and trade

The American president has made no secret of his liking for Erdoğan, even calling him a friend. Such close ties, along with Turkey’s regional importance to Washington, analysts say, is a factor in Ankara’s Western allies turning a blind eye to its ongoing trade with Russia.

“I think Turkey has got a pass on several levels from Russian sanctions,” observed regional expert Sinan Ciddi of the Washington-based think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

However, Ciddi cautions that Trump remains unpredictable and that previous actions are no guarantee for the future.

“Past experience is not an indicator of future happenings. We just don’t know what Trump will demand. This is not a fully predictive administration in Washington,” Ciddi said.

“We do know right now that he [Trump] is very unhappy with Putin. He blames Putin for prolonging the Ukraine war,” added Ciddi.

Change of stance

“And if he feels sufficiently upset, there is a possibility that no waivers will be granted to any country. Turkey will be up against a very, very unappetising and unenviable set of choices to make.”

Trump has successfully lobbied the European Union to increase its purchases of American liquefied natural gas (LNG), replacing Russian imports. Similar demands could put Ankara in a difficult position.

“If Trump pressures Turkey not to buy Russian natural gas, that would definitely be a huge shock,” warned Yeşilada.

“Trump might say, for instance: ‘Buy energy from me or whatever.’ But I don’t think we’re there yet. There is no way Turkey can replace Russian gas.”

However, Trump could point to Turkey’s recent expansion of its LNG facilities, which now include five terminals and have excess capacity to cover Russian imports, although storage facilities remain a challenge.

Turkey’s energy infrastructure is also built around receiving Russian energy, and any shift to American energy would likely be hugely disruptive and expensive, at a time when the Turkish economy is in crisis.

Putin retains another energy card over Erdoğan. A Russian company is building a huge nuclear power plant in Turkey, which could account for 20 percent of the country’s energy needs.

Ciddi argues Erdoğan is now paying the price of over-relying on Russia.

Turkey’s Erdogan sees new Trump presidency as opportunity

“There is no need to have resorted to making Ankara this dependent on natural gas, nuclear energy, or for that matter bilateral trade. This was a choice by Erdoğan,” said Ciddi.

“The fact it is so dependent on so many levels in an almost unique way is something that Turkey will have to rethink.”

But for now, Erdoğan will likely be relying on his expertise in diplomatic balancing acts, along with his close ties to Trump and Turkey’s importance to Washington’s regional goals, to once again escape the worst of any sanctions over Russian trade – although Trump may yet extract a price for such a concession.

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 winners’ 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 ePOP video competition is open!

The ePOP video competition is sponsored by the RFI department “Planète Radio”, whose mission is to give a voice to the voiceless. ePOP focuses on the environment and how climate change has affected “ordinary” people.

The ePOP contest is your space to ensure these voices are heard. 

How do you do it?

With a three-minute ePOP video. It should be pure testimony, captured by your lens: the spoken word reigns supreme. No tricks, no music, no text on the screen. Just the raw authenticity of an encounter, in horizontal format (16:9). An ePOP film is a razor-sharp look at humanity that challenges, moves, and enlightens.

From June 12 to September 12, 2025, ePOP invites you to reach out, open your eyes, and create that unique bridge between a person and the world.

Join the ePOP community and make reality vibrate!

Click here for all the information you need. 

We expect to be overwhelmed with entries from the English speakers!

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” and 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. 

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 5 July, I asked you a question about an article written by RFI English journalist Amanda Morrow: “Ocean campaigners hail French move to snuff out cigarette butt pollution”. In her article, we learned that cigarette ends, or butts, are filled with microplastics and that when they break apart, they leach chemicals into soil and water.

France has banned smoking on beaches, in public parks, and at bus stops, as well as near schools, libraries, swimming pools, and sports grounds.

You were to re-read Amanda’s article and send in the answer to this question: How many liters of water can a single cigarette butt contaminate?

The answer is, to quote Amanda’s article: “According to the French Ministry of Ecological Transition, a single cigarette butt can contaminate up to 500 liters of water.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by long-time RFI Listeners Club member Nasyr Muhammad from Katsina State, Nigeria: “What is your favorite prize you’ve received from RFI, and why?”

Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Kanwar Sandhu from British Columbia in Canada, who is also this week’s bonus question winner. Congratulations on your double win, Kanwar.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Karobi Hazarika, a member of the United RFI Listeners Club in Assam, India, and RFI Listeners Club member Mahfuzur Rahman from Cumilla, Bangladesh. Last but not least, there are two RFI English listeners from Bangladesh: Laila Shantu Akhter from Naogaon and Labanna Lata from Munshiganj.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: The piano sonata in B flat, K.529, by Domenico Scarlatti, played by Ivo Pogorelich; the “Trout” Quintet in A major, D. 667, by Franz Schubert, performed by the Endes Quartet with pianist Rolf Reinhardt; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer; “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, and a medley in honor of Ozzy Osbourne, arranged by Vincent Pora Dallongeville:

“Paranoid”, by Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward;

“Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads, and Bob Daisley;

“No More Tears” by Ozzy Osbourne, Zak Wylde, Randy Castillo, Mike Inez, and John Purdell;

“Bark at the Moon” by Ozzy Osbourne, Jake E. Lee, and Bob Daisley.

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 “UN gathers to advance two-state solution to Israel-Palestine conflict”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 6 October to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 11 October 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.   

In a highly publicised move, Azerbaijani security forces in Baku recently paraded seven arrested Russian journalists – working for the Russian state-funded Sputnik news agency – in front of the media. Their detentions followed the deaths last month of two Azerbaijani nationals in Russian custody, which sparked public outrage in Baku.

“That was quite shocking for Baku, for Azerbaijani society – the cruelty of the behaviour and the large-scale violence,” Zaur Gasimov of the German Academic Exchange Service, a professor and expert on Azerbaijani-Russian relations told RFI.

“And the Russian-wide persecution of the leaders of Azerbaijani diasporic organisations took place (this month),” he added.

Tit-for-tat tactics

Tensions between Russia and Azerbaijan have been simmering since December, when Russian air defences accidentally downed an Azerbaijani passenger aircraft. Baku strongly condemned Moscow’s lack of an official apology.

The deaths in custody, which Moscow insisted were from natural causes, and the broader crackdown on Azerbaijan’s diaspora are being interpreted in Baku as deliberate signals.

“This kind of news had to frighten Azerbaijani society, which is aware of the fact that around two million ethnic Azeris with Azerbaijani and Russian passports are living in the Russian Federation,” explained Gasimov. “So the signal is that we can oust them, and they would come to Azerbaijan. That should be an economic threat.”

Gasimov noted that while Baku may have previously backed down in the face of Russian pressure, this time appears different. “The reaction of Azerbaijan was just to react, with tit-for-tat tactics,” he said.

Shifting power in Caucasus

Baku’s self-confidence is partly attributed to its military success in 2020, when it regained control over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region and adjacent territories from Armenian forces after a six-week war.

“The South Caucasus is changing,” noted Farid Shafiyev, Chairman of the Baku-based Centre for Analysis of International Relations.

Shafiyev argues that the era of Moscow treating the region as its backyard is over. “Russia cannot just grasp and accept this change because of its imperial arrogance; it demands subordination, and that has changed for a number of reasons. First of all, due to the Russian-Ukrainian war, and second, due to the trajectory of events following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The third very important factor is Turkey,” added Shafiyev.

Turkey, a long-standing ally of Azerbaijan, has significantly increased military cooperation and arms sales in recent years.

Turkish-made drones played a key role in Azerbaijan’s 2020 military campaign. In 2021, the Shusha Declaration was signed, committing both nations to mutual military support in the event of aggression. Turkey also plans to establish one of its largest overseas military bases in Azerbaijan.

“A very strong relationship with Ankara, marked by strong cooperation in the economic and military fields for decades, as also outlined in the Shusha Declaration several years ago, is an asset and one of the elements of Azerbaijan’s growing self-confidence,” said Gasimov.

Azerbaijan and Turkey build bridges amid declining influence of Iran

Strategic rivalries 

Turkey’s expanding influence in the South Caucasus – at Russia’s expense – is the latest in a series of regional rivalries between the two powers. Turkish-backed forces countered a Russian-aligned warlord in Libya, and Turkey-supported factions have contested Russian influence in Syria.

These confrontations have strained the once-close ties between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“No doubt that the Putin-Erdogan relationship is not as good as it used to be because we’ve either instigated or become participants in events in the South Caucasus and Syria,” said analyst Atilla Yeşilada of Global Source Partners.

Growing military buildup in Azerbaijan and Armenia a concern for peace talks

Nevertheless, Yesilada believes pragmatism will prevail – for now – given Turkey’s dependence on Russian energy and trade.

“The economic interests are so huge, there is a huge chasm between not being too friendly and being antagonistic. I don’t think we’ve got to that point. If we did, there would be serious provocations in Turkey,” he warned.

Until now, Turkish and Russian leaders have largely managed to compartmentalise their differences.

However, that approach may soon face its toughest test yet, as Azerbaijan remains a strategic priority for Turkey, while Russia has long considered the Caucasus to be within its traditional sphere of influence.

“We don’t know what will be Russia’s next target. We cannot exclude that Russia might be quite assertive in the South Caucasus in the future,” warned Shafiyev.

“I think the easiest way is to build friendly relationships and economic partnerships with the countries of the South Caucasus. Unfortunately, Moscow looks like it’s not ready for a partnership. But if it’s ready, we would welcome it,” he added.

Conservative think tanks, whose influence was once limited to Washington’s corridors of power, are now establishing connections with political actors and organisations in countries such as Poland and Hungary, working to shape Europe’s future.

This report delves into the activities of the Heritage Foundation and its burgeoning alliances with groups including Ordo Iuris in Poland and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Hungary.

These organisations advocate for conservative cultural and economic reforms, sparking heated debate over national identity, the structure of the European Union and the future of liberal democracy across the region.

Can Europe withstand the ripple effect of the MAGA political wave?

As alliances form and agendas clash, a crucial question looms: are these movements charting a course toward genuine European reform, or steering the continent toward greater division? 

Voices from both sides share their perspectives, revealing the complexity behind this transatlantic ideological exchange.

Our guests: 

Chris Murphy, Senator (D, Connecticut)

Kenneth Haar, researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory 

Zbigniew Przybylowski, development director at Ordo Iuris

Rodrigo Ballester, head of the Centre for European Studies at Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC)

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 winners’ 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 ePOP video competition is open!

The ePOP video competition is sponsored by the RFI department “Planète Radio”, whose mission is to give a voice to the voiceless. ePOP focuses on the environment and how climate change has affected “ordinary” people.

The ePOP contest is your space to ensure these voices are heard. 

How do you do it?

With a three-minute ePOP video. It should be pure testimony, captured by your lens: the spoken word reigns supreme. No tricks, no music, no text on the screen. Just the raw authenticity of an encounter, in horizontal format (16:9). An ePOP film is a razor-sharp look at humanity that challenges, moves, and enlightens.

From June 12 to September 12, 2025, ePOP invites you to reach out, open your eyes, and create that unique bridge between a person and the world.

Join the ePOP community and make reality vibrate!

Click here for all the information you need. 

We expect to be overwhelmed with entries from the English speakers!

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” and 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. 

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 28 June, I asked you a question about an article written earlier that week by RFI English journalist Alison Hird. She profiled Miguel Masaisai, a young athlete from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who’s riding his bike across several countries in Africa.  Masaisai has a message: peace.

You were to re-read Alison’s article “From Goma to Cape Town, the young Congolese athlete pedalling for peace”, and send in the answers to these two questions: At the time of publication, which countries had Masaisai cycled across, and which countries are still ahead of him?

The answers are: At the time of publication, Masaisai had ridden across the DRC, Zambia, Rwanda, and Tanzania; ahead of him were Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.

Since publication, Masaisai has pedaled through Botswana and is in South Africa. Bravo Masaisai!

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by Liton Hossain Khondaker from Naogaon, Bangladesh: What is your favorite festival, religious or otherwise?

Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Helmut Matt from Herbolzheim, Germany, who is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Helmut.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Alomgir Hossen, a member of the Shetu RFI Listeners Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh, and RFI English listeners Shohel Rana Redoy from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Noor, a member of the International Radio Fan and Youth Club in Khanewal, Pakistan. Last but not least, there’s Sadman Al Shihab, the co-chairman of the Source of Knowledge Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: “Cuckoo” from The Birds by Ottorino Respighi, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Istvan Kertesz; an anonymous cycling playlist; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and traditional music from the Kaiabi indigenous people of Brazil, recorded in 1954 by Edward M. Weyer Jr.

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 Myers’ article “Petition seeking repeal of new French farming law passes one million signatures,” which will help you with the answer.

You have until 29 September to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 4 October 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.   

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.